GNOME.org
 

Re: [orca-list] Research&effectively using theis mailing list:__was Re: ChromeVox and speech-dispatcher
It's almost impossible to over-sell the value of a google search. I am not kidding. Maybe you weren't around before google but to those of us who were, it's like a miracle. I'm not even talking about blind people. Any nerd worth his pay knows that google is like a miracle. Just about the best thing you can do for a newbie is to teach him the value of google.
Back in the old days, i used to tell newbies that I had a secret weapon that made me as good as I was at my job. You know what it was? Read the f'in manual. Read the installation instructions before you start. It makes a huge difference. You're going to get stuck and you're not going to be able to find the answer by thumbing through the manual. If you at least skimmed the installation instructions before you start, you'd save yourself a lot of headaches.
Google is like that. My opinion is that you're not doing anybody any favors by under-selling google. I have gotten into a lot of arguments with other nerds bout this over the years. I've been accused of being one of those bad nerds who gets their kicks by making newbies feel small. But that is not it. I think one of the best thing you can do for a newbie is to emphasize the value of google. 






On 06/04/14 12:36, Al Sten-Clanton wrote:
Both of the messages just below mine make a number of good points. The one caution I wish to note here is not to oversell the usefulness of a google search. Sometimes, they're great and bring quick, good results. Sometimes, they lead to nothing useful. Therefore, although I use google almost every day and agree that it's often a good place to start looking for answers, I am slow to get on somebody's case unless I think there's very good evidence that the person in question simply doesn't want to bother doing his or own work. (In practice, so far, that has meant that I've never gotten on anybody's case that way.) With that caveat, however, I welcome and appreciate the comments below. 

Al

On 06/04/2014 01:09 PM, B. Henry wrote:
All good points. I'd like to add a couple more, and also say this not just for Isac, and some of what we are writing 
doesn't even directly apply to him.
Firstly, Isac's subject does explain what he wants to know and what is in the msg body. Often though people use subject lines that give no useful information as to what the message is about, and/or are so general that they are not worth the energy used to type them. One would hope that questions to this list are about orca in some way or another for the most part. Some times something may be not directly related to Orca, but be of interest to a large percentage of Orca users and or developers. If the latter is the case, think twice, wait a while and think again before posting, and if you still think it is something that most folks on the list will want to read and you don't make a habbit of posting such OT messages then go for it. Either use OT as a prefix to the subject, or try and make your subject specific enough so that ppl will understand that thie msg is not about Orca. (I'm not a list moderator, and have not even been on this list for very long, so please take this is a personal oppinion/request, but not as official policy) Next thing is if you are new to the list take some time to browse the list archives. Often a question has been asked before, sometimes recently, and sometimes repeatedly every few weeks or months. This question for example while not directly asked perhaps was discussed at length with in the last few weeks. Of course no one has time to read every message ever posted to the list, but at least look at the last month or two of messages when you join. It is not only a bit pushy in tone, but probably almost always completely useless to request speedy replies as most of us who try to assist others by answring listmai questions will do so as soon as we can for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that enjoy helping others. I remember the invaluable help I received from the Vinux googlegroup/mailinglist when I first started using Linux a few years ago and feel strongly about paying back and doing as much as I can to encourage more blind people to use Linux as my computing life has become much more rich&comfortable since I went Linux. One of the things that makes Linux such a viable, and often easy option for computer users is the wealth of material available online. Of course it's not all good, and varies greatly in style and content, but it's exceedingly rare that I can't find answers to my Linux questions searching online. Ubuntu has been #1 or close to it in popularity for years, so getting help with Ubuntu is especially easy and you can pick from information that ranges from almost idiot proof step by step how-tos to the highly technical analysis of issues. The archwiki is a very good source of info that is often helpful for those using other distros as well. Gentoo's wiki was apparently mostly destroyed a few years ago, but they salvaged or rewrote a good bit since then, and again there's stuff there that is often reffed by other distros' users. The vinux wiki is a work in progress, but has a good bit of information that is highly recommended for those new to the world of accessible Linux, and if you are a bit farther along and would like to contribute, we will appreciate it. The Vinux-support google group has been around for several years now, and is an active spot for the discussion of not only Vinux, but many thigs related to accessible Linux and Linux in general. Check out those archives. Those coming from windows and other opperating systems often do not know about man pages. Just type man <programname> or man <command> to get an overview of what the program is about or what the command does and how to use correct syntax with 
it, e.g.
man ls
will give you explanations of what the ls command does and a list of all of it's options, and there are a lot. Many people who've been using LInux for a while don't seem to know about info pages. Info pages are somewhat like man pages, and in the most limited cases are nothing but manpages accessed with another command. IN the best cases info pages 
are nicely organized linked explanations of a program and how to use it.
Not all man pages are created equal, and especiallly for a new linux user or someone who is not particularly technically experienced they can be hard to follow. Sometimes authors are not native English speakers, or seem to hardly be aquainted with communication with words, but others are well written and include easy to follow examples of how to use the program or command they are talking about. Check at the bottom of a man page, even if you don't understand it, for a list of other sources of documentation. Some programs have extensive docs available typically in the /usr/share/doc/ directory. Sometimes these are available from with in a program itself, but othertimes you have to go there and read it. Typing a program's name and then either help --help -h or something similar can often give you all that you are looking 
for.
Again, we are not only writing this to keep list clutter to a minimum and not waste list members' time or bore them, but because often it is so easy and fast to get an answer with a quick search, i.e. you can have the answer before you 
would have mailled a well formulated question to the list.
BTW, few care about perfect spelling and grammar here, but make an effort to insure your question is as clear as possible. Include any information regarding program versions, hardware and what was going on when a problem or situation of interest occured in the first mail instead of having folks needing to ask for basic stuff and waiting for a reply before they can even start to help. We've all written in a hurry and hit the send button too soon, but try and remember to reread your 
question before mailing it to see if it is reasonably well composed.
Well, sorry both for going on so long and for leaving out important ideas and tips, but hopefully this will give some people some clues as to how and learn more about their computer, Linux, and of course Orca. Remember that while Orca users may be the best people to ask something that's not orca specific, this is the Orca list, and not a place for asking any 
and all accessibility questions, Linux questions etc.
Oh, one great tool that many may not know about is surfraw it's in many distros repos and saves valuable seconds and 
minutes searching. (google it to learn more...lol.)
--
B.H.





On Wed, Jun 04, 2014 at 10:57:57AM -0500, Todor Fassl wrote:

You guys are all so tactful. But it might be worthwhile to say things a
little more clearly.
Isaac, it is considered a little impolite to ask questions on a list that you could answer yourself by googling. Also, you shouldn't ask more than one or two questions a day. Finally, you shouldn't say you want your answer as soon as possible unless it really is some kind of emergency. This is true especially if you are going to ask several questions at a time. All of 
these things are considered to be a little impolite on email lists.
The list is here for you to get help but you should be careful to use the 
resource wisely.  In fact, you'd be doing  yourself a favor by always
checking google before asking for help on an email list. You will find more complete answers and find them faster by using google. And it's an important skill to develop if you are going to work with computers as part of your job. I used to have a boss who made it a point to check a person's googling 
skills before hiring them. It's a valuable skill to have.


On 06/04/14 07:21, Justin Pospical wrote:

Hi Isaac,

Might I suggest that before installing Ubuntu or some other
distribution, you do a bit more research on it? Google is invaluable
for this kind of thing, and you can probably find answers to most of
your questions there. Also, it may be benificial for you to try out
Linux in a VM (that is, a virtual machine), on Windows before actually
installing it, or do install alongside Windows in a dual-boot setup,
if that is not what you're already planning to do. I won't go into
virtual machines here, but two good clients you can try are VirtualBox
and VMWare Player, both free. As for you're original question, under
the Orca preferences dialog there is a keybindings tab, which you can
navigate to by using the left and right arrows on the tab list, which
should be the first thing you see when opening the dialog. there will
be a list of functions separated into categories, bound, unbound and
modified, which you can up and down arrow through. when you find a key
you'd like to change press enter on it until you here "enter new key"
and type the key you'd like to assign to that function, then press
enter again. When all is said and done press the ok button. Remember
that Orca does not operate the same way that JAWS, or any Windows
screen reader for that matter, does, so you're not going to get the
exact same behavior. You should probably read up a bit on the orca
documentation, and that of gnome and other graphical programs you
intend to use. Vinux has a wiki with a lot of good information, might
want to give it a look.

On 6/3/14, Isaac Sebastian <isaacs1214 gmail com> wrote:

Hello, All,

I was wondering how to make the keybinding on orca exactly like
the jaws for windows screen reader.  Please let me know as soon
as possible.

Sincerely,



Isaac Sebastian
_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html 
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html 
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html 
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]