Moving to the Mac with VoiceOver from Microsoft WIndows and JAWS was a great organizing exercise for me. I took a look at my daily tasks and realized that I spent the majority of my computer time in the following programs.
EMail was handled by Microsoft Outlook 2003.
COntact management, calendar maintenance task management, and note taking was also handled by Outlook 2003.
I used the Miranda instant messaging client for AOL, Yahoo, and MSN messaging.
ALthough Internet explorer had kept me connected to the internet for years I had recently within the last year moved entirely to FireFox.
I used Adobe Acrobat accessible reader to read PDF files.
I used Microsoft Word to create and edit documents.
I used Microsoft Excel to manipulate spreadsheets. I used Notepad to dig into those pesky text, configuration and batch files.
Amazingly the key common denominator in the above programs centers around Microsoft with a sprinkle of Adobe and open source thrown in.
WHen I moved to the Mac I was amazed to find that the core productivity tasks of mail, task management, internet browsing, calendaring contact management, instant message chat, PDF reading, and document processing are directly integrated into the Mac. and require no additional software.
So in one swoop I realized that all I needed to do was turn on the Mac and enable VoiceOver with CMD-F5 and 90% of my productivity tools were built in.
THis is an incredible simplification.
It doesn’t stop there. SPell checking is real-time and spelling issues are corrected and flagged and realtime while one types in the same manner in all the applications.
Calendaring, email, and contact management (known as (address book) are tightly integrated and provide much more flexibility than the outlook programs I had previously used.
THis is a huge advantage for those of us who have gotten used to the Spaghetti of scripts, screen readers, version compatibility issues, plugins and all the rest of the glue that holds the Windows screen reader environment together.
WHat experiences have you had Please share!!
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Accessible Productivity And Spell Check On The Mac
Monday, January 18th, 2010Using Vienna as an Accessible Twitter Client
Monday, January 18th, 2010In my quest to move all my activities to the Mac one of the first items that needed to be handled was an accessible Twitter client. Although I am not a power user the number of people that I follow on Twitter has crossed the three thousand mark. THis means that there is a need for a precise filtering mechanism that permits one to take a Twitter stream of over Twenty Thousand tweets a day and quickly glean the high priority Tweets.
I chose Vienna version 2.3.4.
THis solution is totally accessible with VoiceOver and permits one to specify the RSS entries for each person that I wish to filter. Once the RSS entry has been added to the list to follow one can group various RSS entries into smart search folders which facilitates grouping of tweets by category.
THe coolest thing about this solution is that one can actually see the web based twitter post and respond to it directly within Vienna
Palm Pilot Replacement
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010I remember in the late 90’s buying a Palm Pilot for my wife because it was the latest thing out there for organizing one’s life! Organizing is a very general term and definitely means that the Palm Pilot could claim to be a general device. the razor blade concept was just as true for Palm at that time as for the razor manufactures. I thing we spent more on replacement pens for that Palm in the first year than the entire cost of the Palm and accessories. WIth the IPhone we now have a device that is one thousand times more powerful than the original Palm. And to think that it is totally accessible to the BLind
is absolutely awesome!!!
Connecting and Organizing
Monday, August 17th, 2009For as long as I can remember I have marveled at the variety of methods that we employ to stay in touch with our world.
I remember the first time I saw a bible. I was amazed at how many pages were in the compact book that I held in my hands as a child.
I received my first new testament in third grade from my grand parents. The new testament in Braille consists of four volumes. Each volume is at least three times thicker and four times longer and wider than that first printed bible I was shown. I asked someone to show me how much thickness was taken up by the new testament in the printed bible and was shocked at how few pages were used. That same year when I was in third grade I visited a library which had a Braille Encyclopedia that required five book shelves to hold it and was over a hundred Braille volumes.
When I was growing up vinyl records were the king of storage of music and reel to reel tapes were the most advanced way to store audio books. Fast forward to today and I have a 16GB IPhone in my pocket that holds the entire bible, several audio books, and the equivalent of 25 vinyl records and yet I have only used 20% of the available storage. I used to dream of having a huge library to hold all the Braille books that I would like to read. Today I can have all the Braille books that I could possibly read in a lifetime stored on an IPhone.
This same IPhone connects to the internet and permits me to pull in and read any of billions of web pages. To think of how quickly we become used to change and new possibilities, before May of this year a blind person could not use the IPhone at all.
What are the ways that change has impacted and amazed you? ?
Moving Applications On The IPhone
Saturday, August 1st, 2009I noticed today that my IPhone was getting a bit crowded and unorganized. I had added some applications to handle Twitter, and Skype. The applications ended up on page two of the display. The IPhone is such an amazing device! I have the ability to check my Email, read a book, listen to music, read my calendar, talk on the phone, manage my contacts, talk to people via Twitter or instant message. Time things with a stop watch, figure out what direction I am walking just to name a few.
I was thinking about how far we have come with accessibility In the blind community. I remember in 1978 working with a computer terminal that consisted of a modification to the tactual display of the OPTACON for presenting the characters that appeared on the screen. One would scroll across the line by using a spinning wheel called a digital shaft encoder. At the time we built this terminal it seemed like it was absolutely revolutionary!
Fast forward to 2009. In March of this year I was talking to some folks about the amazing things that are happening with smart phones and touch screens. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed that touch screens were totally out of reach for those of us who are blind. If you are not blind imagine picking up a device with a touch screen but this time shut your eyes so you can’t see any of the information on the screen. Feel the device carefully with your hands. Touch screen is rather formless. There is typically a flat area with a very smooth surface. How is it that this flat surface can be so full of information? It is like a secret is inside waiting to be let out for those who know how to find the information. Of course there are millions of touch screens with information and millions of people use them every day. Since the end of May I have been using this very type of device because of an awesome development. Which enables a blind person to control the touch screen and receive the information that is displayed on it?
Apple Computer has created a revolutionary solution for accessibility for BLind people by making the IPhone accessible and totally usable.
In the very short period since the new IPhone 3GS has been released I along with many other blind people have gone from not being able to use the IPhone at all to accessing so many facilities via the IPhone and fiddling around with moving applications around on the IPhone pages so that they are more organized.
There is nothing that is impossible for us. Any obstacle can be solved.
What obstacles in your life do you wish to solve?
The New Version Of The Syrinx Twitter Client is Awesome
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010I have been using the new version of Syrinx by MRR Software for the Mac to handle my Twitter interactions for a week now.
Syrinx is an absolutely stellar Twitter client because the author has worked very hard to make the entire experience of using Syrinx a breeze with VoiceOver.
Now that Twitter list support has been added along with the ability to preview the tweet timeline using any of the VoiceOver navigation functions I am able to quickly and efficiently read, review, and answer the tweets in my many lists. I am constantly amazed at how productive the Mac with VoiceOver environment is when using VoiceOver compatible software.
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Tags: Accessibility, Mac, Twitter, VoiceOver