Hello All,

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone on this list who shared your school 
experiences with me and offered good advice on tools and techniques. Now that 
my semester is over, I want to give back some information about some of those 
tools and techniques  in hopes somebody else might find them useful. I just 
completed my first college semester in over 20 years, my first as a blind 
person, and I'm proud to say I did very well in both of my classes. I've now 
enrolled as a full time student for the Spring 2012 semester with an estimated 
graduation date of June, 2013, only 29 years after I took my first college 
course. <grin>.

I was able to perform all necessary computer-related functions using my Macbook 
Air and iPhone 4. Half way through the semester I installed Windows 7 in a 
FUsion VM just in case, but never even got around to installing NVDA because I 
did not encounter any accessibility roadblocks that couldn't be handled on my 
MBA or iPhone. Here is my "Top 10" list of tools and techniques I used this 
semester.

1. Pages on the Mac. This past SUmmer I took a series of Pages lessons via 
Skype with Anne and Archie Robertson. (For those who are new to the list, Anne 
is an assistant moderator here.) The lessons were informative and enjoyable, as 
Anne & Archie are a great team with a wealth of experience working with Apple 
products and accessibility tools and techniques. During the semester I wrote 
several dozen essays, most of them in Pages, and never once had a problem 
creating a document that met the requirements of my professors. My university 
is standardized almost exclusively on Windows, MS Office, and Outlook, yet I 
never had a problem opening any Office documents in Preview, TextEdit or Pages 
and was easily able to use Outlook Web Access via Safari on my Macbook Air to 
send & receive emails and attachments.

2. The "ABBYY FineReader Express" Mac App. I used ABBYY extensively this 
semester. One of my textbooks was only available in print, but I was able to 
scan important chunks of the book using the flatbed scanner on my HP PhotoSmart 
C6100 MFP attached via USB to my Macbook Air. I scanned using Vuescan and  then 
let ABBYY do the OCR into an RTF file. I also used ABYY to OCR graphic PDF 
files such as those output from OSX's "save to PDF" print function as noted 
below in the section where I talk about textbooks. And of course, I received a 
number of incorrectly created PDF files for such things as class syllabi and 
tuition invoices, all of which ABBYY handled quite nicely.

3. The "Flashcards++" IOS App. I made extensive use of the excellent and fully 
VO-accessible IOS App named "Flashcards++." I posted a review of the app on 
applevis if you're interested, but I'll just add here that this app blows me 
away every time I use it. The simplicity of the interface hides a tremendous 
wealth of options. There are numerous ways to import cards you've created, such 
as via a simple CSV created in TextEdit, or via the major flashcard sites such 
as quizlet.com. You can also create the cards manually right on the device and 
can edit any of the cards you've imported or created. Once you've created your 
cards, you have access to a vast number of ways to display the cards, and the 
built-in logic really worked well to focus on the cards I was having difficulty 
learning. While the app is great for general purpose learning, it was actually 
developed by a student of languages and includes tools to handle many 
languages. You can select a different language for the fr
 ont and back of each card and, if you don't want to rotor between VO voices to 
hear correct pronunciation, a button is provided to speak the words via a TTS 
engine hosted somewhere on the Internet.

4. The "Speak It" IOS App. This App was recommended by Esther, and I used it 
more and more as the semester progressed. Essentially, speak It will read a 
block of text pasted into the App, and, unlike VO, will continue to read it 
aloud even when the iPhone has been locked. I would often cut and paste 
chapters from an OCR'd textbook into Speak It, lock the iPhone screen, stick 
the phone in my pocket, and listen to the information over and over again as I 
went about other tasks.

5. The "ClearRecord" IOS App. I used this App on my iPhone to record every 
lecture this semester. It somehow manages to do a good job of blocking out some 
of the extraneous classroom noises while capturing the important stuff. One 
shortcoming of this App is it's weak playback controls and options. I worked 
around this issue by using iTunes on the Mac  to tag the recordings as 
audiobooks for playback via other Apps.

6. 11 inch Macbook Air. Most days I walk several miles to and from classes and 
the 2.5 pound weight of my MBA is a blessing on my skinny frame,    especially 
on those days when I'm also packing an umbrella, water bottle, towel, dog 
kibble, etc. My MBA has the i7 CPU and was able to handle everything I threw at 
it. Sometimes the fan would kick on during an extended OCR process, but that 
was the extent of the complaining I heard coming from the Air.

7. iPHone 4 on the AT&T network. I've said it before: I consider this iPHone to 
be almost as helpful as my guide dog in terms of my independence and safety. 
While I used several GPS Apps to help familiarize myself with campus early in 
the semester, I really think the device shines in so many ways that I can 
easily foresee a time in the not-too-distant future when all of my school 
related tasks will happen on an iPhone.

8. Mophie Juice Pack Plus for iPhone 4. While I don't exactly love this case, I 
appreciated having the extra battery life.

9. Adobe Digital Editions Preview 1.8x on Mac. I hesitate to say anything 
positive about Adobe because there isn't anything positive to say about Adobe 
when it comes to accessibility. However, as has been mentioned by others on 
this list, Adobe appears to be making a slow and somewhat feeble effort to 
improve the accessibility of documents that use Adobe DRM. Several times during 
the semester I was able to find important reading materials only available in 
this DRM format that were accessible only through this Digital Editions 1.8 
Preview. The Application still has a long way to go to obtain true 
accessibility, but it's a start and I was glad to have it when needed.

10. Textbooks and e-Textbooks. The lack of equal access to textbooks was my 
single biggest hurdle this semester. <Begin brief soapbox rant>. It's a crime, 
plain and simple. Almost all textbooks today are produced in a digital format 
before they are ever printed on paper, and it would involve no effort on the 
part of publishers to make those digital editions available in a fully 
screen-reader accessible format for blind and VI students. However, as far as I 
can tell most publishers are still taking the low road and placing roadblocks 
in front of these eBooks by default. <End brief soapbox rant>. It seems most of 
the printed textbooks used at my university are offered as 6 month e-Textbook 
rentals hosted on the popular site, CourseSmart.com. While the accessibility of 
CourseSmart's hosted materials varies from title-to-title, they do offer to 
review and try to maximize the readability of any title if you contact them at 
the email address provided on their website. They ask that
  you give them 3 weeks lead time to do the work. As with many eBooks, the 2 
titles I've used on CourseSmart have been less than optimal for navigation by 
VO in Safari, and the native IOS and OSX CourseSmart apps do not make the body 
of text available to VO, although I had some success using IOS Safari to 
navigate their site and to read my textbooks. The most success I've had is by 
printing the book to PDF and OCR'ing it as noted above. Unfortunately, 
CourseSmart limits printing to 10 pages at a time. Another issue I'm having 
with CourseSmart has to do with a textbook they promised to tag over 4 months 
ago. It is a language learning textbook for native US English speakers learning 
Spanish, and apparently CourseSmart is having difficulty getting it properly 
translated in a screen-reader friendly format. They are promising to have it 
ready for Spring semester, along with 2 other titles I'll be using then.

One more note: I would add Bento as number 11 on my list, but I prefer to do a 
separate write-up on Bento for Mac, iPhone and iPad because I think it is a 
truly overlooked gem in the world of accessible productivity apps. One of my 
goals during this 5 week Winter break is to create a VO User's Guide for Bento 
which I'll post to the list when ready.

CHeers,
Bryan

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