Hey Steve, here's a much longer and detailed response from a die-hard Mac user at work! HTH again.
From: Taryn VanWagner Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 12:44 AM To: Bino Gopal Cc: Taryn VanWagner Subject: RE: Apple IMac Accessibility, 'Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus' It's a shame that Steve and his sister encountered such an idiot in Apple support, he was given quite a lot of misinformation. I wonder if Apple maintains a support staff targeted just for accessibility? How might they be reached? These notes assume Leopard, I'm sure Snow Leopard has all these capabilities and possibly more. --------------- Starting with the one problem that can't be fixed in software: "Now the mouse itself is very primitive-style, you have basically a bar of soap with a raised dot on it. There are two side buttons of unknown utility. When you 'click', the whole front of the mouse does down, instead of there being an actual button." I am one of the many Apple users that think Mighty Meeces are Epic Failures. You can grow to love the scroll ball, but right clicks and wheel clicks are just infuriating. As Bob said, she needn't use the Apple mouse, any USB mouse (or Bluetooth in most macs) works fine, and there are no extra drivers required for HID compliant mice (almost all are). All the usual buttons and wheels are recognized, just plug in, and (optionally) open the 'Keyboard and Mouse' Prefs page to fuss with tracking speed, etc. Try the Logitec optical scrollers. Wired or wireless, I've never met a Logitec mouse I didn't like, as long as it fit my (left;) hand. ---------------- Once she has a decent mouse, the rest becomes easy... "...everything has to be big and black on white...the versatility of being able to change operating systems fonts, colors and contrast blows the Apple away." For colors and contrast, go to 'System Preferences:Universal Access:Seeing:Display'. Select 'Black on White' and adjust the 'Enhance Contrast' slider as needed. Disabling Menu Bar translucence may improve readability too. Go to 'System Preferences:Desktop & Screen Saver:Desktop' and uncheck 'Translucent Menu Bar' While in the Desktop prefs, she might want to pick out a single-color or very subdued desktop picture, to reduce screen clutter. To adjust default fonts and sizes, use Tinkertool http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html or a similar prefs editor, or simply hack the system prefs by hand. Tinkertool does not 'patch' anything, it's entirely harmless. Everything that Tinkertool does can also be done by simply editing various system prefs files (XML), but Tinkertool makes it easy. "In both cases, the operating system has to be modified by a sighted person before the handicapped person uses it." During the initial install, and/or 'first boot' on a Mac, if you hesitate for a few seconds on the hello screen, the speech system enables and speaks, offering Assistive Services. OTOH, struggling through setting up an entirely unfamiliar system isn't helped that much by screen reader and zoom, it's hard for everyone :) "Apple: You cannot change the size of the cursor." Go to 'System Preferences:Universal Access:Mouse & Trackpad:Cursor Size'. Adjust as needed. " Cursor color: With windows you can do this, not with Apple. " Try these: http://www.versiontracker.com/php/qs.php?mode=basic&action=search&str=cursor &srchArea=macosx%7Cleopard&submit=Go (Though possibly, the color cursor effects will be overridden by the Black on White settings.) "Fonts: Windows can change system fonts and font sizes. Apple, as we were told, you can't. " See Tinkertool, above. "Zoom: This was a must for my sister and it was nice that Apple had it included without having to add a program. What is missing is the ability to have it enter zoom on boot-up" Go to 'System Preferences:Universal Access:Seeing:Zoom:Options:Minimum Zoom'. While I don't think this gives you 'immediate zoom view on login', it does let you zoom to your preferred magnification with one compound keystroke. "...it may be because I didn't know how to work with ...[voice, but it]... seemed to read when it felt like it and ignore other stuff." This may be a user issue. My son uses the screen reader all the time; I checked with him and was told it's rock solid and behaves as expected. Try 'System Preferences:Universal Access:Seeing:VoiceOver:Open VoiceOver Utility...', and check its help pages. "The Dock Menu ...the inability to do anything with the icons is a hindrance." Use Tinkertool's Dock tab to disable the 3-D glass effect. Use 'System Preferences:Dock' to increase the Dock size and enable Dock Magnification. Dock positioning and auto-hide, also on that prefs page, may be useful too. Tell your sister that she can remove any dock items she never uses. This will allow the remaining useful items to be sized even larger. Removing Dock icons is harmless, the applications are still in the Applications folder, and can be dragged back to the dock at any time from the folder. "Apple also uses [the Dock] for various announcements, so the placement and number of icons change with certain situations." Except for minimizing document windows by adding them to the right of the Dock. (analogous to the task bar) Apple NEVER changes the order of Dock icons, I'm not sure what you mean here. The user is free to add, remove, and reorder the Dock icons as she sees fit. (Tinkertool can be used to lock the Dock, so even the user can't change it.) "When I clicked on the Apple -> About this Mac, one of the boxes threw a line right through the serial number, so that it could not be read." I'm completely confused about this. Are you perhaps talking about the zoom outline box? If so, couldn't you move it out of the way by simply moving the cursor? Was there a floating help page over the 'More Info...' page? They can be moved aside or dismissed to reveal what's below. "...So we had to 'reset' the system. This involved holding the Cntrl - Command - P - R keys as you powered up and holding them for 4 resets. It took two people to do that." Ah, the dreaded PRAM (Parameter RAM) reset. it actually is possible for one human to do this acrobatic maneuver, but only on keyboards with a power button and on laptops. (pianists and cellists can do it on all macs :) Again you were given bogus info. While I don't understand the problem you were having reading the serial #, I doubt the resets helped. A Mac that needs multiple consecutive PRAM resets has hardware problems or a dead PRAM battery. (The batteries tend to last 6-10 years, so that's unlikely.) Further, why didn't the genius (sic) just tell you where the serial # was on the iMac, or the box it came in, instead of wasting all that time on pointless resets. "Finally, the support person was not a genius, sorry..." That's very tactful of you, I'd not have been so kind :) I'm sorry, and embarrassed on behalf of the many competent folk at Apple. Certainly she had not been properly trained, or was untrainable. Steve, one thing you didn't mention specifically was the Windows feature that lets you set an effective DPI irrespective of the actual dot pitch of the display. (Or was that what you meant by 'zoom on boot'?) I've turned a few farsighted friends onto that Windows feature. There's no direct equivalent in Macs, probably because of Mac's history of WSIWYG; right from the beginning a screen inch was a physical inch, incredibly useful for pre-press work, but not so good for those with tired eyes. I'd love to see Apple add that one display feature, it's quite nice, and much simpler than tweaking default font sizes. Hope this helps her enjoy her new Mac, and eases your pain too ;) Taryn (the curmudgette)
