Well, I've been fiddling with Ubuntu 7 Beta and I have to say it's a nice system, if a little on the bulky side with regard to the packages it installs. It doesn't come with a few packages I like but these never seem to be installed by default on any system so I can't really expect them.
The new screen reader, Orca, is an interesting package and it works out of the box! In fact I'm using it right now to write this entry. The only problem I have with it so far is that the keypress that I expected to cause Orca to read the entire contents of a window doesn't seem to work but I'm sure I'll get that sorted out at some point. The other big advantage of Orca (and Ubuntu/Linux in general) is that it doesn't cost a fortune to buy, unlike JAWS does!
I'll be playing with Orca for a bit longer as it seems to definitely be my screen reader of choice and the voice is nicer than JAWS (it even comes with a default set of weird English accents - I can make my computer sound Lancastrian, for example!) even if it does still rather synthetic.
Here's a question for you though: why do all the screen readers I've tried seem to have a male voice only? I want a nice, female voice for my computer damnit!
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5 comments:
Ubuntu rocks :)
Haven't tried Orca, hope it works for you. I have to say that the few people I've encountered that were blind wannabes always intrigued me, because none of them, with the exception of you and Maria (see my website) use screenreaders. It seems weird to want to be blind but not even to use the technology to access the web/computers. *shrug*
As for male voices, I dont' know about Orca, but with Jaws, you can download extra voices and configure them to sound how you want them to. It might be only available as an option once you purchase the system though.
*waves to Sean* I've wondered that! I use JAWS and NVDA myself, so April and Maria aren't the only ones who use screenreaders :)
*waves to April* Hi! I'm Robin. You seem to know some about me (as my blog is linked from your site) so I won't explain too much here. I wanted to suggest NVDA if you're on windows for a screen reader. It's not perfect but it's free as in speech, and works a lot better than any other screen reader at its price point for Windows (i.e. none, as far as i know) does. I use it at work, and JAWS at home.
"blind wannabes always intrigued me, because none of them, with the exception of you and Maria (see my website) use screenreaders."
They identify as blind but don't use screen readers? That seems a little weird to me. I wonder how they can rationalise that. I have difficulty enough coping with vision on a computer when I have to use it, never mind all the time!
They identify as blind but don't use screen readers? That seems a little weird to me. I wonder how they can rationalise that.
Not just a little weird to me.
Perhaps it has to do with them being turned on at the idea of being blind more than actually wanting/needing to be blind, who knows?
Robin, I had no idea you used a screenreader. That just goes to show you have to write more about your experiences on your site ;)
"Perhaps it has to do with them being turned on at the idea of being blind more than actually wanting/needing to be blind, who knows?"
That sounds a lot more like amaurophilia than BIID to me...
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