Well man, You've got the money to do what you want, and the skills and desire to do your own research, and you're blind in a time when a $100 scanner will do exactly what you need. Good for you. go back 10 years and your only options would have been jaws, window-eyes, window bridge and hal, none of which were under $800. Omnipage worked fine under windows. I used it for a long time until they developed the accessibility out of it. So you'd be looking at at least a grand for scanning software. You're an experienced user. Maybe you could do your own training or pay your own trainer, but if you weren't and couldn't, would you suffer under the yoke of funded help, or would you sit and do nothing?
Go back even farther to the days of hardware speech when one of those units could cost between 6 and 1200 dollars. I wouldn't have a braille display now if it wasn't for funding. I simply wouldn't be able to come up with even 2 or three grand for a cheep one, let alone 5 for the one with the features I really wanted. Our funding system's not great. in fact, it's pretty terrible. But it hasn't bruised my dignity in the slightest to ask for things that improve my quality of life which I would never have any hope of owning on my own. Most blind people aren't like you and I. If you never had the internet or a use for the internet when you were sighted, only now you're blind and email is the only way you might effectively communicate with some people, then how are you supposed to do your own research on what screen readers and reading aids and platforms are available? We need to make a lot of changes. There's no reason why things should be astronomically priced in today's market. Our funders should be pro-active in driving the market where it needs to go. It will happen. It's happening, but change is slow. Meanwhile, if you need help and your dignity won't allow you to ask for it, then you're shallow, and if you don't need the help and scorn people who do because they put money in the pockets of proprietary and greedy corporate business, then you're something worse. As far as jaws goes, I hate to be the one to defend the thing, but there are two sides to every story. The fact of the matter is, the research it tool was publicly marketed towards people at home who wanted to look up sports scores, because that's a huge part of the market. On the other hand, it's also made at least two or three proprietary corporate databases accessible for the purposes of hiring blind employees at large companies. I'm a jaws detractor to my toenails, but I won't stand here and tell you they should never have wasted time on a feature that got people up and working just because it's a proprietary and high priced piece of crap. Being blind is not easy. You take your advantages where you find them and make the most of every opportunity, or you're in the 85 persent or so of us who don't work. Or in my case, you bust your butt and do everything you can and make the most of everything you get, and you're still in the majority of blind people who don't work despite everything you try to do. That was me for 5 or 6 years right out of college. Simply buying and using off the shelf products and sharing information in a group like this one has done more towards making that change a reality than all your pronouncements from the lofty perch of your soap box could ever do. I really think you need to take a good long step back and re-assess your priorities. We're not your enemies here, and the big business that dominated blind people for decades is soon going to get it's comeuppance with or with out you railing against them. So, just try to remember that what worked out well for you may not be right for someone else in a different situation, and there's no sense vilifying them if they need some high priced piece of kit backed by a company you find objectionable and paid for from sources that are beneath your dignity. Best, Erik Burggraaf User support consultant, Now posting occasionally on twitter at eburggraaf, 1-888-255-5194 http://www.erik-burggraaf.com On 2010-12-12, at 2:00 PM, Yuma Decaux wrote: > My Epson TX110, standard at 100 dollars does the job perfectly With abbey > fine reader. > > > I don't want to insist with a dialogue which may jeopardize people's belief > in a device which does, irespective of price or squalor of features, very > interesting as there is a paltry ammount of books available over the net, > especially those that i look for. > > But it also, at least for me, come to personal dignity. I don't want to go > and beg for charity at this or that organization for a device which can > rationally and marketably be proposed for half the price if not more with > solid components. A church or a beneficial organization can instead then > concentrate on real applications and research to benefit all the blind people > at mid term instead of benefitting the little portion of blind people who > will go to lengths to apply for subsidies and other protracted measures aimed > at giving governements the clout to claim equality of rights. This money is > not wanted, at from my perspective, as it creates an enteprise which is not > up to par with what is really possible to do. Take for example the US > government which shifted it's internal systems from buggy, slow and extremely > expensive software from contractors to a mainstream platform. This is exactly > what i mean though i can't criticize a device i have never touched and am > just using this as a general direction . > > As for the makers of JAWS, i find it satirycal obviously and blatantly > ludicrous and effectively wasting subsidy money to spend a year's worth of > developement for a ffeature which allows you to Check basball and hockey > scores. This totally broke the deal for me at a point when i thought i might > have to get it for my cross platform network setup. Honestly, do they really > think blind people are just cultured for baseball and hockey? It's such a an > ironic situation that i almost cried after laughing my butt off listening to > the freedom scientific guys talk about it's rich features in looking into > details of the pro baseball season. > > On the other hand, this clarifies a much better view of the blind community. > There are many elderly blind individuals who have had sight before and were > probably fans of those sports, and this is where the money is going, feature > requests. And therefore those organizations with money are pouring it in for > basball and not interactivity or solutions to help younger blind users > increase their cultures and capacities. Make them batmen and not baseballers. > > Sorry i'm getting carried away, i hope things go well with the eyepal and > perhaps i will still drop by my center to ask if they have one to demo, at > least i will have a concise opinion that will then be backed by all of the > above, or i can shut my mouth for all the reasons aforementioned :) > > best regards, > > Yuma DX® > > -- > 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. 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