On the subject of ease of use....

[Steve Holmes]

Yes, the applications are not truly created equal.  By and large, I do
find quite a few to be usable with Window-Eyes.  I do happen to be more of
a techy so don't mind the complexities of Linux.  I do especially
appreciate the stability of Linux; I have never had linux cause a crash
where it is probably within a weeks time that some windows app will cause
an illegal operation and even possibly lock up the machine into knots!
There are some client level applications that simply are more usable under
winblows because of market share and the like.  Example: Internet Explorer
with Window-Eyes and MSAA support.  The combo provides excellent to most
web sites including Java.  As far as I know, Lynx will never support java
thus never be able to compete on equal ground.  I do all my financial
transactions with the above MS combo because there simply is no
alternative under linux.  But now on the other side, I have been exploring
processing CD burning under linux and find to be infintely more powerful
and flexible than windows products but will require some extensive
learning of command line options but that's what scripting is good for,
just put the complex options into a one or two line shell script and you
have a simple one word command to burn a CD image.

This may sound all confusing but my bottom line is Linux makes for
excelent server platform but windows may be more suited for end-user
stuff.  I do find it exciting to see more less technical people jumping
into linux, however.

On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Georgina wrote:

> Hi
>
> WEll on the subject of ease of use, I believe that it is down to perception of
> the user.  Windows users have to remember keyboard shortcuts for both the OS
> and the screen reader.  Even with the pull-down menus, support lists are
> frequently asked how to access something that is easily found.  Blind people
> have to attempt to gain a spatial understanding of the screen's layout.  I
> think that the obscession to use the GUI is to feel that it brings an equal
> access but this is sadly an illusion as if the program doesn't have keyboard
> shortcuts then we're stuffed.
>
> Since January 1st I've been using Linux to deal with my e-mail because of the
> number of attempts to infect my PC with the Bad trans virus, or whatever it
> was called.  Anyway, I find that I can deal with mail a lot quicker under
> Linux then I can with Windows.
>
> When you consider that to exit many programs you press the letter "q" or "x"
> which is a lot easier than alt + F4.
>
> I've also discovered a simple but great menu program which can easily make
> Linux even easier than Windows as it does work by pressing shortcuts (Letters
> of the alphabet), arrow keys and the return key.  This menu system is called
> pdmenu, check it out.
>
> The bash shell shouldn't be
> compared with DOS because they are worlds apart.  The history buffer, auto
> complete and long filename support make it superior and far more blind friendly.
>
> Don't get me wrong, Windows provides better OCR support and perhaps the
> internet but this is how it is now, who knows what the future might bring.
>
> Gena
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