[nabs-l] Mac Accessibility

[Rob Lambert]

Note that I'm NOT (N O T, NOT!) a full time speech user, but I've been a Mac user for several years & have used & heard the speech sometimes & can answer some of your questions. In regards to Firefox, yes it's available, but you MUST! download FireVox (F i r e V o x). The commands are counter-intuitive to VoiceOver (the Mac Screen reader), or at least I thought they were. If you don't have any gripes with it, I'd use either Opera or Safari (apple's built in browser). VoiceOver is built-in to the Mac, 100% ready to go out of the box. VoiceOver is updated with Mac OS updates, since the screen reader is literally built-in to the operating system. For documents going cross-platform, I'd just save my documents in RTF. Also, I use Open Office, but that's not accessible on the Windows side. Mac it's 100% a-okay, I believe, and I use it all the time. It'll save you a few hundred bucks. The speech for VoiceOver is, I believe, "Macintalk" and the default speech
 synth, Alex, blows JAWS out of the water several times over. As far as the learning curve, I've heard it's relatively steep depending on how computer literate you are. That said, some commands actually make more sense than JAWS commands (for example, to close a window you hit Command + W. To close a program you hit Command + Q, etc.) 

--- On Wed, 5/27/09, Joe Orozco <jsorozco at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Joe Orozco <jsorozco at gmail.com>
Subject: [nabs-l] Mac Accessibility
To: "NFBCS" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>, nabs at acb.org, "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 9:35 PM

Hello all,

Forgive the cross post.  I need information from former PC users who are now
using the Mac environment as their primary operating system.  My questions:

1. How steep is the learning curve moving from Mac to PC?

2. Is Firefox available to the Mac environment, and are there any
limitations to the browser in this environment?

3. What general limitations have you discovered using Mac moving from the
PC?

4. Is Voice Over built into the Mac system.  If not, how much is it, and
where is it found?

5. How often is the screen reader for the Mac OS updated?  How comparable is
Voice Over to JAWS?  What kind of speech does Voice Over use?

6. How easy is it to exchange documents between PC and Mac machines?

I hope someone can help me address some or all of these points.  I've picked
up an organization who insists on using Mac computers.  I would rather stick
to the PC.  I'm not impressed with JAWS a lot of times, but it's what I
know.  That said, I have a Mac laptop headed to me, and I suppose I had
better learn how to adopt to the new environment real quick-like.  I would
appreciate any and all advice you can provide.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

Joe Orozco
 

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature
database 4109 (20090527) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com
 


_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nabs-l:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/rmlambert1987%40yahoo.com