Comments for All About Access

Comment on Window-Eyes Lease-To-Own Program by Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:38:39 +0000

I just wanted to comment with some updated information. The Window-Eyes Lease to Own program has been updated, and is now called the Payment Plan program. You have the option of paying either $100 per month, or $39 per month, which should provide some flexibility regarding con #1 and #2. Regarding con #3, of course there’s a bit of a hassle. It’s an exchange for being able to pay a small amount over a long period of time. As for con #4, starting with Window-Eyes 6.1, you are no longer limited to just one machine.

Comment on What it Takes for Open Source Communities to Work: Participation by Ron Graham

Ron Graham — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 16:17:23 +0000

In addition to what Jerry said, I think part of the reason more assistive technology users are not participating is that they do not know about Orca. To stem that lack of knowledge, all we can do is spread the word. I’ve done that on my
AccessAbility
blog.

For those who do know about Orca, I’d venture that most do not feel tech savvy enough to try running a program they are not familiar with. They feel comfortable in the domain in which they have been trained, be it JAWS, Window Eyes, or whatever, they are trained on this and it works for them. I don’t think there is an incentive for them to try something new which is unknown and very foreign.

Comment on What it Takes for Open Source Communities to Work: Participation by jerry.berrier

jerry.berrier — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 09:08:03 +0000

I can only speak for myself here. Years ago I jumped at any opportunity to try something new. I was hungry for access to information, and I felt driven to learn to use whatever was out there that would work with my Radioshack 286 PC and Echo GP. (Ah, what a voice that thing had, Ugh), but it worked, and that was all that mattered.

Now I have JAWS, and it is truly wonderful. I no longer feel that pioneer spirit, that drive to experiment.
By the time I check my e-mail, do some online shopping, check my account for possible overdrafts, do a few Google searches, tweak my personal website a bit, check out my favorite blogs, listen to a podcast or two, and spell-check a document I’ve been working on, I just don’t have much drive left.
Maybe it’s time for me to get out my old junk computer and Dectalk Express and start from scratch with ORCA. It’s one of those things I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

Comment on Things are Looking Up Re ODF by serrebi

serrebi — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 03:14:38 +0000

Orca is the best accessibility news I’ve heard in a long time. It’s now in the ubuntu 6.10 beta, and works straight from the live cd[burn and put it in , reboot, press alt f2, enter orca , press enter, and orca launches, asks you a few questions, and then promply crashed on me, when I tried to restart it after the logout, log in proccess]. It’s beta, so I’m happy enough to get any speech what soever on linux. What will be more exciting is when orca supports more and more of the various linux apps, sutch as the remote support, vnc or whatever they call it, dont’ know off the top of my head, and of course gtk apps like gaim, etc. It’s not turning me away from windows just yet, but give it some time, and you may see many ppl switching, and not just for open office support eather.

Comment on More Cool News on the Open Source Front by linda86

linda86 — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 20:16:38 +0000

It annoys me that screen reading software costs an arm and a leg. The market is small, but not that small. Seems to me that the vendors think we all have someone else (read a gov’t agency or an employer with deep pockets) to foot the bill. i should be so lucky.

So any interest in accessibility software shown by the Open Source community is a welcome one as far as I am concerned. And with Open Source, anyone can build on the foundations that already exist which fuels further development down the road. This is a very cool thing and hopefully will result in some innovative, useful, and AFFORDABLE software.

Yeah, it matters how well the software works. If the software isn’t “accessible” due to it’s high price tag however, then it’s functionality is pretty irrelevant.

Comment on Why Proprietary Anything is Bad by SteveLee

SteveLee — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:28:07 +0000

That’s a great example of why Open Standards are so important. It would have been perfect for me when trying to explain why ODF is so important in Ability Magazine (UK), see http://fullmeasure.co.uk/ITCH/index.php/OpenDocument_Accessibility .
Open Standards and Open Source offer many advantages and avoiding such so called ‘vendor lock in’ is near the top of my list.

Comment on Déjà Vu All Over Again by redux

redux — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 20:41:39 +0000

sorry, not read the entirety of the article, but may i suggest that there is a third possible scenario: a third party developer makes available at little or no cost a plugin for Word that enables it to import/export ODF files (not as natively supported formats, but converted into MS’ internal format on read/write).

and darrell: the argument doesn’t make sense…”because the competing software has accessibility issues i support Microsoft’s baseless decision not to support the ODF format”. a non-sequitur! MS can moan as much as they want about ODF not supporting the rich styling etc of their documents…yet they still quite happily read/write plain text, RTF, and many other such formats. it’s pure and simple belief in their leverage (stranglehold) on the market, and the fear that they won’t be able to compete with other ODF capable products.

Comment on Déjà Vu All Over Again by Darrell

Darrell — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:25:34 +0000

Due to all the current accessibility issues with the applications (Open Office, Star Office) that use Open Doc, I feel compelled to support Microsoft’s position concerning the Mass ITD switch and am quite confident that Microsoft’s influence / money along with the access issues will result in the squashing of this switch to Open Doc.

Comment on Equal Opportunity Employer - Defined by Darrell

Darrell — Sun, 07 Aug 2005 22:44:50 +0000

I would only consider providing any information of this nature in a post-interview follow up scenario, never in a cover letter or resume. I make it a point never to bring up my disability until I am actually at the interview location. This is the only way anything has worked out well for me when seeking employment outside the field of work with the blind.

Comment on Boing Boing Says: “Google Accelerator is bad news for Web apps” by Darrell

Darrell — Fri, 06 May 2005 21:47:05 +0000

Oh, no. By all means don’t install this web accelerator. That looks truly scarey indeed! Seems this stuff would be better tested before release? Pretty big oversight there…
I must say one good thing about Google. Their Google Desktop Search is extremely accessible! Check it out.