Hi Darrell, "we totals get the shortest possible end of the stick". I'm really sorry that you feel like that, you must have had some rotten experiences. I come at tools such as Speakup from a different angle. I'm a (sighted) researcher at the Uniersity of Teesside, doing a PhD in the mobile device accessibility (phones, PDAs, E-Books, MP3 players, that sort of thing). I sotrt of got into accessibility through family experiences: my dad lost his ability to speak through a faulty medical procedure, and my cousin Paul has multiple sclerosis, my cousin Christine has cognitive problems caused by severe epilepsy, and my niece has dyscalculia. It's my cousin Paul that's most relevant here. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system (CNS), and it's a weird, weird disease. It can affect any part of the CNS, but not consistently. Literally, at least in the early stages of the disease, you can go running in the morning, and not be able to stand in the afternoon. There are lots of symptoms, the ones Paul, who is in the progressive phase of the disease, has include having no sense of touch, vertigo, blurred/double vision, severe muscle spasms, and a lack of fine motor control (so he has difficulty pressing keys on the keyboard even if he can see them). His vision problmes are why I'm looking at Speakup. For Paul, he needs text-to-speech (TTS) because even though he can see after a fashion, and if you don't mind two of everything dancing in front of you, he can't look at the scren for very long without his vision getting progressively worse. And concentrating on the screen tends to set off his vertigo and spasms. He can look long enough (with big text or a magnifier application) to start an application, but he can't sit in front of the PC for more than five minutes doing any work. Tools like Speakup help him confirm what he's seeing, and allow him to read e-books without having to stare at the screen. TTS also manages to lengthen the time he can spend at his PC before his symptoms take over. Tools like Speakup and Jaws (not my favourite tool I have to say) allow Paul to have a private life and live at home, paying his own bills, shopping, sending emails to his girlfriend etc. As his condition worstens, it will become increasing the only way he can have any quality of life at all. I guess what I'm trying to say is that TTS for people who are totally blind is very important, but you don't have to be totally blind to have to rely on TTS. I hope learning about MS will improve your tolerance level a little. /bob --- Darrell Shandrow <nu7i at azboss.net> wrote: > Hi David, > > Yeah, perhaps you're right to an extent, but, nevertheless, they're > operating in a visual mode. Other sighted people have a much better > understanding of their use of the computer than ours, so they're more > likely > to receive the assistance and accomodations they require in school, > at work > and elsewhere... I've seen this sort of thing happen over and over > again, > so that we totals get the shortest possible end of the stick... So, > I guess > I have little sympathy... > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
