[nabs-l] Some Questions About the Mac

Wed Sep 7 21:14:10 UTC 2011

Hi IC and Everyone:

Okay, I've sort of narrowed my options a little but I still have questions.

I was able to play with Safari a little on my friend's mac last night.
I went to my favorite site, espn.com. Wow, without flash it is a lot
smoother to browse and it doesn't slow down safari or voiceover as it
seems to with Jaws/Internet Explorer. My friend does not have quicknav
turned on so I had to browse by hitting the right arrow past all the
links to get the text of the articles I clicked on/wanted to read
which was a little annoying.

I originally thought that in order to read the text of the link you
click on you had to interact with the html content but on hers all I
did was hit the right arrow several times past all the links and it
eventually came to the text. I wish she had single letter quicknav
turned on so I could try playing with that and seeing if it made
browsing/finding the text of my article quicker.

As you both have said, browsing the internet with safari is not linear
at all but left to right and tabbing. In a way I like this but in
another way I don't really like it.

I looked at the macbook air's on the apple website last night and the
new ones have four gigs of ram. You can get the storage as high as 64
gigs and the storage is flash.

For those who use the air do you find it faster than the macbook pros?

Oh, and the new airs that just came out have Lion already on them.

Is the air supposed to be Apple's version of the windows netbook?

Is the air noticeably faster than the pro? I know the air has a solid
state drive whereas the pro has a regular hard drive.

Looking at the pricing, the 13-inch air is the same price as the
13-inch pro so wouldn't the pro give me more bang for my buck so to
speak? I know IC said to go with the 11-inch air and that is only $999
or something like that but I couldn't help noticing the 13-inch air
was the same price as the 13-inch pro.

I'm just trying to look at all my options and make the best decision.
I don't have an apple store near me so my only way of checking things
out is to play with my friend's pro when I get a chance or look
online.

Thanks!

Kerri

On 9/7/11, Ignasi Cambra <ignasicambra at gmail.com> wrote:
> As you said, it's really a matter of what you prefer. I don't need to browse
> line by line and don't find the VoiceOver method to select text slow or
> annoying, so I'm fine with browsing the internet on my Mac. As I said on my
> previous email, if you get a Macbook Air with 2GB of ram it will run lion
> just fine because of the SSD. I'm pretty sure that all Macbook Pro models
> come with 4GB ram these days.
> On Sep 7, 2011, at 1:07 AM, Marc Workman wrote:
>
>> Personally, I don't enjoy browsing on the Mac.  This is mainly because I
>> like to move down a page line by line, and this is not possible on the
>> Mac, unless I'm missing something; in which case, I'd love to be
>> enlightened.  Also, selecting text while browsing involves a series of
>> steps, which I have still not learned.  Don't plan on just holding shift
>> and hitting the down arrow because that ain't happening.
>>
>> I love the mac for mail, iTunes, RSS feeds, and a few other applications,
>> but I am way more efficient with JAWS and a PC if I'm going to spend time
>> on the internet, or if I'm going to do serious text editing.
>>
>> Lastly, if you get a Mac, I would recommend getting something with 4 Gb.
>> You can run Lion, the latest operating system with 2 Gb, but I'm finding
>> my Mac mini, bought in December 2010, quite sluggish with only 2 Gb.  And
>> this is with a monitor plugged in, which if you are thinking of getting a
>> Mac mini because it's cheaper, you will also have to do.  They are very
>> sluggish if a monitor is not attached.
>>
>> Don't get me wrong, I really like my Mac, but they are not without their
>> problems.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Marc
>> On 2011-09-06, at 6:05 PM, Ignasi Cambra wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>> Lots of questions here… First of all, I find navigating the internet with
>>> Safari and VoiceOver quite enjoyable. Especially with the introduction of
>>> single key navigation on websites finding links, headers etc is really
>>> quick and easy. You can configure VoiceOver to automatically interact
>>> with the HTML content when the page is loaded if you want to.
>>> As you mentioned, Flash is completely inaccessible under Mac OS X, but it
>>> won't bother you either. In other words, it's just not there at all for
>>> you, so if you are browsing a website with lots of Flash content you will
>>> be able to do everything that doesn't require Flash without problems.
>>> Navigating cluttered websites is just fine. You will probably find
>>> yourself using one key navigation very often, and then you also have the
>>> item chooser menu and the web items roter to make your life easier.
>>> Unless you absolutely need Flash, the Mac works great to navigate the
>>> internet. With some web applications such as Google Docs I've had much
>>> better results working with VoiceOver than with JAWS, for example.
>>> As for which Mac model to get, it just really depends on what you need.
>>> If you were to choose between the two macbook air sizes, I would
>>> definitely recommend that you get the 11 inch. It's small, and the bigger
>>> 13 inch screen won't do much for you if you're blind. Mainly, Macbook
>>> Airs are a lot thiner and lighter than Macbook Pros, but they do ship
>>> with slower processors. A big advantage of the Air is that it comes with
>>> a solid state drive instead of a hard drive. That alone makes the
>>> computer extremely fast when using it for normal tasks. A Macbook Air
>>> will probably feel faster to you than a Macbook Pro if you are just
>>> booting it, browsing the web and writing text documents. I'm in love with
>>> the 11 inch Air, but keep in mind that none of the Macbook Air models
>>> have an optical drive built in, so you will have to purchase an external
>>> one if you need to read CD's or DVD's. The optical drive offered by Apple
>>> is thin and light. I usually carry it in my laptop case and it never
>>> bothers me. Unless you are planning to use your laptop for
>>> processor-intensive tasks, I would really recommend the 11 inch air. If
>>> you don't mind spending a little more money I would upgrade the processor
>>> to the faster option provided on the Apple online store. This will make
>>> your computer a little faster, and it will probably handle future
>>> versions of the operating system a little better.
>>> Let me know if you have any more questions!
>>>
>>> IC
>>>
>>> On Sep 3, 2011, at 5:53 PM, Kerri Kosten wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Everyone!
>>>>
>>>> I posted a few months ago about needing to get a new laptop and
>>>> whether to get a windows or mac. Currently, I am still using my
>>>> netbook. Anyway, my frend got a mac in July and we went through the
>>>> voiceover practice mode and listened to the quick start guide
>>>> together. While going through this she did let me play a little with
>>>> the mac.
>>>>
>>>> I realized that despite what I've previously been told the mac is
>>>> quite simple to use and though it is different from windows it isn't
>>>> that hard to use at all. I am now considering purchasing a mac but had
>>>> some questions befoore making a final decision.
>>>>
>>>> What is browsing Safari like on the mac? I love browsing the internet.
>>>> Is navigating the web with safari very complicated?
>>>>
>>>> I have not been able to play with my friends mac using safari but I
>>>> have listened to her use it while she has done research for her
>>>> homework.
>>>>
>>>> Once you click on a link on a webpage, how do you find the html/text
>>>> of the article to read it? Does voiceover automatically go to it and
>>>> then you interact with it? I love reading articles and such on the
>>>> internet.
>>>>
>>>> How does safari/voiceover handle webpages that are cluttered and have
>>>> lots of flash? I know the mac doesn't support/handle flash so how does
>>>> voiceover read these pages? Does voiceover read/handle these types of
>>>> webpages better than Jaws/windows does? Examples of pages I am
>>>> referring to are www.espn.com, www.cnnsi.com, or
>>>> www.usatoday.com/sports. I guess what I am trying to ask is how does
>>>> voiceover/safari handle webpages that are really cluttered, have lots
>>>> of flash, and have lots of links/headings?
>>>>
>>>> If I decide to get a mac should I go with the macbook pro or the
>>>> macbook air? What are the differences between the macbook pro and the
>>>> air?
>>>>
>>>> I was also looking at the apple store online last night and I noticed
>>>> that they have a 13-inch macbook pro with a I5 processor for $1200 and
>>>> a 13-inch macbook pro with I7 processor for $1500. Is there a big
>>>> difference particularly in speed between the I5 and I7 processors? Is
>>>> it worth the extra $300 for the higher I7 processor?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks so much! If I think of any more questions I'll post.
>>>>
>>>> Kerri
>>>>
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