Congratulations and an extremely interesting read. As of last Thursday I m recommencing my PhD after 18 months break. When i suspended due to ill health I was an exclusive Windows user, now I have switch to the Mac. There are are areas of your experience that I have not considered and I look forward to your write up of bento. I had not considered this as a learning aid and am intrigued as to how you used it.
My main problem which I need to over come is that I have to deal with plethora of word documents with tables. So far I have tried Text Edit, Bean, Nius Writer Pro and pages. The program which seemed to cope best was the free bean program but was still difficult so I have ended up using Fusion and Microsoft Word to cope with Tables. I was hoping that Nisus Writer pro would provide the answer as this has received good write ups but doe snot appear to have cracked this nut yet. In terms of scanning I would give a cautious recommendation for the EyePal Scanner and software. The scanning is lightning fast and the recognition is good. You can scan a 300 page book in about an hour. The practical drawback of the scanner is that it freezes every time that you scan a blank page, so if thou try to scan a letter and you have put the wrong side under the camera then bye bye application. The software is self voicing and you have to turn Voiceover off to use it as it is a port of the Windows software under the X11 utility. Very nearly a fantastic product but extremely expensive. David GriffithDavid Griffith d.griff...@btinternet.com On 18 Dec 2011, at 05:08, Bryan Jones wrote: > 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 th at > 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 > > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> > > To reply to this post, please address your message to > mac-access@mac-access.net > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at > either the list's own dedicated web archive: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> > or at the public Mail Archive: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. > Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> > > The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and > worm-free! > > Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting > the list website at: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/> <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free! Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
