Hi Earle, On Mar 22, 2008, at 10:41 AM, Earle Harrison wrote:
Knowing that I am addressing experienced Mac users on this list, I would really appreciate some feedback on the accuracy of this representation of the Mac. What is the learning curve like and are there concepts that carry over from Windows? Is this one of those situations where you simply need to be a highly technical person to grasp the concepts in the presentation?
Not at all. While there are some concepts that carry over, I think that it's probably best to start out as if you don't know anything. Is there a learning curve? Yes, absolutely! You have to learn commands, but that's easy. You can get by really nicely with about a dozen VO- specific commands plus Apple's built-in keyboard navigation generally. More important and maybe a little longer in learning are some of the concepts, such as interacting with controls (like tables, HTML elements, scroll areas, and the like), when you need to and when you don't, and when there are exceptions to using one command versus another. In any case, you'll have a harder time of it if you try to compare it to JFW or some such thing rather than just learning it on its own.
The other difficulty is that you'll have to use different apps than you're used to: Nisus Writer for word processing, Tables for spreadsheet, and so on.
I do about 98% of my computing on my MacBook these days, maybe a bit less. I do some with Linux and want to play with GNOME and Orca more once I get a faster machine for it. And with Windows, there are only a couple things I still do with it, mostly when as an OS of last resort.
