Installing Linux with Speakup Scheduled at CSUN

[Kerry Hoath]

A point on what Scott says;
Sure they want to buy a car and drive where they want to go;
but they need to learn how to drive first.
Many people want to get work done with the minimum amount of effort.
They want to type a document; hit the   print button and look at
a nicely formatted piece of text.
Problem is; it gets work done; just not the best that can be done or the
nicest with the effort pu t in.
The wizards in publisher can crank out piles of shitty cards crappy calendars
and boring clipart.
We had to u se publisher for a desktop publishing course I did at TAFE;
and a friend learnt how to use publisher properly.
The teacher accused him of using Correl draw in stead of publisher
and was amazed to see it was really publisher.
He did not use the lame arsed card wizard; but h it
the "start from scratch" button and designed the wh ole thing from the ground up.
I know exactly why there are technitions; I am one after all.
Problem is; computers aren't for everyone; neither is home improvement.
Many people should never even pick up a hammer; many should also not
touch computers without a little training.
Knowledge is still required.
I can show you plenty of blind people who still can't use jaws properly;
insist on activating a button with enter;
(It is actually yspace bar see below) and never use the jaws cursor.

Take the example of the format disk dialog in win98/me/2k/xp.
You format a disk and see the summary  screen.
You ok the screen and have focus on  the close button.
You hit enter  and it formats the disk again. why? because the
close button has focus but is not selected.
hitting enter on a button will activate the default button; hitting space activates
the button with focus.
This is important in icq because hitting enter can close t he window.
It'll all take time to sort we  just  need t he right training
materials; people hwo  want ot learn and some
damn software speech.
The one thing that  stops  many people from running linux
is lack of software speech.
It's either learn emacs emacspeak and  use     viavoice
or use expensive screen reader eloquence
or other natural sounding evil software speech t hat comes to bits
on you  if the machine is flakey.
Software speech is nice; don't get me wrong;
but got  help you if your soundc ard is in any way marginal.
Anyone remember the stutter  problem with the early liveware?
If we  can get linux talking with alsa drivers; software speech and speakup
or GUI accessability many more people will join the
bandwagon.
Software speech allows  one to use a computer with no more than a soundcard and
headphones or speakers.


-- 
Kerry Hoath:  kerry at gotss.net kerry at gotss.eu.org or  kerry at gotss.spice.net.au
ICQ: 8226547 msn: kerry at gotss.net Yahoo: kerryhoath at yahoo.com.au