I have written about my experience with Voiceover both on the Mac and the iPhone. I can’t seem to remember a day when I didn’t use a touch screen to do all sorts of computer things; such as, browse web sites. It was not that long ago when the blind community was told that touch screens were out of bounds and we would need to be content with keyboards. Don’t get me wrong, I love the keyboard and I love the touch screen. Why should I be restricted to one or the other?

Now along comes Chromevox, the screen reader extension for the Google Chrome browser. I love the Chrome Browser. I greatly dislike the fact that ChromeVox only supports keyboard shortcuts and complete ignores the capabilities of the Mac to support touch gestures.

I had forgotten what it was like to try and remember complex key combinations to get things done. I will love Chromevox even more when touch gestures are supported.

I made one of those new year resolutions to do things differently this year. This includes writing one blog post a week minimum.

Stay tuned!

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.

The new Twitter list support has been added along with the ability to preview the tweet timeline using any of the VoiceOver navigation functions. Now, 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.

I had been accustomed to walking between three and five miles a day for about six months or so; a good daily exercise walk had become quite routine. On Sunday April 11, I walked five miles non-stop with no effort. The very next day, Monday April 12, I started out for a walk and was amazed by the muscle fatigue that I experienced in my right leg. I was not able to walk more than a city block without stopping. The experience of fatigue was exactly as if I had walked fifty miles and my leg muscles were totally tired out. I was struck at the time by the sense that I am experiencing something that I have never experienced before… There is something new here and very mysterious!

I spent the next day wondering if I had a virus that had imbedded itself in the muscles of my leg, etc. I am not accustomed to calling the Doctor very often so at first the thought that I should pick up the phone was totally at the back of my mind.

By Wednesday, I had had enough and I set up an appointment with the only available Doctor at 4:00 P.M. As soon as I describe what was happening to the Doctor it was like someone pushed a switch and we want into warp speed. By 5:15 I was at the hospital having an ultra sound scan of my right leg. The tech doing the scan was very experienced and she was instructed by the order to scan all the veins. Finding nothing after scanning the veins the tech took initiative and scanned the artery. Almost immediately a clot was identified.

At the same time the tech used a Doppler device to check for circulation and found very little in the right leg. By 7:00 P.M. I was on a table experiencing a CT scan with all kinds of warm dye being pumped through my body. By Thursday morning, I was in surgery where several clots were removed from the artery and veins.

Since that time, I have had a surgery where three stints were placed in my Aorta to prevent any more clots from being thrown from there. The source of the clots was found after doing a CT scan of the Aorta. All the medical technology the blood thinners the Doctors, the nurses, the hospital stays are a totally new experience for me.

I am so grateful to the Doctors, nurses, and health technicians that utilized their professional experience to enhance my life.

The most important thing that I have learned is that nothing in the world is sacred, nothing is for sure, and there is an aspect of health that really teaches one about priorities and the importance of always keeping relationships current and at the center of our life experience.

Have you ever had a life changing experience that transformed your life?

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.

The Great Transition
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 check is real-time therefore spelling issues are corrected and flagged 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!

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.

The razor blade concept was just as true for the Palm Pilot at that time as for the razor manufactures. I think we spent more on replacement pens for that Palm in the first year than the entire cost of the Palm Pilot and it’s 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!!!

Though my company’s telecommunications needs were small and not profitable to him, he took time to explain options as if I were someone important from a big, profitable corporation. He showed me how to save money, explained terms I didn’t understand, and taught me how to ask better questions when looking at office equipment.

When I have worked with him on several projects, he has dared me to stretch, to try something in a different way or learn a new skill. Kevin has also shared books, articles, and ideas that have helped me grow. Kevin also taught me how to get the most from Outlook and the iPhone’s productivity tools that make my life easier.

So, since I had to post here, I want to let Kevin and his readers know how much I appreciate his time and what I’ve learned. If everyone treated their customers and colleagues this way, this world would be a better place with empowered people working in so many creative ways. Thanks Kevin.

I received my first new testament in the third grade from my grandparents. 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 has this change has impacted and amazed you?

Adopting is an incredible miracle and life is so fully manifested in the incredible gift of bringing a new child home to the family. I remember the wonderful bonding that took place immediately after holding a newly adopted baby in my arms!

What awesome family experiences can you share?