Hi All, In connection with the recent discussion about the future of the BrailleNote that involved a comparison between this product and the PACMate, which unfortunately somehow went out of hand, I feel the need to make clarifications, provide some explanation where it is necessary, and offer due apology. Sabahattin was definitely correct when he wrote in his reply to Jonathan Mosen's last post that Freedom Scientific will not stoop low in "sabotaging" a competitor's mailing list for its consumers. I say this is correct because:
1. Freedom Scientific as a company or anyone who works there absolutely did NOT instruct me to do such a thing and I was even specifically instructed to resign from this list last March 8 because FS wanted to make certain that there would be no conflicts of interest; and, 2. "Sabotaging" this list was absolutely NOT MY INTENTION. This is where the explanations become necessary, so please read on. As many of you would know, I suddenly had to stop posting on this list after helping people answer their BrailleNote-related questions for the past 14 months. As only a few of you have known, I am now working as a part-time contractor for Freedom Scientific, working for their development team, not for sales or marketing in case some of you may be led to think so. Before leaving, I wrote in my supposedly final post that I will continue to read this list and if ever I feel that some questions are not satisfactorily answered, then I will help the person by sending my reply off-list. For a time, I have done this as some of you, who have received help from me privately, can attest. But then I began to realize that even if I help off-list, people may still come on list and say something like, "Oh never mind my question this morning, Roselle just answered it privately", or do it accidentally like in the case of Jim Taylor inadvertently sending his private message for Kellie Hartmann to this list where he mentioned that I had responded to his question about the "Missing R" in the address he was replying to using KeyMail. Thus, I decided to stop helping users off-list as well. But issues and solutions that were not explained properly, like Lisa Ehlers's problem with writing her quizzes so they would not come out gibberish to her sighted professors, which a number of you tried to sort out for her yet her problems persisted, made me want to post again the answers that I knew I had to share to these people in some way. This is why I adopted a pseudonym, "Kirstyn", and used a different e-mail address. I want to stress that this is the ONLY reason why I used a different name. As even the list archives will show, I had posted using this other name to answer a few BrailleNote-related concerns, starting with Lisa's, even before the discussion we had this past weekend. If I had a malicious intent in taking on a different name or if I was being used by FS against PDI, then you would not have seen this Kirstyn helping users on this list with BrailleNote problems, something that I had also done at the same time that we were having the discussion on the BrailleNote's future. This is because I was posting as a BrailleNote user and a PDI customer like all of you, not as an FS part-time contractor . If it had seemed to anyone that this was a harmful means of deception because of their interpretations of what I posted last weekend, then I sincerely apologize for letting such an impression form in their minds and not realizing sooner that this would happen. I see the problem with this now from reading Jonathan Mosen's post and very well understand why he felt as he had. I also realize that if I had posted my messages last weekend using my real name, then this negative impression may have been avoided, but as I already mentioned, I unfortunately did not see it that way back then, and I can only apologize for that now. Regarding my posts last weekend, I will repeat here as I have done so in those messages, that I have no intentions of slugging down the BrailleNote so as to glorify the PACMate. I wrote as a concerned BrailleNote user voicing out her frustrations that others here apparently share, and in getting my point across, it so happened that the BrailleNote had to be compared with the competition. For those who have followed that thread from the start, you would know that the comparison between the competing products did not start from me. I began to post about it when I felt that some people were misinformed about the PACMate, and was using the claim that the competition could not do this or that, while the BrailleNote can, so those who are saying that the BrailleNote is falling behind should not be alarmed and stop asking for more things that these people considered too much to expect from a PDA for the blind, missing the fact that it can indeed be and has been achieved. It was also in relation to the argument by some of us that having graphical user interface in a product for the blind is not a bad thing because other blind people using a competing PDA for the blind do not run into problems with this. But that was all there really was to it. If I had wanted to inflict damage to PDI in some way, then in my reply to James Aldrich's post telling us to stop ranting, sell our BrailleNotes and buy PACMates, I would not have written that I "fervently hope" that this attitude is not shared by PDI and other BrailleNote users because this is counterproductive to what we want to achieve in continuing to request for more functionality and hope for a prompt and good response. This also supports my explanation above that I was not posting as an FS part-time contractor but as a BrailleNote user with concerns and frustrations similar to those of others on this list. Two of you have even written to me privately and asked my opinion about you getting a PACMate, and I did not tell you to get rid of your BrailleNote and go for the competition, but pointed out that if your needs are met by the BrailleNote right now and you do not see your needs to change drastically in just a month, then there is no need for you to buy this other PDA. Bob also asked me off-list what I think the BrailleNote has that the PACMate does not and I answered his questions based on what I know for certain, just as I had replied to his questions about what he thought the PACMate did not have. My mistake was that I did not foresee the possibility that my posts would be prone to different interpretations, some already far from my original intention. I realize now and admit that being subscribed to this list for more than a year, I should have known that such posts will spark different reactions, and lead to an outcome that is totally different from what I have aimed. For this, I sincerely apologize again. Although I am not retracting anything that I have said because I only wrote what I know about the two products mainly discussed, and I maintain that my intention was not merely to compare them so that one will be promoted while the other degraded, I owe up to the fact that I have contributed to letting the discussion get out of hand despite already seeing how my point was misunderstood, and I apologize for not biting my tongue sooner. After replying to Beth Thatch's message, only then did it dawn on me that if I continued posting, even just to clarify my point, the more will the discussion veer towards the wrong direction, obscuring my original purpose. Therefore, as again the list archives will show, I stopped posting last Sunday morning (my time) or Saturday night for some of you. I know now that if I had done this earlier, then it's possible that things would not have gone wrong as it appears to have had. From Sunday until today, I no longer post to correct misinterpretations or to thank those who have taken my point well because I was just hoping that the discussion will run its natural course and only the well-intentioned points will be remembered. I honestly did not expect things to turn out this way. These are the reasons and circumstances that have led to this message: 1. It is but fair and right that I make sure everyone, especially PDI, understands that Freedom Scientific did not tell me to post to this list, on whichever topic and particularly not the one where the BrailleNote and the PACMate had been compared, that posting was my personal choice, and that I posted as a BrailleNote user in the same way I answered the users' questions, not as the company's part-time contractor . 2. I needed to reiterate once more that I had no malicious intentions of telling BrailleNote users to jump ship and buy a PACMate, and that comparisons I have made between the two products was not something I started but only contributed to for the sake of correcting misinformation, voicing out the concerns of BrailleNote users like me who happen to have the same needs as those using other PDAs for the blind, and urging PDI to respond to these concerns. 3. I want to apologize for creating a negative impression with my use of a pseudonym that I have explained to have started with my desire to continue helping people on this list make better use of their BrailleNotes and not to damage the list in any manner. 4. I also want to apologize for not considering first the possible outcome or negative effects of my posts last weekend, which if I had carefully thought about before writing those messages, would have spared the list of a discussion that no longer reflects my original intention of speaking out as still a BrailleNote user in spite of my connection with FS which, I assure everyone especially PDI, has nothing to do with this issue. Thank you for reading this far, and again my apologies. Yours truly, Roselle Ambubuyog
