I know this sounds silly, but when ever I think of this debate, I always get
this amusing commical picture in my head of some misguided sighted people
writing articles supporting the major corporations who make screenreaders
against the blind consumer, for the simple reason that these corporations
apparrently employ quite a lot of blind people, and are, you know, working
for the blind. Imagine something like this:
Screenreading manufacturer propaganda
"X is a entrepreneur, he is blind, and he set up the company manufacturing
the screenreader using all his effort and strength. Now suddenly, the big,
nasty Microsoft is trying to close X and his business down by manufacturing
their own one, and by doing this, X, who knows exactly what blind people
need, and really, contrary to what some people think, actually doesn't
charge that much, considering the huge amount of work X puts in to really
help and understand the blind, etc."
Ari
----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh de Lioncourt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by
theblind" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: Hi
Hi Greg,
I tend to agree with you. Windows is one of the few OS that doesn't ahve
a workable screen reader included. More likely, I think, is that
Microsoft will license a third-party screen reader, or even buy out the
company, and include it as part of the OS. We'll see.
On Apr 13, 2007, at 8:35 AM, Greg Kearney wrote:
The problem that Microsoft now faces is related to its near monopoly
status. But I doubt that if they were to provide a screen reader they
would be in any kind of serious trouble. I fully expect that with in a
few year a screen reader will be just a part of any OS and the third
party screen readers will just go away.
THe biggest technical problem with third party screen readers is they
break with each now release of the OS.
Greg
On Apr 13, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Ari wrote:
If I can do most things with VO, I think I'd rather take the chance.
Especially because JFW and all other screenreaders are so expensive,
it's probably worthwhile trying to learn VO, also considering the thing
which I find the most brilliant: that I can go to any sighted person's
Mac, and, because I've learned VO, I can use it just like that. It is
also a good thing to learn the other operating system's screenreader,
since then you can use it whenever you need to anyway. I also heard the
Narrator story, and, I don't know if this is true, but I heard that the
screenreader manufacturers could sue microsoft if they developed a
screenreader that was good, you guys know like when makers of things
like web browsers sued microsoft because of the incorporated browser
and stuff, I suppose that's what screenreader manufacturers would do?
But John, you do have the point, I need to be as productive as I am
with the windows system, in that my documents and assignments need to
look good, and I can be able to do most things.
Ari
Ari
----- Original Message ----- From: "Alastair Campbell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X
by theblind" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: Hi
John Heim wrote:
Wow... I totally disagree that voiceover is easy to llearn when
compared to jaws.
I was in a similar position, and wrote this:
http://www.nomensa.com/resources/articles/accessibility-articles/
screen-reading-with-apples.html
(Which although some things are easier than I previously thought, it
is still fair to say that application support is still somewhat
lacking, depending on what you do with it.)
I kept going, and created this help guide:
http://alastairc.ac/notes/osx/voiceover/voiceover-basics/
I suspect that (like me) a lot of the issues were more to do with
differences in OSX and how they impact keyboard controls rather than
the screen reader itself. It's a fine line, but an important one.
Voiceover has a lot of potential, I'm definitely looking forward to
the next version
(http://alastairc.ac/2006/08/the-potential-of-voiceover/).
Oh, and I made a backup of the Voiceover wiki before it disappeared,
is it worth putting back up?
Kind regards,
-Alastair
