Hi everyone, Sorry it took a while to respond to Sudhir's questions. Let me clarify why I am not willing to switch to mac at the moment. First as stated by someone before, screen reading software of Mac is very limited in terms of it's functionality. A crood comparison will be with Windows inbuilt screen reader called the narrator. Second, Mac is more secured than windows looks like a myth. There has already been attempts to break in to the system and it's just the matter of time before mack system gets attacked. Third, Mac has a very poor customer service and many of my friends had a bad experience with it. Fourth, Mac is extremely useful for those who extensively use photo editing, film editing and other graphics. So naturally it is not of any use to me. Fifth, Mac is very costly in comparison to a basic PC and you can actually buy almost two laptops. Sixth, there are some roomers going on in terms of the merger of Apple network with that Microsoft. In fact many of my friends are of the view that the navigational system of vista is some what similar to Mac. So for all these reasons we are locked in to Microsoft products. Although I never used an open source screen reader, I am opened to experiments as they become more accessible.
Best Regards, Vetri. ----- Original Message ----- From: Sudhir R (NeSTIT) To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 10:59 PM Subject: [AI] On laptops and Operating Systems Hi folks ! I have been following the various threads on AI dealing with laptops and the various OSs like Windows Vista, Windows XP, Ubuntu etc and am utterly confused as to the right choice (if there is something like that) since I am myself contemplating the purchase of a laptop. On the one hand, most reputed manufacturers (except Dell) seem to have stopped shipping XP-based machines, while Vista is a real pain from what Vetri and Syed have been reporting and I discovered myself. Ubuntu seems to be good from the point of view of immunity from malware though I am not too sure whether we have a good eco-system to support us like a large community of blind users, applications for use in a business environment etc. We cannot take political decisions on matters of OS, you know, just because Open Source is the latest fad and we all love to hate Bill Gates. (smile) What about iMacs, laptops running Mac OSX, which, I understand, is a Linux variant and equally immune from malware. I remember reading somewhere that Mac OSX comes bundled with a screen reader, and, since it is a proprietory product, getting support from the company will be easy. The only remaining question is whether we have a community of blind Mac users (either in India or abroad) to pose queries to, as we do in AI ? Pl share your views and experiences on iMac, Mac OSX, the bundled screen reader and the eco-system. Would request someone like Vetri, who is in the Apple country and purchased a laptop recently, to tell us why he opted for one running Bill's latest (still-born ?) baby ? Thanks and rgds RS M: 098 472 76 126 To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in