A screenreader and a netbook makes an inexpensive note taker.

The larger, 11.6 inch netbooks have full size keyboards, but still weigh less than three pounds and most have great battery life. At a cost of under $300 they make great alternatives to the specialized note takers devices for people who are blind which cost $5,000 and more. The 11.6 inch Macbook Air will cost more, but the Voiceover screenreader is very good, and comes free with every Mac computer. Check the Apple store page for factory refurbished machines at a significant savings.

If you are using JAWS on a laptop or netbook, I suggest the following keyboard command settings.
Use the desktop keyboard layout, but make these changes in the keyboard manager. You can get to the manager by pressing: ctrl, 8. to make these changes.

  1. PC cursor: ctrl, period. This means that you hold the ctrl key and tap the period.
  2. Jaws cursor: ctrl, slash.
  3. route jaws to pc: ctrl, shift, plus.
  4. route pc to jaws: ctrl, shift, dash.
The reason I chose these commands is that they don’t interfere with any built-in commands.
If you use System Access or NVDA you can use the netbook without making any modifications.

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