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A couple things here, I've said this before, and you can disagree, but as the population ages there will be more and more people who may have disabilities. This is going to create problems in the near future, if things don't improve especially in the arena of new tech. Also, personally for me, Windows is alright, although it'd be nice if the recovery environment were accessible ,but that's a small thing. Current tech as it stands? At least we can do stuff even if it might be a bit limited and even that, I feel, is a personal viewpoint. Finally and this is meant with respect, while it is great that you are able to compile and stuff, not everyone is, so we're stuck with what we have. And while I do agree with you to a point about planned obsolescence, it's just the nature of the world we now live in, things break down, malfunction etc and we have to keep up, whether we like it or not. Just my thoughts, Josh On 11/24/16, Travis Siegel <tsie...@softcon.com> wrote: > X-SpamDetect-Info: ------------- Start ASpam results --------------- > X-SpamDetect-Info: This message may be spam. This message BODY has been > altered to show you the spam information > X-SpamDetect: ******: 6.0 sd=6.0 Close nspam=0 nok=1 0.00 > 0.94(X-LangGuess:English) 0.90(X-NotAscii:utf) 0.14(X-SpamContent:clean) > 0.85(X-Verify-SMTP present) 0.20(X-Phrase:clean) 0.70(X-myrbl:unknown) > $0.64(X-PhraseHits:scam) Sane2 6.0 > X-SpamDetect-Info: ------------- End ASpam results ----------------- > > I do not have a modern up to date mac, the newest one I have is a 2008 > macbook. I've been increasingly puzzled by apple's propensity to remove > functionality with each update of their hardware. It seems to be a > growing trend. Back in 2005 when voiceover was first announced, I was > very happy, and jumped into the mac with both feet. However, at the > time, I spoke (to multiple people) that I was afraid that this > accessibility thing apple was doing was going to begin with a bang, then > slowly fade out, leaving the mac unusable for any serious work. It > appears that is exactly what has happened, and I've not seen it, because > I haven't been able to afford an upgrade to the newest macs, so still > work on 10.6 and 10.7 with my ancient macbooks. I've also spent the > last 2 or 3 years macless, because all of mine had slowly broken down, > and being unable to replace them, I simply moved to other devices. > While IOS seems to be usable still, I have to wonder how deep this rot > goes, and if it will infect the IOS brand of devices as it has the OSX > brand of devices. I sincerely hope not, but one thing that has always > irked me to no end is the whole planned obsolescence thing. Seriously, > what's wrong with my 2008 macbook? Nothing at all, but it won't run the > newer os versions, it won't run most newer software, it won't do half > the things it used to do, and why? For no other reason than apple > decided to make it that way. Well, it's not all apple, but developers > aren't going to support something that the parent company doesn't have > any interest in anymore. This doesn't just apply to apple, windows is > guilty of this too, but that's neither here nor there. I've been quite > happy on my linux boxes every since I first installed linux way back in > 1995. I've never been forced to update my linux box if I didn't want > to, I could continue using the programs I had, continue using the setup > I had, and it just worked, and none of this planned obsolescence > nonsense to break my linux box because a new release came out. I have > of course updated over the years, and still update regularly, but rarely > does a linux upgrade cause anything as significant as a program no > longer working due to different os requirements. Sure, upgrading from > libc to glib broke some things, but those were easily recompiled, > replaced, or updated. Kernel versions sometimes require changes in > code, but nonetheless, all the programs I like to use still work, and > I'm pretty much still using the same programs in 2016 that I used in > 1995, albeit newer and more updated versions of said programs. That > just plain isn't possible on these commercial alternatives such as OSX > and Windows. Why is that? Well, there's lots of reasons, but it's > largely the fault of the manufacturers of these operating systems. You > just can't use a windows 95 program on windows 10, and perhaps expecting > that is silly, but I can still go get a copy of a program on linux that > I compiled back in 1995, take the source, make a few updates to allow > for different c compiler excentricities, and have a working program in a > matter of minutes (or hours for some of the more stubborn conversions), > and that just isn't possible under normal circumstances under windows or > OSX (though if you're talking terminal apps on osx, it is still > doable). I understand progress, and I generally have no problem with > progress, but (as I've said for years and years) removing functionality > is not an upgrade, but that's exactly what most of these companies do. > How many times have you updated a program only to find it no longer does > this or that, while it adds many other things, what is wrong with > keeping it behaving similar to the way it did before? I don't know why > manufacturers feel this is necessary, and I honestly don't think it > helps anybody (except the manufacturers), but it's become so ingrained > in our population, folks have come to expect it. > > A lot of people say it's stupid to expect things to work now the same > way they did 10 years ago, and if you use windows, you're right, but if > you use linux, bsd, sunos, solaris, aix, or any other unix variant, > guess what? That's exactly what you can expect, and I'd wager, that's > exactly why those operating systems are still around. > > Agree or not, (and neither view makes any difference to me) you can't > argue with the mere fact that windows and osx change considerably > between releases, breaking lots and lots of software people depend on. > Each new release requires updates before the applications work again. > > I don't have this problem with linux. Sure, there's exceptions, but in > general, I can upgrade my kernel anytime I like, and expect my apps will > still work as they did before I did that upgrade. It's not impossible to > write programs that will work on windows 95 (even today) but ms doesn't > want you to do that, so they make it difficult. However, powerbasic > (http://www.powerbasic.com) still produces the smallest executables in > existence on windows machines, and (provided you don't use any windows > version specific calls) a program you compile on your windows 10 machine > will still run on a windows 95 machine in exactly the same manner. > > So, it is possible to build things that work, but the way things are > built on windows work hard to preclude that possibility as much as > possible. It's just the way windows environments are setup. Apple does > the same thing, and again, it's just the way the environment is setup. > > I'm not saying which one is better, owrse, or indifferent, but I know > which one I prefer, and of course folks are free to choose anything they > like when it comes to operating system, but to be 100 percent honest, > I'm not the least bit impressed with the current state of technology and > accessibility on either of the major platforms these days. > > I'm an oddball I know, but I much prefer my linux machines to either OSX > or windows, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. However, > I'm saddened by the decay of accessibility under OSX, and the lack of > accessible programs on windows to do many many things I can do with ease > on linux. I know loads and loads of people will disagree with me on > this, and that's fine, but again to be perfectly honest, I don't believe > windows or OSX is anywhere near as accessible as either one of them > could be, especially considering they both have had multi million dollar > companies pushing them for years and years. > > Linux has been handled by individuals, and while corporations have > helped (and in some cases) helped a lot, It's pretty sad to see linux > being just as accessible as OSX and windows, and it hasn't had the > resources of major multi million dollar companies put into the effort. > > says to me, that these companies perhaps haven't made the best use of > the resources as they otherwise might have, and (as we see with apple) > they aren't keeping it as high in their priority list as they probably > should. > > There's way more to write on this topic, and I could probably go on and > on for pages and pages, but there's really no point. The sad fact of > the matter is that none of the currently available options are as good > as they should be, and it's a damn shame that disabled individuals are > being left behind (again). > > I love my macs, as old as they are, and I love my linux machines, (both > the old and the new ones), and while I am beginning to like my windows > machine, I'm not real hopeful of ever coming to love it, or the newer > mac machines either, and that is just sad. > > > > On 11/24/2016 11:23 AM, David Griffith wrote: >> X-SpamDetect-Info: ------------- Start ASpam results --------------- >> X-SpamDetect-Info: This message may be spam. This message BODY has been >> altered to show you the spam information >> X-SpamDetect: *********: 9.0 sd=9.0 Close nspam=1 nok=0 1.00 >> $0.03(dnswl_none) $0.95(*:pills) $0.95(X-PhraseHits:pills) >> 0.94(X-LangGuess:English) 0.90(X-NotAscii:utf) $0.85(X-Verify-SMTP >> present) 0.20(X-Phrase:clean) $0.70(X-myrbl:unknown) $0.46(spfpass) >> X-SpamDetect-Info: ------------- End ASpam results ----------------- >> >> I agree wit the bulk of what he says but I suspect he will still get >> abuse from the Apple Fanboys for whom Apple can do no wrong. >> I personally went into Mac in 2011 and invested heavily in it, both in >> terms of money and time to learn the OS and apps. >> I spent a lot of time producing Podcasts to assist people with using parts >> of of the OS. I was determined to find at least as much functionality on >> the Mac OS, as I had on Windows. >> >> My ambition was to leave Windows as my main computer and migrate as far as >> possible to the Mac and use that as my main machine. >> >> Unfortunately this did not prove to be possible and particularly during >> the period of submitting my PHD over 2012 and 2013 there was far too much >> clunkiness with accessibility for me to realistically use the Mac as my >> main machine. >> >> Some features after a long period were introduced, such as Table support >> in Pages, but by the time they had got that together I had to dive back >> into Word for over a year to get the bulk of my PhD written so suddenly >> switching to Pages made no sense at all. >> >> As far as I am aware there is no Mac based accessible Office Database >> solution, the previous otption of Bento having apparently broken >> accessibility some years ago. >> >> I also sadly found that things that were free or very cheap on Windows >> cost serious money the Mac side. Daisy reading support, free even with >> demo versions of Jaws, cost 3 figures on a Mac. The free otption on the >> mac, whose name I cannot recall was not a serious otption and rapidly >> ceased development. I spent quite a lot of money on app like IDEG Tag >> Edit but if I am honest these apps still cannot compete with the free >> Windows utilities like Mp3Tag for efficiency and ease of use. >> >> Accessibility Apps like GhostReader on the Mac lack basic functionality >> compared to Wimndows equivalents like TextAloud. I was surprised to find >> that Ghostreader could not even create an mp3 version of spoken >> text. When I contacted the developers about this they were unaware that >> many specialist Blind Talking Book players like the Plextalk devices did >> not support the m4a format they were outputting to. This sadly re-inforced >> to me that in many ways Apple driven development on the Mac was not for >> the mainstream but aimed more at the shiny and stylish and probably >> geeky. >> >> I like Jonathan find Apple Mail almost unusable in conversation thread >> view because of the tedious reading out of all recipeients before giving >> me the subject of an email. I do not use Classic view for other reasons. >> The only time I use Classic view is when I need to locate a mail sorted by >> sender with first letter navigation, though why they should not provide >> this functionality after all this time in modern view is still baffling >> to me. >> On most occasions I use Apple Mail on my Mac I have to restart Voiceover >> in order to regain proper cursor tracking when reviewing my email >> messages. >> >> Throughout the entire life of El Kapitan I was unable to use iBooks for >> reading as it constantly spat busy at me when I tried to interact with the >> reading area, though to be fair this does appear to have been fixed in Mac >> OS Sierra with busy far less common now, but it took over a year to fix >> what was a basic function for a blind person, reading properly electronic >> books on a Mac. >> >> It mayh be that my iMac machine is getting old now but it still has a 256 >> GB SSD and 16 GB of Ram along with a processor upgrade when the machine >> was purchased allied to an secondary 2 TB data internal drive .. >> Despite deliberately overinvesting in the hardware web surfing with Safari >> nowadays is a bit of a nightmare. I am constantly assailed by Voiceover >> announcing busy or Voiceover restarting itself. >> >> When I got my Mac in 2011 with Lion Safari was pretty much a joy to use, >> fast and rapid in its execution. >> >> Like Jonathan I still enjoy the Reader function but even this is far more >> laggy than it used to be. >> >> The rest is a bit shakey. >> When I first got my Mac reading PDF was pretty easy, though support for >> tagbged elements was not there. >> All through El Kapitan I found it impossible to use Preview, no matter how >> many times I interacted with the text and in the end resorted to using >> Nisus Writer Pro for reading PDF documents. I recently trialled PDF Pen >> Pro but considered it so far short of free options on Windows it would be >> ridiculous to purchase it. >> >> there is no doubt that I love using Mars Edit but I now conclude, again >> like Jonathan, that it is ipossible to reliably create blogs with it. I >> now routinely create my blogs in Word on Windows. Save to iCloud Drive, >> open in TextEdit and then copy and paste directly into Mars Edit for >> publishing. However I did not pay over £2,000 in 2011 for a machine where >> I had to undertake these clumsy work arounds for an accessible >> experience. >> >> >> David Griffith >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Dane Trethowan [mailto:grtd...@internode.on.net] >> Sent: 24 November 2016 12:41 >> To: techno-chat@techno-chat.net >> Subject: [Techno-Chat]: Article: Saying Goodbye to the Mac – Mosen >> Consulting >> >> Yet again another interesting and thought provoking post from Jonathan. >> I use a Mac Mini here though not exclusively. >> Whilst I don't do a lot of the sort of work Jonathan does I can see many >> of his points, I agree with some and disagree with others however - as >> Jonathan states - everyone needs to make the choices in technology that >> are best for them. >> Can I see the day when I myself will be parting with my Mac machine? >> That's a difficult question to anser I work pretty much 50-50 on both Mac >> and Windows machines and I also have a Virtual Windows machine set up on >> my Mac Mini from which I work. >> I've integrated all my machines and devices as best I can which helps. >> Anyway enjoy the read, its rather a lengthy one but worth the time and >> trouble to read. >> http://mosen.org/saying-goodbye-to-the-mac/ >> > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > >
