Hi Greg, There is a definite learning curve associated with moving from Windows to a Mac. there are some podcasts at www.blindcooltech.com, done by Mike Arrigo that may help you get a basic understanding of the Mac and voiceover. there are definitely accessible chat applications, and surfing the internet is not a problem. MS Office for the mac is not accessible, but you could get the IWork suite, which includes a program called pages that lets you access Word documents and save in that format. I'm not a power user, so I can't say how much you can or can't do in Pages as compared with Word and JAWS. Personally, I don't think there is a satisfactory ocr solution, especially for a student who has to scan lots of material. there are solutions, fine reader express and read Iris. but if you're use to a program that lets you scan and ocr all with one keystroke, and read while scanning, have access to your ocr settings etc, then from what I've been able to learn, you will not be happy with anything that is presently available on the mac. If you've already invested in one of the blindness-oriented scanning applications such as K1000, you might look in to running bootcamp on your new Mac, thus giving you access to Windows when you wanted it.
People on this list have said blackboard is usable. there is information on voiceover at the apple.com/accessibility/ website. I'm sure you'll get lots of info from other list members. You also mentioned needing braille. If you're using Duxbury and an embosser other than an Index, there is nothing for you on the mac so far as I know, although I've heard of a project that is being worked on. I've just started trying to get to grips with IBraille, the Mac application that lets you emboss using index embossers, and its primitive compared with Duxbury, or even with its Windows counterpart. It hasn't been updated in 3 plus years. Mary including Mary Otten motte...@gmail.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
