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

Mon Aug 17 19:40:14 UTC 2009

Depending on the design of the laptop screen size in the top half of the
computer case might differ widely from the size of the keyboard in the
bottom half.

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 12:52 PM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops

Les,

Doesn't screen size also dictate body width and keyboard size? Whether with 
ith a Mac or with a PC laptop, I know I'm going to care quite a lot about 
the keyboard feeling usably big enough.
dctate Thanks. Sorry about not guessing you meant "use" rather than "see," 
before. I just wasn't inclined to second guess what I thought I was hearing,

because it made grammatical sense. That's the way my mind works. Which may 
sound thick, but what can I say.
except befgore.----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Les Kriegler" <kriegler at nycap.rr.com>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 8:55 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops

Hi Joel,

It will be a laptop.  It will have a 15 inch display to accommodate my
wife's needs, 4 gigs of RAM, and at least a 250 GB harddisk.  Rather than
purchasing from the Apple Store, I'm going to purchase from Apple directly
as I can customize the system in terms of hard drive size, something I
cannot do if purchasing at the Apple Store.  Basically, each laptop system
seems to come in 3 different models for each monitor size, 13, 15 and 17
inches respectively, the differences are in the processor speed and harddisk
size. The memory is the same in all of the laptops I've seen, 4 GB which is
exactly what I want.  If you go to Amazon.com, you can view the various Mac
laptop configurations.

Les

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 10:15 AM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops

les,

The below does not make clear whether you plan this Mac purchase to be a
desktop or a laptop, and which model.

Now, you may imagine laptop is implied because you mention your PC desktop
growing old and you considering a sense computer to have as a backup. You
may have imagined I'd presume you  must mean not yet another desktop but in
fact a laptop. But none of that is actually made explicit im what you typed.

Will this be a desktop or a laptop?? And which model, please? thank you very
much.
Joel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Les Kriegler" <kriegler at nycap.rr.com>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops

Hi Joel,

The question you proposed with your corresponding answer is exactly correct.
I can install multiple screen readers on Windows and run them as I wish.
I'm going to use the Fusion package so that I can switch between the Mac and
Windows without the need to re-boot and choose which OS I wish to use.  Even
though we'll maintain our desktop, it's about 4 years old, so a replacement
or add-on system makes sense for us at this time.  My biggest concern is my
wife learning to use the Mac, as I won't be able to assist her for a while
until I learn it myself.  She's a mouse user anyway, so she'll have to
figure this out on her own for a while.  Having Windows on the Mac will help
her, as I'm quite certain she'll be falling back to the familiar apps she
uses for quite some time.  Like Andy, I started with an Apple in 1985 and
feel like I'm coming full circle.  I like Apple's commitment to
accessibility.  I believe VoiceOver will continue to improve, as upgrades
occur with the release of each Apple operating system.  Actually, one of the
list members, Mike Arrigo really has helped me in making this decision.  His
demonstration of running Windows with speech on a Mac informed me that I can
have the best of both worlds on 1 machine.  I also work with a colleague who
tells me that his system has never crashed to the point where he had to shut
down his Mac, he's always been able to close down programs that malfunction
without shutting down, he's using a Mac desktop.  I've always felt the
Apple's operating environments were more stable than Windows, it was the
accessibility that held me back.  Now that VoiceOver has really bridged much
of that gap, I believe this is the right thing for me to do at this time.
I'm a little long-winded here, but I do want to assure you understand that
it is very possible to Run Jaws, Window-Eyes or System Access on the Windows
side on a Mac.

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 1:04 PM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Basic inquiry about Mac, including the laptops

Les,

thanks. does the below mean that you'll not only be able to load Windows
onto it and run Windows apps if you wish to, but of course that you'll also
be able to load something like Jaws (which is what I use) onto it amongst
those Windows apps, so that if you feel too befuddled by the Mac at first,
you can make it perform just like Windows with Jaws, at least in the few
Windows apps you've installed?

Thanks.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Les Kriegler" <kriegler at nycap.rr.com>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 2:48 AM
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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