Hi Brian, I teach jaws, window-eyes, and voiceover on a regular basis, and I occasionally support other screen readers as well. I've placed my comments in the quoted message below.
I really think you would be better off doing everything on the mac, IE, making mail hit your exchange server, buying Iwork, or using a combination of other great free and low cost wordprocessing and spreadsheeting tools for the mac and in all other ways keeping your system as windows free as possible. I mean, explore your options. unless the impressionist person is picking up the bill for you to own windows, office, a high end screen reader, and anything else you need to work or learn under windows, it might not be worth the time and money it would take to impress them. We're talking about over a grand here, plus your time to learn a new system. ...Something to think about. Hope this helps, Erik Burggraaf Check out my first ever podcast tutorial, Learn braille using the braille box. Visit http://www.erik-burggraaf.com and click podcasts to read more and subscribe. On 2010-08-27, at 11:52 PM, Bryan Jones wrote: > . I would be grateful for your thoughts on the following questions: > 1. I've heard of Jaws, Window-Eyes, System Access, and NVDA. Any others I > should consider? Not really. I mean, there's dolphin Hal, thunder, and a few other options, but you don't hear much about these, and when you do, it seems there's usually a good reason. NVDA and system access may do what you need, but if you are using a screen reader for work, then I recommend paying for one of the top two, and as you can see, I recommend window-eyes. > 2. Is there a Windows screen reader that works like VO? Absolutely not. There are not any comparisons to draw in terms of screen readers. There are some comparisons in terms of the way the operating system works. The menu bars are familiar. System preferences roughly equates to control panel, that sort of thing. You'll just have to throw everything you know about voiceover out the window and start fresh on your windows screen reader of choice. Funny. We usually have to say that about switching from windows to mac. It's not too often we have to caution people about preconseptions in switching from mac to windows. > 3. Isz there one Windows screen reader that is easier to learn than the > others? I vote window-eyes here. I find it's keyboard command structure to be much more intuitive than jaws. The window-eyes key to read the clock for example, is insert T for time, where-as the jaws keystroke is insert f12. The window-eyes key to read the status bar is control insert S, as opposed to the jaws keystroke insert end. The window-eyes mouse pointer movement is also far more intuitive in my view than the jaws setup. > 4. I was intimately familiar with XP but don't know Windows 7 at all. Are > they similar enough that I should get Windows 7, or should I try to get XP so > that I don't have to learn a new operating system along with the new screen > reader? Uh, it may be a moot point at this juncture. I'm not even sure if it's possible to buy xp anymore. It might be cheeper, or it might not. Last time I saw Canadian dollar prices, it was $169 for xp pro, and $120 for win7 home premium. I for sure wouldn't advize a paying client of mine to go xp at this stage, but you won't be relying on it, so if you can find xp and that's really what you want then go for it. > 5. I will probably only need to use Windows for the next 2 years and most of > my work will still be done on the Mac. Given this limited time frame, is one > of the Windows screen readers less expensive to own over that time period? In a comparison of jaws to window-eyes, that would be window-eyes. Not only is their professional level product about $400 cheeper than it's jaws counterpart, but it's development sicle is longer. It also offers a 1 year payment plan which will give you a major upgrade for free while you are making payments, meaning that when you are done, you will have a fully up-to-date screen reader. > > TIA for any assistance, > Bryan > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
