Hi Jean-claude and Tammi,
JCP: To me, the biggest thing for now is to get used to the way the
cursor works. For instance, I don't know how to delete characters
the way we do it in windows. IN WINDOWS, WHEN YOU PRESS THE DELETE
KEY, IT DELETES THE CHARACTER IN FRONT OF THE CURSOR. I HAVE NOT
FOUND HOW TO DO THIS YET ON THE MAC AND, TO BE CANDID, A 25 YEARS
HABIT IS QUITE HARD TO BREAK. I'M HOPING SOMEONE WILL TELL ME HOW I
CAN DO THIS BECAUSE, THE SOLE USE OF THE BACKSPACE KEY to delete
characters behind the cursor IS DRIVING ME A LITTLE coucou BANANA
WILD. AND BECAUSE OF THAT, I'M DEFINITELY NOT READY TO SWITCH MY
WORD PROCESSING ACTIVITIES ACROSS THE FENCE FOR NOW.
TK: You need to think differently when using the Mac and cursors in
general. Think of the cursor position as an Insertion Point.. As you
travel right, everything that VO passes over is read. That is, if it
passes over the word "Jean-Claude", VO will read the whole text
segment and the cursor will land just after whatever it reads. So,
whether you're moving line by line, word by word or character by
cahracter, the same type of behavior exists. Conversely, if you're
moving left, a similar behavior occurs, reading the text segment from
right to left will have the cursor land just before the the item it is
reading. The cursor, or Insertion Point, lands between characters not
on them as in Windows. Hope that clears things up for you. There is
no way of changing that behavior as that is built-in to the OS.
Tammi said: For those who use both, what are your favorite qualities
of the Mac or of Windows vs. the Mac?
TK: I find the Mac more stable, less prone to attacks and generally
easier to use. With VO being built-in to the OS as opposed to bolted
on, there is a consistency to how VO behaves within various
applications and there isn't a different command set to learn for each
app.
• What types of tasks does the Mac excell at?
TK: Audio stuff of course is high on its performance list. Quite a
number of visual things as well that are less useful to blind users.
It handles web-browsing well, eMail really well and depending on your
word processing and spreadsheet needs, it is comparable.
•
For any non-computer pros: How long did it take to learn VO well?
TK: I'm quite experienced with computers and very experienced with
macs so I can't answer this one well.
• what kind of bang I might get for my buck, so to speak.
TK: In my opinion, great bang for your buck. Considering that you
can by an iMac with the built-in screen reader just over $1000, I
think that's better than purchasing a PC then JAWS on top. The Mac
also comes with some great software already pre-installed.
Hope this helps.
Later...
Tim Kilburn
& Carter the Canine
Fort McMurray, AB Canada
