First, private beta testers are NOT paid to test JAWS. Second, until you know exactly what happens during a beta cycle, and how much goes on behind the scenes, I would strongly advise you to not say anything. You know nothing about the situations or the testers, and laying the blame onto them is both incredibly rude and wrong. The time and effort that goes into each version of JAWS is incredible, and your comments are a slap in the face to the people who are trying to make the product better.
Beta testers are rotated on a constant basis, so there are always new testers being added to the team while other testers are removed, so it's not always the same people testing over and over again. Testers have all different levels of experience, computer skill levels, and operating systems. FS does what they can to see that they represent the users, but, as with any company, they're never going to be able to reproduce every single scenario. But, blaming the testers is just wrong, and I sincerely hope you apologize and rethink your previous response.
Caroline----- Original Message ----- From: "Zaheer Sheikh" <cybergeek2020@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 3:55 PM Subject: Re: Window Eyes; was Go to Meeting?
I know that freedom scientific has funtastic programmers, they do a good job when implementing new features in Jaws. I will only blame freedomscientific's Jaws testers. It looks like that Jaws testers allow to release the program without doing a thoro testing. Not all Jaws programmers use Jaws, and they cannot fix the bugs unless testers report all the bugs. I will especially blame those Jaws testers who test MS Office Word, Outlook, and Internet Explorer. Every time when I install a new release of Jaws, there is a problem in MS Office Word, Outlook, and Internet explorer. Maybe these Jaws testers use slow computers, and slow internet connection. Most Jaws bugs are noticeable in faster computers, with high speed internet connection. I havent dealt much with freedomscientific's tech support, but I have heard several complaints. I love all the features in Jaws, but there are few bugs that makes the product very unfit. However, I do not have any issue with any other freedomscientific product. I think that freedomscientific have to reconsider their Jaws Testing teem.Note that when I say Jaws Testers, I mean those who are payed to test Jaws.On 4/27/09, Chip Orange <Corange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hi Anne, Someone else asked me my reasons for switching to Window Eyes, and here's my answer to him below. Anyone of course is free to disagree with my conclusions, but I'd like to point out one thing: most people I believe are loyal to a particular screen reader because it's the one they own, and the one they know. in my case, my employer has purchased for me both jaws 10 with an SMA and Window Eyes with an SMA. this is to allow me to use what's best for a given situation. Even though there are a few things jaws does do better (at least right now), I cannot recall the last time I switched back to use jaws. It's been many months anyway. In my mind, since I was a jaws user for somewhere between 10 and 15 years, this says more than any of the arguments below do. Don't get me wrong, I'll gladly use jaws if I need to, it's not a dogma for me as it is with a few people to live and die by a single reader. Chip --------As for Window Eyes, well, I'd say it's absolutely worth switching, but it's going to be a little hard to come up with all the reasons. call me if these don't sound like enough to you. * first, I could get absolutely no useful support out of freedom scientific. when I reported bugs even, weeks would go by, and I'd get an email back saying "have you tried rebooting"? I'm a computer analyst; yes I had tried rebooting, made that clear, and made it clear to them I only wanted to report a bug so it could get fixed. most of the time I couldn't get past their "tech support" to get the report entered. I got so frustrated on the phone one time I asked the guy if he would escalate the call to the next level; he said no because *he was* the head of escalations! I also found myself paying a great deal for strictly bug-fix releases. I resent that; I feel as a general rule you should pay for new features, and bugs should be fixed as time allows and thrown in the next release if not too severe. I was ready to switch for this reason alone, and then I read that GW tries to make things financially easier for blind people who have to purchase out of their own pocket; so they offer a time payment plan for purchasing, as well as a monthly rental plan for window eyes (so you can try it for a while, or, if you can't even afford the payments of the time payment plan then maybe you can afford the rental payments). Next, they don't have any copy protection. a lot of my calls to FS tech support were about the malfunctioning copy-protection of jaws. I had a laptop with vista, and after months of messing with tech support, we finally found a solution which took me 8 separate authorizations, having to apply for a reset after every 3, so that my laptop would work with jaws whether the wifi radio was on or off, and whether my bluetooth radio was on or off, and whether both radios were on or off (8 distinct states, that their copy protection saw as 8 different pcs). and at work, I'm always having to changes pcs, or get a temporary second one in my office to test something out. so, I couldn't stand support and copy protection, and then along came window eyes scripting!!! George, if you're not a programmer this is going to be very hard to convince you how astoundingly good it is. I know you know jaws has scripting. what you may not know is that it's extremely difficult and inflexible, because it's their own made up language from the early DOS version. because it's so difficult, few scripts are written, and when they are available they are very costly because it took someone so much time to make them work correctly. I tried to script applications I was having trouble with in jaws; no luck! and when I did get a small change working, the next time a release of jaws came out, it erased my scripting change because the only way to make it work was to incorporate it into their main script, which of course got replaced during the upgrade. the scripting under window eyes is a very common language called vb script. it's also got a second common language called java script. there are dozens of free or low cost e-books and tutorials on these languages. they are easy to use, easy to learn, and have a modern design. and finally, if that isn't good enough, you can write scripts in any language you want. so, if you like cobol, write your scripts in cobol, and communicate with window eyes via windows COM. I got several problematic programs working with scripts within a couple of months, and this is even though I'm married and working full time and seriously ill. it's just that easy. I don't have to complain and complain any more to my screen reader maker that my particular application doesn't work with the screen reader; I have another option: I can script a solution, or get someone else to script a solution. the last time I checked I think there were nearly one hundred free scripts for downloading from the gw site. which is one more advantage: anyone who writes a script can put it up on the GW site for instant distribution to all other users. this is true for both free and for sale scripts (all the ones I mentioned were for free). they tend to be for free because it's so easy to write a script that no one so far (that I know of), has felt like they needed to be paid for their time. So, I know I'm going on and on, so let me summarize: the 2 products are roughly similar in what they can read out of the box; each has a few problems here and there. I expect when I report problems to GW they will eventually be fixed. however, GW has this great scripting environment, and I do not expect the scripting environment in jaws will ever change. one last thing: the owner of GW, and the head of support, and some of window eyes software engineers, all participate in their mailing and support lists, so whatever your comments, you can be sure you will get them to the people who matter, and often, they will answer you and help you solve your problem, or tell you it's been noted to be worked on. please consider not buying that next jaws upgrade, try renting window eyes for a few months so you can really take the time to learn it. call me if you have any questions, or write back. 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.)-- 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 Alternative archives located at: http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.htmlIf 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 thelist owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx-- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.comJFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxTo 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/jfwAlternative archives located at: http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.htmlIf 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__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4038 (20090427) __________The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4038 (20090427) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com -- 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 Alternative archives located at: http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.html 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
