Hi folks,
Despite the recent developments, I can still see that BrailleNote
does have some following among its users. As with any product,
the concerns raised about BN family are valid, and I, too would
like to see some clarification from HW about these issues posted
on this list. Coupled with recent questions, I'd like to
summarize my take on latest developments in this post:
* Braille Sense firmware 6.0: Personally, I'd say, "let's wait a
while, then we'll write a commentary about it." From what I can
see, all the posts that we've read and wrote were nothing more
than speculations, explanations, some misinformation and hopeful
suggestions. Speculations, because we are talking about
something which haven't been released, therefore lacking proof of
what we are talking about. Explanations, since I think not many
people on this (and other) mailing list didn't know other options
existed for some time, thereby giving others a chance to shed
some light on current state of assistive PDA market.
Misinformation (at least some were), since some posts suggest
that HIMS's "grass is greener" when in fact HW's "technical
forest" is stronger - and we have just started exploring perhaps
less than a tenth or even a fifth of this massive potential. In
a way, HIMS would have a "greener field" thanks to feature sets
and their SDK (with one programmer willing to write a
compiler/interpreter for a simple language), but when we note
technical differences, Apex is ahead with plenty of room for
corrections, improvements and up-to-date (technically not
anymore) platform to work with. Suggestions, because most of us
would like to see some Braille Sense-like features on our
BrailleNote, yet, as one lister put it, "... we are at the mercy
of the company ... ,was thus the only "effective" (and sometimes
not that used) solution is suggesting some feature sets.
Overall, I do agree with the sentiment that BrailleNote has room
for potential enhancements in the near future. I personally do
feel that 1there needs to be some sort of a comparison page of
sorts, which is the perfect reason why I host such a page on my
site. However, in my opinion, what HW could do to help us is
extensions support, particularly extending current doc support to
docx and beyond, libraries for more media types and overall of
how KeySoft functions at runtime level. However, I'll say this
again: Dear HumanWare Staff, could you give us any indication of
a possible release of public SDK for BrailleNote? Thanks.
As for the specs and hardware with accompanying software issues,
I personally take a view that the blindness PDA market as we know
it will fade away. With the speed of change in mobile technology
arena, one would find oneself "trapped" - sacrificing usability
for enhancing braille experience. No, I expect blindness PDA
market to come to a close in the near future when capacitive,
touch-based braille display comes to existence, with gradual
reduction in price and integration of accessibility on mainstream
devices (IOS is the prime example of what we'll see later;
however, instead of wireless braille displays, I can clearly
envision touchable braille interface being integrated seamlessly
to other devices via enhancements to touchscreen interface and
technology.) Some would take this "judgment" as a shock - I can
already envision people saying, "how can this be possible?"
However, for those of us who are concerned about future viability
of blindness devices, this is not an "old news." I'll save the
rest of this conversation to a later time (not now, because I
need to learn more about hardware this year before I continue).
On with the rest of this post, shall we?
* KeySoft's multitasking ability: Quite an explanation is in
order: KeySoft is not a multi-file suite as with Microsoft
Office. Rather, KeySoft is a huge executable file which has
several functions and "sub programs" of its shj (commonly called
subroutine, thread and other terms). When KeySoft runs a "task,"
what keysoft.exe is really doing is switching to other threads
running within KeySoft (a thread is a task that a poogram
performs). For instance, whenever a document is opened, KeySoft
"opens" with KeyWord. It sort of opens it, but what KeySoft is
really doing is running a
"KeyWord" thread and asking the thread to do something with the
file in question. Similarly, when you are viewing a contact,
KeySoft asks "KeyList" thread to view the database for the user.
Thus, if you switch between these two tasks, what Windows CE
(more towards KeySoft is asking) "really doing" is switching
between these threads within a process called "keysoft.exe" (in
computer science jargon, this kind of task is called "thread of
execution" - that is, a program can perform multiple tasks, but
to the OS, it would appear as one executable).
* File download percentage reinstatement: This is only my
hypothesis and opinions (again, I'm not a HW programmer, but have
some guesses about KS): As stated before, if you have KeySoft
9.1, you won't get percentage indicators when downloading files
from the Internet nor you'll get notifications on number of
files/folders zipped/unzipped. This is because these "tasks" are
run by separate executables (programs). A basic rule about
programs (sometimes termed "processes") is that a program cannot
view what the other program is doing (unless if something went
wrong). To rectify this, two likely solutions come to mind:
converting these processes to libraries (DLL, or dynamic-linked
library, a service that does something and is availible to
programs that needs it, such as device drivers), or asking the
programs to tell KeySoft what it is doing (chief among download
indicators).
Converting exe to dll require doing some work from programmers'
end by telling the linker (a program which translates links
produced by compilers to machine code) to transform the source
code as a library (dll) instead of creating an application (exe).
From there, all that the library would do is report to KeySoft
what it is doing, thereby restoring the feel and look of what we
were used to before 9.1 (having percentage messages when file
download is in progress). However, this has a crucial design
consideration to keep in mind: It may use additional memory, and
if the library is not "retired" (freed) from memory, it may
create memory problems later (where availible RAM may decrease).
Other things to keep in mind is that different connections have
differing dowdload speeds, and websites which use security would
lengthen the download process.
As opposed to this, asking the programs to tell KeySoft what is
doing might sound easier - all that is required would be
periodically returning some indicators. But it is not that easy,
particularly because KeySoft cannot really "listen" to what the
other programs (particularly the downloader) is doing unless the
downloader itself provides messages.
Personally, if I was a programmer, I'd prefer the latter
approach, with the programs themselves reporting to the user as
to what it is doing. However, with the possibility that
third-party programs (if released) may benefit from this
enhancement, I think the former option could be considered as an
alternative. But it is really up to HW developers to do this
(I'm just a user just presenting my ideas, that's all). I, like
many others, would like to see this lack of progress indicators
be fixed in the maintenance release (and I expect this release to
be availible sometime within the next two to three months, given
the release patterns from last year).
For those who are new to this sort of "technical talk," I guess I
should clarify by writing a mini dictionary of CS terms on my
website... Hope you understood at least the picture of what's
going on.
* Microphone: It is sort of hardware, but it is something you can
control. This distortion is usually caused by high volume level
on the microphone. Before you start recording, from Main Menu,
go to Media Center/Record a Memo. At the prompt that appears,
press SPACE with DOT 3 (LEFT ARROW) or SPACE with DOT 6 (RIGHT
Arrow) to change the mic volume level. For mPower, I recommend
between 15 to 25 db; for Apex, I recommend levels no higher than
5.
That's all. Again my apologies if some of the content didn't
make sense... If you have any comments, feel free to post about
it.
Cheers,
Joseph
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