I absolutely agree to recommendation of Chromebook. The rewrite to ChromeVOx (Next) is absolutely wonderful. I've been using ChromeVox Next on chromeOS M53 on a Pixel 2 as my primary machine. FOr web app interaction, it's far better than what I've experienced on Windows and Mac screen readers.
On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 2:30 AM Simon Fogarty <si...@blinky-net.com> wrote: > Hey Chris, > > For a simple computer option what about the Chrome Book? > > It's a cheap option here in NZ > Tell them to have a look at them. > > -----Original Message----- > From: 'Chris Blouch' via MacVisionaries [mailto: > macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] > Sent: Thursday, 16 June 2016 4:13 AM > To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com > Subject: Re: any thoughts on Mac OS Sierra? > > I suspect the Mac v. Win population numbers are driven by bulk > institutional purchases. While there are a few all-Mac shops there are many > more all-Windows shops. I was just at a PTA meeting at my kids elementary > school last night where they were going to help fund buying > 60 computers for the school. Of course I would love for them to be Macs > but I also understand how painful it would be to integrate/support them in > an otherwise all Windows place. Plus they were $400 a pop with all the apps > installed. For generic web surfing and wordprocessing boxes that little > kids are going to beat up, do you really want to put pearls before swine? > You won't find wood fired chestnut pancakes or pasta ncasciata in the > school cafeteria either. For those who have thought about it and get to > choose, the Mac is a compelling solution. > > CB > > On 6/15/16 10:09 AM, Scott Granados wrote: > > No need for a sick bag here, I’m pretty much in agreement with you. > > > > Interesting you mentioned Woz. Oh how I wish his influence has > persisted. Not to date myself to heavily here but I was a huge fan of the > Apple 2 architecture. I cut my teeth on that architecture. I remember > being a wee sprout saving and saving and saving for almost a year working > random odd family jobs and such to raise the 3500 US I needed to buy the > setup I wanted. That’s when computing was still fun. Ah the things I did > with my Apple Cat modem. (I would like to personally thank who ever > thought it was a good idea to include a full function tone generator, voice > synthesizer, DTMF decoder, sampler and expansion capabilities on a modem > and the FBI would not like to thank you but that’s for another list) The > point is, that was solid thinking I coul get behind. The battle between > the Steves for the number of expansion slots, the great built in language > (Apple Soft), and on and on and on. Woz was definitely more on the > openness side and so am I so I can see your hope that he would rise again > although I’m not betting on it. > > I had the privilege of meeting him a few times once at a very > small Scotch and Cigar function with maybe 25 people. Very grounded, > friendly, unassuming guy, totally a geeky engineer which I totally dig. > Funny how opposite the two Steves were. > > > > I hope what you say comes to pass in that at least something will > persist on the notebook side. > > > > I’m a little surprised of the downfall of the mac only because of how > many are out there now. Up here anyway, every Starbucks is full of people > on Macs, huge employers are all Mac now including Fidelity and Thomson > International, and since about 2013 or so all the gigs I’ve worked on were > Mac shops not by choice but by luck. With such a hold on laptops > especially I’d think they would like to keep that but I fear your right. > The cool enhanced Unix environment is slowly being squeezed. I wonder if > there will be a day where terminal isn’t included with the Mac. I believe > that would be the day I go elsewhere. > > > > > > > > > > On 6/15/16, 6:00 AM, "Sabahattin Gucukoglu" < > macvisionaries@googlegroups.com on behalf of listse...@me.com> wrote: > > > >> Rant ahead; get your sick bags handy. :) > >> > >> Honestly, I’d be fine with trying out a giant iPad for my daily work, > if Apple were honest in acknowledging their estrangement from the Mac as a > proper workstation OS with proper character and robustness, and were > instead committed to fully transitioning to iOS for everything, because a > workstation OS is something I believe a certain class of computer users > (including me and probably you, Scott, as well) really need. A commenter > on OSXDaily ( obsolete name as of now :) ) by the name of Steve Steele ( > awesome name :) ) sums it up very well: > >> > >>> I hate that Apple has taken OS X from being a super cool and modern > UNIX workstation that started life powering Job’s NeXT Cubes, and turned it > into a candy colored silly sidekick to iOS. > >>> > >>> For a few glorious years we had Steve Jobs wanting revenge on the tech > world, and OS X was his centerpiece. > >>> > >>> Now we have Tim Cook’s macOS. > >>> > >>> I say off with his head and the rest of the focus groups inside of > Apple that have neutered our once lean and mean workstation OS. I seriously > now hope there is a coup happening inside of Apple. > >>> > >>> Woz, where are you? > >>> > >>> Stay strong osxdaily. > >> Yeah. This. A thousand times this. > >> > >> I started seriously with OS X—sorry, macOS—in Leopard, on my own > >> MacBook, in 2008 when Vista was the final straw for me and the iPhone > >> was booming. Others here will have used Tiger and maybe even the > >> classic Macintosh. Things have changed a very great deal since Jobs > >> fell in love with his newest iCreations and Apple became a consumer > >> electronics company. The neglect of the Mac has gone from being a > >> minor but understandable irritant to a full-scale domestic assault. > >> Lion was the start of it, you’re right. I should have seen that. > >> But it did offer exciting new features, and at least one of them, > >> Resume, is noticeably absent on Snow Leopard and Windows. I won’t > >> rehash my views about the systemic degradation of OS X since Snow > >> since I’ve flogged it to death on here before ( and you know how it > >> is with people who think Apple is perfect no matter what they do :) > >> ), but suffice it to say that I (and, it would appear, many others) > >> thought I was getting something better at the time Lion came out: an > >> operating system that combined the robustness of the Mac with some of > >> that rare, task-oriented simplicity and beauty of iOS. But instead > >> of a pair of operating systems each suited ideally to its tasks, with > >> its own personality and paradigm, and perhaps with the ambition to > >> benefit from the others’ virtues, or an inevitable transition to a > >> lean, mean, mobile platform that’s open enough to be used as a proper > >> computer all by itself, we get a locked-down toy OS that struggles to > >> be taken seriously as a proper computer OS, despite the fact that > >> it’s competition is succeeding it in Business (Microsoft Surface), > >> and an increasingly useless and trivialised desktop OS with nothing > >> to recommend it over the laughingstock that was its former > >> competition, and whose usefulness is severely being compromised by > >> its need to lock you in to Apple’s services, the lack of > >> upgradability of hardware, and the need for Apple’s other ecosystem > >> devices. Oh my, how things have changed … > >> > >> Still I hold out hope that the transition will eventually be > completed. The Mac will die (sorry fanboys, but it’s true) and iOS, while > it will be inferior because of its close ties to Apple, will be one > platform for doing your computing. Maybe that’s a version of reality I > could cope with. Apple would cater to the demands of the market, either > destroying the Mac’s advantages (say, by hosting services for you) or > improving the hardware. The form factor that the Mac represents, > especially the keyboard-and-mouse interface, or maybe even the > keyboard-and-touchscreen, will be catered for, as will the necessary > peripherals. > >> > >> Please dispose of your sick bags in the receptacles provided. :) > >> > >> I’m using VMWare Fusion to run the Mac VM. It’s imperfect (sound a bit > stuttery), but it works well enough. > >> > >> You can learn more about “Apple File System” (APFS) here: > >> https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/701 > >> > >> Per-object and metadata encryption, sparse files, de-duplication on > >> copy, low-overhead crash safety, snapshots, atomic directory renames > >> … good show. And yes, a very big improvement over HFS+, indeed. :) > >> > >> Just now, using APFS (on disk images and external devices) is a > dangerous and advanced business, fit only for people who have good backups > and command-line foo. If you follow that link, you’ll find documentation. > If you Google it, you’ll find lots of geeky insights, which will really > work for you if you like that kind of depth of understanding. Testing is > limited to data files; Time Machine isn’t supported yet, you can’t export > to AFP (HFS legacy, that) and you can’t actually boot the system from an > APFS volume group. But Apple says that stuff is coming. > >> > >> Object recognition in photos, like grouping pictures based on related > objects, and identifying particular objects. I’d be interested to see how > this manifests itself in VoiceOver: whether, for instance, we will hear > descriptions of positively-identified objects. > >> > >> -- > >> The following information is important for all members of the Mac > Visionaries list. > >> > >> If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, > or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the > owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. > >> > >> Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is > >> Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com > >> > >> The archives for this list can be searched at: > >> http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries@googlegroups.com/ > >> --- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "MacVisionaries" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > -- > ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ > > > -- > The following information is important for all members of the Mac > Visionaries list. > > If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or > if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the > owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. > > Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara > Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com > > The archives for this list can be searched at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries@googlegroups.com/ > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > The following information is important for all members of the Mac > Visionaries list. > > If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or > if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the > owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. > > Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara > Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com > > The archives for this list can be searched at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries@googlegroups.com/ > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries@googlegroups.com/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
