Good Morning:

I received this e-mail message and I wanted to pass this along to you

Take care,

Christopher McMillan
VA CT Healthcare System
Computer Training Specialist

Telephone Number:       1 800 645 6373 extension 3027
FTS Number:                700 428 3027
Fax Number:             1 203 937 3459
Pager Number:           1 800 201 5625 pager 0378 (Dial your number after beep)

E-mail:         [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From:   [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, April 27, 1999 11:53 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Copy of: Why Bother with Ruby?

Original
message:        "Why Bother with Ruby?" [#7617282]
From:   <<[log in to unmask]>>
Sent:   Mon, 26 Apr 99 12:15:11 -0800



We understand that there's been a growing number of recommendations for
off-the shelf scanning software versus Open Book or other reading software
designed especially for blind users.  The email below is forwarded from a
technical support person employed by Caere Corporation, the manufacturer of
Omnipage Professional.  Our dealers have expressed a similar concern in
furnishing this software that mirrors her concern about the amount of
configuration and technical support required for making off-the-shelf OCR
software useable to a blind person.
Please feel free to contact us if you have questions or would like
additional information.
Regards,
Renee Clark

______________________________ Forward Header
__________________________________
Subject:        Why bother with Ruby
        Author:  "Norling  Deborah" <[log in to unmask]> at INTERNET
Date:   4/8/99 7:52 AM


I am one of the lead technical support people at Caere. OmniPage has a lot
of features to improve accuracy that are simply not accessible to the blind
or visually impaired user-the most notable example is zoning. As a blind
person, and an expert on OmniPage, I still need sighted help to utilize
these features.
For every blind person who has purchased and is satisfied with commercial
OCR, there are a dozen angry blind people who discover it doesn't do what
they want. Until I was recently promoted, I talked to at least one blind
customer a day and most of the people were disgruntled and wanted their
money back. Also I talked to dealers, who thought OmniPage was a better deal
than an Arkenstone product. These dealers hadn't bargained for the
hand-holding and support costs involved in getting commercial OCR to perform
in a speech-friendly manner for an unsophisticated user.
I'm not on Arkenstone's payroll; I don't even own a copy of Ruby myself, and
I personally use OmniPage, a decision based mostly on thrift rather than on
convenience.
Trial versions of both TextBridge and OmniPage are available for download;
do yourself a favor and try before you buy-you might be disappointed at just
how many features in commercial OCR programs are awkward or completely
unusable to you.
--Debee


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