Re: Accessible road maps

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, David Woolley wrote:

>
> > give them old technology do you?  They don't want yesterdays DOS machines
> > any more than any one else.  I still see "technical accessibility"

no the problem isn't "giving" anyone the technology, it is actually
getting it there.  so for the most part we have to deal with what is
obtainable locally.  and in third world countries they use it when they
can get it forever....their annual income in many places doesn't equal the
cost of a new computer in their own country, and if getting new ones there
were easy it would have been done.  many things get in the way, shipping
costs, import duties and restrictions, and lack of compatability are
amoung the problems.

getting one laptop in is fairly easy, getting in a couple hundred P-IVs is
a lot harder...but getting that one laptop in means a plane ticket to
wherever because it has to be handcarried....everytime I go to one of
these countries I look like an importer or something I carry so much, and
I usually am living out of my carry on bag, everything else is left
there, and I have pretty much found the limit a non citizen can bring in
without getting nailed for mucho big bucks at customs.

Bob
one way we get wheelchairs and stuff in is to use em, amazing how many
folks can be cured by the local water,,,.......<g>


>
> That's for two reasons:
>
> - because information that only NEEDs DOS level technology is only available
>   in packages that require the latest technology - HTML was designed to
>   be at a level that matched the needs of the information, whereas,
>   increasingly, information is only available in a form that matches the
>   capabilities of the viewers - you have to upgrade to stay still;
>
> - because nearly everyone is materialistic and WANTs to have the latest
>   technology for their own status (in my view, for the last 15 or so
>   years, the software industry has been a fashion industry, not a
>   technology one).
>
> Writing didn't make speech obsolete and most businesses will still accept
> hand written orders and send documents printed on paper, not just insist
> on the web (if they didn't they would exclude more than half of the UK
> population, which may be OK for computer supplies companies, but not
> for public utilities).
>
> > separate from "affordability".  And I recognize the various stake holder
> > responsibilities, including that of industry to lower costs and that of
> > government to provide funds to purchase technology to bridge the digital
> > divide.
>
> And that of information providers to provide their information in a form
> that needs the minimum technology consistent with the information content.
> (Incidentally, in my experience, the real information on comercial web
> sites is in PDF and using PDF features that haven't really changed since
> the early 1990s.  You will either find it as white papers or as user
> manuals in the support section of the site - I always find it amusing that
> the place on a site where I look for information for buying decisions
> is actually the part aimed at existing owners.  PDF is not plain text,
> but it is still old technology.)
>

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Received on Sunday, 6 June 2004 17:40:47 UTC