Review by Bugs

I don’t really like this program. It does work, it’s just not for me.nFirst off, it installs easily enough, and quickly, on Win 7. Installation was no problem.nI was then presented with an options menu. I really didn’t quite understand enough ABOUT the program to really set any options, so I thought I’d just start the program.nI was forced to watch a movie on posture and fingering. I suppose if I’d known better I could have turned it off in options, but I’m not the type to study a program before I use it. I just want it to work- intuitively would be nice.nI’m impatient, and felt like I lost time out of my life I’d never get back suffering through those movies that are slow, plus Mavis just talks so slow. Only beginning typists might need this. I’m already a proficient typist, but I’d love to type 110wpm.nThe skills assessment test was easy enough, though it took off points for an old timer like me that double spaced between sentences. Still I did well enough to move up to level 3.nThe problem was the lessons tried to start me at level ONE. I had missed that I had to manually set my lessons up to start in options. It would be really nice if the program had done this FOR me. It is software and software is all about automation first, rich media second in my mind.nI couldn’t find the options menu. It’s not on the main screen that you use most. I clicked everything, I stopped and restarted the program- how ANNOYING. Of course that’s when I realized it was labeled as PREFERENCES under a screen that comes up when you first start the software. It’s worth time to spend a lot of time in PREFERENCES if you are somewhat proficient and simply want to increase your speed.nIt still took me to lesson 1, home row.nIs it too much to ask that I be able to choose the lessons that I want to do? I got pretty fed up with it in the 4 times I sat down to try to use it. I have a cheap Sponge Bob typing program I liked better than this one. This is just boring, and it’s not at all intuitive and it wants to control everything I do while using it.nThe actual lessons are much the same- you can see the fingers type as you watch the screen. I did learn this way on my own and it works.nI suppose for absolute beginners or for people that like very structured learning, this is fine. It’s just not for me. My son is a very self-directed learner too, and I don’t think this would work for him either. I’ll keep looking. I’m doing some transcription and I really need to get my speed up even more, but I feel like this is just wasting my time and making me angry.