TidBITS#607/03-Dec-01
=====================

  Remember Brer Rabbit? Microsoft has clearly been reading the Uncle
  Remus stories, to judge from the proposed settlement in the
  private class-action lawsuits against the company. Also, Joe Clark
  returns with an update on accessibility issues - some good news,
  some bad, and some statistics on the number of disabled computer
  users. We also report on StuffIt 6.5.1, how TidBITS fared in the
  Best of the Mac Web survey and call for gift ideas.

Topics:
    MailBITS/03-Dec-01
    Into the Briar Patch: Microsoft's Self-Serving Settlement
    Accessibility on the Mac: Further Glimpses of Paradise

<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-607.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2001/TidBITS#607_03-Dec-01.etx>

Copyright 2001 TidBITS Electronic Publishing. All rights reserved.
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MailBITS/03-Dec-01
------------------

**Submit Your Holiday 2001 Gift Ideas** -- It's time once again
  for that annual spectacle of consumer confidence, and if it's up
  to us individuals to prop up the global economy and make the world
  safe once again for massive corporate tax incentives, the least we
  can do is make sure our favorite Macintosh-related companies come
  out smelling like roses! As with previous TidBITS gift issues,
  we'll focus on the best suggestions from you, our loyal readers.
  So tell us what gifts you're planning to bestow on your friends or
  family, or even those things that you're hoping to receive
  yourself. As in previous years, we'll be collecting ideas in
  TidBITS Talk, so please send your suggestions to <tidbits-
  talk@tidbits.com>. We've already started threads for specific
  categories, and there's a "Respond (via email)" link for you to
  use at the bottom of each message in the TidBITS Talk Web archive.
  And as always, please suggest only one product or idea per
  message, give the reason why you're recommending it, make sure to
  include a URL or other necessary contact information, and please
  recommend only others' products. If you can suggest things that
  haven't appeared in past years, even better. Thanks in advance for
  your suggestions! [ACE]

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=active>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbiss=460>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbiss=510>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbiss=560>


**StuffIt 6.5.1 Adds Mac OS X Improvements** -- Aladdin Systems
  recently released StuffIt Deluxe 6.5.1 and StuffIt Lite 6.5.1 (in
  English, Japanese, German, and French), making the utilities more
  convenient for Mac OS X users. The Deluxe version incorporates the
  StuffIt CM (Contextual Menu), providing access to many of
  StuffIt's features by Control-clicking files in the Finder, and
  improves AppleScript support. Both versions also launch "packaged"
  applications properly, and fix a problem with version checking.
  The updates also improve interaction with virus protection
  applications, adding recognition of the Mac OS X versions of
  Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee's Virex and enabling users to select
  a different anti-virus program. Both sets of utilities now require
  StuffIt Engine 6.5. StuffIt Deluxe 6.5.1 is available now as a
  free update for owners of version 6.5, or as a $20 upgrade from
  any previous version. StuffIt Lite 6.5.1 - which incorporates
  StuffIt Expander, DropStuff, DropZip, and DropTar - includes free
  updates to DropStuff and DropZip for registered owners of version
  5.0 or higher of those utilities; the utilities can also be
  registered separately, or as a bundle for $50. StuffIt Expander
  6.5.1 remains free. Also released today was version 6.5.1 of the
  StuffIt Engine Software Developer's Kit, which enables developers
  to build support for StuffIt's compression and encoding
  capabilities into their applications. License fees vary by
  project; a trial version is available. [JLC]

<http://www.stuffit.com/stuffit/deluxe/updates.html>
<http://www.stuffit.com/stuffit/lite/updates.html>
<http://www.stuffit.com/sdk/>


**TidBITS Ranks in Second Best of the Mac Web Survey** -- In the
  second Best of the Mac Web survey run by the Low End Mac Web site,
  TidBITS ranked as the 5th best rated site behind As the Apple
  Turns, VersionTracker, MacFixIt, and MacSurfer's Headline News.
  That's a significant jump for us from the first survey back in
  April, in which TidBITS ranked 10th. Significantly more people
  voted for TidBITS this time around (1,057 versus 694), probably
  due to our mentioning the survey in last week's issue. The survey
  is an unabashed popularity contest, but it is useful for learning
  about Macintosh sites you may not yet have discovered. [ACE]

<http://lowendmac.com/botmw/011126.html>
<http://lowendmac.com/botmw/11-2001.html>
<http://lowendmac.com/musings/botmw3.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06635>


Into the Briar Patch: Microsoft's Self-Serving Settlement
---------------------------------------------------------
  by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>

  Often lost in the news surrounding the state and federal antitrust
  lawsuit against Microsoft is the fact that numerous other private
  class-action lawsuits have been filed against Microsoft. These
  private lawsuits allege that Microsoft overcharged for its
  software, and they were bolstered by (or indeed engendered by) the
  Appeals Court ruling that Microsoft did indeed maintain a market
  monopoly in desktop operating systems through anti-competitive
  actions (see "Playing Monopoly," our collection of articles on the
  Microsoft antitrust case).

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1152>

  On 20-Nov-01, attorneys for some of the class-action plaintiffs
  and Microsoft proposed a bold settlement for all of the private
  class-action lawsuits; in short, the company would over five years
  spend an estimated $1 billion to equip some 12,500 of the nation's
  poorest schools with software and computers and to train teachers.
  It sounds like a great deal, especially if you agree with the
  lawyers who say that due to the huge number of class-action
  plaintiffs (about 65 million), the damages would probably work out
  to be less than $10 per person.

<http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011120/tc/tech_microsoft_dc_11.html>

  Unfortunately, as much as the proposal would no doubt help
  schools, it creates a situation where Microsoft isn't so much
  paying a penalty for monopolistic abuses, but is instead being
  allowed to spend $1 billion to extend their reach into the hotly
  contested education market, where Apple claims a nearly 50 percent
  market share. Apple filed a brief arguing that the settlement
  would merely further Microsoft's monopoly power, and Apple CEO
  Steve Jobs has been widely quoted saying, "We're baffled that a
  settlement imposed against Microsoft for breaking the law should
  allow, even encourage, them to unfairly make inroads into
  education - one of the few markets left where they don't have
  monopoly power."

<http://www.otmfan.com/html/brertar.htm>

  It's difficult to tease out exactly what the proposal entails, but
  reports include Microsoft donating $150 million for schools to use
  to purchase hardware or software, up to $100 million matching
  other donations, $160 million for technical support, and $90
  million to train teachers. Microsoft would also make 200,000
  refurbished computers available to schools for no more than $50
  each, and would donate a free Windows license for each new or
  refurbished computer provided.

  Although schools would be allowed to spend the money on non-
  Microsoft products, Microsoft has conceded that those who utilize
  Microsoft products will receive more resources, such as free
  software and training. (Some wags have suggested that Microsoft
  should be required to provide all Apple equipment and software.)
  Plus, it seems likely that Microsoft's overt presence in the
  education market would become increasingly pervasive, creating a
  situation where schools felt even more pressure to purchase PCs
  with Windows over other alternatives, such as Macs or even PCs
  running Linux.

  Criticism has come from educators too, with some expressing
  concern the proposal could derail years of technology planning
  already in place rather than providing funding for existing plans.
  Other concerns revolve around the refurbished computers, which
  could be too underpowered to be worthwhile with current software,
  and the amount earmarked for support, which can be particularly
  expensive with PCs and older computers in general.

<http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2001/11/27/apple_microsoft/>

  More generally, there's a question of how this settlement punishes
  Microsoft for overcharging consumers, lacking as it does any
  conduct restrictions, pricing changes, or direct payments to the
  aggrieved parties.

  U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz listened to arguments from
  plaintiff's lawyers and Apple on 27-Nov-01, but after time ran
  out, scheduled additional time on 10-Dec-01 for Microsoft's
  presentation. The case has become extremely complex, and along
  with the settlement, there are also issues surrounding how the
  roughly 100 lawsuits were combined, how some of them were
  dismissed under Illinois Brick (a 1977 Supreme Court decision that
  determined that indirect purchasers of a product cannot sue
  manufacturers directly), and how all this affects those lawsuits
  from California, where state law explicitly allows indirect
  purchasers to sue manufacturers directly.

<http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5100005,00.html>

  In general, I approve of the effort to settle the class-action
  lawsuits, if for no other reason than to end all this litigation,
  the primary beneficiaries of which are always the lawyers. And as
  much as the current proposal is fatally flawed, the basic concept
  of funneling vast sums of money to education rather than giving a
  pittance (which could very well end up in the form of a discount
  off a Microsoft product) to each of the individual plaintiffs
  isn't a bad one - if the lawyers on both sides can come up with a
  revised settlement proposal that meets the real-world needs of
  educators and doesn't further Microsoft's monopoly at the expense
  of competitors like Apple.


Accessibility on the Mac: Further Glimpses of Paradise
------------------------------------------------------
  by Joe Clark <joeclark@joeclark.org>

  Earlier this year, I wrote a four-part article series -
  "Accessibility on the Mac: Trouble in Paradise" - explaining the
  relatively poor state of adaptive technology for disabled Mac
  users and documenting Apple's years of neglect of accessibility
  issues.

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1189>

  Time for an update.

  Apple has made some small steps with Mac OS X; we've seen some
  movement in the world of multimedia; I finally managed to find
  some statistics on numbers of users with disabilities. But
  adaptive technology for Macs remains ill-developed compared to
  the enormous Windows market. Since the first article series was
  published, I was unable to find any news of significant upgrades
  to Macintosh adaptive technology or new plans for Mac OS X
  compatibility. If it's happening, adaptive-technology vendors,
  whom I specifically asked for updates, are not talking.


**Mac OS X and Apple Politics** -- A number of sources inside and
  outside Apple have told me my original article series did not
  go unnoticed. In fact, Apple and one adaptive-technology vendor
  were upset at the public airing of what, in their view, resembled
  dirty laundry.

  As the saying goes, the truth hurts. There's a long history of
  advocacy journalism, where the writer attempts to spur on social
  consciousness, and in this case it seems to be garnering results.

  Most importantly, a set of rudimentary accessibility utilities
  was rushed into Mac OS X 10.1. Sticky Keys and Mouse Keys,
  familiar from System 7 and later but absent from the first
  releases of Mac OS X, are back. CloseView, a rather inadequate
  screen-magnification utility, is still missing. (Some users
  report limited success with Pixie, a utility included with
  Mac OS X developer tools.) However, at long last and for the
  first time ever in an off-the-shelf a Mac OS version, it is
  possible to use the keyboard to control onscreen interface
  elements, including the Dock and the menubar, a capability
  that's second nature to Windows users.

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06588>

  Unfortunately, the keyboard-control feature has proven to be buggy
  and inconsistent. The TidBITS editors have been unable to figure
  out the option to highlight any control in windows and dialogs. It
  seems to work in Open dialogs in Cocoa applications no matter what
  the setting in the Keyboard preferences panel is, but it _doesn't_
  seem to work in the Open dialogs of Carbon applications, again no
  matter what the Keyboard preferences panel says. Plus, there are
  keyboard shortcuts for access to the "Toolbar" and "Utility window
  (palette)" but it's unclear what those refer to. John Siracusa's
  typically readable review of Mac OS X 10.1 at Ars Technica looks
  at one of the many bugs with the keyboard-control feature.

<http://arstechnica.com/reviews/01q4/macosx-10.1/macosx-10.1-3.html
#keyboard-access-bugs>

  However, now that it is possible to control the operating system
  by keyboard, Web authors have a whole new source of conflicts in
  using the ACCESSKEY attribute of HTML, which assigns keystrokes to
  Web page features like links and images. Conflicts with Windows
  system keystrokes were already a problem (you can hold down Alt
  and press letter keys to pull down menus and select options).
  Now we have another set of potential conflicts with which to
  contend. One step forward, another step back. In all fairness,
  though, keystroke conflicts merely scratch the surface of the
  incompatibilities with ACCESSKEY, which is in rare use online.

  One thing Apple has done right is finally come up with a
  pictograph that symbolizes the concept of accessibility
  generally - a da Vinci-like figure with limbs outstretched
  in a circle, as seen in the Mac OS X Universal Access control
  panel. No more ridiculous tadpole-headed stickmen in wheelchairs!

<http://www.joeclark.org/symbolizing.html#Xaccess>

  Apple's online promotion of its accessibility provisions has
  been modestly updated but does not even provide screenshots and
  instructions for the new utilities. Web pages are still emblazoned
  with the feel-good euphemism "People with Special Needs," and an
  entire section of the site is allocated to speech-to-speech
  telephone relay services, which have nothing to do with computers,
  let alone Macs.

<http://www.apple.com/disability/>
<http://www.apple.com/disability/telephone.html>

  I am still waiting for the day that Apple "gets it" on the topic
  of accessibility, which requires a broad commitment, including the
  hiring of dedicated staff to work on a wide range of activities. I
  was, however, finally able to confirm that Apple does in fact
  employ an adaptive technology partnership manager. It's a start,
  and, according to sources, more and more managers inside Apple are
  finally figuring out that accessibility cannot be ignored anymore.

  Even with these improvements, Macs continue to stand squarely in
  the accessibility shadow of Windows. The Mac OS still lacks a set
  of system-level hooks for easy use by adaptive technology (along
  the lines of Microsoft Active Accessibility on Windows), and
  there's nothing remotely resembling Microsoft's staff of
  developers who do nothing but work on accessibility all day.

<http://www.microsoft.com/enable/>
<http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/nhp/Default.asp?
contentid=28000544>


**Section 508** -- Money talks, and Apple has managed to wise up
  quickly to avoid losing U.S. federal government contracts
  altogether. So-called Section 508 requirements have been in
  effect since 21-Jun-01; they require U.S. federal agencies to
  improve accessibility for disabled employees and the public
  they serve, very much encompassing desktop and portable computers
  and Web sites.

<http://www.section508.gov/>
<http://www.joeclark.org/accessiblog/ab-government.html#section508>

  The sprawling, scattershot Section 508 requirements are difficult
  to understand even for experts, but they are not optional.
  Although it is legally possible to enforce the 508 regulations
  right now, in reality a certain grace period is underway.
  Eventually, government managers will require vendors to certify
  their equipment as 508-compliant before they can make a purchase.
  Noncompliant systems simply _could_not_be_purchased_, meaning,
  in what is at once the worst and the most likely case, the U.S.
  government could never buy another Macintosh.

  Apple already has statements available concerning 508 compliance
  on its little-known Web pages dedicated to the American federal
  government.

<http://applefederal.apple.com/compliance.html>

  The compliance statement for Mac OS 9 on that page states:
  "Apple's system software Mac OS 9.1 is compliant with all of
  Section 508 technology requirements except the keyboard mouse
  alternatives and that, to the best of our knowledge, is technology
  that does not now exist in the marketplace for our platform."
  Even after making inquiries, I have not been able to clarify this
  declaration. The Mouse Keys utility itself seems to work just fine
  as a mouse replacement, as Apple mentions earlier on that same
  page on the topic of Mac OS X accessibility (Mouse Keys "[a]llows
  users to control the mouse cursor using the keypad on the keyboard
  rather than the mouse itself"). Perhaps this means Mouse Keys
  provides no way to use controls directly via the keyboard;
  controlling the cursor via the keyboard isn't exactly the
  same thing.

  In any event, everyone - at Apple and in the computer industry
  as a whole - had two and a half years' warning that Section 508
  regulations or their equivalent were coming (including six months'
  warning of the full details of the actual regulations); Apple
  could have written a full "keyboard mouse alternative" in
  that time.

  Also, nowhere at the online Apple Store can one find information
  about accessibility - not even at the U.S. federal-government
  online store that is as little-known as Apple's government sales
  force itself.

<http://www.apple.com/r/store/federal/>

  While we're on the subject of the Apple Store, its Web site, like
  Apple's Web sites generally, does not follow the World Wide Web
  Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. A blind person
  using a screen reader, for example, would have quite a few
  problems manipulating Apple's Web sites, and actually buying
  something would be next to impossible.

<http://www.w3.org/WAI/Resources/#gl>


**Multimedia** -- If you work with movie files, you may be keen on
  creating your own captions (for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers)
  and audio descriptions (for the blind and visually impaired).

<http://www.joeclark.org/understanding.html#captioning>
<http://www.joeclark.org/understanding.html#ad>

  WGBH Educational Foundation's freeware Media Access Generator
  software (MAGpie), which lets you caption, subtitle, and describe
  multimedia files, has been upgraded to version 2.0. Among other
  new abilities, you may finally record your own audio descriptions
  right on the spot; previously, you could merely insert prerecorded
  audio files. Although it's still a beta, MAGpie is no longer a
  Windows-only product. The bad news? On the Macintosh, it's a Mac
  OS X-only product. Further bad news? WGBH is not accepting any
  more beta-testers.

<http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/ncam/webaccess/magpie/>
<http://ncam.wgbh.org/richmedia/magpiev2.html>

  Meanwhile, a smart piece of Macintosh software from Leapfrog
  Productions, CCaption, lets you create closed- and open-caption
  video and QuickTime files. It still needs work, but CCaption can
  already do things that nothing else on the Mac platform can.

<http://www.ccaption.com/nmain.html>

  Macromedia is still working away at reducing the inaccessibility
  of Flash and Shockwave content, though Flash files remain
  essentially inaccessible to blind viewers and are difficult to
  make accessible to anyone with a hearing impairment.

<http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/accessibility/>
<http://www.alistapart.com/stories/unclear/>

  Nonetheless, I did find a single example of a Flash animation with
  captioning. Although this is better than nothing, it should not be
  seen as genuine progress.

<http://www.brainpop.com/health/endocrine/acne/captioned.weml>

  Apple continues its tradition, now nearing a decade old, of
  posting hours of QuickTime video on its various Web sites,
  virtually none of which carries access features like captioning,
  description, subtitling, or dubbing. It's not as though Apple can
  truly pretend it is unaware that accessibility is an issue. Among
  other things, the QuickTime format explicitly provides for
  multiple text and audio tracks.

  Further, iDVD and DVD Studio Pro remain inadequate for creating
  accessible DVDs for the simple reason that training for access
  techniques like captioning and audio description is not available.
  This isn't solely Apple's fault; training is not available
  anywhere at all. (I have heard of occasional courses for audio
  description of live theatre, but there is no similar training at
  all for film, TV, or video.)

<http://www.joeclark.org/dvdsubs.html>

  In the original article series, I pointed out that, while
  captioning, subtitling, and dubbing are common on movies on
  DVD, audio description is not. That's still true, but the number
  of known DVDs with audio description now stands at seven for
  Region 1 (U.S., Canada, U.S. territories) and about a dozen
  for Region 2 (Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East).

<http://www.joeclark.org/dvd/>
<http://www.joeclark.org/dvd/listings.html#R1>
<http://www.joeclark.org/dvd/listings.html#R2>

  Another Region 1 described DVD, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, is
  now available, and it is actually big news. The disc is the first
  commercial DVD with all of the following: Captioning throughout
  (by two different companies, though in an apparent oversight, the
  included Faith Hill music video is uncaptioned); audio description
  of absolutely everything from start to finish, including all bonus
  features; and audiovisual menus a blind person can use.

<http://www.joeclark.org/dvd/listings.html#grinch>

  Future commercial DVD producers no longer have any excuses; The
  Grinch proves what's possible and indeed elegant. Accessibility
  does not impede popularity, either: Universal Studios sold three
  million accessible Grinch DVDs in a matter of weeks. And the
  access features are merely listed with the discs's many other
  extras, as though they always belonged there all along.

<http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/eo/20011127/en/
_quot_grinch_quot_spreads_holiday_cheer_1.html>

  However, dozens of movies described for theatrical release (see
  the MoPix discussion below) remain undescribed on later DVD
  releases, including geek favorite Star Wars: Episode 1, The
  Phantom Menace. There are rare technical reasons why descriptions
  could not be included on those DVDs, but in broad terms, it's
  unforgivable; the description tracks were already written,
  recorded, paid for, and digitized.

<http://www.dvdspecialedition.com/grinchrelease.html>
<http://www.joeclark.org/dvd/listings.html#shouldas>

  Speaking of theatrical movies: As the result of a human-rights
  complaint, it is now possible to watch open-captioned movies
  in regularly scheduled screenings in many cities in Australia.
  Open captioning, whereby captions are always visible, is still
  essentially nonexistent everywhere else in the world. The hundred
  or so screens in the U.S. showing open-captioned movies are a drop
  in the bucket.

<http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/inquiries/capmovie/capmovie.html>
<http://www.tripod.org/dedicated_screens.html>

  The WGBH MoPix system of closed-captioning and audio description
  of first-run movies has added nine screens in the U.S., and five
  screens in Canada, the first installations outside the United
  States. There are now about 60 total screens with MoPix captioning
  and/or description. By any stretch of the imagination, these are
  not large numbers: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone alone
  opened in some 3,672 theaters, though captioning and description
  were available with the MoPix system.

<http://www.joeclark.org/cinema/>
<http://www.mopix.org/>
<http://ncam.wgbh.org/mopix/locations.html>
<http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,48375,00.html>


**Statistics** -- After a great deal of research, I finally
  managed to locate some credible statistics on the incidence of
  computer and Internet users with disabilities.

  A report by the National Telecommunications and Information
  Administration, an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce,
  states that 20.9 percent of people with disabilities in the U.S.
  regularly use computers (compared with 51 percent of nondisabled
  people). Figures for Internet use are similar - 21.6 percent
  of disabled people are online compared to 42.1 percent of
  nondisabled people.

<http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn00/Falling.htm#61>
<http://www.esa.doc.gov/508/esa/pdf/FALLING.pdf>

  This study did not ask about the specific computer platform used
  and actually employed the term "PC" rather than "computer," which,
  one of the investigators told me, might have predisposed Mac
  owners to respond that they did not in fact have access to a "PC."

  Using a more restrictive definition of disability, a University of
  Southern California study holds that 23.9 percent of people with
  disabilities have computers in the home (versus 51.7 percent of
  nondisabled people), while 11.1 percent of disabled people and
  46.5 percent of nondisabled people use the Internet "at home" or
  "elsewhere." (Authors of both those studies are aware of no
  credible statistics anywhere else.)

<http://dsc.ucsf.edu/UCSF/pub.taf?_function=search&recid=112&grow=1>
<http://dsc.ucsf.edu/UCSF/pdf/REPORT13.pdf>


**What's Next?** Frankly, things are not improving fast enough
  in Macintosh accessibility. This is definitely a case of blaming
  the head office: The central problem remains Apple, which simply
  is not taking the issue seriously enough as a corporation. I
  do, however, know several Apple employees who _are_ taking
  accessibility very seriously indeed, and whose entire approach
  to accessibility could be a model for the company to follow - not
  that Apple doesn't already have models available, since emulating
  Microsoft is a fair option. Still, accessibility is one area in
  which Mac users are objectively worse off than Windows users.
  It's a gap that pressingly needs to be closed.

  [Toronto writer Joe Clark has followed accessibility issues for
  more than 20 years and is the author of Building Accessible
  Websites (New Riders Publishing, 2002).]

<http://joeclark.org/access/>
<http://joeclark.org/book/>



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