Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20 Software

Mavis Beacon

8/5/2010

This is a great product that I use with many of my clients to help them refresh their typing skills and also for beginner typists to learn new skill.

New Review.Minor Bug,Great Program!

6/28/2010

I purchased the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20 program over a month ago,and originally gave it a 2 star review.I was frustrated since it gave me an advanced lesson right after learning the lesson using the ie keys at the beginner level.Many of the reviewers here had the same problem.Fortunately you are actually able to skip that lesson and go to the next beginner level lesson which as I recall was the gh keys.There is another similar bug later on,but I must say that overall this program is great.I bought an old version of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing ten years ago and spent a number of hours practicing my typing with the program and barely improved.This program,despite the minor bugs is much easier,improved,and fun to learn.Some of the typing games are really silly and childish for my age,but that doesn't really matter since they were still very effective at improving my typing speed.I would have given this review a 5,but I find that impossible since this is not a perfect program because of the two relatively minor bugs I mentioned.I am afraid some people may have given up,and trashed this program without realizing they could skip the bugged lesson and go to the next correct level in the beginner section.This program has exceeded my expectations and I would recommend it insofar as people are aware that there are a few minor bugs which can be bypassed by simply pressing the skip lesson button.

This Program Is All-Platinum

6/15/2010

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20 arrived in four (4) days from the time of my purchase. The delivery was excellent, thanks to Razor Dog! Once I loaded it into my keyboard which is my beloved computer called Cybernet, the program performed with great dexterity and mastery that made it more fun to use than the previous Deluxe 16 edition program. As my name Captain Keyboard implies to me as a keyboard specialist, I am an avid typist and a staunch keyboardist who is able to navigate through various areas of the program even without taking a lesson. The practice exercise make keyboarding practice a good experience. The typewriting games replace the boredom with 16 individual games designed to enhance accurace, rhythm and speed, as choices for the keyboardist's desire. This program has everything a keyboardist, regardless of keyboarding skills, needs. This Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20 is highly-advanced and well-improved as a state-of-the-art typing program for learning and fun. Take it from a keyboard Specialist who knows the best. This program is outstanding. It works great as it looks. Choose Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20 for your typing needs, and you are in for a lifetime of happy keyboarding. You will be very glad you did.

DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT - BUG IN SOFTWARE

4/14/2010

WPM (words per minute) and KPM (keys per minute) Statistics Tracking is BUG RIDDEN!

Most people may not run into the software bug that is a KNOWN ISSUE with Broderbund. That's because it won't reveal itself until you've invested 7 hours of time into the product. Both of my kids have run into this problem as their progress gets tracked by Mavis Beacon. As they approach the seventh (7th) hour of time invested into the product, all of their WPM and KPM statistics get flipped to a negative number. For instance, if my daughter is approaching 75 WPM typing while going through the guided lesson plan, around the 7th hour of classroom instruction, her test results will show all of her scores and progress as a negative number. Now she is at -75 WPM typing. From this point on, she has to work from (negative) -75 WPM back to up to zero which throws all of her stats off. This is really aggravating for me as a parent since we have set goals that have real dollar amounts tied to them if she achieves them. Heart breaking for her.

If my son is shooting for a goal of 200 KPM for ten (10) key, and on or about the seventh hour of time invested he reaches what should be 175 KPM, the stats magically flip to a negative number. Now he has to work up from (negative) -175 KPM which messes up everything that we have been tracking.

This problem exists for both the typing WPM stats and the ten (10) key KPM. What really frosts me is when I called Broderbund, they were aware of the issue and basically told me too bad. No fix in the works and no chance to get my money back. I offered to work with their support team to which they took me up on the offer. I generated statistics about my kids laptops and emailed them to the engineers at Broderbund. After a long wait period, I called again only to be told sorry, we can't help you. It is what it is.

Here is my case number is you want to look it up.
support@broderbund.com Case Number 00096750, ref:00D8LhUC.50088ZVOV:ref
For the product Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20 651600

The case engineer, Rober H. asked me to run a DxDiag on the laptops that were having the problem. That was the extent of his request and help to me.

Basically, this company is prepared to put out a buggy product with known issues and not do anything for the customer who discovers it. I know I can't recover the 28 hours of instruction time both my kids invested into this product. They both tried starting all over twice, same result each time, but this company should have a better response to their customers than, "Sorry, go pound sand".

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum Version 20

4/9/2010

Hugely disappointing product for a beginner. Sequence of lessons lost early on. Lessons and quizzes quickly jumped to a more advanced level requiring familiarity with keys not yet introduced. e-mail support from Broderbund proved entirely unhelpful as they failed to address the problem. Online customer reviews were identifying this problem in 2008 and it has not been resolved. Should Amazon still be marketing this product which is not fit for purpose for a beginner?