Yes, the multiple windows are problematic, especially since focus is
not always placed in the window one would expect. Also, although one
can move from link to link on a page using keystrokes, a non-standard way
of indicating the link with focus is used, which screen readers have
difficulty tracking. I tried with Window-Eyes and someone else I know
tried with JFW.
Regards,
Jamal
----- Original Message Follows -----
From: Martin Tibor <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: TECH: Opera browser is small and fast
To: [log in to unmask]
Can be more specific. Which readers etc.? Is it due to the multiple screens?
At 12:03 PM 12/6/98 +0400, Jamal Mazrui wrote:
>Opera apparently works well for low vision users. It does not, however,
>for blind users of screen readers. I've consistently heard this and
>experienced it myself. I hope the company addresses this problem.
>
>Regards,
>Jamal
>
>----- Original Message Follows -----
>
>From: Martin Tibor <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: TECH: Opera browser is small and fast
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>>From some very clever folks in Norway Opera is just one of the browsers I
use,
>but I can testify to its speed, compact size and the fact that is very
>accessible with keyboard commands. It is assistive technology friendly. Sure,
>you have to pay for it but it represents a good value. If you need
>magnification on your browser you will find it quite impressive. It will
reduce
>to a 20% scale or magnify to 1000%. You can download it for free and use it
for
>month and determine if it is useful before shelling out $35.
>
>Here is the text for scaling of text from their help file:
>
>Scaling / Zoom
>
>Opera can scale the complete contents of a document. You can also choose to
>only scale the text. Here you can also choose font and colours. Opera can
scale
>documents from 20 - 1000%. You can type in the percentage directly or choose
>from a list. You can also use the keyboard for scaling by pressing the '+' key
>on the number pad you increase the scaling by 10%. Likewise if you use the '-'
>key the scaling is reduced by 10%. Repeated keystrokes change the scaling down
>to 20% or up to 1000%.
>We have also added more keys to make it easier for people with eye problems:
>6 or * on the numeric keypad - Zooms to 100%
>7 or CTRL-"-" - zooms out 100% (ie. 400 - 300)
>8 or CTRL-"+" - zooms in 100% (ie. 500 - 600)
>
>At 03:58 AM 12/6/98 -0500, M. J. P. Senk wrote:
>>I have heard that the Opera browser allows more control over colors and
>>size of the displayed text than its bigger competitors. I could not reach
>>http://www.operasoft.com just before posting this article from today's
>>Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
>>
>> Sotto voce browser: As Microsoft, Netscape battle, quite Opera keeps
>> going
>>
>> Sunday, December 06, 1998
>>
>> By Michael Newman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
>>
>> The Antitrust Trial of the Century, like much else in the computer
>> world, is proving to be something of a letdown. Last week's highlight
>> was a debate about the meaning and etymology of a common term for
>> urination.
>>
>> More about that later. The Justice Department's suit against Microsoft
>> is ostensibly about its tactics in the browser market, though the
>> testimony does veer off to some strange territory. And Microsoft's
>> tactics in the browser market are of keen interest to Sandra
>> Thorbjornsen, director of sales and marketing for Opera Software.
>>
>> Opera develops and markets a browser program to view and retrieve
>> information on the World Wide Web, and by any measure - number of
>> users, number of employees, amount of disk space its program requires
>> - it is small. And it competes directly with the world's largest, most
>> powerful software company in the very market that is the subject of
>> the Justice Department's lawsuit.
>>
>> Still, Thorbjornsen is reticent about the case. "We have our opinions"
>> she says. But she declines to elaborate.
>>
>> "We're just working on making our browser better," she says. "We're
>> just going to keep a low profile. We have our hands full."
>>
>> Last week Opera released the latest version of its browser, also
>> called Opera. Like the browsers currently offered by Microsoft and
>> Netscape, Opera's has been through several iterations; the current
>> version is 3.5.
>>
>> The similarities pretty much stop there, however. To begin with, Opera
>> is a fraction of the size of Netscape's Communicator or Microsoft's
>> Internet Explorer - 5.1 megabytes with "Java support" compared to 14.3
>> and 16.9, respectively.
>>
>> As a result, Opera says, its browser runs on new computers far more
>> quickly, and on older computers far more easily, than Netscape's or
>> Microsoft's. Indeed, Opera says users need only a 386 chip and 6
>> megabytes of random-access memory.
>>
>> Reviews of the browser have been enthusiastic. C/Net, an online
>> computer-news site, said it is "blindingly fast and a refreshing
>> alternative to the monster-truck Internet suites." A reviewer for
>> Wired magazine called it "the fastest browser I've ever used."
>>
>> The browser looks much like the other two, with a row of icons across
>> the top indicating "back," "forward" and the rest. It can also have a
>> separate window of sites along the side of the screen, like
>> Microsoft's latest version of Internet Explorer.
>>
>> It does have unique features. Opening a new browser window, for
>> instance, is far faster with Opera, since it can keep many windows
>> open at once. Other browsers offer only one window at a time; to look
>> at two Web sites simultaneously, it's necessary to start up a second
>> version of the program
>>
>> Another difference is less to Opera's advantage: After a 30-day free
>> trial, users must send the company $35 or the software won't work
>> anymore. Smaller and faster may be better, but free beats cheap every
>> time.
>>
>> Still, Thorbjornsen estimates there are about a million users of the
>> browser, and new users register at the rate of several thousand per
>> month.
>>
>> "What we have found is that people are looking for an alternative,"
>> she says. Many are "happily running it on low-resource computers."
>>
>> In fact, Opera appears to be a happy, low-resource company itself.
>> Founded in 1994 by a group of engineers at the Norwegian equivalent of
>> AT&T, it is privately held. It has only 15 employees, most of them
>> based in Norway.
>>
>> ("We'd be very pleased to be in Silicon Valley," says Thorbjornsen,
>> who heads up Opera's North American operations from her one-woman
>> office in ... Cleveland? "Unfortunately we're in Cleveland and not
>> Silicon Valley. Cleveland will have to do for the moment.")
>>
>> Opera says its plan, besides continuing its promotion with individual
>> users, is to "pursue strategic alliances with high-tech companies and
>> institutions."
>>
>> It is, undoubtedly, a long shot. "They're slugging it out with two
>> rather well-heeled companies, especially now that AOL has bought
>> Netscape," says Jim Balderston, an industry analyst at Zona Research
>> in Silicon Valley.
>>
>> "The problem they face is, a browser is basically a commodity - and a
>> commodity is driven by brand recognition and brand loyalty," he says.
>> "That doesn't mean their product isn't superior. Their problem is just
>> how to get it to desktops." In Zona's quarterly surveys of business
>> users, he notes, Opera doesn't even register.
>>
>> But "they may play a role in the larger market of driving the quality
>> of the more commercially recognized browsers," he says. "They become
>> the freewheeling, small, agile innovator."
>>
>> It is a role that Thorbjornsen relishes. "We're just carrying on doing
>> what we've been doing," she says. "Yes, we are competing seriously
>> with them," she says, referring Microsoft and Netscape. "We have a
>> competing product."
>>
>> There is no danger, however, of Thorbjornsen being summoned to testify
>> in the antitrust case. She's more than happy about that, especially
>> given the turn the trial took last week.
>>
>> In a videotaped deposition, Justice lawyer David Boies pressed
>> Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates repeatedly about what a Microsoft
>> executive meant when he said the company was going to be "pissing on"
>> a competitor's product. After some back and forth, Gates conceded that
>> a fair synonym for the term was, well, to criticize strongly.
>>
>> It is an impulse that, so far anyway, Opera has resisted. "We prefer
>> to concentrate on our software," Thorbjornsen says. "We'll let users
>> be the judge."
>>
>Marty Tibor
>1 Stop Speech Recognition and Adaptive Technology Synapse
>3095 Kerner Blvd., Suite S, San Rafael, CA 94901
>toll-free 888-285-9988
>http://www.synapseadaptive.com
>Providers of adaptive and assistive technology solutions.
>http://www.unixspeech.com
>UNIX, mainframe and Mac speech recognition
>http://www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/default.htm
>Synapse hosts the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Unofficial Information Pages
>
>
>VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
>To join or leave the list, send a message to
>[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
>"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
> VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
>http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
>
>
>VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
>To join or leave the list, send a message to
>[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
>"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
> VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
>http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
>
Marty Tibor
1 Stop Speech Recognition and Adaptive Technology Synapse
3095 Kerner Blvd., Suite S, San Rafael, CA 94901
toll-free 888-285-9988
http://www.synapseadaptive.com
Providers of adaptive and assistive technology solutions.
http://www.unixspeech.com
UNIX, mainframe and Mac speech recognition
http://www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/default.htm
Synapse hosts the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Unofficial Information Pages
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
|
