Hi,
Just some thoughts that may have some bearing on this & future discussion.
In general Commercial companies will not support products like Firefox or
Opera beyond a certain point. For example, here is an edited quote from the
Freedom Scientific Website:
JAWS now supports the Mozilla Firefox Web browser (version 1.5 beta or
later)... ...While the majority of this support is in place now, not
everything is complete and Freedom Scientific will not be able to provide
Technical Support for this program as a result.
(full quote here:
http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws70fea.asp )
JAWS is the most popular screen reading programme in the world and won't
support Firefox (& doesn't even mention Opera in its support documentation).
Most companies will test & support their AT software with the most popular
products ie MS Office, outlook express, etc. Whilst they're willing to go so
far along the line in helping, they will generally draw the line at anything
beyond basic support of less popular products (unless they supplied them).
The other thing of course is that companies cannot train their support staff
on every programme or technology. Whilst many of the companies employ very
technically competent people, they just do not generally have the time to
look at supporting every single programme.
So unless Assistive Technologists are willing to take on the support of less
popular programmes for the end-users you may be putting them in a
unsupportable position.
You may also want to consider the employment prospects of individuals using
AT software. If you're an employer (unless it's a techie job) would you
employ someone with skills and knowledge of "Open Office" or "MS Office".
What is the default setup in your \ most organisations? I'd be surprised if
it wasn't primarily Microsoft based.
If you're using open source software for all your computing needs (AT or
otherwise), it's highly unlikely an IT department would either allow such
products into their environment or be happy at the prospect of not having
access to support staff.
It strikes me that the fragmentation of AT effort on the most popular
products whilst laudable in its intention to possibly provide better access
in the long term may be akin to the discussion on lists etc from last week,
and dilutes effort on resolving present needs. Cf: too many information
sources with too many products to know, test, support, train etc. with
dilution of Assistive Technologists time & focus in a constrained time in
the NHS etc
Neil
Neil Hansen
Technical & Software Development Manager - AAC
Possum Controls Ltd - AAC Division
8 Farmbrough Close
Stocklake Park Industrial Estate
Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire
HP20 1DQ
Tel: 01943 871004
Fax: 01943 870 780
Mob: 07734 551205
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-----Original Message-----
From: A discussion list for Assistive Technology professionals.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Judge Simon
Sent: 29 September 2006 08:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: FireVox
That's interesting to know... To be honest i'm so addicted to firefox
extenstions that i've not strayed from Firefox. I think people on this list
have come out as opera fans though (as it were) and I know it is meant to be
quite good accessibility wise. In fact, i've not come across an
accessibility comparison between browsers... That'd be useful, anyone got a
link?
Cheers
Simon
Clinical Scientist
ACT
0121 627 1627 ex 53245
-----Original Message-----
From: A discussion list for Assistive Technology professionals.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Hobbs
Sent: 29 September 2006 02:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: FireVox
Thanks for your email Simon - I hadn't seen Firefox's reader. Has anyone
seen or used the following (Opera)? I've just heard and seen it used on a
colleagues PC.
http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/
It also has 'voice' - http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/voice/
Dave ;-)
>>> Judge Simon <[log in to unmask]> Wednesday, 27 September 2006
>>> >>>
Anyone else played with this?
Seems excellent - it is a web browser reader for firefox - i.e. it reads web
pages. Might do for lots of people who want support reading web pages.
http://www.firevox.clcworld.net/ And i've added it to OATS if you want to
comment: http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/fire-vox
Cheers
Simon
Clinical Scientist
ACT
0121 627 1627 ex 53245
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