Well, after two weeks of waiting, I've received my BrailleNote QT. After
working with it for a couple of hours, I have some fixed feelings.
I'll be the first to admit that the new Braille display is quite nice, being
crisp and quiet. The Keynote Gold speech will be something to get used to,
as in my opinion, I have been spoiled by JAWS and Eloquence. Perhaps I need
to fiddle with the pitch a bit.
My main disappointment was how long it appeared to take to load documents
into Keyword or Keybook, especially from a compact flash card. Granted,
there is mention of large documents taking a while to load, and a couple of
the books I tried were anywhere from 700k to 1.5 megabytes as text files. On
average, the larger files took around 30 seconds or more to load from a 40x
compact flash card. To be fair, it was a little less in loading time when
loading from the flash disk, perhaps around 15 seconds or so. I'm not sure
if this is a software or hardware issue.
I'll keep working with it some more. Playing devil's advocate, I'd be
curious to learn if this speed issue is similar when working with the
Pac-mate, whether loading a file from a compact flash card or from its own
flash memory, and might take a look at a Pac-mate to compare and contrast.
Regards,
Chad
----- Original Message -----
From: "Londa Hauser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Braillenote List'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 9:42 AM
Subject: RE: [Braillenote] Wireless cards and getting around lack of Usb
port
You can use a usb to serial converter. They don't cost much, and they
work
well. I have a laptop with no serial port and connect to the bn with the
converter fairly easily. Hope this helps.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chad Fenton
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 9:22 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Braillenote] Wireless cards and getting around lack of Usb
port
Greetings, listers. My name is Chad Fenton, and I will be receiving a
32-cell BrailleNote QT within a couple weeks. I had a couple questions I
wished to pose to the list.
It is my understanding that, with the release of Keysoft 6.1, there will
be
the ability to connect to the Internet wirelessly, provided a network has
been set up either in the home, at work, or via a wireless hotspot.
However, I believe that only certain wireless cards have been found to
work
with the BrailleNote, unlike the (Pssst, Pac-Mate), which seems to be more
accomodating to a wider variety of cards. Believe me, it wasn't an easy
decision between the BrailleNote and Pac-mate, but in the end I thought it
was better to use a laptop for the full version of JAWS, Microsoft Office,
etc. rather than a stripped-down Pocket version in the Pac-mate.
At the present time, can anyone recommend a good wireless card that will
be
compliant with the BrailleNote? Of course, if it adds 100mb of flash
storage as well, that's a nice addition. I did find a fairly good deal on
a
Sandisk 1gb compact flash card for $108 American dollars off of eBay, so
perhaps extra storage isn't a necessity. I couldn't pass up this deal, as
it would have been twice that amount ordering directly from Sandisk, and
because my book collection is around 600mb, but I digress.
My other question deals with a USB port, or rather, the lack thereof on
the
BrailleNote Bt and Qt models. Is there a way to get around this? I
suppose
that even a USB hub requires a USB port to connect it to, but just
wondered
if any geeks out there knew of a way to work around this issue. If, like
the Braillenote Pk, the Bt and Qt models had USB, bluetooth, and wireless
connectivity, then it could connect to almost anything. Of course,
Keysoft
6.1 will offer wireless, with bluetooth possibly coming in the next
release,
so that's a partial compensation. USB seems the only connectivity issue
that the Pk has and current models of the BrailleNote don't.
Any help with these two questions is appreciated.
Regards,
Chad
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