Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind the source for blindness news and information since 1907

On January 9th, I woke up and my mother brought me to the train station. I rode the train down to New York and met someone from Guiding Eyes for the Blind, who assisted me to her van and we drove to their campus. Upon my arrival, they helped me unload my belongings and brought me to my room. The instructor, Melinda, did a fantastic job of orienting me to my room, the hallways, and all of the campus. It was my home away from home.

All through that first day, I really had no feelings at all. I wanted Whitlee back and I wanted to go home. Then, I started meeting the other students as they arrived and we all had stories to tell about our experiences and our lives. As I participated in those first few days of class, I realized I wasn’t alone on this journey–everyone there was in the same boat as I and that was a comforting thing to experience. Later on that Monday, I met the rest of my classmates, the trainer’s assistant, Mike, the class trainers, Jamie and Chrissey, and the instructor for the Action Program, Graham.

On Tuesday, we had some lectures and some activities which were designed to help the trainers get to know us better. For me, I was there in the Action Program. This program gives students ten days of training on the campus and an additional five days of home training. The other students were there for 19 days if they were getting a second or third dog and for 26 days if they were receiving their first dog.

So, while the other students were doing activities with the trainers, I actually got the chance to meet my trainer and my new dog, Meyer. Meyer is a 23 month old black and tan German Shepherd with a very long, fluffy tail and some very expressive ears that move in all directions all the time. Meyer was indifferent to me when we met and I was indifferent to him. I don’t even think I got any sniffs from him on that first day. The trainer took us to White Plains, NY on Tuesday and we participated in our first two walks together. What an experience this was for me. It was a different dog, a different harness and we were working in an area new to me. I wanted to give everything back and go home. I didn’t like the way the harness felt and I didn’t think the dog liked me. What I did notice, though, was that Meyer walked nicely and he was very serious about his work. Graham, the trainer, was excellent, and he told me that we did a beautiful job together during our first two walks and he told me that it looked like we had been working together for a while. He also said I did a nice job following right along with Meyer. After his encouraging words, the thought of giving up and going home disappeared for good. After we were done with our walks, Meyer was brought back to the kennel for grooming and bathing so that he could be ready for our official meeting with all the other dogs and students on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we all received our dogs and from then on, they were to be with us all the time. While we were in our room, Meyer seemed to want to know all about what was going on in the hallways. He acted like he was the policeman for everyone. He would stand and watch the door for hours. As those first few days passed, I still wasn’t sure if he liked me or not. Each day, we went to White Plains, did two routes, and participated in other class activities. Things really began to all fit together.

At the beginning of 2012, most people were celebrating a new year and a new beginning. For me, I had to bring my life with Whitlee to an end and look forward to a new beginning. On New Year’s Day, my family and I loaded everything into the car and began a 3 day trip to North Carolina. The purpose of this trip was to bring Whitlee, my guide dog, to be with her foster family, where she would enjoy her retirement. We left at 8:00AM and drove all the way down to Wilmington, North Carolina by 10:00PM. The trip down was actually quite nice. As we drove, the weather got warmer and I was excited because I was going to a place I had never been before. It has always been a dream of mine to drive down the east coast in the winter to experience the ever-increasing warmth as you drive.

We stayed at a nice hotel in Wilmington and the next morning, we drove to Calabash, where Whitlee would live. We didn’t even realize that we had arrived in the place we needed to, which was a gated community area, and all of a sudden, I was only minutes away from saying goodbye to the dog who had changed my life for the better, the dog who I had been with for the last 8 and a half years. That was a tough thing to swallow.

We arrived at the foster parents’ home and as soon as Whitlee saw them, she was wiggling, wagging her tail, and excited. This helped me because I always loved when she was excited. We went into their home where we met the two other dogs that Whitlee would live in her golden years. It turns out that she is the tallest and longest of the three dogs in her new group of friends. I gave all of Whitlee’s belongings to her foster family, had a melt-down, and then gave her a few pats before we left. I didn’t say goodbye, though, because I know I am welcome to visit anytime I wish.

After leaving their place, we visited some family in the area and it was a nice distraction for me. The entire area is quite nice–flat lands, green trees, nice people, and they get mostly mild temperatures all through the winter and only average about 2 or 3 inches of snow per year.

The trip home was also interesting, except that as we drove north, it got colder and colder because some arctic air had made its way into the region. By the time we got back to CT, the temperature was 19 degrees with lots of wind. Coming back to my apartment was a hard thing to do for sure. My home didn’t seem like a home without my dog. I decided to keep very busy until the day I had to leave for guide dog school–the next chapter in my journey.

I am always very excited when assistive technology makes a step into the mainstream. This is because I like to be able to share in what everyone else is doing in the world as much as possible without appearing or being perceived as different. We should all have the same rights and means to be who we want to be without anything getting in the way.

Very recently, GW Micro, the makers of Window-Eyes, released GW Skype. Skype is a program that allows you to make phone calls, or conduct chat sessions from your computer, with the use of a microphone or headset. Skype has been around since 2003, and its user interface has always been difficult to use by those of us who use screen readers. Scripts had to be written for the screen readers to make them work with Skype and if the screen reader had a version change, the scripts had to be changed as well.

GW Skype will work with the Windows platform and will also work with whichever screen reader you choose. It is a separate program, which you can download and run, so it doesn’t matter if the Skype interface changes over time. GW Micro plans to keep this platform updated as necessary. After you download the program, you can install it to your computer. The installation is easy and asks the normal questions. Once the install is complete, you can have GW Skype run after the install, or you can decide to start it on your own when you’re ready to use it. The first time it runs, you are presented with the manual and a welcome message. If you are already a Skype user, when prompted, you can log in with your user name and password and you can have GW Skype remember your username and password, if you desire.

The user interface is very simply laid out. When you start GW Skype, you are brought to the list view of your contacts. You can use your up and down arrows to navigate this list, or you can move yourself to the menu bar of the user interface to choose a menu item. Every item in the menu bar has shortcut keys assigned to its function, so over time, you will get familiar with the shortcuts you use most frequently. There are no other areas of the user interface to deal with, making it straight-forward and simple. From the looks of things, the keyboard shortcuts for the menu items are standard shortcuts, which is why it is possible to run this program with any screen reader.

So far, the limitation of GW Skype is that you can’t use it for video chat but, they expect to get that feature added in the next several months. I commend GW Micro for putting this program out there for the low vision and blindness community. I hope that more companies begin to embrace the practice of taking standard programs that currently are unusable and make them accessible and usable to us.

To learn more about GW Skype you can visit http://www.gwmicro.com/App_Central/Apps/App_Details/?scriptid=1353

In the new version of Zoomtext, if you use Windows Vista or Windows 7, and you use a logon username and password, Zoomtext will provide you with magnification and screen reading during this process. I find this particularly helpful because the color contrast on the Windows logon screens is horrible for me to see.

The Color Enhancement feature is another great tool found in Zoomtext. It allows users to choose from several different preset color schemes, or you can create your own customized color enhancement. I like this because in writing documents, Microsoft Word uses a white screen with black text. For me, the white background creates too much glare and brightness. If I use Zoomtext, I can change my color enhancement to a black screen with white text. This is much more soothing to me with my eye condition and I can actually look at the screen for a longer period of time. Generally, I use a screen reader, but at times, I like the ability to look at the display screen.

Curser Enhancements allow you to choose from some preset curser shapes, or you can choose a shape and color that will fit your needs. I find it very difficult to locate the curser in documents, so having the ability to use a giant shape and color really makes the curser jump out on my display screen.

For those who used Zoomtext for a long time, you may remember the days when the Doc Reader was what we used as a reading tool. Back then, Doc Reader could only read Microsoft Word documents and email messages–it was not usable on web pages. Then, App Reader was developed and implemented into Zoomtext. App Reader allows you the ability to read text documents, email messages and web pages. This was quite the breakthrough upon its inclusion into Zoomtext.

These days, you can still use Doc Reader, but the difference is that when you use Doc Reader, the text is pulled into a separate Window and read to you. Once in this window, you can change the size, color and font of the text and you can also change the rate of the reading speed. App Reader does not pull your text into a new window, but rather, it utilizes a block shape that moves along as each word is read aloud. This makes it easy to locate a point in a document and makes it easy if a sighted person is following along as you work.

I highly recommend Zoomtext to someone who is struggling with low vision for their computer use. It is easily customized to fit your needs and once you have it all set up, you can save your settings so that each time you turn on your computer, Zoomtext will run using your settings and you can get right to the computer tasks that you need to accomplish with no interruption from Zoomtext.

Happy New Year everyone!

I must say that over the years, I feel that Ai Squared has done a fine job adding features to Zoomtext that are useful and easy to understand and operate.

New in Zoomtext 10 is a feature called Background Reader. This feature makes it possible for users to have Zoomtext read selected text to you while you are working in another program. This is the first feature I’m aware of that lets you multi task with assistive technology. You could be writing an email and having specific text read to you as you work.

Another awesome feature of Zoomtext 10 is the Zoomtext Recorder. This feature allows users to have specific text recorded and then read back to them using their mobile or portable device. This is especially useful for those people who have long commutes each day that have lots of text they need to read to prepare for their work day. You can have the text read to you with Windows Media player right on your computer, or you can have the text read on your MP3 player, or Apple device. It all works quite easily and intuitively.

The AppReader feature has been part of Zoomtext now for several years and is a great way to have text read back to you. I like to use it to proofread my Microsoft Word and email documents before I submit or send these documents out. With Zoomtext 10, there is a new feature called Read from Pointer, which means you can have AppReader read from where ever you’ve positioned your mouse pointer. This can be especially useful in situations where a blinking curser does not exist, like on a web page. Instead of hearing all kinds of miscellaneous text, you can move the pointer to your desired starting point and have AppReader start in that location.

Another feature which has existed in Zoomtext for a while is called Focus Enhancement. I like this feature very much because when you enable it, Zoomtext places a shape around where the computer is focused. For example, if you are navigating menu items, each item will have a red outline drawn around it. As you move from item to item, the red outline moves with you. You can change the look of the enhancement to make it easier for you to see, but it really draws your eyes to the location.

If you are a proficient mouse user, then you will appreciate the Pointer Enhancement feature of Zoomtext, as well. This feature allows you to pick a mouse pointer size, color and other items to make the pointer easy to locate and follow as you work on your computer. After you install Zoomtext, if you enable the pointer enhancement, you will have a yellow pointer which is placed in the center of a red cross. As you move the pointer, the red cross and pointer move with you. If you prefer a different setting, you can go into the Zoomtext control panel and pick a different pointer scheme, or you can customize the pointer to fit your specific needs.

Has anyone else tried out the new Zoomtext? Let us hear your impressions in the Reader’s Forum.

A few weeks ago, Ai Squared released Zoomtext version 10. You can purchase Zoomtext Magnifier, which will give you all of the magnification and screen enhancements. If you need all of these enhancements and more, you can purchase Zoomtext Magnifier/Reader, which will give you the ability to also use a host of screen reading features. New in Zoomtext ten, is the ability to connect and use an HD Webcam to act as a CCTV. This will work if you use the magnifier or the magnifier/reader version of Zoomtext.

After starting the software, the Zoomtext Control Panel appears on the screen. There is a menu bar containing all of the options you may choose. If you go to the left side of the Control Panel, you will notice the Zoomtext logo. To the right of this logo there are three buttons labeled as follows–Magnifier, Reader and Tools. These buttons can be clicked with the mouse, which then causes several buttons to be displayed under one of these three main buttons. For example, if you click the magnifier button, then under the magnifier button you will see the following choices–Power, Type, Color, Pointer, Curser, Fonts, Desktop, Web and Text. These are all of the options you can change under the Magnifier button. If you click on the Reader button, the options will then change to Rate, Typing, Mouse, Verbos, App. Reader, Doc Reader, Zones and Speak it.

Zoomtext can be adjusted with the use of a mouse or by learning keyboard shortcuts. In either case, the manual is well written and gives you step by step instructions for learning to use the many features of Zoomtext. If you have a hard copy of the manual, note that it is written in large print and for each tool mentioned, a color photo is provided to show you the tool next to its description. The range of magnification that you can use with Zoomtext is from 1x to 36x. Even if you were to put the magnification all the way up to 36x, the display you see is still crisp and clear. You can have Zoomtext magnify the entire screen or you can have it magnify portions of the screen. This is useful for those who have loss of vision in a particular field of their eye. For example, you could have Zoomtext only magnify the left portion of the screen. This would be helpful for someone who only had usable vision out of the left portion of their left eye.
Stay tuned for the next article which will discuss more features found in Zoomtext.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the beginning of the process for getting a new guide dog and left off in a waiting situation. I have been contacted by Guiding Eyes for the Blind and they have a dog they feel is a suitable match for me. I am scheduled to begin training on their campus on Monday, January 9, 2012. I received my written confirmation letter and a few forms that I need to sign and send back, so it is a go!

Now, the process of wondering and waiting is over because we have a date. However, I now need to deal with saying goodbye to my current dog, Whitlee, and accept a new dog into my life. There are many emotions involved in this process and at times, it has been tiring and overwhelming. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been excited, sad, relieved and nervous all at the same time. This is truly a different experience having a dog that will be departing than when I applied the first time–back then, it was a happy situation all around because there was no dog to replace.

When I received the phone call, I found that I hung up the phone and had no emotion at all. A few days later I found that I was basically sad all the time. Every time I saw my dog, I would cry. After several days of this, I decided it was time to sit down and explain everything to my dog, no matter how much it hurt. So, I sat down and asked the dog to come lie next to me. I explained through my tears everything that would happen, where she was going, why she was going and how I felt about the situation. During my tearful explanation, the dog acted as though she didn’t want to hear what I was saying. However, I made sure I said everything I needed to say and when I got finished, I put her into harness and we went for a nice walk. After the walk, I realized that explaining everything to her had made me feel better.

Since that time, I have felt better. I am looking forward to going to school, meeting the new dog and meeting the other students. My family and I are going to bring Whitlee down to North Carolina so that she can enjoy her retirement with her foster family. The fact that the foster family is willing to keep her in her retirement makes me feel relieved and pleased because she knows them and she will be comfortable in their company. After everything she has done for me, now, I am giving her the time and chance to take a nice break and enjoy the rest of her life. We will bring her down to North Carolina around the first of the year. When I begin my training in mid January, Whitlee will be laughing and tanning somewhere on a nice, warm, comfortable and relaxing beach!

This time of year, many of us are busy cooking for holiday meals or just meeting up with friends and family. I enjoy cooking quite a bit and have a few devices to help me with this task.

I have a large pair of gloves to use for taking items out of the oven safely. My oven itself is an electric stove with a flat top where the burners are located. There is good contrast between the burner surface and the rest of the stove top. The temperature of the burners is controlled with knobs for each burner. The temperature for the oven is controlled by an additional knob and I like this stove because when I set the oven’s temperature, it is displayed in large yellow print on a black background. I got lucky when I bought this stove because it was manufactured before they began to make everything digital and took the knobs away. I do have some locator dots placed on the burner settings I use more frequently and I don’t have any issues using it.

When it is time to measure ingredients, I have a few sets of large print measuring cups. The first set is nice because each cup is a different color. I’ve used them so much that I know exactly which measurement it is by the color of the cup. My other measuring cup is a large print cup which has a maximum measurement of 2 cups, which makes it easy when I need two cups of an ingredient. I use the same method for measuring spoons. I bought a set of colored measuring spoons but, I don’t yet know which measurements they are by the colors because I don’t use them enough. Both the cups and spoons have the measurements printed on them in black print which helps when locating a particular measurement.

I have a large print timer that I can easily set so that I don’t overcook food. It has black numbers on a white background. I use the timer for timing everything even though the stove has a timer on it.

I have a few cookbooks that I can read with my CCTV, but it is also useful to look up a recipe on the internet. Once I find one I like, I copy and paste it into Microsoft Word. Then, I change the size of the text to a large size and print the recipe. This way, I can take it into the kitchen and easily read it without needing to use a hand held magnifier or the CCTV. I find putting things into large print is especially helpful because then I don’t misread the fractions that you find when you are baking.

The CCTV is especially helpful when reading package directions. Since you can put the CCTV into different viewing modes, this can often help when a package has poor contrast. The easiest way for me to read text is if I have a black background with white.

What devices or methods make cooking easier for you? Let us know in the Reader’s Forum.

Normally, I write about technology that is currently available. However, I wanted to take a moment to write about something that is a few years old–and these days, if a piece of technology is a few years old, it might as well be 50 years old.

In 2008, Apple released its fourth generation IPod Nano. Until that time, I had never put my hands on any of the IPod technology. However, I had read an article on the web about how this fourth generation Nano would read the song titles to a person if they enabled this feature. My curiosity got the best of me and I went out and purchased one of these IPods in the spring of 2009. These IPods came in all of the various colors of the rainbow so I picked out the green one. Upon getting the IPod home, I downloaded ITunes to my computer. There was a bit of setup required, such as creating an ITunes account and checking the box that said “Enable spoken menus,” which would make the IPod speak menus and song titles. After that was done, I began a 6 day task of copying all of my CD’s into the ITunes library so that when I synced the IPod to my PC, all of my music would be added to the IPod. Syncing means you plug your device into the computer and items are then copied to your device. After all of the items were copied, I plugged a pair of headphones into the IPod and–success, I could hear all of my album and song titles, find the album or song of my choice and then hear the music.

You’re probably wondering why I am writing an article about this and here is the answer. Over the past several years, my friends and family have been using devices like the IPod and in the early days of such technology, I felt as though the blind community was excluded from using these devices. This made me feel different from everyone else and uncool to my family and friends. After all, I love music as much as they do and I wanted to be able to share in this experience. When Apple added the component of speech output to their devices it was one of the first times in my life when I felt just like everyone else. Suddenly, I was able to have the same device as sighted people and have the same experience. That is quite a remarkable feeling and I have gotten a lot of use out of my 3 year old IPod now. Although there are lots of newer devices on the market such as the newer IPods, IPads and IPhones, for now, I am perfectly happy with what I am using. I have all of my music on one device and when I am in the car with friends, I can share my music with them and they can share their music with me. For those moments, I feel like I am on the same playing field.

Recently, I had to visit a school to help evaluate a student who is having difficulty because of vision loss and it made me think of the tools I used to use when I was in school.

I graduated from high school in 1991. Although CCTV technology was available at that time, the CCTV’s were very large, expensive, heavy, and offered limited versatility. There was no such thing as a CCTV that could magnify the blackboards in my classes. Algebra and Geometry presented huge problems for me because it was so difficult to see the teacher working out the equations at the board. My only device was a hand held monocular that I used to watch the teacher as she wrote on the board. This meant that I would have no time to copy the equations into my notes so I used other students to take notes for me. Needless to say I barely made it through my math classes in high school.

Technology has come a very long way since 1991. This student currently has the same issue as me in that they can’t see the board in the classroom. So, I had access to an Onyx Deskset XL video magnifier. This video magnifier consists of a flat screen that has a small camera head mounted on a swinging arm. The arm can be rotated 350 degrees and the camera head can also be rotated 350 degrees. Any image that the camera sees is projected onto the flat screen, located immediately to the left of the camera. Simply put, a student can move the camera and rotate it to look directly at the blackboard in class. Then, the student can use the camera’s remote control to zoom in on whatever is being presented on the blackboard. All of the features that you would have on a traditional CCTV can be had with this camera head. Therefore, you can zoom in, zoom out, and change the image mode. The Onyx we presented had several viewing modes including, color, black on white, white on black, yellow on black, black on yellow, blue on yellow and yellow on blue. Another great feature of these cameras is that they can be rotated to point down at a desk. Then, the student can use the camera just like a stationary CCTV. That is, if there were a book or document on the desk, the student could magnify the text and change the viewing mode to accommodate their needs easily. Finally, a really cool feature is the ability to point the camera at your own face. Under normal conditions, your face would appear reversed on the display screen. But, there is a flip button on the remote and when pressed, the flip button will make the image on the screen appear normal. This would allow the user to see their face and put on makeup, lipstick or use it to shave.

I must say that to me, I am so excited to see that this kind of technology is now available because students who are now experiencing vision loss don’t have to go through what I went through when I was in school. Sometimes, I wonder how my education would have been if such technology had existed when I was in school. Here are a few links to check out to learn more about these portable video magnification systems.

1. Freedom Scientific’s Onyx systems http://freedomscientific.com/products/lv/onyx-main-product-page.asp
2. Clarity video magnifiers http://www.clarityusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=35
3. Enhanced Vision http://www.enhancedvision.com/low-vision-product-line.html