[blind-philly-comp] Re: why I’ve moved away from a paid screen reader after almost 18 years, An essay.
- From: <jhii926@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blind-philly-comp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 4 May 2019 09:54:50 -0400
Although you could upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 and use it that way
for a few years yet if you wanted too.
Run ClassicShell (Another abandanware program), to configure it to behave like
Windows 7 start menu.
I figured IE needs to be supported thru at least January 2023 as this is when
Windows 8.1 stopst being supported completely I know 2023 is the year though I
may be off on the month of January. I know when Windows 8.1 was released,
Microsoft was still on the 10 year life cycle, and windows as a service was not
yet a thing.
Not sure what date Windows 8.1 came out, but whatever date that is, MS wil
support it until 10 years past that date.
Window eyes free version could work on Windows 8.1, as could an older version
of office which MS supports.
John
From: blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of David Goldfield
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2019 11:11 PM
To: blind-philly-comp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-philly-comp] Re: why I’ve moved away from a paid screen reader
after almost 18 years, An essay.
As an aside The free Window-Eyes screen reader for users of Microsoft Office is
actually still available as a free download. For a variety of reasons I can't
recommend it, as it may not reliably work well with certain aspects of Windows
10. It doesn't work with the Edge browser and probably won't work at all with
later versions of Firefox. Internet Explorer, while it's still being supported
with security updates, does not conform to or will perform well with all of the
latest Web technologies and more and more Web sites will likely be
discontinuing support for that browser. Eventually, that browser will even stop
receiving security updates, likely by the year 2025.
On 5/3/2019 11:03 PM, David Goldfield wrote:
Hi, John. You wrote ...
Thing Is GW Micro did things different, and by the merger and them getting
rid of it, it just leaves one more access tech gone David.
Much of what I'm about to write is speculation and are merely my opinions which
I will likely never be able to verify as fact, so take what I'm about to write
with as many grains of salt as you'd care to administer. The demise of
Window-Eyes was, in a way, the result of two mergers. First, there was what
was, for me, the surprising merger when GW Micro became part of AI Squared.
While Zoomtext from AI Squared was always a successful screen magnification
program I wonder if Window-Eyes was perhaps struggling to survive and perhaps
GW Micro assumed that being a part of a successful assistive technology company
might give them the boost in users that they needed, considering that
Window-Eyes was eventually combined with Zoomtext after the merger to form the
original Fusion. While Window-Eyes needed a boost in users Zoomtext needed, to
be frank, a decent screen reader since the reader in Zoomtext was a fairly
mediocre speech solution. Therefore, Window-Eyes could provide Zoomtext with
robust speech support which it had previously been lacking. Had this been the
only merger I wonder if Window-Eyes might still be around today. Sadly, we'll
never know. The beginning of the death of Window-Eyes, in my opinion, really
happened when VFO bought AI Squared. This was a good move for VFO, now Vispero,
because, while JAWS was very, very successful I got the sense that MAGic, their
screen magnifier, was not. This second merger would give Zoomtext an even
greater lease on life, something that it probably never needed in the first
place. Not only did Zoomtext gets additional features for the magnifier but
having JAWS being added to it to form the new Fusion gave it even more robust
speech support than it had with Window-Eyes. I believe that the second merger
was made to allow Vispero to acquire Zoomtext into its product line but I don't
believe that it was done with the deliberate intent of wiping Window-Eyes off
of the map but that's exactly what happened. It would be like Microsoft buying
Apple in order for Microsoft to be able to have the iPhone as part of its
portfolio. Since Microsoft failed miserably to get into the smart phone
business having the iPhone would be quite a win for them but one would wonder
whether they'd want to keep the Mac around. The Mac has a large enough user
base that killing it off wouldn't be easy but I think you get the point.
Window-Eyes was caught in the middle and FS wasn't about to save it since they
already had a successful screen reader, which also happened to be very good at
what it did. To be frank, its performance was sometimes better than Window-Eyes
and so FS wouldn't want to invest resources into that screen reader when JAWS
was already its flagship product.
Also they did set files that I think were easier to master than scripting.
Some people might agree. To be fair, Window-Eyes also introduced scripting with
version 7.0 and JAWS, while they're not called set files, does have
configuration files which can be tailored for each individual program you use
with things like Settings Center, Keyboard Manager, dictionary manager, etc.
Also they had a pretty flexible way of being able to pay for that which I
don’t think FS has matched quite yet.
For a while that was true and this was one of the issues I had with FS. JAWS
may have had flexible Web but they sure didn't do much when it came to flexible
payment options. However, they now have their annual home license for $90 a
year. The annual license for home users is also available for Zoomtext as well,
which wasn't available when they were sold by AI Squared. A similar annual
license is now available for some educational institutions. JAWS can also be
purchased at a very inexpensive price if you purchase a refurbished computer
from Computers for the Blind from Garland, Texas, with the first year available
at no cost. Window-Eyes did make the remarkable decision to offer a totally
free version of the software to any user who had a working copy of Office 2010
or later installed on their machine and I believe this even extended to
corporate and educational users.
I haven’t really used another screne reader than jaws.
Other then to use it enough to know that if I had to, it could be done. With
SAtogo, Narator or NVDA.
Oh, sure, it can be done. You can have several screen readers installed on one
machine and, with hotkeys, jump from one to another as long as you first close
one screen reader before starting another.
David
--
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info <
http://WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info>
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