I have to agree on all three of these points. it's what I've always been
telling others about this, and I remember myself being attacked for blindly
following humanware for saying it before.
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Joseph Lee" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 05:38
To: "BrailleNote List" <[email protected]>
Subject: [Braillenote] Personal observation: the top three questions on
thislist...
Hi folks,
After being here for about five years now (getting help and giving back to
the community), I noticed that we tend to post the below questions and
have huge debates on it - ranging from outright attack to unnecessary
words. The below three questions (dubbed "top three") are but on personal
observations of both questions and its answers (which I do apreciate):
1. When would the next upgrade come out and what features would be
included? In my opinion, this is by far the most debated question and
bound to produce wide range of opinions. Even though this question has
many forms, including adding comparison to other products and as a
reminder of what HumanWare has said before, the basic question outlines
frustrations that users have over the worthiness of the company's
communication strategy and need to stay current in technology. My only
opinion and answer is that it takes time to even design ways of
implementing our suggestions, write it in English, then transform it into
something that BrailleNote can understand, and finally, communicating what
the engineers have done in simple language so that the populus can take a
look at it. As a programming student myself with interests in assistive
technology and embedded systems such as BrailleNote, I do know it takes
even days to formulate simple homework problems (at least in the
beginning) and hours on deciding which tool should I use for implementing
your suggestions for my own programs. At this stage of college life (I'm
technically a junior now), my programs are about two to three hundred
lines long which performs somewhat complicated task based on assignment
specs. What if I and other programming people on this list (Alex in
particular) were asked by you (even by ourselves) to design a new feature
for our own programs. How long do we think it'll take us from getting
your suggestions to production? I'd roughly say close to a month or two.
Now imagine this process on a grand scale and on a large software suite as
KeySoft with thousands of lines of code. I'm sure you'll get the idea -
it takes months. Also designing what features to be included is something
that does take time, particularly if we are dealing with a device which
shows signs of not using a lot of its resources for now. Surely we (and
HumanWare) would not want to add features that uses lots of space and runs
slower, right? In summary, my only answer to our top question is, "please
understand the other side of the river."
2. How's BrailleNote compared to other devices? This question appears
around convention time and during early months - particularly in March
when there are bound to be new product annncements. I personally feel
that occasional comparison email is fine (about once or twice a year), but
excessive comparison arguments would, in my opinion, add little value and
may produce "worthless" comments. (because of personal issues, I won't go
into details of "wccrthless" comments.) I know that recent news would
trigger yet another comparison here (for more details, please consult what
the other guys are saying). Also, product comparison could mean
circulation of misinformation at times - I just read a website claiming
that Apex uses Intel Atom processors and is best compared to a netbook.
This is partly true - although the high-end embedded systems are
apprroaching the specs of a small netbook, the underlying technologies
makes it clear that BrailleNote uses ARM CPU and does not support netbook
applications. Thus, my only word is this: be careful on what you are
posting about comparisons.
3. Is my unit's problem caused by KeySoft or not? This is one of those
questions that newbies ask, and answers to this kind of questions that
really sets apart experts from others (sorry for this differentiation).
Not every problem on the BrailleNote is caused by KeySoft. If something
in KeySoft does not work well, or if the speech goes funny or a correct
grade of braille is not shown (or others), it's definitely something to do
with one or more settings under Options Menu. However, problems such as
memory getting low, slow responses under KeyWeb (Internet Explorer) and
others are not KeySoft's fault - rather, it's the operating system that's
to blame. In some rare instances (particularly more prominent in Apex
now), it's the combination of KeySoft, operating system and hardware
that's to blame. For instance, the problem of computer braille showing up
when reading text document when you want contracted braille is a KeySoft
setting problem; getting a slow response when using KeyWeb and Eloquence
together on an mPower is an operating system issue; A device not being
recognized is a hardware problem (mostly software though); but using
slower program on fast hardware and the operating system not keeping a
close eye on this program is both software and hardware problem (such is
the case with numerous issues with the Apex; essentially, KeySoft 9 is
Apex version of KeySoft 8). In short, my only answer at this point would
be, "what if we observe the problem further?" That way, we'd figure out if
the problem came from KeySoft, something else or both.
My apologies for any harsh comments that I might've used here. Hope it
was helpful.
Sincerely,
Joseph S. Lee (UC Riverside)
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