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

When you think of video games, you likely don’t think of the blind playing them, but this isn’t the case. From games that have been adapted to be playable by the blind, to mainstream games that the blind figure out how to play without modifications, the blind are definitely a part of the video gaming world. I myself just started playing a game online called Kingdom of Loathing, and when I was a PC user, I played games all the time.

So the question is what kind of games are out there, and where can you get them. I think the best place to start is a visit to a site called audiogames.net. Their database includes hundreds of games, many of which are free. The categories also range from fun word and card games to first person shooter and strategy games. All the games that are listed on this site are designed to be playable by the blind.

As I mentioned, when I was using a PC I played lots of these games. Here are a couple of my favorites. Spoonbill software offers many free card and puzzle games. All you have to do is email the developer with your request and he sends you the game. L-Works Games offers arcade style and word games and the developer himself is visually impaired. Finally, if you want to play with people online, a great option is All In Play. There is a subscription fee to play these games, but there is a free trial. Also, the games are playable by the blind and sighted so it’s a great option for families.

What are your favorite video games? If there was a game you wish was more playable for the blind, what would it be?

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all enjoyed the last full week of August.  It’s incredible that summer has come and gone so quickly.  Looking back, it was a decent time, even if it was short-lived.  There were some things that I was able to do that I didn’t think would happen, and there were some things that happened which I wish didn’t (like getting Lyme disease).  It was definitely a hot dose, though, and I’m certainly glad that I can turn off my air conditioner and give my electric bill a little bit of a break.  Besides, sleeping with the windows open at night is one of those cheap pleasures that you come to miss when it’s just too hot outside. 

I hope all of you had a great summer as well and you were able to enjoy yourselves.  Feel free to share any interesting summer experiences in reader’s forum submissions.  I’d love to see how the hot season treated the rest of you.  And for all you parents out there, I hope getting the kids back to school was an easy process and that they’re heading out the door looking forward to another year instead of dreading it.

I’m also happy to report that as far as email is concerned, things seem back to normal.  Though, if you’re still experiencing problems, please let me know so I can fix them and get you the magazine as quickly as possible.

That should cover everything.  Have a great week and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Ross Hammond, Editor

Turkey and Spinach Manicotti

This manicotti stays heart-healthy without sacrificing great taste by using ground turkey and fat-free ricotta cheese. From eatbetteramerica.

Prep Time:30 min

Start to Finish:50 min

makes:4 servings

Ingredients:

8 uncooked manicotti pasta shells

1/2 lb lean (at least 90%) ground turkey

1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)

2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic

1 cup fat-free ricotta cheese

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 box (10 oz) Cascadian Farm® frozen organic cut spinach, thawed, squeezed to drain

1 1/2 cups Muir Glen® organic pasta sauce (any flavor) or marinara sauce

2 tablespoons finely shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Spray bottom and sides of 11×7-inch (2-quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray.

2. Cook pasta shells as directed on box, omitting salt. Rinse with cool water; drain well.

3. Spray 10-inch nonstick skillet with cooking spray. Cook turkey, onion and garlic over medium heat about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until turkey is no longer pink. Remove from heat. Stir in ricotta cheese, Italian seasoning and spinach.

4. Spoon turkey mixture into shells; arrange in baking dish. Spoon marinara sauce over shells. Bake uncovered 20 to 25 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Bake uncovered 25 to 30 minutes.

Nutritional Information

1 Serving: Calories 350 (Calories from Fat 50); Total Fat 6g (Saturated Fat 1 1/2g, Trans Fat 0g); Cholesterol 45mg; Sodium 440mg; Total Carbohydrate 45g (Dietary Fiber 5g, Sugars 10g); Protein 30g Percent Daily Value*: Vitamin A 130%; Vitamin C 6%; Calcium 25%; Iron 20% Exchanges: 2 1/2 Starch; 0 Other Carbohydrate; 1/2 Skim Milk; 1/2 Vegetable; 2 Lean Meat Carbohydrate Choices: 3

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

When I was younger, I used to always fight with my mother about turning down the volume of everything from my headphones to the television.  Now, it seems that I’m lucky that she won so many of those fights.  A new study reveals that one in five teens have hearing loss.  In fact, since a study done from 1988 to 1994, hearing loss in teens aged 12 to 19 has increased 30 percent–a huge jump.

While the majority of the loss was considered mild, there was a sharp increase in those who experienced a loss of 25 decibels or more.  Doctors couldn’t definitively conclude that an increase of ear infections or volume of music was what caused the increase.  Rather, they believe that the relationship between volume and related side effects has become highly underestimated by today’s youth.

Most teens don’t pay attention to things like tinnitus, a ringing in the ears after they’ve been exposed to loud noises, and that may be the cause for increased hearing loss.  If it doesn’t cause noticeable pain, they may not think that there’s a problem and are less likely to report the issue to a parent or doctor.

Doctors are concerned that increased exposure to loud volumes without any intervention or personal prevention might lead to difficulties with language development and learning in general.

As I’ve gotten older, loud music has become less and less enticing and can, at times, be outright annoying if it lasts for too long.  When I was a kid, I used to listen to my music at a level that would make normal people cringe.  Hopefully today’s teens will grow out of the habit as I have, or else there might be serious issues that they’ll have to address in years to come.  Unfortunately, with hearing, once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/teen-hearing-loss-soars-30-percent-in-three-decades/19591439

In what will surely turn into a case of privacy versus public safety, New Jersey police stations have begun creating Facebook profiles and using them to advertise criminal activity in their surrounding area. 

Some of their posts are placed as an effort to catch local criminals who are responsible for burglary, assault, and other crimes.  In these cases, the information is no different than what would be on the air on local news stations.  The criminals are still at large and need to be caught.  The police need to use every resource they have at their disposal in order to catch them and it seems perfectly acceptable to utilize social media in order to close the case.

Where things get a little dicey is when they start shaming criminals from crimes like a DUI.  Currently, the police station posts mug shots of people arrested for DUI, theft, and child pornography in an attempt to reveal to the public what is going on in their community and who to look out for.  Their argument is that the information they post is in the public domain already, so it shouldn’t matter if it’s on their page as well.  Others feel that since Facebook is such a popular venue, defamation may become an issue.  Just because the information is public doesn’t mean that it needs to be posted in every available public place.

This creates an interesting situation.  What criminals should and shouldn’t be posted on the Facebook page?  Should it be all or nothing, or should there be a gray area open to interpretation?  Should sex offenders take precedent over someone arrested for drunk driving?  Would it be considered unequal treatment and punishment, since those people who make it on the Facebook page will have to face both their punishment in the justice system and scorn in their community?

There are tons of questions that can be asked about this situation and the problem is that no one answer is absolutely right or wrong.  The public domain has grown extensively, and maybe this is just the next step.  However, one must ask; where does it end?

Tell me what you think about this in the Reader’s Forum.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1681227/print

This article was sent to me by Ziegler reader Danni.  Thanks, Danni!

Results from a new study have found that the drug used to treat epileptic seizures called valproic acid, may halt or actually reverse vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that affects countless people around the world.  The team who discovered this possibility work at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester and are planning on conducting specific trials to confirm that this find is indeed true and not a fluke.

Retinitis pigmentosa affects roughly one in four thousand people and normally causes vision loss by age forty.  RP is technically a group of diseases that causes degeneration of the retina and is linked to 40 gene groups, all of which cause different types of RP.  Up until now, the only treatment for RP was to inundate the patient with vitamin A palmitate, which slows the progression of the disease, but is unable to stop it entirely. 

All forms of RP are essentially processes of inflammation and cell death, both conditions that valproic acid is designed to fight against.  During this preliminary study, they administered specific doses of the drug to seven patients who had RP over a time between two and six months.  When the trial concluded, 5 of the patients experienced vast improvements in vision even though their RP had progressed to a point that is normally untreatable.

Now that the preliminary trial has proven to be promising, 2.1 million dollars are being put into a proper study to test the drug against a placebo and hopefully achieve a more concrete result with a larger pool of participants.

It never ceases to amaze me when drugs were created for one purpose but can actually have positive affects in other areas of medicine as well.  It makes you wonder what other drugs could help with many other conditions but simply haven’t been tested yet.  If nothing else, it seems that valproic acid may be the answer to eliminating RP and saving the vision of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100812/NEWS02/708129760/-1/headlines

As I mentioned in the previous letter from the editor, I wanted to include an article about my experiences with the magazine so far.  I suppose that the best place to start, as with most stories, is at the beginning.

I was asked to become the new editor of the magazine by the president of the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, the governing body of the publishing company.  I had worked on various other unrelated projects with her before and she felt that I would be a good fit for the magazine because I am a decent writer, but also because I could offer a new perspective; that of someone new to the blind community and looking forward to learning as much as I could.  It was a fresh start, and I wasn’t handed the reigns from any predecessor.  I had very few things at my disposal to reference and, for the most part, the rest was up to me to figure out.

I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a bit overwhelming at first. But being 24 years old at the time and having an opportunity like this handed to me, I wasn’t about to let it pass me by.  Instead of tiptoeing around the pool, so to speak, I jumped right in.  My first real exposure to you readers was clicking through your emails and gaining a familiarity with the types of questions I would be asked, the problems that came up from time to time, and the relationships that had been fostered with the previous staff members.  To me, the latter was the most important.  While questions and problems represented the nut and bolt operations of the magazine, the reader-editor relationship is what is truly important.  You are my audience and it is my duty to not only work for you, to entertain you, but to also work with you.  It is, after all, your magazine.

As my plans for the magazine developed through December and early January, I was excited to release my first weekly magazine.  When I did so on January 18, I nervously waited for my first comments from readers.  I expected that there would be problems at the start, but I had worked hard to find some interesting material to fill the magazine with and hoped that you all would really enjoy reading it.

I’m going to digress for just a moment and highlight the biggest challenge that I was met with when I first began my work here with you.  I was an outsider looking in.  I was a sighted person, with no prior experience within the blind community at all.  I didn’t know a screen reader from a Victor reader.  I couldn’t tell you the difference between the NFB and the NBP, or the NLS.  Most of my knowledge about the blind came from recalling my driver’s test, when they asked what it meant if someone was walking with a white cane.  I also knew not to touch service dogs, though I have no recollection of where I learned that.  So I had to make a choice: go into it scared, or go into it scared, but with a lot more know-how behind me so I could get by while I continued to learn.  I was determined to reduce my outsider status to at least that of a well-informed visitor.

Now, back to that first magazine.  In retrospect, it was quite awful.  Not so much the content, but the way it was presented.  The format of the magazine needed polishing and purpose.  The first version was without a proper heading and navigation symbols.  The special notices and pen pals sections were nearly unreadable for anyone using a screen reader.  I worked hard to find interesting topics, but the writing was hidden behind so many formatting faults that any redeeming qualities were rendered moot.  It was a magazine for the blind created by a sighted person who didn’t know any better.

As I saw the first comments come in, my heart sank.  Needless to say, they weren’t very positive, and to be honest, I don’t blame them.  Looking at that first magazine now, I’m both proud of how far it’s come in such a short time and ashamed that my first magazine revealed my ignorance of the needs of my audience so vividly.  While the comments were a mixture of brutal jabs and sadness, I soon found that many of them were issued with a mission of constructive criticism.  Many recommended things like a proper heading, and navigation symbols.  Leaving out the proper heading was a rookie mistake on my part, but I would have never thought of the ## navigation symbol.  When its purpose was explained to me, it made perfect sense and such a simple change made the magazine so much more user friendly.  Other comments came in letting me know that odd square symbols were showing up in the text.  While it took me weeks to figure out what was going on, I was able to fix it with their help.  Each week they told me where they were popping up.

With all of the help I received in the first week, I was able to completely reformat the magazine and resend a proper copy later that week with a full heading and navigation symbols.  I felt that while it was my job to make it right, everyone was working to make it better and teaming up with people to make it happen was a great experience.

As time went on, the negative comments also turned into constructive criticism and I could tell that even those who were the most upset about the format changes had come around and were enjoying the magazine every week.  The addition of my feature writers is something that I’m sure helped them come back to the magazine a lot quicker, too.  Even with all of the accessible formatting in the world implemented in this magazine, it would still be a magazine for the blind written by a sighted person if it weren’t for them.  As I said before, this is your magazine.  It needs to have perspectives given by other blind and visually impaired writers to make it a valuable publication for you.  For my part, I really enjoy discovering a few articles each week and including them at the end, but the best part of my job is reading what they’ve submitted and getting a fantastic insight into the blind community. 

You are all very inspiring, and I don’t mean that in a patronizing, look at all the cool things you can do, kind of way, either.  I mean that your attitudes about life are really positive and vision be damned, you’re going to live you’re life as anyone else does.  I’ve never experienced vision loss, but if I do, I hope I can live with it with the strength and positivity that you all have.

So, as someone who used to be a total outsider to this wonderful community I’ve found myself immersed in, I’d like to say thank you for everything that you’ve taught me, and for welcoming me in even though things started out pretty rocky.  It’s an honor to work with and for all of you and I’m looking forward to continuing this for a long time.

Last month marked the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act into law by former President George Bush.  When the former President passed this law, which is quite lengthy to read, I felt that persons with disabilities took a major step toward equality with everyone else.  Despite its complexities, the entire focus of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is for all persons with disabilities to be treated exactly the same way as persons who are able bodied.
In my city, New Bedford, Massachusetts, we have a bus company that offers fixed route as well as door to door service.  The door to door service is specifically for passengers with disabilities, who can book their ride ahead of time and have the bus driver pick them up at their homes.  This bus company abides by the ADA completely.  It doesn’t allow its bus drivers to help a passenger with a disability once he’s off the bus and on the sidewalk. The logic in this is that regular busses for everyone else offers curb to curb service, so the special busses should offer the same service, even though the passengers on these busses have special needs.  I know several bus drivers who want to help their disabled passengers beyond what the company requires, such as bringing the passenger to the doorway of the building.  Despite the driver’s kindness, he could find himself in a great deal of trouble with his company if it is learned what he did.  There are those who get angry when they see a bus driver take off on a blind person. However, advocates who push for equality between the disabled and nondisabled may want to be careful of what they ask for, if they are the ones getting upset at this bus driver.
The point to this discussion is quite simple.  How do you feel about the Americans with Disabilities Act?  Do you think the past twenty years have served persons with disabilities in a favorable manor as a direct result of this legislation?

To navigate between Tech Corner posts, please search for the ## symbol by using your browser or word processor’s search or find function.

Question 1:

Submitted by Dawn Delgado

I wanted to get some ideas from you and maybe from readers of the Ziegler Magazine, too, about which cell phones were the most accessible to the blind while not costing an arm and a leg either with initial purchase or monthly fees.

Steven’s Response:

This was taken from the American Foundation for the Blind website

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=4&TopicID=327&DocumentID=3599

Section 3. Access for People Who Are Blind: Off-the-Shelf Phones vs. Third Party Software 

There are two ways access to cell phones is currently provided for people with vision loss: 

list of 2 items

• off-the-shelf or built-in accessibility, meaning access is incorporated directly into the phone; and

• using third party access software.

list end 

Currently, there is a limited selection of off-the-shelf phones which include built-in access to many but not all cell phone features. 

Other phones, specifically phones running the Symbian, Windows Mobile and Windows Mobile Pocket PC Operating System platforms are compatible with third party screen reader programs that provide speech output and/or braille output to support nearly every feature and function on the phones. This third party software is similar to running the Window-Eyes or JAWS screen reader software programs on a personal computer. 

Off-the-Shelf Phones 

LG Phones with Voice Command 

LG Electronics’ phones with the “Voice Command” feature are available from several service providers. These phones allow you to use your voice to control many, but not all, aspects of the phones. It is speaker-independent, meaning that it recognizes any voice, so you do not have to train it to understand your voice. The speech recognition quality is robust, even in some noisy situations. These phones also have text-to-speech functionality that provides access to some but not all of the display screen information. This speech output also allows you to use the phone’s control buttons to control the phone, in case you do not wish to speak commands to your phone. It will also speak the various menus as you navigate through them, but the speech doesn’t support many of the underlying applications found in the menus. 

To access LG’s Voice Command function, you press the Voice button, and a recorded human voice responds, “Please say a command.” For example, you could say, “Call  800-555-1212,” and the phone will respond “Did you say call  800-555-1212?” You then respond “yes,” and the phone will place your call. Although LG’s Voice Command functions are certainly desirable for blind people, the number and function keys on the phones should be redesigned to be more identifiable by touch, including more consistent use of a “nib” or dot on the 5 key of all models. The amount of functionality supported by speech input and output varies by phone model. Here is a general list of some of the tasks and information you can access using these LG phones. 

list of 6 items

• You can dial by voice by speaking a phone number or the name of someone you have entered into your Contacts application.

• The phones will speak the digits as you dial a number.

• You can get a great deal of spoken phone status information, such as battery and signal strength. The phone also tells you how many missed calls, new

voicemails, and new text messages you have.

• You can independently create contacts and look up the numbers for contacts you have entered in the phone’s contacts/phonebook application.

• The phones will speak the number of an incoming caller or the person’s name if you have entered it into your contacts list.

• Some models support composing and reading text messages.

list end 

Motorola i355 and i580 

Available from Nextel, the Motorola i355 and i580 provide access similar to that of the LG phones, but not to as many features and functions as the LG phones. The buttons on these Motorola phones are more tactilely discernable than the LG phones. After rebates and agreement the i355 is $29.00 while the i580 after rebates and agreement is an expensive $279.00. 

Speech output from Motorola’s Text-to-speech engine supports the following features: 

list of 10 items

• the number keys you have pressed;

• the names, phone numbers, and types of contacts as you scroll through contacts (However, there is no speech support for adding/creating contacts.);

• the status information on the home screen, including the time and date, if you have voice mail, the battery level, and the signal strength;

• the word “home” when you return to the main screen;

• a prompt indicating that you have started or ended a call;

• the names, phone numbers, and types of contacts as you scroll through recent calls;

• the menu options as you scroll through the main menu only;

• notices, such as “low battery” and “keypad locked”;

• caller ID information;

• pop-ups, such as “new voice mail” and “new text message”.

list end 

The text-to-speech is built into the i580, but you have to download and install the software for the i355. This is a simple process for a person with a screen reader and a minimum level of experience using a web browser. However, we discovered a compatibility problem between the software and phone when testing the i355 in the Summer of 2006. Although Motorola fixed the problem in subsequent releases of the i355, you should check with Nextel and/or Motorola to be sure the software is compatible with the current version of the i355. The software performs the same on both phones, but there is one problem we discovered when testing the i580. You have to go through the menus to reach the setting on the i580 to turn on the text-to-speech. You have to first go

to the menu and choose settings, but that is where the speech output stops briefly. You have to then scroll down five times and press OK to activate the voice-playback settings, where the speech support returns. 

Samsung A640 

Newly available from SprintPCS, the Samsung A640 has speech output functionality similar to the LG phones, but again, not as robust as the LG phones. However, we have not yet been able to completely evaluate this phone, and we could find no information online about this phone’s access features. It was also not available at our local Sprint store. 

Service Providers and Off-the-Shelf Phones 

Disclaimer: Much of the information below is based on conversations with manufacturers and service providers, and has not been confirmed through our own accessibility testing. We recommend you visit your local cell phone retailer to feel the buttons on the LG phones and verify the availability of the Voice Command feature. The following is a listing by provider of the off-the-shelf phones discussed herein. 

The New AT&T 

AT&T now carries some LG phones with Voice Command. Check with your local store to see which ones they carry and to see if the tactile nature of the phones and buttons appeal to you. 

AT&T now offers Code Factory’s Mobile Speak screen reader and the Mobile Magnifier magnification application at a steeply discounted price for their customers with vision loss. (See the discussion of third-party software for further details about Code Factory and other screen access software.) 

Sprint 

Sprint offers the LG Lotus with Voice Command.

Verizon 

LG VX8350 (speech supports composing text messages)

LG VX9900 (QWERTY keyboard; speech output supports composing and reading text messages). Read AFB TECH’s review of the LG VX8350 

Third Party Software 

There are three companies that manufacture third-party screen reader software for cellular phones: Code Factory, Dolphin Computer Access, and Nuance. This software provides speech and braille access to nearly every function of the phones with which they are compatible. So far, some games and other software from third-party venders are the only things we have found to not be compatible with the screen readers. This software is available only on selected phones running the Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Windows Pocket operating systems. There are roughly 40 compatible Symbian phones, 20 Pocket PC phones, and 50

Windows Mobile Smartphones 

Symbian phones work only with service providers using the GSM network, with AT&T and T-Mobile being the national carriers. Pocket PC and Smartphones are available on both GSM and CDMA carriers with Verizon, Sprint/Nextel and Alltel being the national CDMA carriers. Here is a list of the third-party screen reader products available on the respective operating system platforms: 

From AT&T:

Information about Mobile Speak, pricing, supported devices, and more

list of 3 items

• Symbian cell phones: (1) Code Factory’s Mobile Speak screen reader and (2) Nuance’s TALKS screen reader.

• Pocket PC PDAs: (1) Code Factory’s Mobile Speak Pocket screen reader and (2) Dolphin’s Pocket Hal screen reader.

• Smartphones: (1) Code Factory’s Mobile Speak Smartphone screen reader and (2) Dolphin’s Smart Hal screen reader.

list end

How does this Software Work? 

These third-party software products provide access to cell phones in a way that is very similar to how JAWS or Window-Eyes provide access to computers. Each has a set of commands used to access information that is displayed on the screen. The Code Factory and Nuance products are also compatible with wireless braille displays, and Dolphin promises this compatibility in a future release. 

Pricing 

The prices of the phones compatible with third-party screen reader software vary widely, with newer models costing more than models reaching the end of their life cycle. Service contracts also affect the price, with longer contracts resulting in less expensive phones. We have found older phones with long contracts costing as low as $0, and newer phones without contracts costing as much as $399. The Symbian and Smartphone software programs cost $295, and the Pocket PC software costs $495 to $599, making the total cost of phone and software out of the reach of many people with vision loss. 

Note: AT&T (formerly Cingular) now offers Code Factory’s Mobile Speak and Mobile Magnifier products at the discounted rate of $89. They are the only service provider offering screen reader or screen magnifier products to their customers with vision loss. They no longer offer the TALKS software. 

Documentation 

The developers of the access software do provide accessible electronic manuals, but the manuals are fairly limited in scope, providing enough for you to learn the basics with the expectation you can learn the rest on your own. The manuals for the phones themselves, however, come in untagged PDF documents. The accessibility of these manuals varies from nonexistent to very good, but even the best should be tagged to avoid common PDF accessibility barriers, such as unlabelled graphics. 

Here are a few other useful links I found below.  I hope this helps.

http://www.squidoo.com/blind-cell-phone

http://www.maxiaids.com/store/default.asp

##

Question 2:

Submitted by Steve

I’ve just got an iPhone 4, and haven’t got much idea yet as to the strokes to use to operate the iphone.  Could you please tell me if there is a simple guide, written by an ordinary user, using simple instructions?

Steve Famiglietti’s Answer:

New owners of the snazzy iPhone 4 are no doubt still in awe over what their new and shiny little device can do for them. Make calls, send emails, look at pictures and videos, and even snap pics with the built-in camera. Oh and the apps! Please, please let’s not forget the apps! But, if you’re completely new to the wonderful world of Apple devices, even something as simple as sending an email might be enough to send you into chaos. Luckily, Apple has now put their iPhone 4 User Guide online. So whatever your question is, you can get the answer to it right away – wherever you are! 

The iPhone 4.0 User Guide can be found at

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPhone_iOS4_User_Guide.pdf.  The entire PDF document is a whopping 244 pages long, and covers everything from placing photos onto your iPhone, emailing from your device, reading iBooks on your iPhone, and of course, it will tell you how to set it all up from beginning to end, and your very first sync! 

The Apple iPhone 4 User Guide is done very well and is laid out in a simple, easy to understand format. It truly does cover everything you could ever possibly want to know about your iPhone 4, and maybe even some things that you didn’t even know you wanted! The user guide probably won’t be needed by many who have previously owned an iPod or iPhone device but it is especially useful for those who have never owned an Apple device before. And, while the user guide does mostly remain specific to the iPhone 4, there are also some sections that deal with the iPhone 3G. If any of the sections only pertain to the iPhone 4 specifically, they state so at the top of the section. 

Check out the iPhone 4 user guide and find out just how to make the most out of your iPhone 4!

##

Question 3:

Submitted by Penny:

When I am reading my e-mail or reading a document I have found on the net, my computer just suddenly shuts down.  What is the reason for this and what can I do to stop this from happening?

Steven Famiglietti’s Answer:

Hi there Penny,

I have seen this issue happen a few times with my own computer and from other computers.  In the case of my computer, Windows will automatically restart if a major problem or crash happens while I am working.  In many cases, I don’t know what the exact issue was that occurred but, the computer restarts and all seems to be fine from that point.  I’ve had this happen on my own computer about 3 times in 3 years. 

Here are some things to consider that might help.  Make sure that you are getting the Windows updates downloaded and installed.  If you are running an antivirus program, make sure that it is running and that the virus definitions are up to date.  If you are running out of date virus definitions, your antivirus program can’t protect your machine from the latest viruses.  If the problem continues and you are running a screen reader such as JAWS or Window-Eyes, give either GW Micro or Freedom Scientific technical support a call and explain the issue.  If you are not running a screen reader or any kind of adaptive software, you may need to bring the computer to someone for repairs.  Sometimes a defective power supply can be to blame.  The hard part with computers is that it is difficult to know the exact problem because symptoms of problems can often be similar. 

I hope this helps.

The unemployment rate among the blind, visually impaired and others with significant disabilities has been 70 percent for as long as I can remember (The above statistic has been cited by the American Council of the Blind, Hadley School for the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind).

Though I see the reasons for this as many and varied, I consider the main reason to be negative stereotypes which create attitudinal barriers.  I also believe that if more administrative eyes saw the disabled as people who are differently abled with many capabilities, stereotypes would be like towers falling in on themselves. The blocks of misperception would be re-formed into a strong tower of accurate perceptions and acceptance.

Mr. Jim Nelson, the Operations Director of the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit for which I work, is just such a person.  When other hiring personnel may have feared that I couldn’t, Mr. Nelson knew that I could.

When some may have wondered how a nonprofit organization could afford access technology while the United States teeters on the foundation of a fickle economy, Jim had hope that fickle could become friendly enough to sustain investments in access technology.

Instead of fearing that I might fail, Mr. Nelson was so sure that I would succeed that he confided to a colleague, saying, “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Terri, so long as it wasn’t illegal or immoral.”

Since Operations Director Nelson never feared that hiring me as a Supervisor would be a decision that he would regret, I would like to focus the remainder of this article on translating the letters of “fear” into the positive perceptions with which I–and my abilities–have consistently been viewed.

F is for faith.

From the moment I was hired in 2005, I always had the sense that my employer had FAITH in my capabilities rather than fear of my blindness.

E is for encouragement.

Once I knew that I would be using a computer to enter call data, and having the preference for Braille output over speech that I have, the last thing I wanted to do was learn JAWS.  Because having JAWS installed on my laptop and learning how to use it was the best way to go, though, I reluctantly learned JAWS, and now I just love it.  My learning and loving this accessible program was thanks to ENCOURAGEMENT.

A is for Accessibility.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many interviews I’ve been on during which I was told what I couldn’t do because of my blindness instead of what I could do based on my abilities.  Needless to say, prospective employers with those attitudes had no desire to make their work environments accessible.  In my current position, however, administrative colleagues truly went above and beyond the reasonable accommodations mandates of the American with Disabilities Act by not only allowing me to be paid for my computer training but also by repairing and updating my BrailleNote several times.  Though the Pittsburgh Office of Blindness and Visual Services paid for my computer and software updates–which I very much appreciate–it was my workplace administrators that paid for the work on my BrailleNote.  (Because Jim Nelson’s primary responsibilities as Operations Director are monitoring budgets and tracking cash flow, he was the key person providing this additional ACCESSIBILITY).

R is for respect.

The mission of the agency I work for is to create a society free of stigma, which also means treating each other with respect and dignity.

Though my workplace has its share of office politics–as I think every office does– I have generally been treated with respect and dignity, especially by Operations Director Nelson.

Operations Director Mr. Jim Nelson is the epitome of Faith, Encouragement, Accessibility and Respect because where there are challenges, Mr. Nelson see chances; and where there is despair over lack of employment, Mr. Jim Nelson brings hope through the dignity of work.