Hi folks, With the announcement about new prices for Apex, I thought I should write and clarify my last message - specifically what I meant by "user involvement." Before I dive into this topic, a bit of history and terms should be examined: Let's ponder the following questions for a moment: What exactly is the chief reason why smartphones these days are called "multi-purpose device"? What exactly is the meaning behind the phrase, "using productivity features on the move"? What makes some of us risk sleep and wrestle with a silicon chip, instructing it to do what we want it to do? It all comes down to one word: programmability. The best innovation that humans have seen so far since 1945, in my opinion, is the invention of programmable calculators. In other words, those who have skills and knowledge can tell a silicon chip what to do to perform a task that these people and others want it to do. In the end, the realization of this fact made it possible to strengthen the abilities of the silicon chip and reduced the size and cost of these "calculators" - properly called computers. In essence, a computer is a giant calculator that does whatever engineers want it to do, including adding a series of numbers, making important decisions and even destroying any information. But in order for this to happen, people need to program, or instruct a computer as to what to do. For instance, if a student wants his computer to tell him the sum of squares of a statistical data set, he can ask his friend to write a program that would do what the student is looking for. In another situation, suppose that I want my phone to play chess with me; in that case, I could tell my phone what to do - present a chessboard, move pieces of its own and on and on. If I cannot do it, I could ask a friend of mine to help me out with that task of programming my (and other) phone. BrailleNote is not an exception to this rule - after all, BrailleNote is a computer - a specialized computer with instructions to perform specific tasks using specific ways of doing it. If we put the logic that computers have potential to be programmed, then it fits that there should be a way of programming the ARM CPU on the BN to perform a task that we (the users) want it to do. For instance, if I want to play a number guessing game with my BrailleNote, I could just write a small C++ program that would do its trick - allowing KeySoft to play a game with me. Similarly, if alex H. (another programmer) wants his BrailleNote to connect to an FTP server, he could "tell" KeySoft to display the FTP site as though one is browsing list of folders and files under File Manager using Java. In other words, if we want KeySoft to do something, then we can program it to perform a specific task - and this is the meaning behind the words "user involvement." For HW staff: I believe many of us are preparing for a day when an sDK for BrailleNote might be released - so that there would be torrent of useful programs (most of them test programs) for KeySoft would be released. The chief passion for some of us studying computer science in the first place is the very thing that allows us to study programming in the first place - BrailleNote family of products. Just like we have received support from HW, we just want to say "thank you" in that regard by putting our knowledge into practice - developing useful apps for keySoft, which I know would change the views on openness of KeySoft framework. In my case, I chose embedded systems (specifically hardware trends) as my speciality because of BrailleNote and what it could do. Few more opinions: * Just because BrailleNote is a computer does not mean all things designed for general-purpose computers will work with it. The biggest factor in this statement (after research) turns out to be the operating system and software. We have the needed hardware framework in place - all it is required is "connecting the dots" - having the software take advantage of added resources and capabilities of a given hardware. * Programs does not appear "magically" on one's fingers - just because we wish for PDF support does not mean that engineers would release it the next day. There is time involved in this - design phase, alpha and beta testing, writing documentation and verifying feature sets. If you want a real-life example of this concept, have a look at development history behind operating systems such as Windows 7, Linux kernel and MAC OSX. You'll find that it takes months to years writing operating systems - a complex software that manages daily tasks of your computer, including Windows CE, the operating system under BrailleNote. * A frequent word here on this list is that all software must be perfect and vast complaints about keySoft not emulating things which are typical of general-purpose computers. That cannot be true - including for ALL KeySoft releases - past, current (9.02) and future ones. Not ALL software - even features in a given software - is perfect, even for software that is as complex as keysoft.exe. In my case, it took two to three hours to write and test a feature for a program (for one of my homework assignments); even then, it took me an additional half an hour of testing before I declared the software feature to be 'working". Think about months on repeating this process for a large suite as keySoft - even after rewriting the software base code, it'll take at least several minutes and hours before a bug in a particular module is corrected, then additional days and weeks would be spent on testing the corrected code to make sure it does not cause additional problems. This is the chief reason for me (and others) for advocating user involvement - so that we can help out HW by providing useful code suggestions and collaborate with the company on providing useful apps. At least that's all I have to say (and know of). Other programmers and users (specifically HW staff), do you have anything else to say? Cheers, Joseph S. Lee University of California, Riverside Blog: http://joslee22590.blogspot.com
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