Feed: Voice To Text Software - AggScore: 14.1

Girls Only Secret Diary and More Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This product is the best software for girls. This organizes telephones,adresses events. The best thing about this is that it saves your diaryenteries with a password and in a secert code. So even if someone does knowthe password they cant read it. Thedown part about this prouduct is thatif the software gets deleted all your files are erased because it doesn;tsave your files on your computer wich is why I took away a star and wich iswhy they ask u to print all your files just in case.

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Product Description:
This software contains tools to help organize a busy girl's life. The Secret Diary comes with a password-locked journal to record secret thoughts for posterity. Every entry page can be personalized--a digital A to Z of all her friends and family members. She can make stationery uniquely hers and use it to write letters on the computer or print designs for later use. Special technology creates secret messages she can print in color. Only she and her closest friends with the special decoder can read it. (Ages 7 and older)

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IMSI PDF to Word 2.0 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The product arrived with a disc loose in a big box, little documentation, and a worse problem:The on-line registration, required to use the program after 15 days, fails to work.

Worse product registration approach I have ever seen.

The program itself is excellent and very fast.However such means nothing if they don't give you an activation code!

Update: 2007

This program does run in Office 2007.HOWEVER, I have found the input conversion (pdf to word) very unreliable, with lots of errors and stupid formatting.

Office 2007 has an update to save in PDF....USE IT.As for input, this program is extremely weak.

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Product Description:
PDF to Word 2 offers powerful one-click conversion from a PDF to a Word file, in one simple step! Change any file into a document instantly, complete with the original text, columns, tables, and graphics. The software allows you to access, edit and share information more productively and efficiently than ever before - saving you both time and money!Page Selection -Convert only selected pages from a PDF file instead of the entire document Works as a standalone product, a plug-in for Word or Adobe Acrobat, or a right-click option in Windows Explorer

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Adobe Acrobat Professional 9 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I used this product just long enough to discover that the Mac version does not support rich content when converting Word .doc or .docx files to PDF.Internal links (cross-references to bookmarks in the same document), for example, are not converted.For that, I was told after several support calls, one needs the Windows version, which is supposed to come with PDFMaker for use in such conversions.

All that was several weeks ago.It took that long, working faithfully with the call center from day to day and from week to week to sort out (1) who I am - I had an older customer ID associated with a purchase made years ago, and it took several calls to figure out the customer ID under which my Acrobat 9 purchase was made; (2) make them realize that I'd uploaded my software destruction agreement as a prerequisite to the license swap that would get me the Windows version; (3) confirm shipment.The Windows version is due to arrive this week.All I can do is hope that I don't have to call back and start over at the beginning.

Adobe makes great products and is uniquely situated in today's ebook marketplace as the purveyor of PDF, the new preferred format for the Kindle DX.They won't have to do much to ride the wave of success built on quality and market positioning made all the more profitable by this new wave of good fortune.There isn't much in this mix to motivate a more efficient customer support organization, and it shows.

The call center people are very sharp and helpful but mired in a disjointed business model.They do the best they can.

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Product Description:
Adobe Acrobat Professional v 9.0 Mac

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TextBridge Pro 11 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I purchased this program with the intention of entering a bunch of typewritten pages into my computer.The document that this program produced from newly typed material was so full of errors that I simply had to re-type.It would have taken longer to correct than to re-type.When I talked to Textbridge about these problems all they would tell me is that the program was not meant for such use and that I should buy one of their other programs which had good optical character recognition capabilities.In other words, they know the product is not any good and they are not willing to stand behind it.The program is useless for optical character recognition work or anything else.

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Product Description:
TextBridge Pro 11 is the simple and fast way to convert paper into editable electronic documents, saving time and increasing productivity. New OCR engines deliver the most accurate TextBridge results ever--even on complex pages with graphics and tables. A completely redesigned user interface and a new text editor make processing and proofing faster and more intuitive.
TextBridge Pro 11 features improved accuracy resulting from redesigned recognition engines, which saves proofreading time and makes users more productive. As always, direct OCR is a feature that allows users to move text directly into Microsoft Word and other word processing documents, but now, tables and graphics will be retained as if the document was processed in OmniPage Pro. The new WYSIWYG text editor is intuitive and easier to operate. In addition, color text and color backgrounds are now recognized, for accurate retention of color documents.

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Complete National Geographic- Every Issue Since 1888 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a beloved treasure of 120 years of knowledge and history, and a very valuable reference resource. However, there are a few points that ought to be noted:

>>Reported bugs are still waiting to be fixed as of October 1st, 2010. Examples are:
- The Apr 1953 issue displays the cover of Apr 1953 but the content of Apr 1954. The Apr 1953 issue is completely missing.
- In the Jul 1960 issue, the first advertising page is missing and replaced by a duplicated page 11.
- 2 pages are reported missing from the Jan 1977 advertising section. The first is the nomination page and the second is half of two pages for Cadillac.
- Jul 1942 and Feb 1992: Pages missing, causing pagination problems in the issues with double page spreads not appearing on facing pages.
- In the Feb 1993 issue, pages 72-73 are missing and replaced by duplicated pages 78-79.
- The bottom line of photo caption on page 125 of the Dec 2003 issue is partially cut-off.
- From 1991 to 2008, at least 30 maps are reported missing. Examples: The World War II double map supplement is missing in the Dec 1991 issue. The Sep 2000 map is missing. The "100 Years of Flight" supplement from the Dec 2003 issue is missing. The Jerusalem's Holy Ground map is missing in the Dec 2008 issue.
It doesn't seem like the CNG has any quality control over this product. It solely relies on customer feedbacks to be aware of these missing items. The Complete National Geographic is still incomplete with such bugs existing.

>>The Complete National Geographic contains National Geographic Magazine issues published through December 2008. National Geographic announced in their press release dated 10/13/2009 that "The Complete National Geographic" users will be able to add to their archive after purchasing the DVD-ROM or hard drive product by downloading annual updates on a subscription basis from [...]. Content updates for The Complete National Geographic will be available after the print editions of the previous year have been published. An update for the 2009 issues of National Geographic Magazine for The Complete National Geographic will be available for purchase and download via the Internet in the spring of 2010 - Not yet happened as of October 2010.
NGM released an updated edition of this DVD set ($69.95) and a 2009 annual update DVD ($14.95) in September 2010. The National Geographic apparently slipped in "bugs fixing" and "annual update download" for this Complete 120 Years edition.

>>Updates need to be installed to add missing pages of Apr 1913, Dec 1930, Mar 1950, Sep 1960, Aug 1970, and Jul 1979 issues to the collection. However, updates have to be downloaded through Auto Updates or "Check For Updates Now"; there isn't an independent update installer for archive and repeat installation.

>>Either the digital magnifier that comes with the software or the maximum zoom needs to be used to clearly read the texts on your monitor. Don't expect a .pdf ASCII text resolution of the scanned pages.

>>The patch (revision 1.26) to copy CNG content to local drive was released for Windows on January 31, 2010. It takes many hours to copy the 6 DVDs to the hard drive.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Complete National Geographic- Every Issue Since 1888

Product Description:
Explore 120 years of amazing discoveries, fascinating maps, and the world's best photography with The Complete National Geographic. This definitive collection of every issue of National Geographic magazine, digitally reproduced in stunning high resolution, brings you the world and all that is in it. Use the advanced interface to explore a topic, search for photographs, browse the globe, or wander on your own expedition.

The Complete National Geographic

Click to enlarge.
Rediscover every printed page--Every article, photograph, advertisement--from 1888 through 2008 on 6 DVD-ROMs
Browse special "readlists" from National Geographic stars or personalize your archive by creating and saving your own lists of favorite articles.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.
Use Geobrowse--a visual geographic search tool--to find articles, photographs, and maps about the location you choose
Test your knowledge of subjects including exploration, the environment, geography, history, cultures, and more with a trivia game that links to related articles
Reference hundreds of the magazine's classic maps digitized as part of the magazine's archive for the first time

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.
Includes a bonus DVD with tips on how to take better photographs, an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how National Geographic Magazine is put together, and interviews with NGM photographers revealing the backstory behind their famous photographs.

Complete National Geographic Features

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DRAGON NATURALLY SPEAKING ESSENTIALS V 7 (WIN 98,ME,NT,2000,XP) Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The 'Essentials' version of Dragon Naturally Speaking 7 (DNS) has the core features but none of the extras.There is really no point in getting the 'standard version' over this as the standard version only has four extra features that you probably would not use much, if at all, anyway.
What matters here is that the speech recognition engine in DNS is excellent and quick to set up and use, and the core speech recognition engine is the same for all the DNS 7 variants.The time you put in through use to train it is time well spent, and you can speak at a normal pace with very high quality results.OK, if you try to use it in a noisy environment you will get problems, but use a bit of common sense and patience and you get great results.
If you want to use DNS with a dictation machine then you have to go for the 'Preferred or Professional' versions, likewise if you want to have your words read back to you (text to speech)But if you just want to do the basics such as dictating letters, essays, memos, or email, then DNS Essentials has all you need.
If you are spending your own money and don't really need the advanced features then go for DNS Essentials, if it is someone else's money, or you really need the extra advanced features then get the preferred or professional.Of course it helps to have a fast PC with more memory than the minimum specifications too!

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Manga Studio Debut 4 (Windows) Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The full version (EX) might be worth buying, but this really isn't. All of the good features are in the EX version. Debut doesn't offer anything useful that couldn't be had with a free, open-source program such as GIMP or Inkscape. I've also found that those two programs have far better learning resources available than this does.

Customer service is also poor. The response I got to a simple question about how to acquire a physical product manual (which does not exist) amounted to "Shut up, idiot." You get what you pay for, I guess. Or you could pay NOTHING and get something better. Weird!

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CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Education Edition Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I use Corel as a replacement for AutoCAD. It can open and work on .dwg and .dxf files. It's easy to learn and you can do so many different things! PhotoPaint is included and it's capable of almost everything that Photoshop can do.

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Product Description:
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Education Edition (Not for Commercial Use) lets you tackle creative graphics and design projects withconfidence. New tools make it easier and quicker than ever to deliver any creative project, fromlayout and photo editing, to illustration and bitmap-to-vector tracing. Powerful text and layoutenhancements give you the look you want plus market-leading file compatibility makescollaboration easy. Updated high-quality content, a step-by-step Hints Docker and new tutorialswritten by experts get you started fast. Professional and aspiring designers along with anyonewho needs to express creative ideas will be able to turn their ideas into professional results: fromdistinctive logos and signs, to striking marketing materials and eye-catching web graphics.

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Garage Sale Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Last time I did a lot of business on eBay, I was using a PC, and I had a program called PosterToaster (I think...). I'm preparing for a move now, and liquidating my things, so I'm back at eBay posting a lot of my stuff. Now I use a Mac, so I wanted to find a program that would allow me to create auctions offline and then upload them to eBay with just a couple of clicks. I searched all the Mac sites, and they all suggest two programs-- GarageSale and iSale. I'm not pleased with either. At first glance, GarageSale seems alright. It's clean, it's slick and it's designed to look like a Mac program-- right down to the "Cover Flow" effect from iTunes, which here lets you flip through designs for your auction. However, when you get down to the task of creating an auction, form clearly rode roughshod over function in the creation of this software. First of all, the cover flow feature barely makes sense to me in iTunes-- when it's actually being used to flip through album covers. It's sort of cute and gimmicky, but isn't the fastest, simplest way to get what you're looking for. In GarageSale, it makes even less sense, and users are forced to endure it the entire time they're in preview mode. It's sort of like an email program, where cover flow hangs out at the top like an inbox listing, and the page preview occupies the bottom half like an email preview. This, unless you squish the cover flow all the way up to the top.
The main reason I hate this program is that in trying to simplify everything, it takes away the user's freedom to get what he wants. Granted, the program offers you a hundred choices on various aspects of your auction, but if what you want isn't already offered, there's no way to customize and get. Also, the huge number of choices makes it cumbersome, and in the case of page designs (over 100 of them), which are organized alphabetically in the cover flow, it's difficult to know where to find what you want. How can I know that I'll like the design called "Silver 2" without flipping all the way from A to S? If it's alphabetical, the names should give some insight into the design. The aspect of this that most annoyed me is the inability to place my photos wherever I want them in the auction. For any design, the program allows the user to choose images up (all images are displayed above the text of the description), images down, images right, images left, and and few more involving thumbnails. However, it doesn't allow you to drag an image wherever you want on the page, as any HTML editor-- and let's face it, that's a main function of any eBay posting program should. I post a lot of books, often in lots. In this case, I prefer to give text about the lot, then a description of the first book followed by images of the first book, then a description of the second book followed by images of the second book, and so on. With GarageSale, this is completely impossible. Users are not allowed to intersperse text and images. Huh? This seems ridiculous for a program that costs $30 and up. All because the creators want to make everything modular and buttonized and Mac-like. Stop it!
Another major annoyance and source of confusion is the simple fact that GarageSale uses the term "template" for what is in fact an auction. That "Create Template" button won't let you create a customized template, it's just for creating a new auction. What are actually templates GS calls "designs;" this is what you're forced to flip through in cover flow.
The program does handle FTP nicely, and once you've plugged your images into the auction (nicely clustered at either the top, bottom, or sides, mind you), GS will upload them to your host as it uploads your auction-- er, excuse me, "template."

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Product Description:
As experienced eBay sellers know attractive auction pages lead to more attention more bids and higher sale prices. Garage SaleTM helps users create high-impact pages through its powerful graphic tools professional templates a slick Mac-like interface integration with your iPhoto library and more.Features:Over 70 design templatesFTP and .Mac hosting for photosiPhoto and iSight integrationBuilt-in Scheduler and Auction TrackingOffline page editingMultiple eBay account supportBuilt-in image editingAutomated account creationDashboard widgetMany more useful features!System Requirements:Macintosh computer with a G4/G5 or Intel processor and Mac OS X v10.3.9 or higher.Format: MAC 10.3 OR LATERUB Genre:PRODUCTIVITY UPC:828068103262 Manufacturer No:10326

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Talk Now! Learn Latin - Beginning Level Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this to help my son who is having trouble in Latin at school, although I was a little skeptical of the title "Talk Now." I should have trusted my reservations. This is just a cheaply created imitation of language immersion programs; the first two practice phrases include the words "beer" and "telephone." No grammar; no conjugations or declensions; no vocabulary lists. This is of NO use to a Latin student; I can't imagine who it could be used by. Even spoken Latin is primarily liturgical.

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Product Description:
Talk Now! Is the world's best selling language learning CD-ROM series for beginners, used by more than three million people. Ideal for travelers, holidaymakers, business people, schoolchildren, students and families. Anyone over 10 years will find the disc indispensable for improving listening, understanding and spoken language skills. There are nine topics: first words, food, colors, phrases, parts of the body, numbers, time, shopping and countries. The games and quizzes included on the disc ensure that users have fun whilst using the product, without realizing that they're learning.

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CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The Corel line of graphics software has always carried the burden of being the second choice and often the second experience of Adobe software users. Those who encounter the software after experience with the main Adobe-produced rivals (Illustrator and Photoshop) will experience it very differently than those who are looking to learn professional graphics from the start with Corel.

Though I am a very experienced user of Adobe products, I tried to experience Corel Draw (the vector graphics portion) and Photo Paint (the bitmap graphics portion) with an eye toward evaluating it as someone who wasn't already comfortable with a different interface, but who was interested in a professional level graphics package, as well as someone who may decide to transition away from the pricier Adobe products. I will offer my perspective from both of these viewpoints:

As a newcomer to pro graphics:

There is a lot of power and flexibility. Photo Paint offers alpha channels, lighting effects, masking, and a good selection of filters for those who want to "play" with images. It is able to open and save to a variety of file formats and can rasterize vector images. A lot of functions are quite intuitive (e.g., image straightening, filter effects), though programs with the breadth and depth of a professional program have a great many levels and no one who is new to them can grasp them immediately or without underlying knowledge of what all the terms mean. It's important not to mistake this graphics package as one designed for the hobbyist or person looking to modestly tweak images for web pages. The complex functionality it possesses is to allow folks working in industries that need finer work to get it done and it certainly allows for that and more.

In terms of how easy it is to understand the programs, CorelDraw is definitely a lot tougher to grasp, but that is the nature of vector graphics programs. However, I do believe that the way in which points (which are called "nodes" in Draw) are edited when working with Bezier curves could be more intuitive. Having to select each node and change its type by clicking a button in order to alter the way in which the control handles work is tedious. It'd be much better to have a modifier key to "break" curves where desired.

The help files and tutorials are excellent and I had not trouble tracking down information to help me do what I wanted to do. However, an absolute beginner will likely need to do the video training for more hand-holding than I required. It's hard to get your head around the way computer graphics work, but Corel certainly provides the tools to try if the user is willing to take the time to learn. The software can only take you so far when it comes to something this complex.

Corel also provides a huge variety of templates, clip art and fonts which Adobe does not. This makes the entire package more appealing to folks who work in publishing but do not create custom content and mainly want to tweak clip art or stock images.

As an experienced Adobe user:

One immediately resists every part of the interface which does not conform to what one is used to in Photoshop and Illustrator. This is much more troublesome in CorelDraw since drawing works best when one can use the tools effortlessly to gain the desired result. If you're looking to make the change to break free of Adobe's higher prices, the first thing you have to do is be patient with the interface differences. Some gritting of teeth may be involved. You'll likely find, on the whole, that some things are better in Corel's interface and some are worse compared to Adobe's, though Adobe's interface has a more professional and polished feel. The filters in particular sometimes have a cheesy and clunky feel to them, though they are easy enough to use.

The second thing you have to do is make sure that all of your native file format files (.ai and .psd) have been saved into more universally accessible formats (EPS, TIFF) as neither PhotoPaint nor Draw will reliably open all Adobe native format files. In my tests, native Photoshop files always opened but sometimes with missing layers. When I attempted to open an Illustrator native file, I was told the file was compressed (though it was not) and that it needed to be re-saved in an uncompressed state. Resaving as an EPS file fixed the problem.

Conclusions:

* If I wanted to prepare myself for work in the graphics industry and wanted something less expensive than the Adobe CS package, I'd not hesitate to buy this suite to learn the ins and outs of professional graphics, particularly if I were planning on working freelance. However, I'd keep in mind that most publishers will work in Adobe software and I may need to learn their software eventually if I were to pursue office work.

* If I were working in a publishing industry which did small amounts of editing of vector and bitmap images and needed to do color adjustments for professional printing, I'd seriously consider the Corel Suite though I'd investigate how effective the color separations worked for my particular needs. However, I would not rely on it for layout work (nor would I rely on Illustrator or Photoshop for layout) unless I only worked with flyers, brochures, posters, or other very short documents.

* If I were an Adobe user looking to break free of the expensive shackles of Adobe software, I'd have to think long and hard before making the change as there would be some productivity loss getting acclimated to the interface and some differences in functionality that I may not want to accept.

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Product Description:
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 lets you tackle creative graphics and design projects withconfidence. New tools make it easier and quicker than ever to deliver any creative project, fromlayout and photo editing, to illustration and bitmap-to-vector tracing. Powerful text and layoutenhancements give you the look you want plus market-leading file compatibility makescollaboration easy. Updated high-quality content, a step-by-step Hints Docker and new tutorialswritten by experts get you started fast. Professional and aspiring designers along with anyonewho needs to express creative ideas will be able to turn their ideas into professional results: fromdistinctive logos and signs, to striking marketing materials and eye-catching web graphics.

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Xtreme Photostory on CD & DVD 8 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I read some reviews of software to make DVD videos of photo slideshows as well as incorporating video. I think this was one of the highest rated and its strength was that the reviewer said that although its learning curve was greater, it could create professional results.Some software only allows simpler features and less control of the details.

I have used it to create a beautiful slideshow with zooms and pans and music fading in and out and other special effects with scrolling titles, etc.All of my friends and relatives are very impressed with the quality and want to know what I used.

Also I made a DVD for friends and relatives consisting of videos (shot with a Canon 5D Mk ii) and faded them together, added transitions, added text and music.It also looks awesome.In some cases the video is zooming in even though I did not zoom in the camera and text is scrolling/fading.

Another nice feature of this is that once you go through the time-consuming process of creating the image of the video to be written to DVD, it saves it.Later you can simply create copy DVDs of it within 5 minutes each by telling it you want to use the already created version.

This has other capabilities too but I used it for DVD slideshows and for DVD videos.

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Product Description:
Magix Xreme Photostory on CD & DVD 8 With Magix Xreme Photostory on CD & DVD 8 your photos and videos turn into impressive video and slideshows practically on their own.Experience special moments with family, friends, and acquaintances: Present your experiences as cinema-quality TV events with high-quality effects and matching music - all without any prior skill.

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Microsoft MapPoint 2010 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)First, I recommend that you download the free full-featured 60-day trial and experiment before deciding whether to purchase.Except for the download time, installation is easy (trivial).The trial's reminders occur only when you start the app. If you decide to buy, activation is trivial--simply enter the key.

I got this package (for review) primarily for the "visualize business data" aspect advertised.What it turned out to be was an inconsequential update of what I remember of Microsoft Streets & Trips circa 2004.Then, the only reason I ever used S&T over online maps was to display address info from a simple spreadsheet.Recently, some of my colleagues would have benefited from importing spreadsheets with address info into a map application.When they tried to do this in Google Maps, their (understandable) reaction was best summed up by "Google doesn't want people like us to use this" and "Life is too short".Although MapPoint 2010 is "integrated" with MS Office, that integration fails far short of their needs: The data you can import into a map, and what you can do with it inside this app, is so severely constrained that I don't see any benefit to their types of tasks.

The maps themselves are of poor visual quality, especially the poor contrast.Some labels are medium gray against a light olive background. I routinely missed items I was looking for, not just labels, but push-pins and even bar charts.The characters in the labels are akin to what you got from a very low-resolution printer, one where the jagged edges from the pixels are readily apparent.Because of this, my sense is that as you scan the map the street labels--being at various angles--can slide from being perceived as text to being simply noise in the background.

I don't see myself using MapPoint 2010--for the things I do, it is no better, and often worse, than free Web-based resources.My key requirement was to be able to augment the places in the database, both annotating the ones they provide and adding places of my own, and then be able to execute searches against this augmented database.MapPoint supports none of the former and its searches ignore any tags, keywords and other annotations you might attach to an entry via the free-format field (searches are limited to name and city).

Note that Windows 7 is not on the list of supported operating systems.This could be an inadvertent omission in keeping with the lack of attention to detail in this product.

The remainder of this review gives details of the problems I found.Note: When I say that MapPoint cannot do something, it should be taken to include that I couldn't find how to do it.The "documentation" is limited to the usual Microsoft Help topics - snippets that help with potential terminological confusions and with finding items that are deeply buried in the menus, but mostly tell you what is blindingly obvious.
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The user interface is badly inconsistent and is clearly a mash-up.For example, in Find Nearby Places, a single-click on the name of a restaurant in the LHS pane produces a small semi-transparent box on the map showing its location, and a double-click produces the display of the information in an opaque box, but for other categories, such as Pharmacies and Schools, a single-click produces nothing.Another example: Some of the sub-panes in the LHS navigation pane are dismissed by clicking the "x" in an upper corner, others on the side (different icon), while yet others use a pop-up menu.Another example: The Undo capability applies to some categories and not others, without any discernible logic.

There are lots of little UI annoyances.For example, when the cursor gets within 16 pixels of an edge of the map, it turns into a large arrow, signaling that clicking the mouse will scroll the map.However, MapPoint doesn't seem to take that margin into account when calculating where to position clickable content, and I found myself too often having to scroll the map to be able to click on such items and then scrolling the map back to the original position.

The maps themselves were troublesome.I could not find how to display municipal boundaries.Names of cities were hard to find among all the other labels.Minor adjustments to the map would cause "strobing", for example, clicking on a balloon could radically alter which street labels were displayed.This was disconcerting when working on a map of a city I was familiar with, but for a city I was unfamiliar with, this was frustrating ("Where is Center Street? I thought it was on this map just a second ago.").Aside: You see bad choices of what to label on the world map as well, for example in looking at the Pacific, you find that the "Palau" label (tiny island nation) extends over the (unlabeled) Philippines.
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Map items--balloons/push-pins--that you import from a spreadsheet onto the map are limited to 8 fields: 2 are for names, 5 are address components and 1 is for your use (free-form data).The caption displayed when you selected a balloon is a small fixed size, so there is truncation of the info that you enter in these fields.Although there is plenty of room in the LHS navigation pane, only the first 8 entries are listed, rather than having a scroll-able list.Names have no structure, for example, if your database/spreadsheet has separate fields for first and last names, you need to merge those fields before importing (there is a second Name field, but it is not included in what is displayed in the navigation pane).Similarly, if you have a contact person in a department in a company, you need to combine them into a single name field.Similarly if your database uses multiple fields for street addresses (common because it simplifies validating data entry and selecting sections of a street).MapPoint does NOT support importing email addresses (other than as plain text in the free-format field), but it does allow you to enter Web addresses into the free-form field and it does recognize those and make them click-able, but it is so kludgy that it comes across as a quick patch (in a location's Properties window there is a non-functional text-entry field for the URL).The balloons/push-pins are in such muted colors that it was easy to overlook some of them.

Note: If you want to import a subset of data from your address book/contact manager application, the XLS or CSV file that it creates is likely to have similar problems.Since Outlook is/was part of the MS Office suite, I had expected at least that its export format would be directly import-able into MapPoint.

When importing data from a spreadsheet, MapPoint does some corrections.For street suffixes--St, Ave, Rd, Lane, Way, Circle,...-it did a good job on the spreadsheets I used as tests (from real-world applications).However, my city is not a difficult case: Except for cul-de-sacs, there are no name conflicts between categories--for example, there isn't a First St and a (perpendicular) First Ave--and circumstances mean that the street numbers in those cul-de-sacs are rarely (never?) possible ones on the corresponding main street.However, the correction algorithm is very simplistic and makes lots of mistakes.For example, in importing 250 addresses within my city, two entries were missing the city field.One street name was very unusual and the city was guessed correctly, but the other had a street name of "Lincoln" and the guesses were all from the other side of the country--MapPoint did not use either the addresses already imported or the locale being displayed on the map to bias its guesses.Similarly on the misspelled street name "Bryon": MapPoint guessed "Bryson" from a nearby ZIP Code rather than "Byron" from the Zip Code given in the entry.Corrections are limited to selecting one of its guesses: If it guesses badly, you have to tell it to skip the whole entry rather than providing guidance or a manual correction.For a product that prominently advertises its integration with MS Office, I expected it to offer the option to have corrections also be made to the spreadsheet being imported.But MapPoint does not even log the corrections being made so that you can later update the spreadsheet yourself--you need to manually create that list as the error messages are displayed.

Because of the constraints on the data you can import into a map, I would likely do my filtering of my dataset within the spreadsheet, using MapPoint only to create the map to be printed or exported into an MS Office document.Because I can't import data directly from my spreadsheet and database formats (names and addresses need to be collapsed), it is pointless to do any updates to the data within MapPoint because the exported format would require difficult processing to get back to the underlying format.
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FIND: The Help topics state that the Find operation connects to the Internet.For me, it only searched the program's database.For added items, it searched the name field, but not the free-form text field.

The Find operation cannot be geographically limited, for example, to the area of the map currently being displayed or a ZIP Code.You _can_ include the city name as a search term, but it is subjected to the same fuzzy matching as other search terms.Adding a street name or ZIP Code to the search terms produces substantially _worse_ results, indicating that those fields are ignored by search.Example: "peet's coffee, palo alto" produces 6 matches (the 3 sought, 1 understandable, 2 inexplicable).Add the ZIP Code of one of them ("94306") and there are over 130 hits.

Note: The SEARCH icon on the toolbar seems to have no real purpose: It brings up a LHS pane for "Search results", but nothing seems to use it--the...Read more›

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Product Description:
Microsoft MapPoint 2010 gives you the power to visualize business data, communicate insights with instant impact, and integrate maps into the work you do in Microsoft Office. Get trip routing and turn-by-turn directions to easily plan better trips.


Use new Map Settings to customize features of your map. Click to enlarge.
Detailed driving directions keep you on track. Put in multiple addresses and MapPoint will optimize your route. Click to enlarge.
More than 300 pushpin images--includes those from previous versions of MapPoint. Click to enlarge.

MapPoint 2010

Product Features

MapPoint helps you visualize your business data:

MapPoint helps you streamline your travel:

MapPoint makes it easy to use maps in combination with your Microsoft Office documents:

Seamlessly integrate maps into the work you do in Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Office.
* Exporting to GPS must be done via MSN® Direct (subscription required) or via USB. Separate download of free plug-in may be required. Not all GPS devices are supported. Visit www.microsoft.com/mappoint/devices for more information.
** GPS device sold separately. GPS functionality requires a GPS device that supports NMEA 2.0 or later and an available USB port.

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Readiris Pro 7.0 Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Waited almost a year to get this product at a sale price.

When I got it, the joy of finally acquiring it very quickly passed.
The first problem occured during setup.
You are asked to choose your scanner "brand" from a drop-down menu list.
They had tons of choices for:
- HP
- Agfa
- Black widow ?

As for the rest of the scanner world:
1 choice for umax
1 for microtek
1 for Niscan
1 for Canon
1 for Silitek

As for VISIONEER; NOTHING! Zilch!Zip! Nada !

Unbelievable!

One of the most marketed scanners in office stores or online,and readiris can't see fit to include even ONE driver choice;
not even a "generic visioneer" choice.

I figured they had at least added a "patch" or such at their website. NOPE!
Nothing over at their website [support section] either.

I have owned like 4 visioneers over the past 6-8 years.
And 1 canon and 1 umax.
The point being, Visioneer is EVERYWHERE !

They might not be the world's BEST scanners, but they are a large part of the "middle-of-the-road" consumer marketplace.

Perhaps IF readiris was some sort of "worldclass" product,
then maybe [a BIG maybe], they could get away with such a "primadonna" sort of attitude.

But common-sense business practice says to "market to the masses".[Anyone that doesn't better have such a whiz-bang product that they are backlogged with orders and customers are beating down their doors. I doubt Readiris has either such situation].

Anyway, the evaluation :

1. driver choices - poor.
After choosing a "twain-generic" type of scanner choice, I was able to scan my test page.

2. OCR ability - The OCR capabilities was one of the lamest I have ever used.

I even chose a different scanner "type" or driver, but no improvement.As for OCR, I have done better with the "bundled" software that came with any of my scanners. Meaning, those "Limited editions" that the scanner companies include. [not full versions, normally].

3. rating of packages I've personally tested:

I have used a lot of different packages and here is my list of grades, from worst to best:
1. worst - readiris 7 pro

2. middle of the road -
"bundled softwares" - that come with scanners

3. Above average - omnipage, Textbridge, Pagemanager

4. Very good - the Adobe Elements 2.0 bundle that came with my Canon Lide scanner.

5. 5-star favorite.

ABBYY Finereader Pro Version 5
I used only the older version 5 pro, so far.

WOW ! I was blown away by the accuracy of OCR.
It even beat out omnipage 8 and 9.
Co-workers/friends that saw my finereader pro vs their omnipage were equally impressed. They immediately asked their supervisors to get it for them. Luckily ABBYY offers"competitive upgrades", from ANY brand OCR software to finereader pro. [ABBYY finereader is VERY liberal in competitive upgrades. ANY OCR product qualifies. Now THAT is A+ customer service and marketing].

Maybe Readiris will improve, but version 7 was a dismal showing.

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Product Description:
Readiris Pro 7 is OCR software that converts your everyday printed documents,such as letters, faxes, magazine articles, and columns in a newspaper, intoeditable text files with a high rate of recognition accuracy. Readiris Pro 7features a number of easy-to-use tools to convert documents into electronicfiles, including PDF files. The new OCR engine in version 7 increases the OCRaccuracy by 40 percent above Readiris Pro 6.
It features automatic detection of font mode, improved recognition of light text with brokencharacters, improved recognition of dark text with touching characters,improved recognition of text with speckles, and improved recognition ofunderlined text. Readiris Pro 7 recognizes documents captured with digitalcameras, documents scanned in color, including text on color backgrounds,and saves pictures in color. It detects the orientation of the scanned documentand automatically rotates the page for the best OCR accuracy.

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Talk Now! Learn Khmer - Beginning Level Review

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Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This item is really a waste of money. For 20 or 30 dollars you get a vocabulary of at most 100 words. Want to learn some more? Then you must shell out another 20 or 30 for the "intermediate" one, and so on. As Amazon discreetly omits any description of the product on its web site, I got the impression it was a language course, because it said "beginning level". But it turns out that it's more like a phrasebook. There's no grammar, no explanations, just a bunch of phrases and words to learn. This is by no stretch of the imagination "learning" a language. The most insidious thing about it is that they could have crammed all the 3 levels onto one CD, but that would have damaged their profits. Is this one of the blessings of the free-enterprise system we hear so much about? There are 2 books for actually learning Khmer that have a CD or cassette. I'm going to get one of those.
AN

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