Gabe: This may earn me the dreaded moderation flag, but I feel it needs to be said. First, let me say, that while I appreciate your views on wanting to make the Humanware line of products better, your methodology of doing so and your choice of platforms for expressing your views leaves much to be desired.
I've been a Voicenote user since early 2000, an adaptive technology specialist and trainer since 1990, and have even had the opportunity to participate on Humanwares' beta team. In that venue alone, I can tell you that the development and testing process that goes into upgrades, either for software or hardware, is incredible at best, and exhaustive at worst. I don't think you'll find a single person on this list who has not been impacted in a major way in their life by the BrailleNote family of products. Whether its to send and receive email, read books, an interval part of a road kit used to do almost everything while transiting from one point to another or making it possible to go from a C student to being top of the class, the BrailleNote has been an awesome tool for this blind professional and, I think, for many others on this list and I, for one, truly applaud and am so thankful for all the hard work put in by Jonathan, Dean, the development team, all the people behind the scenes at Humanware and, most importantly, the visionary work of Dr. Russell Smith. There has not been one single day in the past 3 years that I've not used my Voicenote for some task or another. There are very few other pieces of adaptive technology for which I can make that claim. That being said, would I like to see improvements?? OF Course!! Do I wish this magical box could do more and have all the functionality of my laptop? Sometimes. But, I would prefer to wait until the *experienced* team at Humanware takes the time to implement these changes the right way, so I don't get a new feature that doesn't work or works sporadically. This list is meant to be a platform for peer to peer support and suggestions for the BrailleNote family of products read by many people at Humanware daily. It is not a platform for programming or promoting your views on Linux or a how-to on possible esoteric programs for a device that was never designed, in my opinion, to work in the Linux environment. If you want a device to interact with Unix or Linux systems, try a PC or laptop. But, for a device that performs, for the most part, flawlessly, in some very sometimes demanding circumstances, I'll stick with my Voicenote. I echo Terry's sentiments, please take this off list and if and when we see an SDK for the BrailleNote family, go ahead, write some programs and if they are usable by the general population, well thought out, and most importantly, well implemented, we'll probably buy them from you, if not well.... I apologize to others on this list for my strong feelings on this, and if you wish to disagree with me, please feel free to write me off list. Jeff [EMAIL PROTECTED]
