Man, you're right about being stuck with JAWS because someone else bought it at our recommendation. About 10 years ago, I asked the University of Wisconsin to buy a copy of JAWS for me. They then bought several licenses so that their lab machines could be accessible. There is no way I could get the UW to switch to another screen reader today.
I am going to try to switch to a Mac with VoiceOver as soon as the next release of the operating system is released. VoiceOver users think it's the greatest invention since round wheels. I don't know about that. The current version has at least one fatal flaw. It doesn't speak as text is displayed in a command window. I do a lot of work on linux servers so the command window is very important to me. But I think the next version will have that fixed.
A couple of open source screen readers are promising, nvda for Windows and orca for linux. Both have a way to go before you can make your living using them.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chip Orange" <Corange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 1:07 PM Subject: RE: SMA policy was: JAWS update now available I agree that this policy is nothing short of highway robbery; why don't more of us switch to something else??? That's a real, not rhetorical, question. I guess it's because someone else paid for JAWS for us, and they won't pay for something else if we tell them we (or they) made a mistake. I'm trying to get tech support (via email with someone named Tracy), and I'm becoming very frustrated with FS right now. Essentially no tech support, ridiculous upgrade policies, and no payment plans for ownership makes me wonder how FS got where they are??? Chip Chip ------------------------------ Chip Orange Database Administrator Florida Public Service Commission Chip.Orange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (850) 413-6314 (Any opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Florida Public Service Commission.) ________________________________ From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alan Clendinen Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 5:52 AM To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: SMA policy was: JAWS update now available I'm afraid the SMA policy is worse than what you describe. If you choose not to keep your SMA current, and then one day you decide to buy a SMA so you can upgrade to the latest JAWS update, Freedom Scientific will demand that you pay for all of the SMAs that you failed to purchase. In other words, if you did not buy an SMA that covered JFW versions 7 and 8, and then wanted to upgrade to JFW version 9, they would require you to pay for a SMA that covered JFW versions 7 and 8, and also pay for the SMA covering JFW 9 and 10. They don't care if versions 7 and 8 were buggy or that you did not download them, you are expected to pay for those previous SMAs. I experienced this situation when a couple of versions of JFW were incompatible with the Windows Sticky-keys utility I have to use, due to being one-handed. I couldn't use two versions of JFW because of this bug, but FS still demanded I pay for the SMA covering those unusable versions before I could get the SMA for the latest version in which the bug was fixed. Alan Blake wrote: I'm afraid it doesn't matter whether you install an upgrade or not. If you buy an SMA, you're entitled to two consecutive upgrades. -- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com JFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
