[bksvol-discuss] Re: The Wonders of Kurzweil

  • From: "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:57:09 -0500

Your message was useful to me. I know some of the issues with Open Book., but I don't necessarily know everything I've heard about it all at once and I have no recent personal experience with it. You gave a nice overview. Maybe the subject should have been changed to "the horrors of Open Book." LOL

I should learn to use Open Book, but I just don't feel motivated to when I would hardly be able to resist comparing it unfavorably with Kurzweil, which wouldn't be a good thing to do if your teaching someone how to use their current software. :-)

Sarah Van Oosterwijck
Assistive Technology Instructor
http://home.earthlink.net/~netentity
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jake Brownell" <jabrown@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 7:40 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: The Wonders of Kurzweil



Hey Mike,
I've have essentially been told in the past that Illinois often ops for
Freedom Scientific because of the bulk discounts. I do know that some people
have had the state purchase Kurzweil for them however.


I seriously doubt however that Freedom Scientific will ever show the
commitment Kurzweil does unless everything does a 180. OpenBook lacks in
quite a few areas. For instance, the set page number option works only for
setting a number higher. When it comes to books, we want just the opposite.
OpenBook does not understand the concept of pages below #1.
The spell checker is meager at best. The online downloads area works
some of the time with some of the sites.
Since last July when I got the product, there has been one minor update
to it that including bug fixes and the new Fine Reader engine. The update
came about four months after Kurzweil released the Fine Reader update. Such
a delay is rediculous
OpenBooks ability to use speech synthesizers other than what it ships
with is nonexistent. It ships with IBM ViaVoice the so called tel voices.
I'm I'm assuming that tel stands for telephone since that's what it sounds
like the synthesizer is talking through.
The program includes no ranked spelling or confidence level analyzing.
The program cannot scan and recognize documents simultaneously. There isn't
any kind of optimization feature.
The find/replace functions are meager at best. If there are any special
character support I have yet to find it in the documentation or the program.
Heck, it doesn't even support a character like the degree sign, something
often mistaken for an o.
DAISY books, it doesn't open them properly. Although the bug with
truncating them seems to have been addressed. The DAISY books when open are
given what seem to be random page breaks, books that Kurzweil properly
paginates.
Common dialog controls haven't been updated in years. VB6 common
dialogues properly work in the WinXP environment and the ones inside
OpenBook do not.
Old document structure. The programs default store location is something
like this:
C:\OPENBK7\Users\Default\Library


   I would think today that a better location would be My Docs or a
subfolder under it.

   And I'm sure there are more, these are just some of the problems the
program faces. Don't get me wrong, the program could be worth its $, but
right now its just definitely not when compared to K1K.

I know you didn't ask for a diatribe on the dooms of OpenBook, but this
shows why I'm not quite as optomistic as you about competitiveness
abounding.


Cheers!
Jake

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Pietruk" <pietruk@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 11:26 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: The Wonders of Kurzweil



Kellie

I suspect that there are practical reasons why rehab agencies opt for
specific programs or equipment over another.
One could be the comfort level that the agency has if it needs to provide
instruction in the use of the software or hardware;
it is easier if everyone is using the same thing.
A 2nd reason, in the case of Freedom Scientific which is a supplier of all
sorts of adaptive equipment,
is that they can obtain volume discounts by purchasing continually and in
bulk.
It is also possible they feel comfortable in an ongoing working
relationship with a company or certain individuals within that company..


While I am not a rehab client myself here in Illinois, from those clients
I have come across, it seems that when it comes to scanning software, Open
Book is the preference.
I am certain that it is only a matter of time, in a competitive market,
that Open Book will incorporate K1000 features and vice versa.






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