"and should have the same rights. I find it sad that announcements like this still make headlines"
Except they don't have the same rights, and I agree in the sense that it's sad that this IS news/news worthy now, but only in the sense that if they did have the same rights and were treated equally then this would just be a case of "Yeah, so what?" But unfortunately we have a long way to go until these matters are a non-issue.
I had ICLs implanted in 1997, I'm severely myopic, -22 diopters in each eye and my VA still 20/200 without glasses now since the operation. I also had the swelling in one eye because of the procedure but fortunately I was rushed back to hospital (OMG the pain of eye swelling.. ech!) but everything is OK now so far about 17 years later, mostly except that I'm developing cataracts (I'm 34 now) and have to get that treated but as a severely myopic person I'm at a high risk for retinal detachments, whee! WE MAY HAVE TO PUT A BAND AROUND YOUR EYEBALL!
I have a ton of other eye issues - extremely crap contrast sensitivity, bad photophobia, non-degenerative macular dystrophy, astigmatism and bilateral amblyopia. And just for kicks some neurological visual issues thrown in for more fun!
Can't use a black on white GUI at all, and if I turn the brightness down then there's not enough light to see it so I have Windows 8 (or whatever O/S I'm using) set to some form of white on black/dark grey and then I can sit with the screen on max brightness for hours on end without any issues. (So please, any developers reading this, PLEEEASE follow the colour scheme set by the operating system/user choice or allow custom colours, some of us really battle to function). The stock Gmail app on Android, for example is barely visible to me and after about 5 mins I feel literally sick.
My verdict is: If you're coping with glasses, don't be too eager to get any procedure done. There are always risks and no matter how small the chance of failure is, it's not something want to lose, I don't really regret my ICL operation simply because my glasses were HUUUGE and HEAVY and cause headaches, face pain, so work out the pros/cons.
I know, the hard coded font stuff pisses me off to no end.
I need win7 for my music production software, it needs a lot of RAM and WinXP's magnifier isn't full screen, doesn't use acceleration so it's a pretty rubbish magnifier for me personally. I really wish I could do what I do, apart from work, in Linux (gaming, music prod) because then I could use KDE/Gnome which is a lot better with themes, and Compiz's magnifier is really nice.
Oddly enough, Windows 8 has much better theme control, although it's bloody ugly. If you use the 'classic' dark theme, you can still benefit from the full screen magnifier and a lot of the UI elements behave better in terms of using correct user chosen colors.. I'm just not terribly fond of Win8's metro thing and some other stuff irritates me. But I'll give it a bash once the final version is out and see how much I can gain from it, accessibility wise.
If you don't mind me asking, were your eyes that bad from birth? It's very rare I find someone with eyesight as bad/worse than mine, it's quite comforting to know there are others out there, and are also geeks
What tools/features are you using for Windows? I'm legally blind, -22 diopters of correction for each eye. What I'm currently using is a modified dark theme so that I can use the built in accelerated magnifier (I can't tolerate bright themes) and I've mapped the magnifier to win+mouse wheel to make it more like compiz. I'm also nearly entirely hotkey driven, I use the mouse very little for every day tasks.
Of course there are so many applications that don't follow the windows colour scheme, even the built in High Contrast classic theme is ignored by so many apps, hardcoded font colours and so on.
What really erks me are web pages. I use Firefox with Stylish (or just vanilla FF and set my custom colours to my taste) but most sites have issues rendering correctly because it overrides a lot of colour/style rules.
I can't really comment on Linux's features as I don't use Linux as a desktop, just for servers. Mostly because it doesn't run my music software or my games and I hate dual booting.
Accessibility is still a joke in Windows and for internet browsing.
Golden Delicious
So it costs a bit less than my Galaxy S2 and is way uglier.. pass. Though I'm sure a lot of hardware & software hackers will have a field day with it.
That pretty much sums up my experience with Excel
Heh heh, Sony's gettin' shafted!
It was Hiro!
I love my Logitech MX1100R, it's an office mouse AFAIK, not really a gaming one, works great in gaming and standard use. Comfy, replaceable batteries and the extra 3 buttons are handy in some games. It was a bit pricey but I haven't looked back because it's so comfortable to use for extended periods.
Buying 'bling' mice to me personally, like "high performance gaming ram" is just stupid.
Oh, more for the 'just in case' factor / there might be something on the original install I may need, but yes, I wouldn't push on the bloatware to others and I haven't done so in the past.
Apart from the obvious reasons, one of the things that vendors should take seriously is the initial impression a bloated system has on their reputation. Joe Average is going to get a bitter taste in their mouth when that fancy new laptop is bugged down with crap.
What they should really do is have a Startup menu on first boot that shows a list of special deals & promotions with quick and easy download links for popular free and commercial software and/or have the installation files on the drive that one can delete, but definately not pre-installed.
It doesn't bother geeks, the first thing I do is image the drive (in case I want to re-sell the machine) and slap on a clean image of my OS.
He was just playing Dig Dug
>Now get off of my lawn.
okie dokie dukie
Duke Igthorn is NOT going to be happy when he hears about this!
I overclocked mine and it split
The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization. -- Alan Coult
