anti-word

Sun Jan 13 13:52:47 EST 2002

You are correct.  However, all that you needed to do was to point out to
your professor that he could easily use "Save As" from the pulldown menu and
save his documents for mailing to you in text.  I frequenlty do this when I
receive Word documents as I will today for two courses I'm taking this week
on Networks and Advanced TCP/IP.  These I will download to my notetaker as
they are smaller and there is a book reader function in my notetaker and so
I can read these files while I'm in the taxi going to work or whatever.

I agree that the Universities are at the root of much of this but ...  they
really don't need to know nor do anything other than press the right buttons
and click on the desired choice.

Amanda Lee

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1 at uic.edu>
To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 1:24 PM
Subject: Re: anti-word

> Yes, I do. However, you seem to be missing the point I'm trying to get
across here. So, let me give you an example.
> A professor of mine was handing out something that he had written for the
class. Since I knew that he had written it by himself recently, I asked if
he could e-mail me a plain text file instead, so I wouldn't need to mess
with scannning the handout. His answer to me was: "you mean a word
document?" I said "no, I mean a .txt file, a plain ASCII text file." He was
still confused, so I said, "like the files that you create with notepad." He
said "oh, ok."
>
> My point is as it was before. If all they know about their computer is how
to turn it on and off, then how are they supposed to know about other
platforms if they don't even know for sure what a text file?
>
> If some of you on this list want to blame the ignorant professor, then
maybe you should blame universities, employers, and the way we learn and
work today. Universities and employers are the ones today who tell you they
want your papers in 12 point font, and formatted this way or that. Now, how
are we supposed to achieve that in something like notepad/emacs/pico? And if
someone else is wondering how the hell this guy became a professor without
knowing crap about what kinds of files he could produce on his computer,
then that is a new question to examine the answer to.
> Greg
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 12:29:50PM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Gregory, I keep telling you this answer, but there's some part of it
that
> > you seem to still miss. What part is that?
> >
> > They don't need to know a damm thing to retrieve either a text doc (no
> > formatting), or an html doc (much formatting).
> >
> > They need know nothing special in order to do that. Do you understand
this
> > yet?
> >
> > On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> >
> > > And how do you expect them to know about the other platforms if all
they know about their windows computer is how to turn it on and off?
> > > Greg
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 12:17:03PM -0500, Charles Crawford wrote:
> > > > Hello Amanda, Janina and other interested listers,
> > > >
> > > >          Well, looks like the world of advocacy is impinging on
planet
> > > > Linux.  It is correct to point out that in the ideal there should
not be a
> > > > word processing standard imposed by a company, but as we all know,
the
> > > > sender of a word file getting a text file back might not see the
world in
> > > > the same way.  Don't you just hate it when that happens.  Smile.
> > > >
> > > >          I guess my view is that if word users want to communicate
with
> > > > those who don't use word, then they have to adjust to the realities
of
> > > > other computer platforms.  Consumer choice still has it's place!
> > > >
> > > > -- Charlie Crawford.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > At 11:09 AM 01/13/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> > > > >Amen! to that Janina!
> > > > >
> > > > >Amanda
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >----- Original Message -----
> > > > >From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at afb.net>
> > > > >To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> > > > >Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 11:06 AM
> > > > >Subject: Re: anti-word
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Steve Holmes wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Yes and if a word document is sent to you for your input and
editing,
> > > > >I'm
> > > > > > > sure the original party would expect the thing to come back in
Word
> > > > >format
> > > > > > > along with the built-in formatting, styles and such.  Some of
this whole
> > > > > > > anti Word sounds arogant to me.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I rather think it arrogant to presume everyone wants and reads
Word. I
> > > > > > regard it as arrogant to presume we all pay tribute to
Microsoft. I
> > > > > > further regard it arrogant to treat a proprietary,
non-consensus, file
> > > > > > format as some kind of standard.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
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> > > >
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> > >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > http://www.openebook.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
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