I had agreed to post a review comparing VoicePower and KnowBrainer software in return for being able to obtain them at a substantially reduced price. Even after using both of them for several months, I do not feel that I am sufficiently familiar with them to do a comprehensive and objective evaluation. Therefore, I have decided that the only way I could ever get this done would be to give up all attempts to be either comprehensive or objective.

First of all, I like both programs. Although I was given the option to do so, I did not return either one of them. When I am dictating I have both of them open simultaneously. They do not fight for the microphone. I have the best of both worlds. If I were forced to choose between the two which would I have kept? Probably, VoicePower, for the following reasons:

I like ready-made stuff. I don't like to do scripting. Before I got these two programs I had been using Vocola. But I never wrote any commands myself. I cut and pasted from the work of others. VoicePower has a tremendous number of prefabricated commands arranged in a logical and coherent order in a user friendly indexing system which can easily be manipulated by voice. The commands relating to what you're working on are always in front of you on the screen in a separate window.

KnowBrainer also has a large number of prefabricated commands, but, to know what they were, I found I had to be continually skimming through the list in the paper manual. The main strength of KnowBrainer is its versatility, allowing a virtually unlimited number of commands to be created but, as I've said before, I don't like to do scripting, and I found the range of commands available in VoicePower to be entirely adequate for my needs. However, I do find myself using a number of the VoicePower commands which I have memorized because I prefer them to the equivalent commands in VoicePower. For instance -- saying "beginning" takes me to the top of the document, and saying "bottom" takes me to the end of the document. Saying "mic off" puts the microphone to sleep.

Since I was attempting to compare the two programs I have confine myself to commenting relative to the prefabricated commands available, since that is the area which the two programs have in common. However a significant feature of VoicePower is its tutorials. In fact, it could be described as being one, big, complete, well organized tutorial covering the use of both Dragon NaturallySpeaking and the VoicePower itself. Given the fact that I have been using voice recognition software since the days of Kurzweil Voice, and have been lurking on various voice-recognition forums for years, the tutorial aspect was not a major drawing card for me. However, I know that I would have found this part of the program extremely useful when I first started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

On the other hand, the "in-your-face" instructions relative to the use of the VoicePower program itself eliminated the steep learning curve that would have otherwise been necessary. The lack of an adequate instruction manual is what I would term one of the weaknesses of KnowBrainer. This is somewhat mitigated by the ready availability of helpful answers on the KnowBrainer forum. In fact, the authors of both programs seem more than willing to be available for assistance and very receptive to suggestions for improvement. In fact, I have had VoicePower only a few months, during which time I have received at least three updates to the program. I was also asked whether I had any specific commands which I would like to see added. Moreover, when I first got VoicePower, I encountered some problems due to certain peculiarities of my system, Ron Katsuranis spent over an hour on the phone with me working to resolve the problem. That impressed me!

In summary -- although, in my present circumstances I find VoicePower to be immediately more useful -- since I am not forced to choose between the two programs, and since I got KnowBrainer at a good price, I will keep it also. In my later years (I am only 79 now) I may decide to learn scripting language and write some of my own commands.

Charles