Just when I thought the pinnacle had been reached...
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| helios Jul 06, 2006 11:49 AM EDT |
I know how history can taunt one who makes absolute statements. For instance the alleged Bill Gates blurb that: "640K ought to be enough for anybody." or "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer." Regardless of whether he said it or not, it doesn't matter. Enough people believe he did, so the perception actually becomes reality. One must be careful with words, especially if one is to be quoted at any time in history. I am neither rich, famous, smart or particularly lucky. I seriously doubt anything I say will have any significant impact except for the matter that impacts the print lining the bird cage. That being said... I am having trouble envisioning how a browser can get much better than Opera 9.0. A year ago I didn't know it Opera existed. Six months ago, I thought it was a load of so much wasted ones and zeros. Today, I use Firefox only for my Download Them All and Linky extensions. Opera seems to have struck a balance between speed, function and athstetics. I habitually employ "conflicting" extensions with Firefox, either completely cratering Gecko, or making it so slow, IE begins to seem a viable option. Opera is the direction I hope Seamonkey takes. |
| grouch Jul 06, 2006 12:18 PM EDT |
helios: >"I am having trouble envisioning how a browser can get much better than Opera 9.0." How about free, as in speech? Not hard for me to envision a very large improvement. |
| SFN Jul 06, 2006 12:48 PM EDT |
Quoting:How about free, as in speech? Ooh, yeah! If they made it talk that would be sweet! |
| helios Jul 06, 2006 3:10 PM EDT |
Grouch...that's a point taken. Seems a bit odd to keep it closed since it is not providing a first-tier income, but then again, who knows what evils lie within the bits and bytes that make it work. On the other hand, I see that they make a large portion of thier revenue from supporting mass deployments, so I can understand the closed source attitude. They may have plans to release a commercial program utilizing portions of that code somewhere down the line too. I am not bothered by the closed source thing as much as some are but prefer to use it as a matter of philosophical statement. I believe Opera is one of only 4 closed source apps on any of my computers. I personally believe that making it free as in beer for all was a wise step for them as well as a good one for the community. It kind of lends to the theory that they plan to release something commercial later. Making Opera accessable to all at no cost increased the market awareness. And SFN, If a talking browser takes anything along the direction of talking web pages, I do believe I could be driven to physical violence. You know, the animated chick in the box that talks to you while you are trying to read the page? If that wasn't creepy enough, they coded it so the eyes follow the mouse, and on some, if your mouse hits a link she just launches into why you should click it. BTW, Opera did delve into the talking browser market in 2004 it seems. [url=http://news.com.com/Opera releases talking Web browser/2100-1032_3-5502431.html]http://news.com.com/Opera releases talking Web browser/2100-...[/url] I'm not seeing it anywhere on their website now. I am guessing users showing a propensity for physical violence outnumbered those more restrained users. |
| grouch Jul 06, 2006 4:59 PM EDT |
A talking browser is necessary for blind computer users -- not a new idea. I've had my fill of secretive software in anything but a game that can be easily isolated. With the mountains of truly free software now available, I don't have to use closed, secret software any more. That means I never have to just cross my fingers and hope it is not doing something sneaky. |
| jimf Jul 06, 2006 5:41 PM EDT |
> A talking browser is necessary for blind computer users -- not a new idea. As is voice interaction for the rest of the OS. Thanks for reminding me. Right now, I see little in Linux that supports that, and, I would think it should be a major priority. I have a long time friend who has little choice other than MS because of that.... |
| jdixon Jul 06, 2006 5:58 PM EDT |
> Seems a bit odd to keep it closed since it is not providing a first-tier income... I understand they're making good money from the embedded version, which is why the released the desktop version for free. |
| grouch Jul 06, 2006 6:04 PM EDT |
jimf: Emacspeaks was around long before anything existed in the MS world to help blind users. http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/ Oralux: Audio GNU/Linux distro for visually impaired persons http://www.oralux.org/ Blinux: "The purpose of BLINUX project is to improve usability of the LINUX operating system for the user who is blind" http://leb.net/blinux/ Blinux-Newbie -- list for blind people who are new to Linux http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/blinux-newbie Tips and Software for Blind Linux Users http://wwwcs.uni-paderborn.de/cs/heiss/blinux/index-en.html (Links taken from http://edge-op.org/links1.html#blind but I haven't updated that in a while). You may also find some helpful information in the article (or comments following it), "New Scriptable Linux Screen Reader for Gnome on Freshmeat" at: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200603240739109 |
| jimf Jul 06, 2006 7:03 PM EDT |
Wow, thanks for the leads grouch. I'll pass all that along. My friend was lead electrical Engineer in one of the first places I worked in Chicago. Just got back in touch with him a few weeks ago. If you can imagine seeing life through a quarter size offset window, then you know just a little of what he deals with. That and still a working Electrical Controls Engineer (he just retired). An amazing mind and a really nice guy. He's always up for a project, and I suspect he'd really like Linux. |
| jdixon Jul 06, 2006 7:28 PM EDT |
You might also want to look at speakup: http://linux-speakup.org Slackware has included it for a while, but I fortunately have never had the need to investigate it. |
| grouch Jul 06, 2006 9:23 PM EDT |
jdixon: Added that link. Thanks! Found one more while looking for a replacement for a broken one: http://tuxmobil.org/mobile_blind.html "Linux Laptops, Notebook, PDAs and Mobile Phones for the Blind" jimf: People such as your friend are why I get annoyed at seeing websites that have nothing in common with W3 standards. You've seen those atrocious things that assume you're running IE at a certain screen size, with exactly the font the web monkey uses, and with everything under the sun turned on. Since helping with the queues here at LXer, I've even encountered some "news" sites which have half the story in an image instead of text! Web monkeys should have to read -- http://www.w3.org/WAI/ |
| SFN Jul 07, 2006 4:11 AM EDT |
Free "speech". Make it "talk". Get it? *nudge, nudge* |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!