Help for a blind friend

[Joe Holloway]

This showed up in one of my news feeds this morning...

http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/06/24/people-behin-debian-sam-hartman-kerberos-package-maintainer/
On Jun 20, 2011 1:10 PM, "Haworth, Michael A." <
Michael_Haworth at pas-technologies.com> wrote:
> OK, I know that this is a LUG, and not a M$ group, but I have a problem
and everyone here is more resourceful than anyone else...
>
> I have a blind friend who has been using Windows XP and Outlook Express 6
for years with no problems. Recently she moved and switched service from
Comcast to AT&T uVerse (BIG mistake). The tech that set up her computer to
use the new POP and SMTP servers had no clue what he was doing and totally
fracked her setup. I have managed to recover all of her emails, but her UI
is screwed to pieces (remember - blind - not easy for her to adapt to
something that she can't see...). AT&T says that she needs to transition to
their webmail solution, that it would "let her have better access to her
email and it would look the same no matter where she accessed it from" - I
am disgusted by people that only know the scripted answers!
>
> Now for the question - is there another mail client out there that is
friendly to blind people (supports tabbing and arrow navigation between
windows and fields), supports JAWS (text-to-speech app for Windows that uses
MS Active Accessibility), and can be configured to meet her needs...
>
> OR
>
> My Google-foo seems to be weak in this area - Is there a distro of Linux
specifically made with blind people in mind?
>
> I have been speaking with her about giving Linux a spin, and am currently
working on acquiring the hardware necessary to get her up and running, but
she is extremely leery of change (primarily because of her lack of vision).
I know that Linux would allow me to use Festival, Orca or KMouth, and that
it's much more flexible in what it would allow her to do - I am being
cautious though. She has found some other people in the support group that
she is part of that use Linux and is haring some really good stuff...
>
> Any help on the immediate need of replacing Outlook with something more
configurable (I have tried Thunderbird - her reader app didn't get along
with it) would be appreciated. It might be that there is no way of doing it
and I have to tell her that I can't help her on the Windows side, if that is
the case then I will have to do it...
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice/guidance/help.
>
>
> Michael Haworth
>
>
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