A Message from St. Nick
Shortly after a quick stop at the Island of Misfit Toys, I always visit the good little boys, girls, geeks and nerds of AppleVis Land. It is difficult to know exactly what to bring you every holiday season, but I am rather fortunate. Members of AppleVis Land love to share their opinions, and that is clear both from the forum postings, as well as their wish lists sent to the North Pole.
I reached into my mailbox and pulled out a few of theā¦
When Iām not listening to punk rock, helping my dad set the thermostat, or reading audiobooks, I do occasionally make an attempt to contribute to society. I talk at local blind support groups about using technology.
Most of the groups I visit are atā¦
Once You gaze into the System, the System also gazes into You! :-)
Fair warning! Any programming and scripting adventures can at first, be; very frustrating, extremely rewarding, can sink you into the depths of a learning curve for a long period of time, expand one's thinking patterns far beyond normal, cause one to pull one's hair out, cause one to become much faster and productive on their computer, can at times force one to restart theirā¦
My 86-year old dad has been living with me since August. At the breakfast table this morning, he politely requested that we set the thermostat a bit warmer at night. The cold season is upon us here in mid-northern latitudes, and his elderly body just canāt handle it. To be honest, his request was not all that polite. Heās a former truck driver, which influenced his choice of vocabulary. As a result, his exact request canāt be printed here.
While fiddling with the thermostat toā¦
Are you sending a decent message to the blind community? Are you sending 'any' messages to the blind community? If you are a web or app developer, a blogger or a YouTuber, if you use Facebook or any messaging app or email, I am here to tell you that you 'are' sending a message with everything you create. The question one should ask is, "Am I sending an intentional message?" Those of us who use a screen reader or Braille display get the message literally loudā¦
If youāre like me, thereās no way you can resist reading an article with a title like 5 TECH STANDARDS APPLE MURDERED AND 5 MORE ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK.
I found the five murder victims quite noteworthy. Some seem obvious, like the demise of the floppy disk and CD-ROM. Back in the ā90s, PC manufacturers were a lot like lemmings that wouldāve followed each other over the floppy disk cliff were it not for Appleās bold leadershipā¦
I was a late adopter of the iPhone technology. I thought I didn't need ANOTHER gadget to keep track of. It wasn't until I heard some friends discussing their iPhones that I realized that an iPhone could replace many of the gadgets I used. Not only did the iPhone cut down on the number of gadgets I needed to carry, but it saved me money too!
I was curious to see exactly how much money the iPhone could save me, so I went window shopping. I looked forā¦
This post has been updated to include tips for using the image description feature based on feedback received from the Applevis Editorial Team and members of the Applevis community.
When I first heard at the WWDC Conference In June that Voice Over was going to include a new image description feature I was excited to say the least. I thought to myself - finally I will be able to know what all of those funny memes say on Facebook! Yes, I know - superā¦
iOS 11 has arrived for users of the iPhone 5S and later; the iPad fifth generation and later; and the iPod Touch 6th Generation. Mainstream changes such as the revamped Control Center, new HomeKit options, the new Files app, and many other enhancements have been added. Other blogs and videos will cover these changes, but as is the case with all major iOS releases dating back toā¦
Earlier this year, the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired of San Francisco (known as San Francisco Lighthouse to people who speak standard English) agreed that the support for the Macintosh Terminal app using VoiceOver was an inadequate solution for all but the most minimal of its possible use cases. To remedy this issue, they funded the development of a new little screen reader called tdsr.
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Personal note: When I first began to write this blog, I was in the middle of experiencing Hurricane Harvey firsthand. As I tend to approach any adversity with a light-hearted touch, my story below reflects that attitude about my own circumstances. Still, I am sadly aware of the toll on lives that Harvey caused in Texas and of the on-going impact from other storms now ripping across many islands and moving towards the mainland. My heart goes out to all those who have been affected.
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There is something about SIRI, I don't know what it is, but we seem to share a relationship now. Actually we share many relationships. SIRI even knows about all my other relationships. In fact, she helped me in their creation.
Me, right after startup: SIRI?
SIRI, a bit sluggish at first: Yes Nicholas?
Me: What time is it?
SIRI: It's 5:30 AM. You woke me up.
Me: Well get up, it's time to get busy.
SIRI: What?
Me: Open 'your' settingsā¦
I love customizing and tweaking my Mac operating System. From finding those little speed boosts to reducing keypresses for navigation, there is something exciting about finding settings that actually help and make things easier and more comfy. If it were a car it would be a low-rider and have pin-stripes. A stereo would be blasting Led Zeppelin or Santana with a thumpin' subwoofer in the trunk. Some fuzzy dice would be hanging from the mirror. Oops, showing my age again.
Since my Macā¦
The information hit me hard, almost not understandable. What did that service rep just say? No internet for almost two weeks? Really? I had her repeat the installation date again. Yup, no internet for two weeks. Wow.
We were moving into our new apartment in a couple of days, but, my face scrunched up trying to swallow the concept, no internet for two weeks. I even tried Googling "no internet," but only found people having trouble connecting to their internet service, whichā¦
Digital Assistants are becoming standard in most modern homes. They are available on most devices and computers in some form. They are gradually working more and more together as an environment. Looking ahead to the future, I can not yet tell if we are heading towards Star Trek or more towards the Jetsons. With all these 'currently fringe' technologies beginning to overlap, I hope the future focus remains on accessing life, as well as the technology. With this in mind, I thought a moreā¦
Welcome to the May 2017 edition of AppleVis Unlimited, our monthly series which aims to highlight what's new and noteworthy on the AppleVis website. Below, you'll find a selection of the best content posted to AppleVis - from new app entries, to app updates, to the latest news and podcasts. For easier navigation, the major sections of this post are at heading level 3, and each individual item is at heading level 4.
In addition to the previously announced Apple Store sessions and updated App Store collections, Apple has now released a series of seven videos on its YouTube channel to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day on 18 Mayā¦
On May 8, Sprint released a new update to the Sprint IP Relay app. While the description only states that there are "Miscellaneous bug fixes", one of those bug fixes is very significant... it restores access for braille users. Until now, braille users have not had a reliable solution to access relay via their mobile devices.
For those unfamiliar, text relay allows a deaf or DeafBlind person to access the phone system through a relay operator, whoā¦
A Verbal Prehistory
In an earlier stage of my eyesight I did a lot of zooming in on the screen. My set up was such that the magnified portion of the screen followed the mouse cursor most of the time. I would use Control-2-finger scroll on the trackpad to zoom in and out. While this worked fine, it forced me to use both hands to accomplish the maneuver. Ugh! I felt like a caveman, having to set down my coffee just to navigate with two hands. :-)
I had already beenā¦
In what could soon be coming as the first of its kind, Humanware appears to be developing a new braille display and app for synchronizing notes with iDevices. In late April, an app hit the App Store called Brailliant Sync. According to the description by Harpo, the app is designed "for synchronizing notes between Gmail, IMAP and similar servers and Brailliant 14 Brailleā¦