I aggree.
Ms likes to create something that is really awesome then shoot
themselves in the rear either in the current os or sometimes along the way.
On that note I don't know why ms just gets rid of its magnifier and
narater and use free opensource stuff like nvda and a magnifier it
doesn't make.
Seems it would help it a load.
Ms are trying to impliment tablets into the desktop market and I
guess in 10 years or so when every one blind included uses a tablet
touch data pad this will be second nature.
Right now though I am seriously going to just upgrade to 7, or if I
can bad and insecure that it is stay with xp.
Heck I can use vista shite that it is with classic menus!
Unfortunately I have spent to much to ever go to another os.
windows programs, readers, games, office apps, the list goes on.
If I could go back in time I'd convince myself that all ms software
was total crap and I should use macs.
ofcause I'd never play windows games, but still, apple's tablet os
seems to be better layedout than ms.
Ms unfortunately has the reputation of stuffing up and requiring to
update their stuff because its insecure.
Even uac while I like it needs certificates which most stuff doesn't
have, so its useless for general use and better switched off.
I remember having a program back in the old dos days called interlink.
With this program and its server app inter server,I was able to do
paralel and serial backups of dammaged systems.
True it took days but it still was a good thing.
Ofcause being realtime especially on 9x systems it slowed down loads
and eventually crashed the other system.
it would also render the host system unbootable if I didn't start the
server first.
The good thing and major reason I used it was that I could load it
without speech.
my host system config may look like this.
well you know what a config.sys looks like.
I only needed a device to be set for interlnk.exe and it would be fine.
In the server end in autoexec I just needed intersvr and thats all
Sadly its not that easy now.
<sigh>
At 06:12 p.m. 3/04/2012 -0400, you wrote:
Hi Cara,
Yes, Microsoft is working on improved accessibility by updating
Narrator to be more like VoiceOver, but the beta I've seen still
isn't quite VoiceOver quality. Although, some of the new voices like
Microsoft David are certainly better than some of their older Sapi voices.
They've also started the push towards UI Automation which insures a
high degree of accessibility of apps and programs in the future. So
there are certainly improvements in Windows 8.
However, in typical Microsoft fashion they take one step forward and
two steps back in terms of access. On one hand they have given us a
much improved version of Narrator, Speech Recognizer, and Magnifier,
but turn around and give us a less intuitive interface. The start
screen is laid out like a table with groups and icons in columns and
rows and it makes it difficult to actually find the program launcher
we want. We can't just press w and jump to the Wordpad icon, but
must hunt for it on the screen or type "wordpad" in the run
dialog.Its the least accessible user interface I've seen on any
modern OS to date.
On Ubuntu Linux 12, for example, in Unity we can press alt+f1 which
brings the focus to the quick launch panel. The Launcher Panel is a
nice little area on the Unity desktop to place quick launch icons
for frequently used applications and folders which is easier than
browsing the menus for the icons. Plus with the addition of the
quick launch panel we can now use the super key with numbers
1through 0 to launch apps from the quick launch panel and bring
focus to that application's window. In short, the features showing
up in Ubuntu 11 and 12 are obvious ideas borrowed from Windows 7
which are certainly good things that will pay off accessibility wise
for VI Linux users.
Anyway, I hadn't thought about picking up a used Mac Mini or MacBook
for software development, but that is a good idea. It would probably
save me some money, and as you said the Mac OS upgrades are cheaper
than Windows upgrades. So its something to think about once my
financial situation gets straightened out.
Cheers!
On 4/3/2012 2:00 AM, Cara Quinn wrote:
Hi Thomas, wow, I wasn't aware Win 8 was as crazy as that.
I thought they were supposed to be doing a big push for
accessibility and are supposedly developing their own screen reader
a'la Voiceover?
Yes?
Anyway, on the subject of Mac / iOS, remember that all the dev
tools are free so yes, it will cost a bit up front but after that,
with the exception of your developer membership ($99 per year)
everything you need to write apps is free. Plus, the Mac OS updates
are like $29 so even that is ridiculously inexpensive! :)
If you wanted, you could also look for a refurbished Mac Mini which
would be more than capable of running XCode. So you could use that
for your development machine. -Just some thoughts
Smiles,
Cara :)
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