“if software works once it will always work”

I am sorry Dan, but that is the funniest statement I have heard in a long time.

For years I worked with a programmer and , barring, major changes if software works once it will always work.  JAWS breaks that rule.  That is what I mean by reliability.  JAWS is not consistent each time it interacts with a program.

Dan

I think we need to move away from generic statements such as “that product is fast becoming pretty awful in terms of reliability” and many others. Jaws as well as NVDA are dealing with a lot of changes in how they can access information as Windows 10 is moving to wherever it is going and with Microsoft breaking things in Office on a relatively regular bases. I am pretty sure if, for example, Jaws suddenly doesn’t automatically speak the results of the Windows 10 Calculator that it is not because of Jaws but because there was some change in Windows 10. The same goes with speaking address suggestions in Outlook and other things in Office. It often goes from working to not working without Jaws even releasing an update which would indicate Microsoft has changed something behind the scenes in Office and now Jaws and/or NVDA has to catch up to it or Microsoft gets notified of it and introduces a fix.

I could browse the archives of lists like this and produce statements like what Dan said going back year after year after year.

As for Richard’s statement about Window Eyes being the only true competition to Jaws I also would disagree with that. Window Eyes had such a small piece of the market that while they were an alternative, I wouldn’t consider them serious competition just as I don’t consider Linux competition to Windows, not in the same way as, for example, Ford being a competitor to GMC or vice versa.

If any screenreader is competition to Jaws it is NVDA. However, my observations seem to indicate that a absolutely vast majority of blind people who are employed in a challenging job which demands them to be productive are using Jaws because it still is the gold standard and in my opinion Vispero is very aggressively working on making it the best it can be. They seem to have a pretty dedicated and qualified team as well as the resources to put into Jaws development and I think more influence can be brought into play with companies like Microsoft by one larger organization like Vispero than 2 or 3 smaller ones.

Dare I say it, JAWS has major issues of its own.  So while I agree that Microsoft has things to deal with , before I am too critical of them, I want to be certain that the assistive technology is not part of the problem.  For me I would support a competitor to JAWS for that product is fast becoming pretty awful in terms of reliability.

Dan

Incredible!  They admit how unpopular Edge is and they say this about IE!

Microsoft is losing my respect, especially after breaking Skype as well.

Maria Campbell

lucky1inct@...

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

~ Blaise Pascal ~

So why don't they just remove it from windows then?
I bet it's still there in the next build!

 

 

On 8 Feb 2019, at 23:49, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:

Article that came out today in The Telegraph newspaper in the UK:

          Stop using Internet Explorer, warns Microsoft's own security chief

If that doesn't convince people that the shelf life of IE is now expired, nothing will.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1809, Build 17763  

   Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

         ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore