[gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops

Sun Aug 16 04:02:47 UTC 2009

Dave,

I'm intruding again. Sorry. But in my case, I can count three sighted 
friends who love their mac laptops, only one of whom, a professional 
musician, has his because that's where the action is for some very important 
music editing and composition programs for serious musicians. the others are 
a lawyer and a journalist. They don't really need a Mac, they just like that 
it's rebellious and cool and not involving kissing Bill Gates's butt. Which 
I can appreciate. but my main personal tech support friend is a Windows guy, 
and that's a critical thing right there. In fact I have a second friend I 
could call upon who's also an I T professional if I needed to, but he  too 
is a Windows guy. he's a systems administrator and my main guy is a 
programmer. Getting a Mac would just be a little suicidal, I'm afraid.

Just thinking aloud.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops

Doug:

Good message -- I would add one point / question.  What are the
people who can help you using?  You, any of us, or most of us need
support, and if you have Mac support, and it works for you go for it,
but if all your friends and relatives are using Windows, stay with it.

Dave

At 03:36 PM 8/14/2009, you wrote:
>I don't think nearly all blind Mac users are techie types.  VoiceOver
>is fairly powerful but not as powerful as JAWS at this point, but I
>suspect it's the techie types that would want the power. :)
>
>That said, I still think the question of whether you should use a Mac
>or a Windows machine is not so much about general accessibility, but
>more about accessibility for the specific things you need to do.  If
>you need to browse web sites, you can do that on either platform.  I
>find the Mac's Safari slightly faster at filling out Peapod orders and
>quite effective on Youtube, but I'm faster at managing company time
>sheets in Internet Explorer under Windows.  Editing works in both
>places, though you have to understand the difference between how the
>Mac and Windows assistive technology reports the location and
>navigation of the cursor.  If you actually need to handle a lot of
>Microsoft Office files, I think many can be viewed on the Mac but not
>written there accessibly.  Other applications like mail, instant
>messaging, calendars, audio editing, scanning, etc., I can't comment
>so fluently about.
>
>So I would recommend this process for deciding which platform to stay
>with:
>
>1. List the things you need to do with it, including file formats
>where applicable.  Example:  Read and write Word .docx files, read but
>not write PowerPoint presentations, handle mail, fill out web forms,
>manage appointments.
>
>2. For each of those, find out how well they can be done with
>assistive technology on each platform.
>
>3. Weigh in the inevitable money factor to settle any ties. :)
>
>On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 12:11:47PM -0400, albert griffith wrote:
>A few weeks ago I discussed the Mac Verses Windows question thoroughly and
>decided I'd wait until next year at the least.  The group of successful
>users is mainly comprised of techie types.  Before I hoist Windows in to 
>the
>rafters I want the Mac software to be fully operational.  I don't believe
>this will be true until next year at the earliest and I can afford to wait
>since I have one notch left on my  SMA for my copy of jaws.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>Behalf Of Les Kriegler
>Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 5:49 AM
>To: 'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'
>Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops
>
>Hi Joel,
>
>Interesting you're bringing this up.  Actually, I've decided that when the
>upgrade to the Mac Operating System comes out, I'm purchasing a Mac laptop.
>Many of their laptops come with 4 Gigs of memory, and I plan to install
>Windows 7 on the laptop as well.  There is software that allows one to
>switch back and forth Between Mac and Windows without the need to re-boot
>one's system.  So I'm taking the plunge, likely next month.  I've started
>reading up on the Mac and on the screen reader called VoiceOver and I like
>what I've read thus far.  Obviously, I cannot give you impressions of using
>a Mac yet, although I've confident I'll learn it when I start working on 
>it.
>I took a year to learn Doss, I'll invoke the same plan with learning the
>Mac.  Eventually, I hope to be in a position to train others, as I suspect
>there will be a need for this to occur.
>
>Les
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
>Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 2:16 AM
>To: GUI-Talk
>Subject: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops
>
>as I've sort of watched the Mac evolving over the past couple of years in
>the sense that its operating system seems to be getting close to achieving
>self-voicing screen reader capability that an experienced jaws guy like me
>might be able to take seriously, I'm asking for some thoughts.
>
>Aren't there a couple of folks on this list who actually, already, *are* 
>Mac
>desktop or laptop users? How do you folks like your Macs? And Albert, I 
>know
>you've been toying with the idea of going Mac, same as I'm expressing now.
>Just seems interesting to think about, now that I allow myself. This in
>spite of the fact that I have Jaws 11 already paid for on my SMA, but my
>goodness. I guess if I could get myself a brand new computer that didn't
>heed it, would be nice to give away my old PC with new Jaws on it. To the
>Braille Institute or something.
>
>Nice ,anyway, a thought experiment. How about it, Mackies?
>
>I have one more question, also to do with my daydreaming, but I'll post it
>separately.
>
>
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>--
>Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
>SSB BART
>Group           doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com   http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
>"While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was
>done." --Helen Keller
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