Hi Christian, just to address a few of your points, as far as
security goes, I personally haven't seen all that much that needs
addressing by Apple aside, of course, from the recent talk of the
virus on some porn sights which a user would need to actively allow to
install, and I believe there are a few others out there, but not many,
to be sure. However, other listers who've kept up with this sort of
thing would most certainly be able to speak more on this, I'm sure...
As far as SW development, I'm not set up to do so yet on this
MacBook, but should be, relatively soon, so will keep you / the list,
up to date with my experiences...
RE: E-mail / web browsing; My personal experiences with Mail, as it
relates to Apple Mail, which I like a whole lot btw, have been very
good. I'm a eudora user on the windows side and really need to deal
with high volume quickly. Mail allows me to do this, much the same as
Eudora but with *much* more stability and with some very nice
additional / useful features. VO works *very* well in context with
Mail, however there are a couple of aspects of it (VO) that are a bit
unwieldy in my opinion, but I'll get into that below.
So on to browsing then; I'm quite impressed with Safari and
particularly it's download speeds for web pages. So far, for my own
uses, I'm able to access the content I need, with a semblance of the
speed I'd be able to with JFW / IE, but it's somewhat cumbersome with
VO, though I need to be clear here and say that I think the
improvements with Leopard in this regard are absolutely worth the
upgrade, aside of course, from the recent talk of the form
oversight... I do think that that particular bug will probably be
going away soon though, as it seems Apple is doing it right in terms
of taking care of issues and creating useable and intelligent upgrades
though... So we'll see...
So the reason I say browsing in my opinion, is a bit cumbersome, is
partially because of my own personal browsing style as well as my
general style of working with a computer / screen reader combo. so
take from this, what you will. :)
VO in my opinion, is both amazingly powerful and annoyingly
cumbersome. I have been an Outspoken for Windows user for a while,
before I switched to JFW. (because it is the only screen reader which
gave me enough access to flash content for my work) In my experience
with OSW, I really loved the way it relied heavily on the mouse cursor
and physical layouts of windows. i was able to have access to apps
that people swore up and down, were *totally* inaccessible. In my
opinion, VO allows quite a bit of this same flexibility in the way it
shows the info in a window, both in the sense of showing the 'visual'
layout and also synopsizing the sections of a window into elements and
areas that can be interacted with if a user chooses to.
This is an absolutely wonderful approach to dealing with layout in
my opinion, and one which I'm really looking forward to seeing how it
develops further...
For one thing, having access to tool bars for apps on a regular
basis is awesome! I use them all the time!...
Now, I do feel that the actual way in which this is implemented needs
to be tweaked a bit, as it sometimes seems a bit flakey /
unpredictable, which is partially why I say browsing can be a bit
slower. I may go to a particular page, that I frequent, but instead
of being placed into the content area, as I usually might be, I may
instead, need to actively interact with said content. So this
unpredictable behavior I feel, needs to be fine tuned a bit...
It can cause me to get lost a little, and for doing something like
browsing, that's not always a real good thing! lol! It can really be
a pain when you're trying to get something done quickly... :)
the other annoyance with Safari / VO (and this is a biggie for me)
is that as yet, it will not read a web page straight through, which,
in my opinion, is simply a must have in the long term for me to feel
comfortable browsing...
this seems to be simply something that apple will need to look into if
it is to be resolved, and I do feel that this will be resolved.
Again, this is just my own style of browsing but for me that's pretty
important. <smile> :)
Now, as I'd mentioned above with Mail; while the interaction issue is
not nearly as flakey, it still does crop up from time to time, but
doesn't slow me down nearly as much as with Safari, but I still feel
it could be a bit better...
So my other issue with VO, really comes from my own personal style
of working with a computer, in the sense that I absolutely
*can*not*stand*key*commands*!!!!!!! :) lol! Other than the
occasional short cut to a mail box or such, I really despise having to
remember / think of hot keys or key combos or anything relating to a
command line to get something done quickly! lol!
I love a GUI with menus and buttons with big happy friendly words
and phrases on them to tell me exactly what they do! so I'm very much
a visual user in the non-visual realm so to speak. <smile> :) I
love the mouse, I love to know what a window looks like, and I love
being able to simply move a cursor somewhere and click on something in
the simplest and quickest way possible...
So, a downfall for me, with VO, is that in my opinion, it has some
extremely cumbersome / complex key commands. Just the command to
click on something can take three keys at least. Now, having said
this, one can lock two of those keys, which is a *huge* help, and a
saving grace for me,but there are still way to many keystrokes for my
comfort.
Now, I am still learning VO, and there certainly may be a few ways
of doing things with it that may be easier, which I haven't found yet,
and I'm sure that it will continue to be streamlined and developed
further, which I'm *really* looking forward to, as it's mouse support
now is very , very good. So even with my above comments, I am feeling
very positive about VO and where it's heading and the level of access
it's enabling. So as I said, please do take what you like from this.
<smile> :)
I do hope my note helps you out, and please do feel free to send
along further questions if you'd like...
Have an awesome day and chat with you soon!...
Smiles,
Cara :)
On Nov 11, 2007, at 10:02 PM, Christian Gerhardt wrote:
Good morning folks,
I am following your discussions and flamings about how usable
leopard might
be, but I can't see anyone telling what really works and what not.
Althoug flmae wars might be amusing, it is of little help for those
who try
to decide buying a mac machine. I could go to an apple store and ask
them,
but I don't expect them to know the grade of accessibility and I
wouldn't
ask someone who wants to sell me something about it :-)
So I ask you all... do you feel able to work with leopard daily and
are you
able to solve _all_ your computing problems with the system? Is
someone
willing to be honest and tell potential new mac users what they can
expect?
And would you please don't stop people saying what they do not like
about
the system. Noone can build his opinion if 'negative' statements are
supressed. I suppose it to be counter productive and I suppose
further that
this is not, what people want inside this community, but maybe I am
wrong.
I want the _real_ picture or at least the picture about leopard that
is as
real as possible :-)
Special points of interest concerning your most wanted answers are:
-handling of security holes (how long does it take apple to fix
issues)
-accessibility of web browsing with safari
-accessibility of mail using s/mime
-support of IDEs (software development)
and of course everything you might consider interesting :-)
_every_ response (spam excluded) is most appreciated.
Regards,
Christian
