He will hate me for this, but I do tend to agree with Steve here.
If you have no alternative but to use braille input, then your choices
are limited.
But these days, a netbook or laptop are way ahead of anything else,
and yet in most cases can still support the emerging raft of very
small lightweight braille displays if you need braille output.
George.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of
Steve Nutt
Sent: 13 November 2009 20:09
To: 'Blind sysadmins list'
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins][BlindLikeMe] KapsysSigns
anAgreementwithIndependent Living Aids
Hi John,
I have to disagree with you here. The Pacmate is twice the size of my
Netbook and twice as heavy. My netbook has a perfectly usable
keyboard, much better processor, and full-blown windows XP with 160GB
of hard disk space. The Pacmate is definitely stonemasonry in my view
too.
All the best
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of
John G. Heim
Sent: Friday 13 November 2009 17:23
To: Blind sysadmins list
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] [BlindLikeMe] KapsysSigns
anAgreementwithIndependent Living Aids
Think about what you're saying, Scott. You're suggesting someone buy a
particular adaptive device to impress people? It's absurd. Yeah, I
suppose that may figure into the equasion a little but, holy cow, that
would be way,
way down my list in terms of importance.
I am not denying that the Pac Mate uses older or obsolete technology.
I said
that myself in my previous message. I am disputing your criticism of
the basic design of the Pac Mate. It does do what it was designed to
do.
Your repeated assertion that the Pac Mate was designed by stone masons
is meaningless. I made some specific logical points which you failed
to address. The Pac Mate top surface is already as small as it could
be and still have a normal keyboard and a braille display. Isn't that
true? Some people like a normal sized keyboard. Or do you think
everyone who owns a laptop is crazy?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Granados"
To: "Blind sysadmins list"
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins][BlindLikeMe] KapsysSigns
anAgreementwithIndependent Living Aids
Dude your smoking crack and not even good Oakland crack but that San
Francisco Tenderloin shwag.
The Pakmate is absolute garbage. It doesn't even do what it's
marketed for well. It's made with ten year old technology if not
more, it has the design style of a stone mason and wins the award for
the clunkiest interface ever.
If you like carrying building materials around with you then great, by
all means. I however live n the real world where we like to have cool
ice breakers, where we interact with the general population and where
we have real desires / needs spanning the intire range from
professional to social and everything inbetween. Clearly you haven't
worked in a modern engineering work place. One's gadgets are an
important (although certainly not the only part) of relationship
building. I recently started a new job and a real part of my first
day there was meeting new people and finding other gadget nuts to
exchange war stories with. Just like my sited coworkers have the
windows or b-berry / IPhone discussions I can participate as an equal
member. Your pakmate can't do this. So enjoy your outdated non
interoperable "note taker" I'm glad it works for you. I'll however
stack my netbook up against your 10 year old device any day of the
week.
;)
----- Original Message -----
From: "John G. Heim"
To: "Blind sysadmins list"
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 6:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] [BlindLikeMe] KapsysSigns
anAgreementwithIndependent Living Aids
I think you are way, way off here. What the heck do I care about
making
girls drop their panties? These are tools for petes sake? Who gives a
flying
fig how stylish they are?
And a touch screen? Holy cow! For blind people, there is no way a
touch
screen can come close to a keyboard for ease of input. In fact, there
are
people making money selling keypads for blind people to put over touch
screens.
There is nothing wrong with the basic design of a Pac Mate. The
technology
is old so it's thicker and heavier than it has to be. But other than
that,
it's perfectly fine. There is no way a unit could have a smaller top
surface
and still be as useful as a Pac Mate. I need a keyboard and an
integrated
braille display. That's exactly what the Pac Mate is. There's no
wasted
space on the top surface of a Pac Mate.
I think you're confusing the Pac Mate with a cell phone. It's not a
cell
phone. You don't take your Pac Mate with you on a date. You take it
too
meetings and to class. What you really need to do is compare a KNFB
Reader
to your ideal machine, not a Pac Mate. The Pac Mate was never intended
to do
what you want a device to do.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Granados"
To: "Blind sysadmins list"
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 1:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] [BlindLikeMe] KapsysSigns an
AgreementwithIndependent Living Aids
Oh let me clerify my blind specific comments. I wasn't really
speaking
about the software. I realize that software requires lots of
developments
with testing cycles and all number of issues from soup to nuts but the
hardware is just unacceptable. I think the folks who design these
products
like the pakmate or braille devices went to stone masonry school. I'm
going
to beat the next so called designer of a blind hardware product with
the
brick he calls his device the next time I see one hit the market.
Now to expand, I know that some folks have differing abilities and
specific physical requirements but I don't need buttons the size of my
naughty bits as an interface on a square block brick styleless blob of
(explative deleted). I have a very fine sense of touch and good
finger
skillz (lol) that I expect most braille readers have. Why not make
very
fine controls with lots of functionality. Give me some style to the
platform and for God sakes make the hardware something from this
century. I
don't want some note taker built by a highschool kid with a 6502 kit
and a
science project to complete! I seriously built equipment with more
style
and flaire in electronics lab! Give me some super thin flexable
interface
or a nice 30 inch Mac touch screen display! Give me something that's
going
to make the girls drop their panties for goodness sake! What am I
supposed
to do when chatting up a breezy pull out my trusty brick and ask if
her
phone has an RS232 port for me to plug in to so I can send her an
ASCII file
with my contact information included after I whipe it through an old
translator written under Windows mobile 2003, or bust my big bad
IPhone on
her forehead? (no IPhone doesn't mean something else) hahahaha Who
else
thinks it would be hot if she actually did have a serial to USB
adapter.:)
Ok you see my point. There's a total lack of style. I don't mean
it
has to look like the sited lets be clear it just has to either be so
functional you don't care or something jazzy. I do support though
fully the
accessible consumer devices out there. I am all about the off the
shelf
cell phone and about to jump off that in to the netbook. Give me a
nice
super thin braille display with modern GSM / CDMA or better still LTE,
a
great phone app, great interoperable text messenger, full function web
browser, modern I/O including firewire for outboard disks, solid state
disk
drive, super high res camera (20+ MP) and based on some OS that works
with
the world and I'll give you ten grand! I will not give you ten grand
for
windows mobile in a brick!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Hodgson"
To: "Blind sysadmins list"
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 7:29 AM
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