General questions from someone who's never used Speakup...

[Chris Norman]

If you want real time stuff, I'd get a braille display to, using brltty.

Chris Norman
<!-- chris.norman4 at ntlworld.com -->
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Homuth" <james at the-jdh.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 5:59 PM
Subject: Re: General questions from someone who's never used Speakup...


> I'm wondering, though, what kind of feedback overall I can expect
> from it. I'm giving serious thought to getting into system
> administration, yes, but if it's going to offer as much or, I guess,
> as little feedback as programs like asap for DOS have, then it
> probably isn't really worth my switching, and I'd likely be better
> off sticking to administering linux systems as best I can remotely,
> since I get more feedback that way. Also, how does it handle
> environments wherein the text is constantly changing? IE an active
> realtime communications medium. If I understand it correctly, it's
> designed to stop speaking when you start typing... is there perhaps a
> way that that can be changed, or at least temporarily disabled?
> Questions like that I'd rather have answered before I start looking
> for old computers to turn into experimental linux boxes.
>
> James
> At 12:19 PM 9/18/2006, you wrote:
>>I think it all depends on what you want out of linux. Are you hoping to
>>become a linux system administrator? If so, you'll want to get to know
>>speakup -- it rocks. I use it every day. I even have speakup on my laptop 
>>as
>>opposed to Windows 98. (It's a very old laptop.)
>>
>>But if you're just looking for a way to read email and browse the web, I
>>don't think you'll see a productivity increase by switching from a
>>windows/jaws system to linux/speakup.
>>
>>I've been telling all my blind friends who make their living doing 
>>computer
>>support to get into linux. IMO, it's a great career move.  You're hardly
>>handicapped at all in linux system administration. Almost everything is 
>>text
>>based.
>>
>>But if you're not a computer nerd, I wouldn't bother trying to learn
>>linux/speakup. WWhen the GUI screen readers are better, then it might be
>>worthwhile to switch.
>>
>>I definately  think the way to get started is with an older machine. I 
>>have
>>a LAN in my home running, well, everything... web server, dhcp, caching 
>>dns,
>>samba. It even has 2 sound cards so I can record more than 1 radio program
>>at a time. And it's just a pentium 450 with 384 Mb of ram.
>>
>>I don't know what the laws are like where you live but in Madison,
>>Wisconsin, you have to pay like $20 to dispose of a computer. So people 
>>are
>>more than willing to give you an old computer that linux and speakup will
>>run on just fine.  That's how I would start.
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "James Homuth" <james at the-jdh.com>
>>To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>>Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 5:52 PM
>>Subject: General questions from someone who's never used Speakup...
>>
>>
>> >I do have linux experience, though not running it off my own machine,
>> > since until recently I'd been unaware of anything remotely decent so
>> > far as text-to-speech capabilities for it. What I'd like to know,
>> > however, is what kind of feedback/configurability is offered with the
>> > current version of Speakup? I should probably point out that, coming
>> > from Windows, I'm probably going to end up comparing this with
>> > whatever expectations I have after using JAWS and/or Window Eyes.
>> > I've been tossing around the idea of finding a spare machine just to
>> > fiddle around with linux and check out Speakup, at the very least,
>> > but I like to know what I'm getting into before I go and jump in with
>> > both feet. If anyone knows where I can get my hands on something like
>> > a demo of the program in action, or can maybe tell me what their
>> > experience with Speakup has been like, that'd be awesome. Email me on
>> > or off list, whichever.
>> >
>> > James
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Speakup mailing list
>> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
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>
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