[Pibe-division] any sugggestions Sara Rooz

[Sara Rooz]

Dear Eric:

 

Thanks for providing the pricing for the braillenote from Humanware and your experience about users learning the braillenote and pacmate omni. 

 

I will just say that I did go down to the technology center of the nfb and did sample all the note takers on the market. My main consideration to purchasing a note taker for my own personal and professional use was price,   customer support And technical support. The pacmate Omni from Freedom Scientific was the most affordable and I have been extremely happy  with the technical support if any question arises regarding my product. I used the Braille lite for sixteen years, prior to purchasing a new note taker. I was happy dealing with Freedom Scientific when issues arose with my Braille lite.  Regarding the learning curve, I was able to master how to use the mobile applications of Microsoft word and excel and  the pacmate omni's word processing  and calculator as well as how to read books I downloaded onto the unit.

 

 The main issue I realize is that all documentation of any manufacturer of assistive technology is that to learn any product one must learn how to use the product from the help file on the product or go online and use the documentation provided on the manufacturer's website. Another blind consumer and I have felt that this practice inhibits a learner to learn how to use the assistive technology product and its capabilities. This observation applies  for both the Pacmate Omni from Freedom Scientific  and the braillenote from Humanware. Humanware offers documentation for the braille note in a text format or pdf format which is inaccessible with a screen reader such as Jaws for Windows. Freedom Scientific allows the user of a product to go online at their website  documentation to be read continuously or by each topic. 

 

The best solution is for  manufacturers provide braille hard copies of basic commands of their assistive technology.

 

 I have discussed this issue with the manufacturer Freedom Scientific and have been told that an owner of a product can print into braille user documentation. As a result, I have printed the appendix of all the commands and have found it easier to learn the pacmate omni.

The braillenote does contain some problems though.  I have also been told by a consumer of the braillenote that when this product is used as a braille display for a computer the note taker freezes. Consequently, the note taker and computer have to be restarted. A blind  friend of mine used a voicenote from Humanware and found it hard to connect to many sites on the internet and download emails and read emails as well as emails with attachments. Ultimately, my friend has stopped using this product and has learned how to use Jaws for Windows to type and use the internet and read email. I do hope that humanware has been open to correcting the ability to display sites using the internet and downloading emails and reading emails whether the emails contain attachments or not. I also have heard that many customers and teachers of students that use the braillenote are not happy with the technical supportand the long timje for a unit to be repaired and shipped back to the customer  from Humanware.

Sara Rooz

Certified Teacher of the Blind and Visually Impaired in New York

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/pibe-division_nfbnet.org/attachments/20110920/15848526/attachment.html>