Questions About Switching To Mac As It Relates to My Job

Most part of people here are likely to say that the switch will be the best thing that possibly might happen in your whole life.
I will say only this: be aware that:
1- Things will be different and if you rely on the computer to do your job it might be impacted while you're still in the learning curve. If you can keep your windows machine around to .... just solve this or that thing for your client while you are still learning how to do it in the mac OS this would be highly recomended.
2- If you're a long term and a power user of windows assistive technology be aware that you will take time to have the same level of proficiency on the mac. The easy parts will go like a charm but that howto on a specific application that you've figured out how to deal with on windows might take some time to be the same on mac OS.
3- A part of acessibility, stuff on both systems is different, and very different. When it comes to accessibility, the user experience in VO and on windows assistive technology is, in my opinion, completely different, with some aspects better, some worse.
4- If you can, go ahead and try a mac before buying one. Again, be sure, aware and aknowledgeable thhat windows and mac are two completely different things.
5- Read, read ..... and read a little bite more of tutorials, guides, types, articles and whatever thing you can before trying VO and mac OS for the first time, this way you are probabbly gonna get only lost and not totally and absolutely lost and in deep and wide panic.
6- Be careful with scripting. Applications accessibility are not always good on windows, but JAWS scripting makes sometimes lives easier, productive or possible without developpers doing nothing in the application. This is not always the case on mac OS. If something goes wrong, one is in the developpers hands .... this is not a stop sign but is an advice. If you will be using very specific applications may be you will end getting stuck on them.
7- Adobe stuff are not the most ever accessible things on Apple eco system. This is Adobe's fault not Apple, but in the end of the day you are still in trouble ..... so flash and pdf are two things that * do not * work well on os X and VO.
Flash might be usable but might not and pdf ..... you are better searching on this site for others articles and foruns.
8- Other than this, I recomend the switch, but with care. When its all about you, then you do whatever you want in your time. But when it is something work related, perhaps you can't or do not have the time or features you need.
9- Works is accessible, but for me nothing beats Microsoft Excel and Word. You can however run windows in a VM or on your own mac in other partitions.
People will say don't use windows anymore ..... I say use each one to do what is better on each one. Macs will allow you run both systems, PC's will not so buy a Mac and have fun.

Liz,

You can run windows on Mac in two ways: using vmware on a virtual machine inside Mac OS and running from a boot camp partition outside of your mac OS.

You should look for more resources and information on this website, since these topics have all been discussed and there are podcasts and stuff like this all around the Applevis website.

Marlon

Also, be aware that if you do a windows install using bootcamp, then you will have to download a windows talking installation file. There are podcasts and guides on the web for this. Also something to note is that if you do install windows using bootcamp then you will need to purchase a usb sound card, because the audio will not be passed thru the internal apple sound card, or at least that was what I heard when listening to the podcast.

Hi.
I would first figure out why you think you need Windows. Bootcamp might not necessarily be the solution. Myself, I use Windows once in a blue moon, so I keep a virtual machine around and use that when I need Windows. For me, Bootcamp is simply unnecessary. A cool solution, to be sure, but since I use Windows so rarely, rebooting my Mac into a completely different OS, just to reboot it again a few hours later, just seems unnecessary. Your needs may be different, though, so be sure to investigate.

Also, I have found iWork to be fantastic. I'm in college and have had to do a number of papers, and a few presentations as well. For the most part, personally I have found TextEdit to be good, though my papers haven't required extensive formatting. Pages is quite accessible, though, and its extensive formatting features seem to work quite well with VoiceOver. Keynote, the iWork presentation tool, works quite well for me. My presentations do not have any sort of crazy special effects or anything (most of my professor don't seem to like those), but the basic functionality works really well. I haven't used Numbers much at all, just for my own personal use for tracking some things, but its basic features also seem to work quite well. I would say that for most things, with a few rare exceptions, there are tools for Windows with equivalents for OS X. The exception might be audio production; most people seem to prefer Windows. I haven't investigated much into that, but I intend to at some point.

Since you say you have an iPhone, I would grab iBooks from the App Store and read some of this awesome book. It is called Mastering The Macintosh With VoiceOver. It's a free book, found here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/mastering-macintosh-voiceover/id899197795?mt=11

It covers quite a lot of material, and might help you during the transition from Windows to Mac. Its focus seems to be on the Mac commands and applications itself, since I think its perspective is to a totally new computer user. Still, if iWork is important to you, give it a read; it covers that, along with many other things you might need.

Thanks for reading.

Liz,
That's good .... as you see lots of responses are coming so we're definitely better now that you posted it in the right place.

As for windows and usb sound cards, as far as I know usb sound card is only needed during the instalation process if you intend to use the talking instalation (this is not Microsoft's solution but ratter a legal hack someone else did). Once installed the sound must work as expected through the internal sound card.

Virtual machine X boot camp is something you will need to investigate here and in other sites. For some folks running windows on a Mac is a crime, for me it's nornmal cinse I will use each system on what each system is stronger.
For me games and productivity (including pdf) on windows, daily activities, audio prod and linux / unix / posix related stuff on the Mac and programming on both visual studio in windows and whatever I can get of XCode on Mac.
If you're feeling guilthy for doing something on your computers then something is wrong either with you or with your advisors .....
Buying a Macintosh will give you the oportunity of living with one, the other or both worlds. Buying a PC will not so this is my opinion.

Hi!
Just like to agree with the previous commenter. No, you're absolutely right about not always having to use boot camp. Personally, I don't even use windows at all, so I can't really say much. This book from iBooks sounds great for th new mac user, but even for us veteran users of the mac, it might be an interesting read.
When I got my mac first macBook 4 years ago, I read the help literature on Voiceover and did the tutorials, the quick start ones. Those were a real godsend to learning the basics for the mac VO commands. The guides on here are a great help also. I'd recommend keeping your windows machine around, just incase you might need use of it.

Liz, you mentioned that you teach online. As someone who also does this, if you use a classroom application you need to be aware that they don't work as well on the Mac. Things like blackboard Collaborate do work, but not as well as with jaws. Adobe Connect if you use that for online teaching is pretty hopeless on the Mac. It's not much better with Jaws, but on the Mac you're really going to struggle. Of course if you don't use these online classroom apps don't worry about any of this.

I am a long time mac user and hope to continue to live in the mac world. However, for anyone who, has a job or is a productive member of society pdf access is a crucial thing. The state of pdf's on the mac is terrible and it has actually recently gotten worse. This is the number one reason I would caution people from switching over to the mac. I say caution, not discourage, because there are ways of making due. The long and short of it is for the foreseeable future we mac users will be tied down with windows for access to accessible tagged pdf's if nothing els. Just thought you should have fair warning.

Even though I know very little about PDF's on a Mac, I will say that JAWS is iffy with them, too, so I personally try to get the files converted to something like .docx or something even now as a Windows user. I apologize for butting in, but I was also thinking of making the switch myself.

Again remember .... with Mac you can have both systems either running at the very same time or separately.
You are not obligated to run only one of them.