Audio-to-text Software
 

I have trouble taking adequate notes in class.
And I have a laptop.

I'm thinking about buying a microphone to record all of my lectures.
Before that however, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any good software which can transcribe what comes into the microphone into actual text (preferably in real-time, though not necessary).

So, any ideas?

Also, if you can help me out here too, I'm wondering if anyone knows of a good, compact and directional microphone.

There is such a tool lurking about in Microsoft Office, though it needs hours upon hours of training before you get enough decent accuracy. Let's face it, voice recognition technology for the PC is much ballyhoed and isn't what it's cracked up to be.

That's a pretty advanced request. I'm not sure if there's anything on the market like that right now that won't cost you thousands. Although if you're using a Mac, you have more options. Apparently they have some good voice recognition features, but I've never gotten them to work. If you don't have a Mac though, you're probably SOL.

If you're going to get a microphone, just get a digital voice recorder. They'll set you back about 40 bucks (at least at Walmart), but you can hook them into your computer and make an mp3 file. It saves you from lugging the laptop into class, too.

Well, this is the internet.
Financial constraints do not hinder its denizens.

So, do you know of any software in particular, or are you just guessing?

Well, first, it might help to tell us what your setup is. Are you using a PC or a Mac?

Voice recognition is built right into OS X. If you can get it to work, you can essentially use a voice in any program that allows you to type something (Office, TextEdit, Safari, etc.). But as I said before, I've never gotten it to work. You might have more luck than me, though.

If you go down the voice recorder route, you can use an audio cable to hook the recorder to your computer's line-in jack, and use Audacity or Goldwave to create mp3 files if you're using a PC.

If you're going to use a microphone though, make sure you're not going to need a preamp. If you've got a good soundcard, like an M-Audio, then you won't have to worry about it. But that's a problem I ran into. I bought this really nice mic and it wouldn't even work with my crappy soundcard.

Well, any recording that I will be doing will be done with a laptop, having a 1.4GHz Celeron M, some Conexant integrated audio card (though I have a special recording pcmcia sound card, should I need it).
This runs Windows XP.

I also have a couple of other computers, both of which are basically Windows XP as well (one of them is Server 2003 Enterprise Edition).
I've also found some how-tos on getting OS X to run on other x86-based computers as well, so that may not be too much of a road-block for me.

Does OS X have a program that can take normal audio files, and convert them to text as well?

Thanks for your help so far. =)