6082 comments
2357 subscribers
6222 on Twitter
Subscribe! Feed reader E-mail

Blind computing

Text of my e-mail to Bong Copuyoc:

Dear Bong,

I’m glad to hear that you’re working on an article focusing on
assistive technology! I started looking into it because I wanted to be
able to use my computer while walking around. Although the
head-mounted display looked really cool, it was heavy and conspicuous.
Fortunately, free and open-source tools such as the Festival Lite
speech synthesizer and the Emacspeak audio desktop made it easy for me
to glue together a system that let me browse, read mail, and do all
sorts of things without looking at my computer.

I’ve Cc:’d Richard Burgos, the IBM guy who told me about their
wonderful Computer Eyes workshop. They gave me an opportunity to help
out before, and I can tell you that it is an amazing experience.
However, the JAWS screen reader costs a lot (USD 895). Richard – IBM
has helped people with disabilities for far longer than I have;
perhaps you can spare time from your Christmas preparations to help
this journalist out? =)

With the increasing interest in Linux as a low-cost alternative even
for sighted users, maybe you can help convince your readers that Linux
training will benefit sighted and visually impaired users alike. I’m
sure that the Philippine Linux Users’ Group (http://plug.linux.org.ph)
and organizations like the Bluepoint Foundation
(http://www.bluepoint.com.ph) would be willing to help out.

You might be interested in the BLinux community
(http://leb.net/blinux/). They have an active mailing list and will
probably answer questions promptly.

Major distributions are beginning to support blind users out of the
box. If I’m not mistaken, you can get a Redhat install CD with speech
support (requires a hardware speech synthesizer). Knoppix comes with
Braille support out of the box.

Smaller distributions also cater to the needs of the visually
impaired. Oralux (http://www.oralux.org/), a live-CD distribution
based on Knoppix, has Emacspeak and the Festival Lite speech
synthesizer – allowing you to use practically any computer with a
supported sound card. Brlspeak (http://www.brlspeak.net/) has Braille
and partial speech support and can be installed on an existing FAT
hard disk without repartitioning.

Good luck and have fun!

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/1483

On This Day...

  • 2012: Weekly review: Week ending December 7, 2012 — I sprained my ankle in fitness class, but I’m almost back to normal. It’s been quite an eventful week! I’m [...]
  • 2011: Blog analysis for 2011: 173,363 words so far; also, using the Rails console to work with WordPress — How many posts did I post per month, not including this or future posts? (See the geek appendix below to [...]
  • 2010: Sketchnotes: The Science of Blogging: Dan Zarrella (Hubspot) —   Awesome stuff. Key actions for most blogs: by-lines should list real people, you should have  Facebook and Retweet buttons that [...]
  • 2010: Making the most of the conference hallway track — The informal conversations you have in conference corridors in between sessions can help you learn a lot more and [...]
  • 2009: Editing feedback on The Shy Connector — Here’s the detailed feedback from one of my editors on The Shy Connector. Lots of stuff to work with here! [...]
  • 2009: Weekly review: Week ending December 6, 2009 — Whoops! Nearly let a week slip past me. Plans from the previous week: Work Catch up on deferred work Interview Jason Wild [...]
  • 2009: Process: Using Activities to organize workshop-related information — We regularly organize Innovation Discovery workshops that bring together experts across IBM and client decisionmakers to explore emerging topics. In [...]
  • 2005: Trend Micro Tech Challenge, blogged — Check out the MSU-IIT coach’s blog entry about the Trend Micro Tech Challenge. =) On Technorati: tmtc, philippines
  • 2005: Learning Bisaya — Are there comprehensive Bisaya references with example sentences, aside from http://www.bohol.ph/books/Jimenez/EnglishBisayaGrammar.html ? I’d like to learn Bisaya, but I’m worried I might end [...]
  • 2004: Random notes from meeting with Prof. Chignell — Sharon Strauss, lead of the project. Introduction. Order tree interface for searching. Clinical evidence at the point of care. Doctors can’t remember [...]
  • 2004: On effective websites — We’re looking at two audiences here: people who check out our website to find out more about Adphoto as a company, [...]
  • 2003: Breakfast steak, potatoes — Have potatoes down pat – halved marble potatoes in covered container with pat of butter, cook for three minutes, stir, then [...]
  • 2003: 2003.12.09 – White (M.) / Black (Sacha) – Starbucks — 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 Bg5 4 h6 Bh5 5 dxe5 Bxf3 6 gxf3 dxe5 7 Qxd8+ Kd8 8 f4 Nc6 9 fxe5 Nxe5 10 f4 Bb4+? 11 c3 Nc6 12 cxb4 Nxb4 13 Bd2 Nc2+ 14 Ke2 Na1 15 Kd3 Ke7 16 Nc3 Rd8+ 17 Nd5+ Kd6 18 Bb4+ c5 19 Ba5 b6 20 Bc3 f6 21 Kd2 Ne7 22 Bc4 Kc6 23 Rxa1 b5 24 Kd3? bxc4+ 25 Kxc4 Nxd5 26 exd5+ Rxd5 27 b4 Re8 28 b5+ Kd6 29 Rb1 Re4+ 30 Kb3 Rd3 31 Rc1 Kd5 32 a4 Rh3 33 Rd1+ Ke6 34 a5 Rb4+ 35 Ka3? Rxc3+ 36 Ka2 Rxb5 37 Rf1? Rc4 38 f5+ Ke5 39 a6? Ra4++
  • 2003: 2003.12.09 – White (Sacha) / Black (M.) – Starbucks — 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Nf6 3 d3 d5 4 exd5 Nxd5 5 Nc3 Bb5 6 Bd2 Be6 7 Nf3 Nd7? 8 Nxd5 Bxd5 9 Bxb4 e4? 10 Bxd5 exf3 11 Qxf3 Nb6? 12 Qf7++ -
  • 2003: 2003.12.09 – White (M.) / Black (Sacha) – Starbucks — 2003.12.09 White (M.) Black (Sacha) 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Nf6 3 d3 d5 4 exd5 Nxd5 5 Qh5 Nc6 6 Nc3 Be6 7 Bg5 Nf6 8 o-o-o Nxh5 9 Bxd8 Rxd8 10 d4? Bxc4 11 b3 exd4 12 Nb5? Bxb5 13 c4 Ba3+ 14 Kc2 Nb4+ 15 Kb1 Bc6 16 Nf3 Be4+ 17 Ka1 Nc2+ 18 Kb1 Ne3+ 19 Ka1 Nxd1 20 Rxd1 d3 21 Re1 Nf6 22 Ng5 o-o 23 Nxe4 Nxe4 24 Rxe4? d2 25 resign - No way to prevent … d1 (Q or R,++).
  • 2003: Mark Punzalan is a Microsoft Student Ambassador now — Hi Sacha, In case you didn’t know, I’ve been drafted into Microsoft’s Student Ambassador program. We’re planning to go to different [...]
  • 2003: CS21B meeting — - Listeners: canvas vs applet - Selecting: isSelected, highlighting - Deleting shapes - Changing colors - Dragging / moving: mousePressed, mouseDragged, mouseReleased. Optimal: relative position - [...]

Get the highlights as a PDF!

Stories from my Twenties: Highlights from a Decade of Blogging