Dark Side:
Below is something I send to people I am told are blined and to the various Veteran's Administration bline schools around the country.
In answer to your questions, when my system is reading an entire document and comes to a text input field, it says, "text". I hit, "enter" or verbally say, "confirm that" and it opens the text field. As tags are text fields they works the same way.
I can set a system to read all punctuation, no punctuation or some punctuation. I have mine set to, "some" and it will not read quotation marks in this mode. They are usually clumsy to listen to. If I need to know if there are quotes I can move back and forth one letter at a time and it will then read all the punctuation. When there is a question mark the system speaks the last word with an upward inflection.
If you have any other questions please call me. I will answer any questions on any subject known including the two I know something about.
Please don't you or anyone else feel you are imposing. You will not be. If the President finally gets smart and calls me to learn how to run the country I will put him on hold for you and the rest of the folks on Hub are more important to me.
Bob
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Within a month of my going blind on December 17, 1984 I was using assistive technology on my computer. At the time there were several adequate programs available. None of them were outstanding except for the times.
IBM, many years ago, came up with what is still the best web browser combination E-mail program ever may for even the sighted. Until version 3.021 it beat anything available up until then. including now. They updated to version 4.0 and it was a catastrophe. They canceled their assistive technology program but many of us still use 3.021 for nothing compares with it. It combines both functions into a simple program that requires virtually no training. Now new programs, from many vendors, requires two programs to do the same thing and none of them compare with the IBM program named Home Page Reader. IBM keeps claiming they are interested in helping the handicapped but for many years there has been no sign of that.
A short time later several programs became available that were outstanding. Far and away the best was named JAWS (Jobs Access With Speech).
The newest versions will do practically anything you will ever want them to do. The only thing they will not do is to read the anti-spam bubble codes that are required to get many things from the net. Most cited people have a great deal of trouble reading these also.
A new company has come up with an alternative on the sites which gives you the choice of reading the bubble or listening to an audio phrase and typing it in. Even in the clearest ones you will quite often have to ask for a new phrase 5 to 10 times to get one that is completely intelligible. This is a lot better than being denied access.
With JAWS you can operate any Windows program as well as anything on the net with just a few exceptions. JAWS will not speak:
*visual bubble codes.
*it will not read some new types of links on sites that are conventional links to cited people. When you click on them manually or verbally nothing happens. This is inexcusable but, so far, that is the way it is.
*ITUNES is useless with JAWS. J-TUNES at $75.00 from NGT (below) solves the problem.
*the same problem occurs with some videos.
*many things you will want to read are in Adobe PDF format. When you go to an Adobe file it immediately detects you are using assistive technology and it will not allow you to download the file. For many years they have claimed they are working on this problem. That does not a peer to be true.
You can get Adobe files. I have someone download them to their computer and then send the file to me as an attachment. This is clumsy and intrusive but it works. Once the file is on my computer I can easily read it with Adobe reader. I can also manipulate it any way I want to. If I can do this Adobe certainly could do it.
JAWS, with simple keystrokes, will read one letter at a time, one word, one paragraph or an entire document. A totally blind person, me, can install the program with no help. As soon as the program is installed you can use it without paying attention to the instructions. Play around with it a little and then go for the instructions. You will find too many things with it that you will not have thought of before. The only problem you will have is as it has so many possible commands that most of us have a difficult time remembering those that are rarely used. It is just like Microsoft Word in this respect.
JAWS is only useful for those that can type. There is a system available for those that have very limited use of their fingers. It is manufactured by New Generation Technologies (NGT) ngtvoice.com from Washington, State. The system uses:
JAWS $895.00 to $1,095.00.
Dragon naturally speaking pro $895.00.
J-SAY $827.00.
It is what I use to do my typing and to operate my computer.
Under no circumstances buy these programs separately. They only work as a matched set. The version of each program only works with the match version of the other two programs.
Everything that has the word, "blind" attached to it is expensive. You can see that from the prices of the programs above. The entire system from and GT comes with those programs installed as well as with a Windows operating system, a modem for Internet access and a sweet from Microsoft. It probably comes with Norton antivirus. Historically, this has many problems with assistive technology. For instance Norton identifies my authorization code as a virus and deletes it which makes the entire system useless. I always immediately eliminated from my systems when it comes on them.
The complete system is just under $5000.00.
J-SAY couples the other two programs together so that you may verbally, through a microphone, issue virtually any command you can think of as well as dictating your documents to the system. About all it will not do is to turn on without your finger pushing a button and regardless of how much you are determined it will not make your lunch.
There are a multitude of commands you may give the system. Again, the problem is remembering what they are. All of the common and most used commands are intuitive. You may say them in a variety of ways and, most of the time, the system will respond to you.
It turns out this is not much of a handicap. You will easily remember the commands that are commonly used. You can verbally ask for a list of commands at any time. You may also ask, "? What can I do?". This will tell you what you may do in the specific area you are in.
If you are a disabled veteran your VIST coordinator can get you a system. If that person is not aware of this please give me a call and I will tell you what to do to get it. No, I have no affiliation with this company and I do not get a dime out of it.
If for some reason you want to uninstall the programs, DON'T! When uninstalling you must do it precisely the way the verbal instructions tell you to do it. If you do it incorrectly you will destroy your Windows operating system. You will not be able to restore it in less you re-format the system, lose everything you have on your system and then reinstall everything you had on the system.
When you install again you must do things PRECISELY in the manner described in the instructions or the system will not work and it is likely will not ever worked.
Once it is installed it is very user friendly. Do not be intimidated by it. If you need help or suggestions, at any time, feel free to call me. I was the first one to get one at the Veteran's Administration Blind School in Palo Alto, California. Later I found out the instructors, who had never seen the system before, were standing in the doorway watching and listening to me teach myself how to use it. These instructors are very good but everyone has to start somewhere.
Bob
(559) 298-6906
Bobhager711@comcast.net
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