RE: JAWS on a thumb drive
- From: "Brian Giles" <briangiles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 20:34:25 -0700
Hi Kirstin,
There has been a USB version of JAWS since JAWS 7. However, it wasn't until
9 had been out for a while that they started updating the thumb drive
version along with the desktop versions.
Unlike the dolphin pen or the sam key formerly the key to freedom, JAWS on a
USB drive does not cost any extra. There is a caviot, though, and that is
that you can only run it as a 40 minute demo on computers that do not
already have JAWS on them. If the computer already has a copy of JAWS or
gets its authorization from a network, than you can run JAWS off your USB
drive as long as you need to. I found this to be great in a class I took
once, and I didn't have to mess with changing settings that someone using
the computer might've changed. However, when I went to the computer lab in
the building later, those computers have the USB ports disabled, so I
couldn't use it. Oh well. lol
If you're using a computer that doesn't have JAWS, there's a little program
you can keep on your thumb drive that'll install the video hooks. It's
annoying to have to do that especially in a computer lab on a college
campus, but all the "normal" screen readers need video hooks on the
computer. It is better than installing a full copy of JAWS if you don't need
to, though.
If you want to cary your license with you can pay to get a dongle. You'd
have to plug it into a second USB port though, unlike the dolphin pen where
the license is already on the USB drive. It doesn't bug me as much as it
used to that FS doesn't do it that way, in fact that is one of the things
they pitched to differentiate them. They were more aiming for being able to
cary your settings to another computer that has JAWS and use them, which is
exactly what I've done. So you can buy a gig thumb drive for 10 bucks and
install JAWS on it.
A couple other things you can't do with it though. You can't use Tandem, and
you can't use a Braille display. That second one makes no sense to me,
because the dolphin pen, Window-Eyes Mobile, and Serotek keys all do it.
There's also a thumb drive version of MAGic, and you can run them both at
the same time from the same thumb drive.
Brian
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