I'm back, and do I have a lot to talk about today.... I'm not sure where to begin, so here we go.
Work is going well. I've had a couple of new customers, and some returning ones as well. It also sounds like some more people will be stopping in or making appointments soon. A lot of people are really interested in Magic, the screen magnification program. I'm also still hoping to get WebAdapt installed on the machine some time some how. I think it would be very helpful. The program is free to anyone to use, and it would help the majority of people I've worked with because a lot of what they want to do is use the Internet and e-mail. All I would have to do is make a quick getting started sheet and make a user account for them. They could then download the program at home, or I could even burn some more CD's to give them.
I attended another training at SSB this past Monday, and it was quite interesting. The presenters showed off a few pieces of technology like the Braille Note, Trekker, and a couple others. The Braille Note is a little PDA style device that comes in either a Braille or QWERTY keyboard style. It has an electronic Braille display and speech output. The device supports programs like Pocket Word, e-mail, Internet Explorer, etc. It's also got a couple of pretty cool exclusive features.
My favorite has to be the database feature. It's got a built-in database program that's so easy to use, I demand a Windows version. I don't understand why using and creating databases can't be this simple. The unit comes with some pre-built ones like for phone numbers and addresses, media collections, etc., but it's just as easy to make your own. There's even advanced features to make certain default values for fields, and how it reports info back to you. This would be sweet for a person doing anything via phone where they had to get someone's information and input more information in other fields. I love that software and wish it was on other platforms.
It also had a couple other cool things like some accessible games, an FM tunor, support for both Compact Flash and SD cards, and a couple more I can't remember. The only thing I didn't really like about it was the cost, and some of the hardware. Like it had a built-in modem, but no form of network card. It had a PC/MCIA slot, but no wireless. I think it would be much better to have an ethernet/modem combo card, and wireless card. Their reasoning was they didn't know what to support, A, B, or G. My thought is, they have cards that have all 3 wireless types supported. My laptop has one such card. Just put one of them in there and you're covered. Finally the cost was pretty insane, like over $2000.
The other main demo they had was a GpS for the Braille Note. This is a program that allows GPS functionality with a little hardware GPS add-on. This would be very nice at times. Using maps, you can figure out where you are, plan and follow routs, and find points of interest on the way. So I could plan my trip to work, and as I'm traveling, it would tell me where to go, and I could request certain points of interest along the way. Say I wanted to know about all the electronics stores along the way to work, because I'm a geek like that... I could easily set this up. There are some other cool features to it too, but I won't go into them here because I don't know enough about them to properly explain them. The device should be accurate within about 10 feet, so good mobility skills are still very important, but it would really help find new locations.
The Trekker was also there, but not demonstrated. This is another similar device to the GPS and Braille Note combo, only the PDA part isn't propriatary hardware. There's software you can install on a supported off-the-shelf PDA, which many are supported. It's also a bit nicer for the GPS part because it's smaller and easier to use because of its size. The Braille Note is quite big compared to it, and could cause more problems when walking. The Trekker can fit in a pocket, and has a case protecting it more from the elements, which is important when walking around here. The Braille Note has a case too, but has to be open to use the device in GPS mode.
OK, enough on that day... I also had a very cool presentation this morning at the library. Someone from Freedom of Speech came in to demonstrate a product called The Freedom Box. I had heard of it before today, but didn't know much about it, and what i knew turned out to be not quite so accurate. This thing is pretty cool, and has a lot of interesting features.
The program comes in a variety of types. You can get it on a Flash drive, mini-CD, or on a piece of hardware. You can also get it with a little keyboard or without, but more on that later. The sweet thing is, no software has to be installed. It all runs from the CD or flash drive.
The software allows a blind or low vision user to easily surf the internet, check and send e-mail, get news and entertainment, play games, listen to books or descriptive movies or TV shows, and more. The service kind of works like a cross between something like AOL but better, and regular computer use. There's the cost of the initial purchase, and then a monthly subscription of about $19. The initial purchase isn't that bad though in AT terms, it's around $250 to $550 depending on what type you order.
The main draw for this package is its ease of use. Rather than having to know a lot of computer and Windows concepts, keyboard navigation commands, etc, they make it very easy to use. Once the program starts, the user is presented with a menu of what to do: E-mail, games, news, etc. Once they choose an option by arrowing to it or pressing the number of the choice, they are presented with another menu of choices. They can compose e-mail in this way for instance, until they get to the actual To: field and such. But even then, they only have to type that information if they so choose. They can record a voice e-mail as an option and it will send an MP3 attachment to the message the other person can listen to. So there is minimal typing required, and navigating the rest of the system really only requires the arrow, tab, enter, and 1 or 2 other keys. There are lots more shortcut keys for advanced users if they want it, but they're not necessary.
Take this one step further by getting the PS2 or USB Keypad. This has the basic keys people would need to perform most of the functions without a standard keyboard. The very basic keys are the biggest, and slightly more advanced keys are smaller. Both ways work very well.
We tried a variety of things with it today, both with the keyboard and external keypad. We checked websites, e-mail, looked for movies, and more. It was all very easy. It provided speech output and large print, both of which can be customized at any time. Keep in mind all of this is running with nothing being installed to the computer. This would be excellent for beginning computer users or senior citizens who may have trouble learning or be intimidated by the computer's complexity. But it also has some useful features even advanced users would like.
Oh, one of the coolest things I forgot to mention.... When browsing the Internet, if I came across a site that had something I could fix like a button with no alt tag, I could custom label it. Jaws and most other screen readers can do this too, but that's not the cool part. The cool thing is, after a page is fixed up right, since a lot of the service is server based, you could press a keystroke to upload these fixes to their centralized server, and anyone who browses this page in the future would benifit from your fixes instantly. This was very awesome, and I'd love to see Jaws implament something like this, rather than having to find and copy settings files to a particular user. This is a quick and easy way to benifit everyone.
There's probably more I could say about all of this stuff, but i'll leave it at that for now. I will say though, that you can download a 30 day demo of Freedom Box from http://www.freedombox.info Interestingly enough, the company making this product is from here in the Twin Cities too.
Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened. A couple of friends were staying in St. Paul this week for job stuff, and a couple of the tech demos I went to, so that was cool. I'm starting to get something done with my masters project, but I really really really need to do a lot more, which is one of my plans for this weekend. I'm also looking forward to tomorrow because CTEP is going to the Science Museum, and that should be fun. And hopefully no one will be sick this time, and we can do some serious Mario Kart battling. So I'm keeping plenty busy, and having a little fun too.
Till the next novel...
Work is going well. I've had a couple of new customers, and some returning ones as well. It also sounds like some more people will be stopping in or making appointments soon. A lot of people are really interested in Magic, the screen magnification program. I'm also still hoping to get WebAdapt installed on the machine some time some how. I think it would be very helpful. The program is free to anyone to use, and it would help the majority of people I've worked with because a lot of what they want to do is use the Internet and e-mail. All I would have to do is make a quick getting started sheet and make a user account for them. They could then download the program at home, or I could even burn some more CD's to give them.
I attended another training at SSB this past Monday, and it was quite interesting. The presenters showed off a few pieces of technology like the Braille Note, Trekker, and a couple others. The Braille Note is a little PDA style device that comes in either a Braille or QWERTY keyboard style. It has an electronic Braille display and speech output. The device supports programs like Pocket Word, e-mail, Internet Explorer, etc. It's also got a couple of pretty cool exclusive features.
My favorite has to be the database feature. It's got a built-in database program that's so easy to use, I demand a Windows version. I don't understand why using and creating databases can't be this simple. The unit comes with some pre-built ones like for phone numbers and addresses, media collections, etc., but it's just as easy to make your own. There's even advanced features to make certain default values for fields, and how it reports info back to you. This would be sweet for a person doing anything via phone where they had to get someone's information and input more information in other fields. I love that software and wish it was on other platforms.
It also had a couple other cool things like some accessible games, an FM tunor, support for both Compact Flash and SD cards, and a couple more I can't remember. The only thing I didn't really like about it was the cost, and some of the hardware. Like it had a built-in modem, but no form of network card. It had a PC/MCIA slot, but no wireless. I think it would be much better to have an ethernet/modem combo card, and wireless card. Their reasoning was they didn't know what to support, A, B, or G. My thought is, they have cards that have all 3 wireless types supported. My laptop has one such card. Just put one of them in there and you're covered. Finally the cost was pretty insane, like over $2000.
The other main demo they had was a GpS for the Braille Note. This is a program that allows GPS functionality with a little hardware GPS add-on. This would be very nice at times. Using maps, you can figure out where you are, plan and follow routs, and find points of interest on the way. So I could plan my trip to work, and as I'm traveling, it would tell me where to go, and I could request certain points of interest along the way. Say I wanted to know about all the electronics stores along the way to work, because I'm a geek like that... I could easily set this up. There are some other cool features to it too, but I won't go into them here because I don't know enough about them to properly explain them. The device should be accurate within about 10 feet, so good mobility skills are still very important, but it would really help find new locations.
The Trekker was also there, but not demonstrated. This is another similar device to the GPS and Braille Note combo, only the PDA part isn't propriatary hardware. There's software you can install on a supported off-the-shelf PDA, which many are supported. It's also a bit nicer for the GPS part because it's smaller and easier to use because of its size. The Braille Note is quite big compared to it, and could cause more problems when walking. The Trekker can fit in a pocket, and has a case protecting it more from the elements, which is important when walking around here. The Braille Note has a case too, but has to be open to use the device in GPS mode.
OK, enough on that day... I also had a very cool presentation this morning at the library. Someone from Freedom of Speech came in to demonstrate a product called The Freedom Box. I had heard of it before today, but didn't know much about it, and what i knew turned out to be not quite so accurate. This thing is pretty cool, and has a lot of interesting features.
The program comes in a variety of types. You can get it on a Flash drive, mini-CD, or on a piece of hardware. You can also get it with a little keyboard or without, but more on that later. The sweet thing is, no software has to be installed. It all runs from the CD or flash drive.
The software allows a blind or low vision user to easily surf the internet, check and send e-mail, get news and entertainment, play games, listen to books or descriptive movies or TV shows, and more. The service kind of works like a cross between something like AOL but better, and regular computer use. There's the cost of the initial purchase, and then a monthly subscription of about $19. The initial purchase isn't that bad though in AT terms, it's around $250 to $550 depending on what type you order.
The main draw for this package is its ease of use. Rather than having to know a lot of computer and Windows concepts, keyboard navigation commands, etc, they make it very easy to use. Once the program starts, the user is presented with a menu of what to do: E-mail, games, news, etc. Once they choose an option by arrowing to it or pressing the number of the choice, they are presented with another menu of choices. They can compose e-mail in this way for instance, until they get to the actual To: field and such. But even then, they only have to type that information if they so choose. They can record a voice e-mail as an option and it will send an MP3 attachment to the message the other person can listen to. So there is minimal typing required, and navigating the rest of the system really only requires the arrow, tab, enter, and 1 or 2 other keys. There are lots more shortcut keys for advanced users if they want it, but they're not necessary.
Take this one step further by getting the PS2 or USB Keypad. This has the basic keys people would need to perform most of the functions without a standard keyboard. The very basic keys are the biggest, and slightly more advanced keys are smaller. Both ways work very well.
We tried a variety of things with it today, both with the keyboard and external keypad. We checked websites, e-mail, looked for movies, and more. It was all very easy. It provided speech output and large print, both of which can be customized at any time. Keep in mind all of this is running with nothing being installed to the computer. This would be excellent for beginning computer users or senior citizens who may have trouble learning or be intimidated by the computer's complexity. But it also has some useful features even advanced users would like.
Oh, one of the coolest things I forgot to mention.... When browsing the Internet, if I came across a site that had something I could fix like a button with no alt tag, I could custom label it. Jaws and most other screen readers can do this too, but that's not the cool part. The cool thing is, after a page is fixed up right, since a lot of the service is server based, you could press a keystroke to upload these fixes to their centralized server, and anyone who browses this page in the future would benifit from your fixes instantly. This was very awesome, and I'd love to see Jaws implament something like this, rather than having to find and copy settings files to a particular user. This is a quick and easy way to benifit everyone.
There's probably more I could say about all of this stuff, but i'll leave it at that for now. I will say though, that you can download a 30 day demo of Freedom Box from http://www.freedombox.info Interestingly enough, the company making this product is from here in the Twin Cities too.
Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened. A couple of friends were staying in St. Paul this week for job stuff, and a couple of the tech demos I went to, so that was cool. I'm starting to get something done with my masters project, but I really really really need to do a lot more, which is one of my plans for this weekend. I'm also looking forward to tomorrow because CTEP is going to the Science Museum, and that should be fun. And hopefully no one will be sick this time, and we can do some serious Mario Kart battling. So I'm keeping plenty busy, and having a little fun too.
Till the next novel...
posted by Jesse Anderson at 12:11 PM
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