[gui-talk] Mac desktops and laptops

[Joel Deutsch]

Warning, long post. Perfectly readable, though, unless you're in an awful 
hurry. Just took me a while to get to my main informational question. I'm 
just feeling conversational today. So consider yourselves warned. Thanks.

Special request to Andy Barraco: Even if you are not in a reading mood, 
please down arrow undtil you hear something about Mac mailing lists, please? 
Thanks.

As the holidays approach, I'm still thinking of getting myself a laptop to 
complement or even to replace my destop Dell PC. The choice of which has to 
do with factors, at least for me, like whether or not it's got a normal or 
close-to-normal size keyboard I write a *lot*)  , a competent up-to-date 
microprocessor, sufficient RAM (2 megs would suit me fine with a PC-type 
product; I don't know how you evaluate this need with a Mac product), and a 
serviceably-sized hard drive. My computer use is limited mostly to the 
basics like word processing, Web surfing and email, so the nowadays 
paltry-sounding 160 gigs or just a bit more would probably be enough. yes, I 
do keep some music files on my computer, and they take up space. But so 
let's say 250 Gigs would be good enough, then. If I didn't raise the ante on 
hard drive space a little, Al Briffith would give me a hard time, I think.

Okay. So I can stay alert for possible Windows laptops that might suit my 
purpose, enough of a workhouse to sit on my desk a lot of the time, but 
portable enough to put on my lap if I must travel or find myself bedridden, 
Heaven forbid. Just being facetious, I'm afraid. I do have some health 
issues that have found me painfully separated from my computer.

Which means I'm a little skeptical of a Windows biggie like one of the well 
reviewed Toshiba studio models that weighs in around ten pounds and is a bit 
large.

Enough babbling about Windows machines, though. I've looked up Mac laptops 
and have the idea that there's a nice range of sizes and capabilities to 
choose from, and although I'm a longtime Jaws user and still have credits 
left on my SMA, that alone wouldn't keep me loyal to PC's if I really 
believed I could learn to use Mac with voice over and get  underway pretty 
quickly, which Andy Barraco seems to believe is the way it could go.

So what I want to know (finally, he says! Whew!) is And or anyone else who 
knows, are there tech support mailing lists dedicated to blind people using 
Mac with Voice Over, the way there is a JFW list or two? That would be ever 
so encouraging. I mean, Andy, you have said there's a blind Mac guru here in 
Los Angeles, but I never needed to call on anyone over the years of using 
Jaws. I just had to learn from the basic training tapes (long time ago, this 
was) and then, besides being willing to go into the Help now and then, could 
always turn to the JFW list or even this list.

But I never hear anything about such online casual and personal resources 
for blind Mac users. Please set me straight.

Thanks,
Joel