In message <
[email protected]>, "J. P. Gilliver
Thanks - she'd already downloaded it, as it happens. (And my other
friend had sent it on a CDR as well as the official 1.1.1 CD, but the
CDR wouldn't read.) I don't think any licence keys are involved - it
being part of a package, you have to have bought the hardware for it to
be that useful. I suppose the OCR software could thus be used free with
images from other sources, but that wasn't our intention.
[]
I hadn't realised the EyePal uses NVDA; both of my friends have one of
the commercial readers anyway (I think they both have JAWS), so don't
actually need the speech output, though it's probably better fitted to
the hardware and software involved. (Incidentally, I've noticed that
[]
Interestingly, it spoke with different voices on the different systems -
I'm talking about the Eye-Pal software, not the already-present speech
software, though there may well have been some interaction between them.
On the Windows 7 system (which has JAWS as its basic speech), Eye-Pal
spoke in an excellent voice; on the XP system (which had some cheaper
speech - I forget the name, but it's one that goes on-line to work),
Eye-Pal spoke with a more robotic voice.
[]
The user manual claims WinXP or Vista, so that implies Vista/Windows7.
This is some text extracted from the three small PDF files in the ZIP.
"Minimum System Requirements Windows XP (recommended) or Vista"
"Note: Install Eye-Pal software prior to connecting
the Eye-Pal device to your computer"
Note that Vista is not "recommended" :-( []
The USB driver for the camera has a VID and PID and file name,
which I cannot find in Google. A complete fail. So the camera
driver may be the weak link.
Yes, seems it was - I think.
[]
In any case, I'd say you should be in for some fun. On the one
hand, the manual mentions WinXP/Vista for 1.2. But on the other
hand, the 190MB download is a bunch of pieces of a puzzle that
fit together. Increasing the odds something could break along the
way. []
If you're going to be doing "Compatibility Mode", be aware that
the 190MB package has a number of pieces. So there may be more
than one executable that needs attention.
[]
I ran out of time (when I visit them, I also fix other things - last
night this included establishing that her flatbed scanner was not
working because (a) its power lead had come out (b) its USB lead was
broken - fortunately she had another. And charging her van battery. And
trying to find why a Samsung 310 laptop was dead [not successful: its
PSU was fine, but it showed no signs of life other than a
slowly-flashing LED, orange if battery present green otherwise.
Apparently it had done, but had been running on battery, until that ran
down.]).
Anyway, here's what we found - four systems (three really).
Firstly, an XP tower system. We thought we'd try this first as we know
it works on XP. The software loaded OK; we plugged in the EyePal; the
driver loaded OK. (I should say we tried with 1.1.1, from the original
disc that had come with the scanner, and 1.1.2 from the downloaded zip -
no difference.) Run the programme: it says either "The software detects
that no device is connected" but you can still use earlier results, if
the EyePal isn't plugged in, or "camera started" if it is. When the
software starts, a sighted person sees on screen what the camera is
seeing. All appreas to be working, except that the screen shows lots of
diagonal black and white lines, like a malfunctioning TV. (No, not video
with lost lock - there was no sign of what was under the camera, though
that _could_ have been because it has some sort of self-adjustment and
it might have saturated.) The surrounding part of the display - the
menu, close buttons, and so on - were as they should be, only the part
where the camera image should be was stripy instead (or showed plain
text if the camera wasn't connected). We put some text under it anyway,
but as soon as we pressed the appropriate keys, it said "no text". I
_think_ the toggle for the light in the camera didn't work either.
Secondly, this netbook; I already had the software 1.1.2 on here, from
when my friends had shown me the device some months ago. This was really
just to check that the Eye-Pal was still working. All worked fine.
Thirdly, the Windows 7 tower. The software loaded (and runs) fine; the
driver (tried before and after plugging in the device) no luck. My
unfamiliarity with Windows 7 means I didn't find where to tell W7
manually where to look for a driver, which the (sparse) documentation
says you should do rather than let it do its automatic thing.
I looked at the FAQ on their website. One of the FAQs was do AbiSee
products work under Windows 7, to which the answer was the single word
Yes; however, I have a nagging feeling that this may not apply to the
earlier EyePal (this is a 3 megapixel one not the later 5 - I'd
established that earlier, while establishing, for the previous owner,
that it could not be used with the version 4.x software). Another FAQ
was something like "what does it mean when the software says no device
found", to which the (fairly obvious) answer was something like "this
means that the driver is not loaded properly. See loading drivers."
Unfortunately, "loading drivers" or whatever was _not_ a link, which
wasn't helpful.
The website did mention a support number (free 1-800-681-5909 for US
users); we tried it via Skype, but unfortunately there was no-one there
(we got through, just recorded announcement giving opening hours -
though it didn't say which timezone or which days of the week). My
friend may well call them again during the week: I'm assuming AbiSee's
Erica is used to dealing with blind users over the 'phone, so that
shouldn't be a great problem.
Finally, we tried a Vista system - a rather neat little Philips laptop
(11.1"), which my friend doesn't use much as it's rather slow. (She's
right - it is; not particularly slow in general, but seems to stop
responding, to do I know not what, rather a lot.) The software and
driver loaded fine (though taking ages), and the whole thing ran fine -
and, once the software had started, ran very quickly (started to speak
the text as soon as the E key was pressed). Even the light toggle
(Ctrl-L) works. (We found turning the light _off_ for glossy material -
like the back of a shiny book - made it work better, provided there was
room light; the EyePal's light is in the camera head itself, so causes a
flare in the centre of what it sees if the material is glossy. For matt
material, the light is generally better on.)
Just thought I'd report back in case anyone's interested! My friend's
off to Germany for ten days from tomorrow so nothing will happen for a
while, but I'll report further after that.
Oh, I wondered if the XP system - which seemed to think it was working
but showed stripes instead of the camera image - had a video driver
problem. I looked at what video card it thought it had, and it seemed to
think it had two, one with an extra three letters; when I looked I could
only see one card, though it does have both a VGA and a phono output
(and I think an S-video one). If I remember rightly, it was something
like Radeon 9200 SE (with its other half as something like Radeon 9200
SE DEC). I could well be remembering the number, and especially the two
and three letter groupings, wrongly - this was just a final thought
before I left. If anyone knows that this causes problems of this sort,
please share (-: [especially if you know the cure!].
