[bcab] Re: Accessibility of the Mac Minnie for office, web and development.

There may be a solution by running software on a Mac which allows you to
also run Windows programmes. The Macs must be running Intel processors for
this to work.

One such is below

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/premium/

This type of software works well with MS products, but I don't know about
how it would react to screen readers.


Kind regards
 
Charles Crisp

See our holiday home website: 
www.thecrisps.co.uk/french-house <http://www.thecrisps.co.uk/french-house>  
  

 
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-----Original Message-----
From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Adrian Higginbotham
Sent: 29 February 2008 15:03
To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bcab] Re: Accessibility of the Mac Minnie for office, web and
development.

Just worth adding that you will be bound to struggle at first and that's
nothing to do with the capabilities of voice-over but is because you're
learning a new operating system.  Some of the navigation conventions are
quite different to working in Windows so it takes a while to get used to
which  issues are you not knowing what you are doing and which are
limitations in the screenreader.

Adrian Higginbotham
Project manager: Learning services
Becta
Tel: Direct dial 024 7679 7333 - Becta switchboard 02476-416994.
Email: Adrian.Higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.becta.org.uk/
BECTA, Millburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry, CV4 7JJ 


-----Original Message-----
From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Tristram Llewellyn
Sent: 29 February 2008 13:58
To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bcab] Re: Accessibility of the Mac Minnie for office, web and
development.

I own one of the first gen Mac Minis at home that were G4 based.  The form
factor is very nice and is a nearly silent machine except if it has a lot to
do.  The newer Mac Minis are both more powerful and have four USB ports to
my two and is generally a much better machine, though I think Apple may
abandon this line of machine shortly.  That is a shame because I really like
the Mac Mini, and it is fantastic if you don't give it too much to do. 

With the introduction of Leopard the VoiceOver utility has made significant
steps to being a useful screen reader.  The iTunes software is now pretty
accessible and mac Mail is too.  

I believe it is still the case that Microsoft Office won't go, I don't have
2008 to try but 2004 did not work.  There are however a large variety of
third party word processors some of which may be more VoiceOver friendly
than Word.  I think a similar mantra may go for your text editor for
development purposes.  Underneath the pretty UI of course is Darwin Unix so
you may be able to use some command line tools for Unix as well which you
could access via Terminal (I haven't tried VoiceOver with Terminal though).

I still think that VoiceOver is not yet comparable with any of the
commercial Windows screen reader offerings, applicatino specific support is
missing for example, but it is going albeit slowly in the right direction.
A few evangelists out there claim that they can do everything they want on a
Mac.

If you can afford to dabble then the Mac Mini is a good way to do it.
VoiceOver however needs some undivided attention before you can really
exploit it to do some of the tasks you want.

Regards.

Tristram Llewellyn
tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Technical Support
Sight and Sound Technology
 
-----Original Message-----
From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Nick.Adamson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 1:20 PM
To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;
program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bcab] Accessibility of the Mac Minnie for office, web and
development.

Hi All.

I'm sure this has been spoken about so many times but I've not been
interested before.

One of the guys at work has been talking about his mac and I'm pretty
impressed.

I'm thinking about one for home and I'm wondering about accessibility.
I know there's Voice Over which is the built in screen reader. How good is
this, how does it compare to the plethora of windows screen readers.

Mostly I'd want to do email, office type applications, read books which are
plain text or html, brows the web, maybe a bit of IM.

I'd also want to develop PHP on it and some C++. what are the development
environments like, how accessible are they?

Any information gratefully received.
Cheers.
Nick.



Nick Adamson
Software Engineer
General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited

Email: nick.adamson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tel: 01495 236467
http://www.generaldynamics.uk.com

General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited
Bryn Brithdir,
Units 3 & 4,
Oakdale Business Park,
Oakdale,
South Wales,
NP12 4AA.



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