Hi David To be honest, I’m reluctant to go the FireFox route and have, therefore, decided to refrain from using a web browser at all under Windows for the time being. Until Microsoft starts to take its consumers seriously, and fixes these bugs as soon as they are discovered and the company notified, I really don’t see Windows as a viable option.
True, there are certain websites which VoiceOver just spits out. But those are happily becoming more and more infrequent with every major build of OS X. I won’t go down the line of discussing OS X here, as that is for our sister forum. But I agree that the hardware specs of your machine should be more than adequate. However, David, this brings up a new line of discussion. Are you aware that you need to change the performance settings in your Windows>System configuration for your wonderful hardware spec to be even used at all? Maybe you are, maybe you’re not. But by default, Windows will still use its virtual memory swap to dump everything which means that, unless you have a SSD in your system as your primary drive, you’re always going to get some delay, however small, with the Windows default settings. In a case such as yours, I would disable virtual memory altogether, to be honest. It’s simply not necessary. This all stems from the fact that Microsoft still has some legacy Windows 95 and even 3.0 code buried within its operating system. The sooner Microsoft takes the advice of its own internal engineering staff, the better. Many former Microsoft software engineers have publicly commented on these issues in a variety of forums. Microsoft is seemingly so intent on its marketing battle with Apple and others, that they just cannot see that the investment which they should have made 10 years ago is now reaching the point of no return. Other vendors with other and, it has to be said, better systems are popping up every year. Google has recently joined the fray with its new Chromebox platform. It’s receiving rave reviews from many quarters, and it, like OS X, incorporates in-built accessibility. Kindest regards <--- Gordon Smith ---> <[email protected]> Information Technology Accessibility Consultant; Proudly Providing Braille And Alternative Format Transcription Services, Plus Help & Support To The Staff And Students Of the Visually Impaired Department at Sunnyside Academy, Colby Newham, Middlesbrough! On 1 May 2014, at 16:58, David Griffith <[email protected]> wrote: It is difficult to do any testing at the moment given the recent security problems. Jaws is normally very fast for me on the web but I have to say that things have gummed up for me with the need to avoid using IE given its recent Zero day security flaws. I have switched to Firefox but ever since doing so it is taking an age for pages to load and there is a period of about 30 seconds when neither Jaws or Firefox will provide any response, no sound or feedback at all, before the Firefox page becomes usable. As I have 16 GB of ram on board and a reasonable processor on a 64 bit Windows 7 machine I do not think this should be happening. Moving back to IE and loading the same pages in that browser temporarily I find that everything zips along normally and acceptably. It appears a problem with the interface of Jaws 15 and firefox then, at least on my system. I wonder if the web visum plugin is slowing everything up. I tried switching to Chrome on Windows but support for Chrome appears if anything to have gone backwards in Jaws 15 compared to 14. I will therefore try out Firefox with Window-Eyes to see if the experience is improved. Just in relation to navigating by elements in Jaws most of the element shortcut keys appear to be identical between Jaws and Window-Eyes. In terms of elements list manipulation Jaws is also very similar to the insert tab function in Window-Eyes. You probably already know this but just in case. Insert F7, similar to NVDA, will bring up a links list. Insert F6 will bring up a heading list Insert F5 will bring up a form fields and buttons list. All of these are navigable by first letter. An annoyance for me is the need to manually enter table navigation on the web with Window-Eyes, whereas both NVDA and Jaws will conveniently and automatically recognise the presence of a and make navigation keys available for you as soon as you are there. Where Window-Eyes scores over Jaws definitely is in navigation and manipulation of screen cursors which are more powerful than the Jaws Cursor. David Griffith -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gordon Smith Sent: 01 May 2014 14:55 To: Windows Access; Share Your Enthusiasm! Subject: Re: Jaws For Windows; In A Whole New Light! Hi David I'm given to understand that a total rewrite of Window-Eyes is either already underway or is planned for later this year. That, in all honesty, would b a welcome development. Conversely, however, I still haven't mastered Jaws on the web. I can't as yet move by a number of elements, although this is not Jaws related, this is down to user ignorance entirely. However, I am not able to reproduce your problems with Window-Eyes "crawling" on the word wide web. perhaps we could exchange test data off list? Or would others prefer that exchange to take place on list so that they can follow along? Freedom's training material is exemplary. It is interactive and intuitive. Window-Eyes's help system is fine as far as it goes. But it could definitely be made better. As for NVDA, it works quite well and I do urge everybody to keep in mind that the developers are changing the face of accessibility under Windows. That initiative and others elsewhere have transformed what was once a closed shop kind of scenario into a fiercely competitive industry whose products are growing more and more user-friendly and whose cost is now much more competitive than this time 5 years ago. Kindest regards <--- Gordon Smith ---> <[email protected]> Information Technology Accessibility Consultant; Proudly Providing Braille And Alternative Format Transcription Services, Plus Help & Support To The Staff And Students Of the Visually Impaired Department at Sunnyside Academy, Colby Newham, Middlesbrough! Telephone: United Kingdom: Free Phone: 0800 8620538 Mobile: +44 7907 823971 Europe and other non-specified: +44 1642 688095 United States Of America And Canada: +1 646 9151493 Or: +1 209 436 9443 Australasia: +61 38 8205930 Or: +61 39 0284505 Fax: +44 1642 365123 Follow Us On Twitter: <http://twitter.com/maciosaccess> Skype: <skype:mac-access-dot-net?call> ------------------------------ On 24 Apr 2014, at 14:37, David Griffith <[email protected]> wrote: I agree absolutely. When Window-Eyes for Officer came out in January I developed a strategy of weaning myself off Jaws and moving to a combination of NVDA and Window-Eyes for Office. However a number of access problems with Window-Eyes on the web in particular have forced me, reluctantly only yesterday, to part with the money to upgrade from Jaws 14 to Jaws 15. On BBC iPlayer I have to constantly redraw the screen for Window-Eyes to see basic buttons like the play button which Jaws identifies with no problem. Window-Eyes is unusable with my Nat West Banking site as it constantly freezes and is unable to read any content on the page whereas both Jaws and NVDA will read all the elements fine. The final straw for me came on Saturday when I could not access the Transport for London website properly to get complete information about weekend line closures. Without even reloading the page but simply by closing Window-Eyes and loading Jaws I found I had no problems reading elements that Window-Eyes simply could not spot. Theoretically I could use Jaws 15 in demo mode to cope with the web pages that Window-Eyes cannot hack it with but as you say unfortunately Window-Eyes crawls along compared to Jaws on the web in particular. I would be a frustrated screen reader user. To be fair Window-Eyes performs better elsewhere, and is just about acceptable on Office but as you say Jaws even here is far snappier. Occasionally Window-Eyes cannot even keep up with my typing though to be fair a restart of Window-Eyes has always resolves this problem. I think Window-Eyes for Office is a good initiative , important even, but the product does need to improve for it to match even the performance of NVDA in key areas. David Griffith -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gordon Smith Sent: 24 April 2014 13:07 To: Windows Access; Share Your Enthusiasm! Subject: Jaws For Windows; In A Whole New Light! Hello all This a forum has been a little quiet of late, but I wanted to write about a subject which, over the last 10 or 12 years, has been one of my pet hates. However, having recently had occasion to install and defamiliarise myself with Jaws 15 in respect of my work, I have to say that I now see the product in a whole new light. How very very far it has progressed since the time when I first became a Jaws user, way back when Jaws 3.0 was the current release. Jaws itself has developed beyond all recognition since those very dark days. In terms of responsiveness, I think there's nothing currently available on the Windows platform which even comes close to Jaws. There are some aspects which I find irritating. But for the most part, I really enjoy using it. Comment welcome. Kindest regards <--- Gordon Smith ---> <[email protected]> Information Technology Accessibility Consultant; Proudly Providing Braille And Alternative Format Transcription Services, Plus Help & Support To The Staff And Students Of the Visually Impaired Department at Sunnyside Academy, Colby Newham, Middlesbrough! ======================================= To post to this group, please send your message to: [email protected] The Windows-Access E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit your personalise subscriber options page, located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/windows-access You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Windows-Access forum at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/windows-access/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- [email protected] ======================================= To post to this group, please send your message to: [email protected] The Windows-Access E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit your personalise subscriber options page, located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/windows-access You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Windows-Access forum at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/windows-access/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- [email protected] ======================================= To post to this group, please send your message to: [email protected] The Windows-Access E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit your personalise subscriber options page, located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/windows-access You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Windows-Access forum at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/windows-access/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- [email protected] ======================================= To post to this group, please send your message to: [email protected] The Windows-Access E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit your personalise subscriber options page, located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/windows-access You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Windows-Access forum at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/windows-access/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- [email protected] ======================================= To post to this group, please send your message to: [email protected] The Windows-Access E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit your personalise subscriber options page, located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/windows-access You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Windows-Access forum at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/windows-access/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- [email protected]
