jrebman

Gordon, Thanks for the answer regarding the iPod charger. Just don't want to mistreat batteries with too much current, etc. Thanks, Jim

Gordon, Will there be some sort of provision for recharging for people whose laptops don't leave the USB power on in sleep or hibernate mode? How will the amp do with a pair of 300 ohm Sennheisers? Anybody else have any comments? The dealer who was going to call me back in early March never did, but I'm still saving my pennies. -- Jim

Chris, unless your friend is a really proficient screen reader user, it doesn't really look like this is quite ready for primetime. A bunch of us on the window eyes beta team tested this for the last day or two and it looks like there are still some significant usability issues: super slow and erratic library list view performance, a tendency to open the store at almost any opportunity, strange focus issues, and overall sluggishness. According to a sighted friend, "now you see what we've been dealing with" as he seems to think the same problems exist with or without a screen reader present. A quick dump of the window/class hierarchy shows this to be an exceptionally weirdly written program. In this case, at least for now, I have to say that this is a pretty typical case of accessibility being used synonamously with usability, which it clearly isn't. Still the fact that Apple is working on this, and pledges to continue to do so, is the most important thing right now. Foobar2000 still remains the only fully accessible media librarian/player. -- Jim

Chris,<br /> <br /> Thanks very much! Looks like it should work in the second system just fine.<br /> <br /> I used to own an Audio Aero Capitole 24/192 and it used a similar upsampling scheme and was extremely anolog sounding -- but it also had a world-class tube output stage. I generally prefer NOS, but I do generally like the stuff Marcel Crose and Anagram do with digital, so I'm pretty open to taking a chance on this one.<br /> <br /> -- Jim<br />

I just picked up iTunes 8 today, and surprise of all surprises, Apple has been working with GW Micro to make iTunes 8 fully accessible with the about to be released version 7.0 of the Window Eyes screen reader for blind users. I know most of you don't think this is anything to get excited about, but for me it is HUGE! I've been playing with it for the past hour or two and so far, save for some extremely minor quirks, the entire application seeems to work well with the screen reader, and the iTunes store is also now accessible as well. Now I just have to learn what I'm going to need to do in order to use iTunes with my ReadyNAS NV+ and how to set that all up. This feather in Apple's cap is a long time coming, but greatly appreciated -- let's hope it's the beginning of a trend for them. -- Jim

Are the dimensions available -- I can't see the pics. Also, what's the power supply? wallwart/power brick or IEC?<br /> <br /> -- Jim<br />

Ah, now we're talking. I'm really happy to see this discussion start -- not because I love Microsoft or anything like that, but for me as a blind person, the PC is still really the only viable platform with state-of-the-art screen reading technology. the Apple OS' built-in screen reading option (the only one in the Apple world) cannot be taken as a serious screen reader yet, and I'm pretty doubtful that it will ever approach the sophistication and stability we have in the extremely mature Windows environment.<br /> <br /> Right now the most accessible media player application is winamp (or WMP, but that's not even remotely being considered), so adding this to the packages to be tested will be a nice touch. The only other real candidate right now that shows any promise is foobar 2000, and I think I can write some screen reader scripts to help tame that a bit. iTunes is now somewhat accessible with special scripts, but apparently the interface is extremely clumsy with speech, and Apple seems to break their own code with each new release, as well as take some pretty far-fetched liberties with the Windows API, which all adds up to this not being under any kind of serious consideration.<br /> <br /> Helium and J River are hopeless at this point, but possibly may be able to be tamed with some extensive scripting.<br /> <br /> I've made a decision to move both my systems entirely over to USB DACs with a laptop controller and my NAS in the basement for the centralized storage. I need a laptop to control squeezecenter anyway, so why not go direct from computer to DAC and leave another clumsy piece of software out of the mix? That's my reasoning anyway.<br /> <br /> Again, glad to see this being discussed as it really is the only option open to me.<br /> <br /> Thanks,<br /> <br /> Jim<br />