Folks: One of the major problems with any proprietary software is the problem of upgrades. I like upgrades and like to keep my system up-to-date, but should I keep paying for the license each time I do that? This is a particular problem with screen readers and OCR software. As companies working on them keep releasing upgrades or newer versions virtually once in six months, it would be harder for anyone in India to keep updating the software --it is not updating, but virtually buying the software anew each time we want to upgrade it. Upgrading is also important since each upgrade improves the performance and makes life better for us. For instance, JAWS version 5.0 had a problem with the edit fields whenever I visited search sites. I have to press enter to on the forms mode to type in the search terms. Normally the forms mode should go off once I press the enter key, but sometimes it won't go off. As a result I would find my screen reader hopelessly stuck in a kind of no man's land, muted and dysfunctional. This is often frustrating for someone who almost breathe free because there is a search site that keeps clearing your doubts that arises once in two minutes. With JAWS 10.0 (I am sure even in the earlier versions) this problem was fixed. I no longer have to on the forms mode to type something whenever I confront an edit field but simply type what I want to once the cursor is inside the edit field. Also, upgrades improves the way screen readers work with webpages, improves the way it understands words and other issues such as handling Rich Internet Applications --which is one of the problems all of us have to face. Folks at accessibility space have already worked out something called ARIA or (Acccessible RIA), which is supposed to make accessing webpages easier if they are not in simple html. But the question is, how best the screen readers -particularly the older versions- can be made to work with newer technological enhancements like AREA? I don't know if there is an answer available, but upgrading screen readers seems the most logical thing to do. And the whole thing starts once again like Sisyphean myth. Given the limitations in the number of developers for the screen readers (which I don't know how big), we don't know how things can be made better otherwise? I am not technically qualified to say if this is exactly the case, but this looks like the case to me. I would like someone to comment on this. Subramani
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