I think this would be better discussed on Techno-Chat as it is not Windows-specific. I have, therefore, re-routed it.
I looked at the Braille Edge 40 I think it was called before Gordon selected his HumanWAre product but other than the battery life, it didn’t appear to have much else to offer than did the BrailleNote. Also, the BrailleNote is the product that’s most compatible in schools which is where Gordon will be working. Therefore, it wouldn’t be necessary to have multiple driver sets installed on a laptop or PC desktop which is an obvious advantage. But functionally, the 7 apps which that device boasts is no more than what is on the Humanware product anyway. It too runs Windows CE version 6 I believe and, therefore, it has the same restrictions as does KeySoft. I’m sure the mail application is better though, I don’t think it would be worse. Humanware’s own support technicians have admitted that their mail client needs a total rewrite from the ground up. It is 20 years obsolete. But on the whole, Gordon is perfectly happy with what he has, which is the most important thing after all. He’s also getting a Focus40-Blue from Freedom Scientific because that is the only display which is going to interface with the Sara CE OCR reading machine. Now, I don’t profess to be an expert. But it seems to me that Humanware has a lot of catching up to do in a lot of respects. For example, all of their APIs are kept strictly in-house. Therefore, external developers of Windows CE applications are prohibited from developing applications for use with the HumanWare notetakers. That attitude is extremely insular, and we have told HumanWare so. There product development managers defend that policy by saying that developing all of their applications in-house avoids the possibility of the product becoming riddled with unstable applications, having the need for virus detection utilities and other Malware problems. That is probably true; but I cannot speak for other manufacturers so I don’t know. But that was the justification we received when questioning this with their technical staff. Yes, it is very true as I’ve already acknowledged that their mail client is just down right useless in lots of ways. Not having support for IMAP is simply ridiculous. In all fairness their KeyWeb browser has improved a very great deal as of the release of KeySoft 9.3.1 earlier this quarter. Their hardware platform is undeniably worthy of museum status in some respects. The Ethernet port is simply that, Ethernet instead of GigaNet. Their USB host ports are USB2 instead of USB3. Their Wi-Fi networking is only Wireless-G, which is now almost 2 revisions obsolete. However, Gordon says that the Perkins-style keyboard on the BrailleNote Apex40BT is beautiful to use. It’s simple, yet functional. The command set is logical and, therefore, easy to remember. So yes, we fully acknowledge that they could do better in many respects. But HumanWare does have a very solid base in terms of compatibility and reliability. The education sector here in the UK has been using HumanWAre’s products for many years now. That’s probably why it is rare to encounter any other in V.I departments here. Lynne On 26 Oct 2013, at 16:12, Dane Trethowan <[email protected]> wrote: > No, I'm not paid to advertise these products, I'm posting this link as a > matter of interest for others who are in the market for some of the most > powerful and accessible Note Taking etc devices on the planet. ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
