Sorry, I over reacted.
Although, I do think that it's not likely that my problems with vo are due
to having used jaws for so many years. More likely, it's that I'm learning a
new operating system and a new screen reader.
----- Original Message -----
From: "JOHN PANARESE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility look at Vista
I don't think anyone implied or said you specifically had a JAWS or
any other mindset. At least, I know that was not my intended
assumption and I apologize if I made it sound as if I had just written
your experience off as such, John. My comments were from my general
experiences in dealing with folks coming over from windows and such
screen readers as well as my own. No, my thinking is not clouded by
the Mac. In fact, my use of the Mac has truly cleared my mind in regard
to computer access and the future of that access.
It's like anything else. No solution is perfect for everyone. No
one will say VoiceOver is perfect. Are there things about it that drive
me up the wall? Of course. However, in comparing my overall experience
to dealing with Windows, it's worth the inconveniences. Maybe, some
things "don't make sense" to specific kinds of thinking, but, you know
what, there is a hell of a lot in JAWS and Window-Eyes that I found
doesn't make any more sense. It's just the nature of the beast, and,
again, based on personal impressions and reactions.
I can just tell you from witnessing it that once people toss aside the
screen reader framework, mindset or whatever terminology you want to use
and approach VO with an open mind and an honest one, they tend to get
much farther than before hand. That's just my findings and I am not at
all stating that it is the absolute rule of thumb. You have your own
experiences and your own reactions. I'd be glad to give you a hand off
list should you ever desire assistance.
Take Care
John D. Panarese
Managing Director
Technologies for the Visually Impaired, Inc.
9 Nolan Court
Hauppauge, NY 11788
Tel/Fax, (631) 724-4479
Email, [EMAIL PROTECTED] net
Internet, http://www.tvi-web.com
AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTORS FOR PORTSET SYSTEMS LTD, COMPSOLUTIONS VA,
PREMIER ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES, INDEX, PAPENMEIER, REPRO-TRONICS,
DUXBURY, DANCING DOTS AND OTHER PRODUCTS FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY
IMPAIRED
AUTHORIZED APPLE BUSINESS ASSOCIATE
MAC VOICEOVER TRAINING AND SALES
On Sep 11, 2006, at 10:21 AM, John Heim wrote:
I've used jaws, windoweyes, speakup, and emacspeak. Emacspeak is
legendary for how hard it is to learn. But at *least* if you press the
cursor arrows in a text window, it reads what is under the cursor. What
could be more basic than that?
I don't have a jaws mindset. I use speakup almost as much as I use jaws
and I use emacspeak a lot as well. I don't think the problem is my
mindset. You folks love the Mac, and that's fine. But I think it's
clouding your judgement.
----- Original Message ----- From: "JOHN PANARESE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X
by theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 6:01 PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility look at Vista
This is an excellent point. It is what I tell those who are
interested in VO or I help use it. The real obstacle the person
coming over from Windows has is tossing their JAWS or Window--
Eyes mindset out the window. It took me just a few times messing with
the Mac to learn VoiceOver, and once I entirely put aside my mental
comparisons and constant desire to have it work like Window-Eyes, my
experience improved ten fold. VO can be self- taught and, to me, it
is, overall, a far more easier system to master. Yes, this is surely
opinion based from my personal experiences, but I've seen more than a
few folks reach this point as well. to be convinced of this conclusion
Take Care
John D. Panarese
Managing Director
Technologies for the Visually Impaired, Inc.
9 Nolan Court
Hauppauge, NY 11788
Tel/Fax, (631) 724-4479
Email, [EMAIL PROTECTED] net
Internet, http://www.tvi-web.com
AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTORS FOR PORTSET SYSTEMS LTD, COMPSOLUTIONS VA,
PREMIER ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES, INDEX, PAPENMEIER, REPRO-TRONICS,
DUXBURY, DANCING DOTS AND OTHER PRODUCTS FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY
IMPAIRED
AUTHORIZED APPLE BUSINESS ASSOCIATE
MAC VOICEOVER TRAINING AND SALES
On Sep 7, 2006, at 6:12 PM, John Weir wrote:
A good deal of the difficulty for PC people is that they expect VO to
mimic jaws commands and operation. If they take the alternative view
and forget JAWS and say they are learning a new system they will
quickly find it is great and very easy to use and learn. Stop trying
to make VO act like JAWS. It took me only about 1/2 hour to get to
where it could be used and then I just learned as I went. When
learning JAWS I had to go to classes at considerable expense for at
least 10 days to get minor use of it. Vo is much easier to learn and
use and can be self taught at no cost. Vickie Weir
Darcy Burnard wrote:
Hi Harry. I'm sorry to hear that you are finding voice over
difficult to master. I've been using it for a couple of months now,
and I'm finding the opposite to be true. I've used a lot of
technologies over the years. Starting off with the Apple 2 and text
talker with the echo, moving on to dos with asap, then on to windows
and a variety of screen readers like window bridge, asaw, and
eventually jaws and window-eyes. In addition to all that, I've
played extensively with linux and speakup, before finally trying out
voice over and the Mac. In all that, the only thing I would say is
easier to learn then voice over is speakup, and that's only because
it's screen review functions are very similar to asap, and thus no
learning curve. But of all the screen readers designed for graphical
interfaces, I've found voice over to be the easiest to learn. The
main reason I think is that there aren't a lot of commands to
remember, so it was more about learning tiger then it was learning
voice over. The voice over tutorial you get when first turning on
the Mac gave me a good chunk of what I needed to know about voice
over. The rest of what I needed was found in the voice over manual,
and going through the archives of this list. Now to be fair, I had
been lurking on this list for a good year before getting my Mac, so
I had a pretty good idea of what to expect with voice over.
Obviously I'm not an expert in the Mac by any stretch of the
imagination, but in the last month or so, I have been using it
exclusively for my computing needs, with very little difficulty.
Actually that's not entirely true. I have been using windows to
play change reaction, but other then that, it's been the Mac.
Now I'm not trying to compare myself to anyone else. We all have
different ways of learning, and different things that work for us.
I for example, have never much cared for Jaws, but I know that's the
screen reader of choice for most. I mainly wrote this because I'm
seeing a lot of people saying that voice over is good, but they
wouldn't leave windows yet. I just thought I'd offer up the
perspective of someone who has recently switched over to the mac, is
loving it, and rarely if ever uses windows anymore.
Darcy
On 7-Sep-06, at 9:34 AM, Harry Bates wrote:
I agree. While I have not yet even mastered the simplest
rudimentary commands of VO, I am definitely in no hurry to discard
my JAWS screen reader and my windows system. Learning VO has
turned out to be more difficult than I imagined. I know it has to
be something real simple that keeps stumping me in the learning
process with VO and the keyboard commands, but I haven't figured it
out yet. It is probably something real simple like pressing the
spacebar at the right time or the return key or something, but what
is it? keeps stumping me. Or maybe it is making sure that all
three of the VO cursors are tethered together at the same point.
Is there a keyboard command to do that?
----- Original Message ----- From: "John Heim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac
OS Xby theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility look at Vista
David,
Sometimes it's difficult to frame a question so that it doesn't
sound snotty. But trust me, I'm really just asking...
You said:
When the make their os seriously and robustly accessible such as
what Apple has done, I'll take them seriously.
What do you mean by the above comment? Voiceover is way better
than Narrator -- you've got to give Apple credit for that. But in
large part, the blame for that probably goes to the NFB. I suppose
Microsoft could have ignored the NFB's request that they *not*
include a real screen reader in Windows but that would have been
extraordinary.
Other than that, I think Microsoft has really done an outstanding
job of making Windows accessible. Internet Explorer, Outlook
Express, and the Office suite of programs are some of the best
programs on the market in terms of working with screen readers.
And I haven't found anything in Windows itself that doesn't work
with JAWS. Everything in the control panel works great. At one
time, there seems to have been a problem with the Users widget but
that seems to be fixed. I can administer a Windows system about as
well as anybody.
Again, trust me, I'm just looking for info but it seems to me that
the best solution is still Windows and JAWS. It's *way* more
expensive but it is better. Don't get me wrong, I think Voiceover
is excellent and given that it's included, it's fantastic. I'm
trying to switch from Windows/Jaws to a Mac/ Voiceover system. I'm
just not sure that's practicle at this point.
