very interesting. This is the kind of stuff that is very useful to
point out to a totally blind "frog" such as myself. And this
disconection from the rest of the world reality really becomes an
issue when you call a help desk and try to understand what the support
agent is telling you: click on this icon on the top left of the
screen..." I was with sighted friend the other day and what she told
me made immediate sense when she said: "yeh, click just above that"
and boom,...
Keep it up guys and I'll end up being less ignorant (smile)
Cheers to all and thanks again for all your musings.
Cheers,
On 16-Mar-08, at 6:08 PM, David Poehlman wrote:
amen!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cara Quinn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 4:39 PM
Subject: Re: potential switcher seeking personal take on the Mac
The cursor also goes between characters on Windows as well. Only
the screen reader causes this to act as if it doesn't.
Not trying to be annoying here, <smile> am just writing this for
clarity's sake so peeps understand what's happening.
The two OS's are really not acting differently here at all. Aside
from the different way to forward delete characters, they behave the
same with the cursor.
Smiles,
CQ :)
On Mar 16, 2008, at 12:24 PM, Tim Kilburn wrote:
Hi Jean-claude and Tammi,
JCP: To me, the biggest thing for now is to get used to the way
the cursor works. For instance, I don't know how to delete
characters the way we do it in windows. IN WINDOWS, WHEN YOU PRESS
THE DELETE KEY, IT DELETES THE CHARACTER IN FRONT OF THE CURSOR. I
HAVE NOT FOUND HOW TO DO THIS YET ON THE MAC AND, TO BE CANDID, A
25 YEARS HABIT IS QUITE HARD TO BREAK. I'M HOPING SOMEONE WILL
TELL ME HOW I CAN DO THIS BECAUSE, THE SOLE USE OF THE BACKSPACE
KEY to delete characters behind the cursor IS DRIVING ME A LITTLE
coucou BANANA WILD. AND BECAUSE OF THAT, I'M DEFINITELY NOT READY
TO SWITCH MY WORD PROCESSING ACTIVITIES ACROSS THE FENCE FOR NOW.
TK: You need to think differently when using the Mac and cursors in
general. Think of the cursor position as an Insertion Point.. As
you travel right, everything that VO passes over is read. That is,
if it passes over the word "Jean-Claude", VO will read the whole
text segment and the cursor will land just after whatever it reads.
So, whether you're moving line by line, word by word or character by
cahracter, the same type of behavior exists. Conversely, if you're
moving left, a similar behavior occurs, reading the text segment
from right to left will have the cursor land just before the the
item it is reading. The cursor, or Insertion Point, lands between
characters not on them as in Windows. Hope that clears things up
for you. There is no way of changing that behavior as that is built-
in to the OS.
Tammi said: For those who use both, what are your favorite
qualities of the Mac or of Windows vs. the Mac?
TK: I find the Mac more stable, less prone to attacks and generally
easier to use. With VO being built-in to the OS as opposed to
bolted on, there is a consistency to how VO behaves within various
applications and there isn't a different command set to learn for
each app.
• What types of tasks does the Mac excell at?
TK: Audio stuff of course is high on its performance list. Quite a
number of visual things as well that are less useful to blind
users. It handles web-browsing well, eMail really well and
depending on your word processing and spreadsheet needs, it is
comparable.
•
For any non-computer pros: How long did it take to learn VO well?
TK: I'm quite experienced with computers and very experienced with
macs so I can't answer this one well.
• what kind of bang I might get for my buck, so to speak.
TK: In my opinion, great bang for your buck. Considering that you
can by an iMac with the built-in screen reader just over $1000, I
think that's better than purchasing a PC then JAWS on top. The Mac
also comes with some great software already pre-installed.
Hope this helps.
Later...
Tim Kilburn
& Carter the Canine
Fort McMurray, AB Canada
---
View my Online Portfolio at:
http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn
