Comments for Lioncourt.com

Comment on Disability Nation Takes a Look at NFB v. Target by Chris

Chris — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:32:46 +0000

I’ve been hearing a lot about the settlement of this suit but nowhere in any of the information I’ve read or heard has it said anything about NFB billing Target for training employees in awareness of the problems of the visually impaired. I’m sure Disability Nation is keeping its eyes open on this one but nobody else is publicizing the money situation. The discrepancy in the agreements concerning screen readers other than JAWS isn’t being publicized either. I wonder why.

Comment on Play Samples on Audible.com with VoiceOver by Esther

Esther — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:50:32 +0000

Here’s a quick way to fine tune this.

• If you use VO-F5 to check your progress as you move your mouse cursor to the left from “Listen”, first check the screen coordinates of the “Add to Cart” link for your selection. The “x” location of the “Add to Cart” link will give you a target for how far your will need to move your mouse cursor. You only need to measure this once and note the offset for future use. I measured an offset of 25 screen units in x on my MacBook, but this number will depend on your machine and screen resolution.

1. From the “Listen” text for your selection use VO-Up Arrow to navigate to your selection’s “Add to Cart” link
2. Press VO-Command-F5 to move the mouse cursor to the VoiceOver cursor.
3. Press VO-F5 twice to check the position of the mouse and note the x value
4. Navigate back to the “Listen” text for your selection with VO-Down Arrow and repeat items 2 and 3 to route the mouse to “Listen” and check its position.

When you move your mouse, aim for the “x” location of the “Add to Cart” link while trying to keep the “y” location of the “Listen” text. The “sweet spot” — meaning the center of the clickable region to start and stop playing — is slightly further to the left (by about 5 units on my MacBook), but you’ll get good results using the above location as a target. In this region you can simply click with trackpad, mouse, or with the center key of the numeric keypad (in Leopard) to start playing or stop playing the sample. You do not need to control-click, although that works as well.

• An extra tip for MacBook and MacBook Pro users who are using Leopard and who use Mouse Keys to move their cursor: you can “click” to start and stop playing the sample using the center position key (Fn+I). This works even on newer laptops that lack the numlock F6 key, provided that Mouse Keys are turned on. Press Fn+U at least 22 (and not more than 39) times to move to the edge of the “clickable” area. There is a small boundary area of about 3 screen units before that where you can only control-click and get the menu to start playing. In the “clickable” area (about 17 screen units in x and 10 units in y) you can click to start, pause, and resume playing the sample, and you can also get the control-click menu.

Comment on VueScan Now VoiceOver Compatible by Bert Patterson

Bert Patterson — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:35:35 +0000

I am glad to see more third party applications compatible with VoiceOver, especially OCR. I will check this out; it could be useful even for the visually impaired like myself. I understand that Adobe is committed to porting Acrobat to the Cocoa frameworks, so maybe in the future there will be partial or complete compatibility with VoiceOver for Acrobat, which definitely would helpful to the visually impaired.

Comment on Play Samples on Audible.com with VoiceOver by BlindGeek

BlindGeek — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:45:04 +0000

I realize this is nitpicking, but what the hell … oughtn’t this be in the Tips ‘n’ Tricks section? Just sayin’…

Great trick, though. First Audible samples I’ve heard in at least a year.

Comment on VueScan Now VoiceOver Compatible by BlindGeek

BlindGeek — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:40:42 +0000

I may have to check this out. It’d be nice to not have to use OpenBook every time I want to read a printed book. Hopefully, there’s a free-trial version. If it’s as good as Finereader, I’ll be buying.

Comment on Apple Announces iPhone 3G by camr00

camr00 — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:41:42 +0000

Brand new mobile phone , laptop , come with complete accessories with one year international warranty.

Emaill address: camr_inc@hotmail.com

Apple iphone 3G 16gb……..$300usd
Sony ericsson C905………$500usd
HTC Touch Pro ……….$500usd
Samsung omnia i900…..$500usd
HTC Touch Diamond …$350usd
Nokia n96 16gb…$500usd
Apple iphone 16gb..$350usd
Sony ericsson xperia x1..$400usd
Apple iphone 8gb…..$300usd
Nokia n95 8gb…….$300usd
Ps3 60gb………….$300usda

HTC Touch Pro speciffication..

2.8” VGA display
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with HTC TouchFLO 3D interface
3.2 megapixel camera
512MB internal memory
288MB RAM (what a weird number)
microSD memory card slot
GPS navigation
TV output
Bluetooth connectivity
GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA/HSUPA connectivity

We make shipment via Ups and Fedex shipping company 2days deliver worldwide.
If you are interested in buying our product contact us via

Email address: camr_inc@hotmail.com

Comment on Opera Browser Released with VoiceOver Support by Jake

Jake — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:28:17 +0000

I’m glad they’ve made some effort for Voiceover support, but I’m not as certain they’re as committed as people seem to think. Many others besides myself had reported these show-stopping problems on multiple occasions during the beta cycle. We were never replied to, and obviously they weren’t fixed. Time will tell, but I’m not willing to praise them until I see genuine commitment, and that includes not only giving us Voiceover support but being willing to listen and fix accessibility issues.

Comment on AFB Continues Their Negative Spin of VoiceOver by Peg Jolene

Peg Jolene — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:47:06 +0000

I found Mr. Burton’s comments accurate in terms of the Ipods having little or no accessibility. Further, if such devices are going to be used in education, it seems that accessibility could be a part of the Ipod, rather than an afterthought. As Mr. Burton had difficulty with Itunes, this sounds like an excellent learning opportunity and for users to provide suggestions and solutions - smile! This comes from me, with a household of three Macs! It really is disheartening to use the Mac with such ease and have to use “work arounds” for Apple accessories! And, yes, I feel the same way about Windows and having little access to music players, cell phones that use speech minimally, touch screens … As for Apple - it was awesome to go into an Apple store and use a Mac on display. Make an Ipod, Iphone etc, as accessible as my Mac(s) and I’ll buy it, promote it … PJ - an Apple fan and user of all things accessible out of the box!

Comment on Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.3 with VoiceOver Enhancements by Bert Patterson

Bert Patterson — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:21:26 +0000

Regarding how to submit a bug report about accessibility and VoiceOver to Apple - enter the following web address:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/

There are two pop-up menus of interest:

Feedback Type - select ‘Bug Report’
Feedback Area - select ‘Universal Access / Accessibility’

Fill in the required fields and provide an accurate and complete comment about the bug. I hope you will be civil, and do not expect a response from Apple regarding the bug report.

Comment on Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.3 with VoiceOver Enhancements by Bert Patterson

Bert Patterson — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:27:18 +0000

After checking, and re-checking an error in VoiceOver that still exists after this Mac OS 10.5.3 update, I am in a quandary. I do not know the reporting procedure to report bugs in VoiceOver and have not been able to find it. I am not expecting a response from Apple. Can Lioncourt.com post the procedure, if known and available? Thanks.

Comment on Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.3 with VoiceOver Enhancements by Bert Patterson

Bert Patterson — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:27:46 +0000

Self disclosure: I am partially sighted, with tunnel vision, and bothered by strong light and light colors. Primarily, I use Zoom at 4 power, and white-on-black (reverse video) with magnified mouse pointer and short-cut keys. But I also use VoiceOver in Tiled Visual mode with both the VoiceOver cursor magnified and the caption panel displayed with magnified text, with voice usually silent. VoiceOver is nicely progressive from fully sighted to totally blind.

An improvement I have encountered so far in Mac OS 10.5.3 is updated drivers for graphic cards. The iMac I use has a ATI Radeon HD2600. Previously, in Zoom, the screen would unpredictably shift as I moved the mouse pointer; now it is much smoother. In VoiceOver Tiled Visuals mode, the magnified VoiceOver cursor also is smoother, and some skipping as I moved around menus via the keyboard is now gone.

I was made aware of the driver updates for graphic cards by reading a Macworld news article.

Comment on Mac-cessibility Quick Tip #19 by jcast

jcast — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:21:12 +0000

Yes! Very nice tip. Why use the bookmarks menu ever again when one has such immediate access to the bookmark bar?

Comment on AFB Continues Their Negative Spin of VoiceOver by michael babcock

michael babcock — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:56:00 +0000

hey;
well, i’m well aware of this aph thing, and it sadly played against me when i was showing the oregon school for the blind the mac. though i think they are considerring mac’s at least a few for there lab. I am going to be showing the mac come october and i guess we will see how that goes, but as i said, this APH thing could have harmed our cause. I guess the only thing i can suggest is to keep pressing for blind mac users. As i did post the other day on the mac mailing list, it’s a grate day when someone from apple’s phone support is able to know what voiceover is and joke around with me about voiceover.
Keep up the grate blog, and thanks for your tips and tricks.
Michael

Comment on Mac-cessibility Quick Tip #19 by michael babcock

michael babcock — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:52:09 +0000

hey;
thanks for giving these tips. I like to read them. This particular one though i did all ready know about, but still, thought i would write and thank you for your wonderful tips.
thanks again
Michael

Comment on Editorial: A Key to Leopard by Chris

Chris — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:16:47 +0000

I read the article called A Key to Leopard last night and I think the tricks discussed will be very helpful to me. I hope this writer submits more articles to lioncourt.com.

Comment on Mac-cessibility Quick Tip #17 by jcast

jcast — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:27:53 +0000

Just wanted to add that if you want to jump to the currently-targeted track, you can press command+l. I find this very useful when I and randomly playing tracks. I suddenly hear something I like and want to jump to it to find out what exactly it is.

As always, great tips.

Comment on A Second First by BlindGeek

BlindGeek — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:55:13 +0000

I’ll be honest, up until this point I haven’t given Quake (audio or otherwise) the time of day, but in an effort to support accessible gaming for the Mac, I just might have to reconsider that position. In-ter-est-ing.

Comment on New Macintosh DAISY Book Player in Development by BlindGeek

BlindGeek — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:52:44 +0000

This should bring a smile to Greg Kearney’s face. (And then the fact that I more likely than not butchered the spelling of his last name will quickly cause said smile to leave. Ah well, heavy is the burden of being me…)

Comment on Webkit Access Improvements Will Mean more Accessibility in Safari by BlindGeek

BlindGeek — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:49:23 +0000

Here’s hoping this means we’ll get full access to the ITunes music store sooner rather than later. So far, I’ve just been buying albums by paying for each individual song, which makes me pay a dollar or two more–big deal–but it would be nice to just add it to the cart like sighted users do. To say nothing of renting movies and such.

Comment on Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0 Released without Accessibility by Jake

Jake — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:39:09 +0000

This is far from surprising. Given MS’s past efforts, or lack there of, for accessibility on both their own OS and Mac I would be very surprised to see any accessible software come out from MS.
Remember, MS Office is no more accessible out of the box on Windows then it is on the Mac, what makes it work are the endless tweaks, hooks, and hidden APIs that the Windows screen readers have come to use. The same is true for messenger, for explorer, and indeed for most of Windows itself. Microsoft has done very little when it comes to accessibility itself (Narrator, anyone?), as they know the screen reader developers will do their work for them.
This matters little to the average user, however, and given the political motivations behind the blindness organizations, I agree that this will probably look bad for Apple, though through no fault of their own. The fact that the Windows screen readers use hacks doesn’t matter to most people, what matters is that it works, though in my opinion in a very unstable and reactionary fashion. The fact that Apple has an integrated accessibility infrastructure that Microsoft chose not to employ will not matter. 95% of people believe everything they’re told, be they blind or otherwise, and what they’ll be told is that Voiceover doesn’t work, and they’ll believe it.
About Messenger itself I honestly don’t care much, I didn’t even use it under Windows. I prefer the multi-protocol IM clients, like Trillian on Windows or Adium on OS X. Regardless, this issue is bigger than Messenger, and I’d urge anyone and everyone to write to MS and express your desire for accessibility, though I honestly hold little hope for it from them anymore.