Category: Geeks r Us
Hi all,
well, I listened to the review with Eric Damery on the features of jaws 7, and they now recommend downloading msn messenger 7.5, but I'm wondering, if windows messenger comes with xp, and is the same as msn messenger? why bother even downloading msn messenger? I had to call the sales department to make sure I'd still get version 7, as it was part of the sma, when mom and I got the sma with jaws 5. I told them since my computer had a time and date issue problem, I wasn't sure I wanted version 7, since all versions will be the same as far as being time and date sensitive. I don't know why I'm still having this stupid time and date issue, since the battery was changed, and it kept the correct time and date for 4 months, then went back to january 1 1997 again. I could actually use jaws 6 without the time and date issue problem, just so long as I have jaws 5 to start automatically, and change the time/date manually, then run jaws 6, but after I use jawf 6 for a while, it starts getting sluggish and lazy, like it doesn't have much energy to go on. I had to set typing echo to none, because when I typed in any edit field, jaws was very slow in saying the keys I typed, several secends each time I pressed a key. It actually froze my computer because of it, and I thought it wasn't going to ever start again, but when things returned to normal, I went back to jaws 5. I don't know why I didn't think of just letting version 5 start first, then switching to 6 after manually resetting the date, I guess I wasn't planningon going back to 5.0 that soon. Since version 6 was so sluggish with this computer, I have my doubts as to version 7 even loading at all. I'm running windows 98 installed over windows 95, have a 200 megahertz processor, 98 mb of ram, a 2.37 gb hard drive, which is just a bit over 2 gb, and this computer will be 8 years old christmas day. I figure if I can get a computer with a 2.8 gigahertz processor, at least 512 mb of sdddr ram, and an 80 gb hard drive, jaws 6 or 7 should work better, if indeed, a slower processor speed, and 98 mb of ram is the culprit with jaws 6. The sales person said my computer was probably at its max. Oh well anything is possible I guess.
wonderwoman
wow, well, the computer specs you're looking at sound good. jaws 6 has some new things that 5 doesn't, there's nothing particularly special about 7 however. as for msn vs windows messenger which was your original question, i personally think its a matter of preference. i was having this debate with somebody the other day *grin*, who uses msn only. i use a combination of the two, only because msn is more reliable when ti comes to sending/receiving files. for chatting though, windows messenger has no probs at all. msn has this new voice feature whereby you can send a small voice clip to somebody, presumably in real time, by holding down f2 in a conversation. i haven't tried this. i would imagine the interface however is a little slower than that of msn, as they insist in placing the ads in a different location now, whereas jaws so expertly ignored them previously.
Just my 2 cents.
oh my, don't tell me you get flooded with ads on msn messenger now! I was talking to someone who was getting them once, but I still had messenger 5, and I didn't get any ads, at least I can't really remember getting any. If you get overloaded with them, I might not even bother going back to msn messenger. who wants all those ads! Anyway, I'm a little nervous about switching from windows 98 to winxp. I've read a few articles both in smart computing and pc world about how to make xp behave the way you want it to, and how to get it to stop harrassing you, and I said, oh boy! sounds like a bumpy ride.
wonderwoman
they're ads on your screen as opposed to pop ups. there are actually ads in windows messenger although we don't see them unless we look for tem in jaws cursor.
i've never used windows messenger!
i think msn messenger is good though
well, if the jaws scripts work as well with windows messenger as they do with msn messenger, I may just stay with windows messenger. I'm getting way ahead of myself anyway with all this talk of msn messenger and msn messenger, since it will be a few months before we get the computer. But that's good that the pc cursor doesn't look for them, yeeheehee, they can spam us and we don't know it. I hardly ever remember a time when I had to use the jaws cursor with msn messenger.
wonderwoman
since wonder woman won't be able to see this, I don't know why I am writing this. Oh well, here we go. In the jaws 4.5 training tapes they guide you through making winxt look like win98. Hopefully someone will tell WW That I wrote this.
I'm not a jaws user, but if I was, I'd still use MSN 7.5 because I like to use the free MsgPlus add-on and not every feature of it works with Windows Messenger. Plus, being a blink, I like to look at people's display pics and change my own around at times.
I can understand that, you still have some vision, where as I don't. I downloaded and listened to Darrell Shandrows podcast about jaws 7, and according to him, it is buggy. When you use control l in firefox, it thinks you want to open the menus instead of open a web page, and he says inspite of fs recommending people using msn messenger 7.5, a lot of people still have problems with it, and he recommends jaws users use windows messenger 5.1. It took me 3 hours to download his podcast, but I'm glad I did it. If I get a new computer, drive space won't be much of an issue anymore, but if I download a podcatcher then, I'll have to download the shortest ones. If it takes 3 hours to download a 33 mb podcast, I don't want to think about subscribing to a lot of podcasts, then having about 10 huge files downloading automatically. I'm still on dial up. I forgot to mention that fact.
wonderwoman
I used both. Well the good thing about windows messenger is that it makes sounds when oyu get a message. MSN doesn't. But MSN is even better with Jaws somehow. So - I like both.
I think msn messenger 5 use to play a sound when someone messaged you, but if they changed that, oh well. I think instead of listening to fs' shows about their new jaws releases, think I'll listen to the actual users of it instead, you stand a better chance of getting the true picture, and finding howgood, or how bad the new version really is. As for firefox, I'd have to know the advantages of using jaws with firefox first. For instance, would a webpage that's not very accessible in internet explorer be more jaws friendly with firefox? I remember once when I was using jaws version 3.0, I liked posting in some of the about.com forums. Then one day I started to post a message, and they had jazzed up the looks of the site so much, jaws couldn't find the post message button. I wrote the about.com staff, and they told me the new page layout didn't work with netscape navigator, so they advised me to use that. Well, I wasn't going to go to a strange new browser just for the privilege of posting in their forums. But I wonder if firefox would be more accessible with jaws on sites like that?
Anyway, I guess when the time comes, I'll start with windows messenger. I don't know if I'll ever try the beta version of firefox or not, betas make me nervous.
wonderwoman