[nfbcs] [nabs-l] Basic Questions About Mac versus Pc

Buddy Brannan buddy at brannan.name
Mon May 10 00:30:29 UTC 2010 

Hey Joe,

FWIW, Pages is a better bet for accessibility than OpenOffice. Also, Transmit is a fantastic ftp client, no mistake. I've also found that in general, Mac developers seem very open to dialog about accessibility. 
--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
Phone: (814) 860-3194 or 888-75-BUDDY



On May 9, 2010, at 8:10 PM, Joe Orozco wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> 
> I am the only PC user in our operation.  Two disadvantages that come to mind
> is that the office-wide calendars for the various departments do not play
> well with my Outlook.  Also, they have a program called (Transmit?) which
> makes exchanging documents via our public shared drive a lot easier than my
> sluggish way of opening FlashFXP, uploading, downloading, etc.  I tell you
> it's tempting, but if tomorrow I lose my job I also wonder if the overhaul
> would have been worth it.  I have no reason to believe I'd lose my job mind
> you, but in today's economy nothing outside the government sector seems
> certain and Apple machines are more expensive than their PC counterparts.
> Decisions, decisions.
> 
> Joe
> 
> "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,
> some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org 
> [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Steve Jacobson
> Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2010 12:15 AM
> To: NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] [nabs-l] Basic Questions About Mac versus Pc
> 
> Joe,
> 
> I am not a MAC user, at least not at this point, but I 
> definitely am one who takes it seriously.  In the end, though, I think 
> there is much to be gained by remaining as consistent as you 
> can be with your co-workers in terms of the platform you 
> use.  Clearly, if your workers use Windows and one of the major 
> apps they use is not very accessible and the MAC 
> version of the same app is much more accessible, you should 
> give it a very good look.  If your co-workers are using 
> MACS and the apps they use seem to be pretty accessible, it 
> would seem worth going with a MAC unles you found the 
> same apps were much more accessible on a Windows machine.  
> However, going it alone on the job with either platform 
> puts you at a disadvantage.
> 
> I am still not convinced, although I am more than willing to 
> listen, that it is worth going with a MAC if your job site makes 
> heavy use of Microsoft Office, particularly if you will also be 
> authoring or modifying documents.  I know that Open Office 
> can handle Microsoft Office files, but if things get 
> complicated, there are just always oddities that come to the 
> surface.  I 
> just experienced that very thing with a document my daughter 
> wrote in Open Office on the MAC and saved in Word 
> format.  Something when wrong with the formatting in a big way. 
> Was there a cause and could it have been corrected 
> in general, 
> probably, but it took time and would have taken more time to 
> investigate than we had just then.  Again, if you were to 
> establish that your productivity was much better with Open 
> Office in this particular example, it may overcome the 
> potential pitfalls, but you again run a risk of not having the 
> support of your jobs IT or help desk staff.  This example could 
> be turned around, too, meaning that using Microsoft Office if 
> your employer uses MACs and Open Office is also probably 
> not a good idea if you find Open Office to work pretty well for 
> you.  In most cases here, we're talking about document 
> compatibility with other co-workers.  TextEdit on the MAC is 
> far more than a text editor and is a decent word processor 
> and it is free and very good for most personal use.  Some 
> compare it with WordPad, but I believe that is not really a fair 
> comparison, it has more power.  I just think that consistency 
> with your co-workers has to be a major consideration, 
> whichever platform they use, as long as the apps being used are 
> accessible.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Steve Jacobson
> 
>> On May 8, 2010, at 11:46 AM, Joe Orozco wrote:
> 
>>> Hello all,
>>> 
>>> I keep hearing about all these wonderful things about Macs.  
> I was very
>>> interested in the iPad review on Access World, and my 
> employer's offer to
>>> switch out my PC for a Mac just gets more tempting by the 
> moment.  Still, as
>>> I get older I am less tolerant of drastic changes to my 
> office assembly, and
>>> yet, temptations abound.
>>> 
>>> 1. In the most recent platform upgrade, how has the 
> accessibility changed in
>>> terms of the screen reader?  Is the screen reader only 
> updated with system
>>> upgrades, or are there ever updates between major upgrades?  
> If you had to
>>> compare Voiceover to JAWS, how does their functionality 
> break down?  I know
>>> it's not fair to compare one to the other because the logic is a bit
>>> different, but I'm hoping you can speak to the level of 
> manipulation you
>>> have over the applications in your computer.
>>> 
>>> 2. How has the compatibility changed in terms of Macs and 
> software packages?
>>> I originally hesitated, because it seemed the industry was 
> more prone to be
>>> compatible with PC products.
>>> 
>>> 3. How easy is it to control documents in the word 
> processor?  Do Macs use
>>> their own version of MS Office, or is there a native word 
> processor that
>>> makes Office documents readable?
>>> 
>>> 4. What can you tell us about their e-mail client?  Outlook 
> has its quirks
>>> but is almost 100 percent accessible.  Sunbird, by contrast, 
> would be great
>>> but in my opinion still had some accessibility shortcomings. 
> I'm wondering
>>> if the same is true of iCal and Mac-based applications?
>>> 
>>> 5. How much freedom do you have with Macs to go outside of 
> iTunes?  I don't
>>> much care for proprietary packages unless it's unavoidable.
>>> 
>>> 6. Are hardware repairs truly limited to Apple stores?
>>> 
>>> I know the best thing is to play around with Macs yourself.  
> I intend to do
>>> that when I visit our home office in California in a month, 
> but I'm hoping
>>> those of you who are daily users of the system can give up-to-date
>>> information since reviews can quickly become outdated.  And, 
> I'm sure that
>>> even playing with a Mac for an hour or so would not truly 
> give me a sense of
>>> how well they meet my daily task expectations.
>>> 
>>> Thanks for any information and/or website recommendations.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> 
>>> Joe
>>> 
>>> "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up 
> their sleeves,
>>> some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing
>>> 
>>> 
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