For those that have been using Linux for a while. You may want to send him an answer with some information that might educate him on Linux and it capabilities. Richard ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 21:10:30 +1300 From: Jonathan Mosen <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: acb-l at acb.org To: acb-l at acb.org, 'mary otten' <maryotten at home.com> Subject: RE: Message from Linux Mary, music to my ears, music to my ears! I find this Linux command-line revival really bizarre. With the quality of Windows screen readers, Windows has opened access to the world of the PC to blind people who aren't super-techy types. Give me the ability to tap the ALT key and explore a menu bar in a new application over cryptic and often huge command line sequences. Give me the ability to select a file just by pressing the first couple of letters of its name. Give me a nice dialogue box full of configuration options with check boxes and radio buttons rather than a file with a long name that you must edit just so with a text editor that has wacky command sequences. It's also worth observing that most of the sighted people I know who are using Linux are running X-Windows, which is a windows-like graphical user interface that to the best of my knowledge is still out of our reach. One of the things I am desperate to do is have a face-off with a good Linux user on the web. I am sure that I could demonstrate that a blind person using JFW or Windoweyes with Internet Explorer is much more efficient surfing the web and getting to the information they need than a Lynx user. This is even more the case now with the new version of JAWS, which offers excellent header navigation and the speaking of access keys. Plus, many pages that work perfectly well in IE just ain't gonna do anything useful in Lynx. Lynx doesn't know about JAVAscript. And talk to a Linux user about many of the tasks we zip through in Windows daily, like word processing, sound editing, CD ripping etc. Most have to admit they load Windows for those things. Obviously Linux is a great option for some, particularly those who like going deep under the hood and who have a memory for command lines. But I'd go as far as saying that for the majority, they'd be horrified if they found out what a Linux prompt is really like. And I speak as someone who has used DOS since 1984 and Linux on and off. Linux seems to be a bit trendy just now, but I'm proud of what we can do in Windows and how it has empowered so many of us in a way that Linux never could. Jonathan Mosen: E-mail and MSN Messenger: jonathan at mosen.org Work Phone: +64-6-348-8127 Mobile: +64-27-22Mosen (+64-27-226-6736) -----Original Message----- From: mary otten [mailto:maryotten@xxxxxxxx] Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 4:42 PM To: acb-l at acb.org Subject: Re: Message from Linux Charlie, What text program are you running to access the web? Lynx? Very limited, since it still doesn't do java script. Or is there a newer version that does? We run emacs with its w3 browser at work as well as lynx. And there are scads of intranet pages that are total losers. I really don't think I'd choose to go back to a text-based browser or even pine for home use. But more power to those of you who want to keep using them. I can't wait to be rid of the text-based web browser at work, though. Its really limiting! Mary -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: acb-l-unsubscribe at acb.org For additional commands, e-mail: acb-l-help at acb.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: acb-l-unsubscribe at acb.org For additional commands, e-mail: acb-l-help at acb.org
