Re: frustrated with companies that Provide products for the blind
Hi,
I sympathize with you, LML. I had a simlar incident with my apex, though fortunately nothing came of it.
I got my Apex about a year ago, right before my Freshman year of college, which was quite a nasty experience the first semester, partly because of a professor who didn't understand the tremendous shock, and partly because of the tromendous shock this one professor didn't understand... Anyway, I'd just gotten a set of documents for my Western civ class, so I stuck them on a thumb drive, popped it into the Apex, and boom. Everything, and I mean everything, goes out. Tried a reset. NO go. Tried all the resets. WEll, it would say loading keysoft, and would get stuck at 10 percent. Battery was at 60 percent so I knew that wasn't eh problem. So I call Humanware, and got some Indian guy who I could barely understand, telling me that he didn't know what was going on and I had to send it in for repairs. I don't know how much it costs because t
he state covered it.
Anyway, I was getting used to using my laptop for note taking needs, and also using it for leisure needs as well... a month goes by, and no news on the Apex. Since I wasn't desperately needing it, I wasn't in a hurry for it. People kept askng me, when's it coming back? Why don't you call and ask them about it? I always told them, tey'll send it back when they're done with it. Little did I know, they probably would've kept it. When I finally called, I got a nice lady who asked me for some information, then got the shok of her life. Apparently it had been sitting for quite a while, doing nothing. I ended up getting it back in less than two weeks after that.
So, it was all fine and well, until I turned it on. I was in my jazz history class, getting ready to take notes, which I knew would be important for the final. The professor said, "you'll need this information down the road closer to the end of the semester
." So, I race through the menus, opening a document. But, big surprise. flash disk is missing from the drive list! nOw, The only thing I could do is leave the drive set to nothing. then this O U contraction sign would come up, and I could continue. hOwever, that wasn't just a little hiccup. I typed the notes I needed to, then saved the file. A day or two later, it crashed, requiring me to do a reset. This time, it did come back, but big surprise II: my file was gone. at the time, I wasn't worried, because i thought, surely I'd get another opportunity to write those notes down before they were brought to the front lines. I also thought if I fought with the Apex hard enough, Ic oudl resolve the issue. I was wrong on both counts. In a month i was back to using the laptop. People kept telling me to send it back, sendd it back. It's a $6000 device, it should work. While I agree with that reasoning, I didn't want to spend the time sending it back if it was go
ing to come back with more problems. So it sat under my bed, for months, and months, and months.
Finally at the beginning of July of tnext year, after the Apex was sitting there useless for 9 months, my tech teacher calls me. That was no surprise. His primary job is helping kids with technology, up through HS. But on the side, he also helps older adults, who are low vision, or who are in the process of losing their vision, get acquainted with technology they can use. well, one of his clients was a person who needed help with the Apex, and so he called me. He wanted to take me to the guy's house with him so we both could help him out. I warned hiom that my Apex was screwed up, but he still told me to bring it and see what happened. So, since the thing was long dead, I plugged it in, and left it charge overnight. When I come back the next morning, battery'es at 100 percent. And big surprise III: now we have a flash Disk. Apparently the thing had been so dead that everyt
hing was reset.
Now, what I really don't understand, my M Power never had any of these problems, for the 5 years I used it. I used it hard, too. The only time I had to send it in was when I accidentally dropped it, and ruined the enter key. they had to replace the spring under the key, and it was almost good as new, the only problem was that it felt too stiff, but that was because the other keys had gotten a bit flimsy from heavy use, so I was used to that flimsiness.
I really do understand that some of these things are hard, and expensive to make. I've never heard of a cheap braille display that's actually being sold yet. i know several are in the works, but until one comes out, we'll be at the mercy of the big boys, at least in that department. But, I'd think if they're gonna charge $6000, they'd better pay us back in the form of decent customer service, and decent equipment! The Goodfeel example is why I will never buy a high end scori
ng software with a high end accessibility package. If I end up buying it, it won't be my decision, and it certainly won't be my preferred software. I've found free software which meets my needs in the music department. It's not like Sebelius, Finale, or any of those, but it does the thing I want it to do, which is make great music. I wouldn't want to score my music with the huge packages because that still requires a lot of sight to make sure the score turns out. Just because it sounds right doesn't mean it looks right, and I am the last person to go to for scoring questions/assignments.
Why should I pay big bucks for accessibility when I'm probably going to ask someone sighted to help me a lot with it anyway? Okay the accessibility might help me do some things, but I'm not paying that price for it.
URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=143712#p1437 12
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