What specific issues are you having with safari?
--
Jonnie Apple Seed
With his:
Hands-On Technolog(eye)s
On Dec 27, 2005, at 1:49 PM, Larry Wanger wrote:
Hi,
My questions have beeen raised I guess in the email I sent a while
ago. Other than accessing word documents in Text Edit, I've not
found anything to open Excell documents and can not access news
groups. I just tried to download OSXNews and for the life of me can
not get it working. I downloaded it and an icon appeared on my
desktop. I tried to open that and got a foldder with different files
in it. I can not figure out how to install it and can not find oa
help file on the web site or in the filees that downloaded so I'm
unsure what to do.
It was suggested that II have a PC and a Mac available for me to
use. I am doing that and will continue to do so. However, its just
kind of botthersum to do so. If I could just get subscribed to the
newsgroups I need then all would be much better. having access to
Office apps or tto iWork or Appleworks would be really nice but that
isn't going to happen.
Right now if I could gett some help with this OSXNews program and get
that up and running that would be ggreat. Long-term, having some
assurance that Apple is going tto come up with some ways to make VO a
better product it would be great. Frankly, I think web access with
VO stinks badly and I can't figure out how the let it go at this.
Just some simple steps would dramaticly improve this program and I'd
like to talk to someone over at Apple about this without being told I
need to fork over $200. man did that piss me off!!! I can't stress
that enough!!! I just can't begin tto understand how some moron over
there at Apple thinks it necessary to charge that much for me to
dialogue with them about some user type issues and to get some
specific help. Itts bull. If I didn't have to wait on hold for 15
or 20 minuttes I'd call right now. I will blow a gasket though if I
set there on hold that long. I will do it though.
On Dec 27, 2005, at 11:12 AM, David Poehlman wrote:
What is so hard about os x news? also, why do you have to
completely kill the pc? Why not just use a pc for what you need it
for and the Nac for the rest?
What kinds of usage questions do you have?
--
Jonnie Apple Seed
With his:
Hands-On Technolog(eye)s
On Dec 27, 2005, at 12:45 PM, LARRY WANGER wrote:
"I find it interesting that you insist you can't do
things that folks have repeatedly stated is perfectly doable."
I'm unsure of how to respond to this. I've tried suggestions that
folks have offered. However, some of those have involved learning
how to interact with the Mac in terminal mode. Just another layer
to learn and work through and frankly getting a new computer and
switching operating systems to a format widely proclaimed to be far
better than Windows should not involve so many more steps. You may
pass this off as someone who is not a tech oriented person or
someone who just doesn't understand computers who tried this and
decided it didn't work. The truth is I've spent many hours and
worked very hard to find solutions and make this work. Like it or
not, I had far fewer problems when I was using Jaws and Windows.
Yes, security was a concern and Windows just presents a lot of
problems but the trade-off is that I was able to use it effectively.
Check out my blog at http://lsw999.blogspot.com/
Larry Wanger
----- Original Message ----- From: "Travis Siegel"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac
OS X by theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: The $199 question
OSXnews works just fine with voice over, and it's download page
isn't difficult at all to navigate. It's been mentioned here
before multiple tines. I find it interesting that you insist you
can't do things that folks have repeatedly stated is perfectly
doable.
But, to each his own.
However, I find the procare thing a bit disturbing. When I got
my mac, I was clearly told that procare would cover amy questions
I might have, including voice over related ones. I'd call apple
back, and ask if what you were told is true, it's possible the
person who said that wasn't properly informed as to the current
state of affairs.
On Dec 27, 2005, at 12:17 PM, LARRY WANGER wrote:
Well, one of the very apparent differences between my past use of
Windows based screen readers and my new experience with VO is
kind of surprising to me. There just isn't support available
from Apple.
Here is some background.
I've asked a few times about different programs that I could use
to meet my needs with my Mac and access to class newsgroups that
I use in conjunction with courses I take as well as insuring
that I have access to normally used file formats like Word,
Excel and PowerPoint. You guys have offered some good
suggestions. I can use text edit for word documents. I should
be able to use iWork or Apple Works as well for many of these
purposes but I've tested both products, Made by Apple I might
add, and neither works with VO. Additionally, I was able to
activate the Office 2004 test drive that came on my Mac and none
of the applications in that suite of programs was accessible
either.
Beyond this, I called the University technical support line to
ask what programs they support for use with newsgroups on the
Mac and they were able to suggest Thunderbird and or Onterage
which are available. I tried Onterage as said with the Office
suite and it would not work and could not get Thunderbird to
allow for access either.
Finally, out of frustration, I called Apple and tried to ask
questions, thus the subject line of this message. I was told
that because I have the Apple Care plan that I could get tech
support but the questions I was asking about VO are usage and
therefore I would need to pay $199 to talk with someone.
Guys, this is beyond ridiculous. I've been patient and worked
very hard to make the Mac work for me. I really like it too but
the bottom line here is that the computer must meet my needs and
it shouldn't be a project to make it do so. I've spent now
nearly 2 weeks with it and clearly know what I need it to do.
Unfortunately, I'm not getting it to do that. Many of you will
argue that I should be patient and keep working with it.
However, the bigger issue here is that for Apple to make it in
the blindness community and to be a mainstream product, they
must realize that probably 99% of blind people...or anyone else
for that matter, won't have the patience and tech skills to
continue to work with it. It must be user friendly and ready to
go right out of the box and folks, it isn't!!!
Perhaps in the future the Mac will make it but its not working
for me right now. Someone made the argument that it's only been
six months since VO has been available and eventually it will
get there. I'm sure this is the case but that won't help me at
this moment when I need it to work for me now. I'm really
unsure on what to do at this point but its clear that while I
can use the Mac to read and write Word documents, I can not work
with Excel or PowerPoint documents and I can not yet at this
point subscribe or work with newsgroups for my classes. Someone
suggested using Snownews but remember, not all of us understand
this advanced garbage that was on the page there and I could not
even tell which version to download.
I'm trying to balance maintaining a clear overall picture of my
experience here which has been relatively good with the major
short- falls that I find with some specific issues I've got.
Realize though that one buys a computer to perform specific
tasks for them. I clearly know what I need to do with it but
the Mac thus far is not allowing me to do so. I'm increasingly
unhappy with it and may in fact need to return this. I expect
some of you to have some sharp reactions to this.How could
anyone go back to a PC after experiencing the Mac? I can see
that point but if the computer won't do what I need it to do and
Apple wants $200 each and every time I want to ask a question
then what is the point. I might as well keep paying Freedom
Scientific or GW Micro the high price for a screen reader and
get support as part of that package. I fail to see how Apple
defines tech support verses user questions but maybe someone has
some insight on that as well?
Check out my blog at http://lsw999.blogspot.com/
Larry Wanger
Check out my blog at http://lsw999.blogspot.com/
Larry Wanger
