[Blindmath] Computers and data analysis software

[Andy B.]

Windows 8/8.1 can be used completely from a keyboard. It does use a touch
interface, but no worries from a keyboard point of view. The good thing is
that JAWS 15 supports touch input. Of course, it is limited in its gestures,
but it's a good starting point. If for some reason, you had to use a touch
interface, and don't have a touchscreen display, then you can turn on touch
cursor in JAWS.
I can't say much for SAS or SPS on either OS, but I do love my MAC. It is a
hard core fight between it and Windows. The only reason at this point that I
even use Windows is do to my degree program at school. All I can say, is to
experiment a little. If SAS and SPS have trials, download them for each
platform, then take them through their paces. I have found some things work
better on a MAC than in Windows, and other things work better in Windows
than a MAC.


-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Arielle
Silverman
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 11:12 PM
To: social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org
Cc: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Blindmath] Computers and data analysis software

Hi all,

I just got a postdoc at the University of Washington Department of
Rehabilitation Medicine which will start this summer! (Yay!) The job will be
data analysis-intensive. They will provide me a computer to use in my
office, but I will have to negotiate screen readers with them, and I may
decide to buy a second computer to do data analysis at home. (My current
data analysis computer is more than seven years old and I can't trust it to
meet my needs for much longer). For my own computer, I prefer a portable one
and the smaller the better.
So I have a few questions about your experiences:

1. Anyone had luck using SAS, SPSS or Mplus on a Mac with VoiceOver?
Or if I go that route, should I buckle down and learn R?

2. Anyone know if the current version of SAS (I think it's 9.4) is still
accessible? I've been using SAS 9.2 for years, and it's great, but I've
heard that the later versions of SAS put all kinds of annoying graphs into
the output. Is all that stuff still accessible or should I switch to SPSS?

3. How user-friendly is Windows 8 with the latest version of JAWS? I hear
Windows 8 involves some kind of touch input which scares me a bit.

Thanks for any advice!
Best,
Arielle

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