I somewhat understand this, Ed, as my employer also uses Citrix and I need to have a copy of Jaws installed locally, in order for me to do my job. This does worry me, but I however, am not that knowledgeable, about this process and thus don't know how to proceed.
Claudia -----Original Message----- From: Jfw [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Marquette Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 4:45 AM To: The Jaws for Windows support list. Subject: Brave New World All: This inquiry will become fairly technical rather quickly. Feel free to delete now - or read on at your peril. <Smile> Technology and IT seem to go in cycles. Historically, all the computing power was remote to the terminal. Then, the so-called PC revolution released the computer from dependence on remote mainframe computers. Now, with so-called thin-client solutions, the trend seems to be swinging back. The movement has been afoot for some time. Citrix and Remote Desktop are doubtless familiar to some listers, and Freedom Scientific has had a solution for a number of years. A copy of JAWS has to be on the client and on the Citrix (or Remote) server. I recently learned, moreover, that JAWS will not work with Citrix if it is running in a virtual environment. That didn't inspire confidence and, in part, encouraged this post. The word "virtual" is becoming more and more prevalent in the computing world. We've had virtual private networks for a long time, and they work well with JAWS. I use one nearly every night when I come home from the office. There, however, at least in our implementation, the same machine, a laptop, has to be connected. Essentially, only storage is remote. The applications are all running locally, and as I said, JAWS does just fine. Now, however, we are beginning to enter the Brave New World of the virtual desktop. With this approach, the machine doesn't have to be the same, remotely and locally. The virtual desktop ("VDT") runs on anything. So, whether it is a PC running Windows, an Android device, an iPad, or a Mac, it makes no difference. The local computer has its own world, and then your office desktop runs in its own virtual environment, as it were, on the local machine. All of this sounds like JAWS won't have a chance. I doubt JAWS will even see the VDT, let alone read its contents. I really, really hope I'm wrong. The point of this is not to spread my pessimism (Remember, Murphy was an optimist), but rather to bring to the fore a genuine concern. I see the VDT as a genuine threat to persons with visual challenges and who rely on a screen reader. Is someone at Freedom Scientific aware of this trend? Is anyone thinking about a solution? Has anyone asked Freedom Scientific? How does one bring this matter to the attention of Freedom Scientific? The hope here is to stimulate discussion on the topic and focus resources on a solution - assuming adequate resources are not already focused. It may affect our employability in the future, and doesn't JAWS stand for JOB access with speech? Sent from my Yoga IdeaPad I. Edward Marquette Universal Phone: 408.692.5640 Mobile: 816.812.0088 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.the-jdh.com/pipermail/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com/attachments/201402 24/1b87ee65/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Jfw mailing list [email protected] http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com _______________________________________________ Jfw mailing list [email protected] http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com
