Joe:
I have stayed out of the discussion to this point in that I think both Sense
product complainers and Sense product defenders have points.
As you say, the BS and VS are PDA's, not full-fledged computers. Some of the
complaints (lack of Flash support comes to mind) are inherent in the PDA
experience and, in fact, are also problems with the iPhone and iPad. In
waxing vituperative on such lacks, I sometimes think we, the blind, fall
into the trap of believing that if a product is expensive (even if, as you
say, the bulk of the expense is in the braille display), automatic support
of everything from Flash to javascript to Ajax should be expected. Sorry
folks but this ain't a-gonna happen. These note-taking devices were from the
beginning, are now and ever shall be, expensive PDA's with wonderful braille
displays. Sighted folks come up against these limitations all the time; you
just don't hear about them because they just go out and buy a more powerful
Netbook or computer.
Again, I agree with you re fixing bugs. But this isn't just a problem of
HIMS or GW Micro. Lurk on a BrailleNote list for a while and you'll get an
ear-full (more of this later). My observation is that all adaptive tech
companies see themselves as walking a fine line between the need to develop
new products (read more fancy gewgaws and glitzy feature-laden products) and
the need to squash bugs in the current product line. If I were to run such a
company, I would pledge to develop only one product every three years,
spending the intervening time squashing bugs in the already-developed
products. But I can't think of a company from DDI Products (think Prodigy
Voice talking blood glucose monitor) to FS to Humanware to HIMS that carries
out this strategy. Once it is admitted that one must develop new products
even as one is squashing bugs in already-introduced products, one is
immediately faced with the problem of allocating scarce programming and
technical resources between the two tasks. I doubt that any adaptive tech
company is going to get it right to the satisfaction of a majority of its
product user base; one can't please everyone.
But back to Humanware. Almost everyone I've talked to about Humanware's tech
support and product development other than those who work for HW say that
it's getting worse and worse and worse.
The choices we face are not so much between good and bad products but
between somewhat equivalent products each of which has flaws ranging from
irritating to fatal and which of them we decide we can put up with.
Mike Freeman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Giovanelli" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 9:53 AM
Subject: [GWN] more frustrations
hello,
I have read many comments about our frustrations with the Braille Sense
products. I don't recall anything being said about the bugs which are a
part of those products. We can talk about all the great features we'd
like to see. How about all the bugs we bought when we spent our
hard-earned money. Printing is a joke. Only one PCL is supported, and
that language is as old as the hills. I can't help but thinking that
there must be a vanilla driver out there which would permit many more
printers to function. Of course, if Windows CE is upgraded, more drivers
could be installed.
I hope that HIMS will have the sense to upgrade its version of Windows the
way that Humanware did. It won't be long before HW will be able to do
lots more things than the Braille Sense products can hope to do without
that upgrade.
The Schedule Manager has its own built-in bugs.
I could go on about bugs. I have this to say. It can be a problem to
come up with new features. HIMS should know that if it does not add new
features, it should, at the very least, fix known bugs, which we
unknowingly bought when we purchased Sense devices.
I would suspect that GW sells more Sense products than most any other
company, so it should be possible to pressure them into caring about us,
the owners of these products.
GW Micro has done its great job with technical support where such support
is possible. They can't offer support in the case of products which they
do not have the source code. My hat is off to GW for putting up with all
of us frustrated users. GW is stuck with a company which apparently
doesn't care about its customers. GW is stuck and so are we.
i'm retired and do not have the money to junk my Bsp and try an Apex.
On the other hand, we should remember that we are not talking about a
full-fledged computer. We are using PDA's. Most of the money in volved
with the BSP is tied to the Braille display. If one could add Braille
displays to our netbooks, they'd be pretty expensive.
The recorder does not perform well. Even if we record a wavefile, the
frequency response is not great. I could easily hear that the playback of
a wavefile lacks highs compared to the source from which the recording was
made. I'll spare you the rest of the recorder's problems. If you can
check out a Braille Plus, you'll find an excellent revercorder, despite
that it does not produce wavefiles. The bit rate of MP 3's can be set
high enough so that the audio is substantially the same as that of a
wavefile used to produce a CD.
I do not expect Flash or Java Script support. I do have a right to have a
device which truly works as advertised.
Joe G.
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