[blindkid] Talking Tying Teacher

Wed May 22 06:24:37 UTC 2013

The three typing software programs that I am aware of are: Talking Typer
(APH)), American Printing House for the Blind, Talking Typing Teacher,
(Marbelsoft), and Fun with Typability, (Yes Accessible). The first two, in
my opinion, are not worth any money. Fun with Typability needs to be used
with JAWS and is very well done. I have had two students working on it in
the last three months and both have liked it a lot. They are motivated to
work on it in the evenings and weekends. Both are adults who have become
blind and both have had virtually no touch typing skills and barely any hunt
and peck skills. This is a small company but they were nice on the phone.
The cost for a single user license is $150. You can download a demo with 15
starts. If you don't have JAWS, it also works with the demo of JAWS. 
Bonnie Lucas

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Holloway [mailto:rholloway at gopbc.org] 
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 6:28 PM
To: Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Talking Tying Teacher

This particular software program actually works fairly well, but has some
issues and some pretty serious support limitations, at least the version we
bought did (several years ago).

It came from APH "packaged" in a little school-style cardboard folder, like
a grade-school student might use to turn in a typical report. (A "pocket
folder", made of plain red paper, with no printing on it, and if memory
serves, the little metal bend-tabs to hold notebook paper.) The disc was
crushed literally into pieces in shipping. Well, it is just shipped in
basically paper-- nothing to cushion or reinforce the disc-- not even a
cardboard sleeve. No reinforcement of any kind.

We got it replaced but the software then didn't install properly. There was
an "800 number" for tech support listed in the supplied information. I
called it and was told this was not a tech support number. I said, I bought
this the week before and it says to call this number for tech support, so
how could it be expired? (They told me the support number had changed months
before.) The person curtly told me to call a particular toll number and then
hung up on me.

Not only did this seem an inappropriate way to treat a customer, but the
person on the phone was incredibly rude even before I was hung up on. I
called back, figuring to voice my complaint, only to get the same rude
person, who hung up on me once again. Finally I called the toll number. Not
surprisingly, the same person answered that as well. I asked for tech
support, and he said to go ahead with my issue. So this person is, it would
seem, secretary, presumably sales (as the 800 number, I was told, was for
sales only) and tech support. 

If the company isn't a one-man-show, it is surely not far from that. That
combined with the office supply packaging with xeroxed contents, and then
the issue with "toll free support" paints a pretty clear picture of why they
might be having issues with the product. In fact, the replacement product
was in a yellow folder of the same design. Clearly, they bought a pack of
multi-color folders at the local school or office supply store to sell
commercial software. I have run departments in large companies, as well as
my one one-person company in the past. I know small companies can be great,
but nothing felt professional about this operation at all.

The software itself has glitches. Our version gets hung an locks up and
requires a force reboot sometimes. Other times it quits by itself when you
don't want it to. The actual support involved a good deal of doing strange
things in the package to resolve problems which were impossible to repeat
once I was off the phone and it happened again... quite frustrating.

With all that said, when it worked, my daughter really liked it and it did
help her learn to type. To me, it has the feel of a $15 or $20 "shareware"
program (try it free it and pay the fee only if you think it is worth
keeping), and I have had better support from a number of "freeware" packages
I have used over the years as well as shareware.

We own JAWS and I don't really love dealing with Freedom Scientific as
opposed to dealing with really big software companies like maybe Adobe or
Microsoft. I have spent many years dealing with tech support for software
professionally, so I have a pretty decent idea of what to reasonably expect
from software support. To try and explain what we are dealing with here,
MarvelSoft (the maker of Talking Typing Teacher, per their own information)
makes any bumps in the road with companies like Freedom Scientific seem like
nothing at all. Again, at least when I dealt with them, they were--
hands-down-- the rudest company I have ever called for software support
going clear back to the late 1980's.

Interestingly, if you search for marvelsoft on-line, not much comes up
(apart from an apparently unrelated marvelsoft.net), but if you enter
marvelsoft.com, it redirects you to the URL "braillebookstore.com". Nothing
feels particularly solid or organized about the site, or their products.

The product itself seems to be a moderate execution of a good idea, and I
don't know of a better solution, but after the hassles I endured, I feel a
need to post a "buyer beware" comment. It will probably get the job done for
you, and your child will likely enjoy the software (so long as it runs
without too many crashes), but (if my experience was a typical one)
anticipate amiture-grade hassles for a professional-grade price with this
software.

	-RH

On May 20, 2013, at 7:03 PM, Tammy Parson wrote:

> Great question Bo. I have asked my TVI the same question. My daughter 
> is currently using it, but she already has keyboarding skills and they 
> have no way to test her, so they say. She continues to do the program 
> and score at 90% but I feel it's a waste of time. APH has the program 
> and schools get it for free with federal quota funds so they just use 
> it. I would love to have more details about the program myself. Good 
> Luck:)
> 
> Tammy D. Parson
> 
> On May 20, 2013, at 5:28 PM, Bo Page <bo.page at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
>> I'm looking for feedback on software called Talking Typing Teacher by
MaxiAids.  
>> My daughter was playing around with it the other day at a place we 
>> were visiting and liked it.  It's $100 so I want to make sure it's a
comprehensive program.
>> From the little I saw of it, it appears that it helps to spell as well as
type.  
>> Does anyone know what it does exactly, as there isn't much written 
>> about what is does.
>> 
>> Thank you.
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