Premier Assistive Literacy Software Bundle.

Review: Premier Assistive Literacy Software Bundle.
http://www.readingmadeez.com/products/lpp.html 3.5/5

In the field of assistive literacy software, one cannot go very far without talking about WYNN and Openbook from Freedom Scientific. I believe they have achieved a marketing triumph, therefore WYNN and Openbook have become a staple in assistive technology lab everywhere. This article is neither about Wynn nor Openbook. (I'd be happy to write one on popular demand) This article is about what can one do if one does not have $995.00 for WYNN Wizard or $995.00 for OpenBook.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Premier Literacy Bundle. For $249.00, you get talking word processor, talking dictionary, text to mp3 conversion software, scan and read software, word prediction software and a pdf editor. Now, I am not going to lie, the software have minor glitches here and there, and for crying out loud, don't run the talking grammar checker on a 96 page document, and the voice engine (Cepestral) included in the bundle is quite frankly, horrendous. But even with all the abovementioned failings, if one switches the voice engine to Ivona or Neospeech, the software can be very charming.

The talking word processor comes with spelling checker, grammar checker, thesaurus, word prediction. It may not be as powerful as Microsoft Words 2007 (so don't try to do footnotes), but it does get little jobs done, and I adore how it automatically proofreads after every sentence.

Word Prediction Pro works in conjunction with other software such as Microsoft Words 2007, it's a real time saver, but it drains memory, so be ready to reboot now and then.

Despite the harsh review, I actually love this bundle very much. I'd not hesitate to recommend it to all my friends and fellow AT Advocates. Because it does little jobs so well and big jobs are often made of many small jobs. I definitely do not regret buying the bundle, it does just about everything WYNN and Openbook do and then some.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CoWriter and the Subscription model:

The CoWriter Universal:  The Subscription model: When it comes to Word Prediction Software; none is, perhaps, better marketed than CoWriter by Don Johnston. Like Dragon Naturally Speaking by Nuance is for speech recognition, CoWriter by Don Johnston is often the first thing an AT professional think of when Word Prediction is being discussed.  In case there is still anyone out there that doesn’t know what a Word prediction software is, it’s what we often use when we type on the smartphone and other mobile devices. The little bar above the smartphone keyboard that guesses what we are trying to type is called, Word Prediction; and before the advent of the smart devices and their touch screens, Word Prediction Software had already been widely used by people with disabilities to make typing less of a pain. I first saw CoWriter on ABC News in early 2009, and its selling point was the copious vocabularies it is capable of predicting. It could be used by anyone from K12 to Po...
Read more

Simple Speech, affordable AAC software for Windows Platform

http://www.palsoftwaredesigns.com/ When I first came across their website, I was a little apprehensive, because it has neither the company's physical address nor telephone number. It only has a paypal sign for credit card payment, the name of its CEO, Jose A. Oritz, and a rather vague statement that the company is based in Brooklyn New York. True, many small companies that produce softwares aiming at niche market tend to use this model to minimize operating expenses - and trust me AAC software definitely qualifies as a niche market, Paypal payment and direct download afterwards, no mess, no fuss. But then, most companies do at least give their physical address and telephone number to give an impression of legitimacy, even fraudulent websites give that much. So readers cannot blame me for being over cautious. To cut a long story short, I took a chance, and bought a copy for testing. It works very much like proloquo2go from assistware and dynavox's mighty mo; it also comes wi...
Read more

The transformers come!

                                             While there has been little exciting news in the realm of high-tech consumer electronics other than the soul-eating-time-devouring-productivity-killing Pokemon Go sometimes masquerading as therapeutic app for people with agoraphobia, and, more generally, a cure for most Americans' aversion to outdoor exercises; the iPad got faster and bigger, and not to be outdone, Samsung sported an enormous 20 inch Android tablet called Samsung View; The bloated Android tablets, of course, have been with us since 2011, with Viewsonic's Smart Monitor and HP's all-in-one Android Computer. However, with the popularity of carbon fibre and other metal alloys, there has been a welcoming move by the Durable Medical Equipment (DME) industry to make traditionally bulky and heavy devices more mobile and portable. ...
Read more