[gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard

Thu Dec 31 06:07:43 UTC 2009

Ted,

Thanks a lot for the moral support. I've been putting in about an hour of 
just practicing nearly every day, and I can see that I've begun to memorize 
and visualize (a formerly sighted person's habitual way of mapping things 
the little keyboard, and I guess I'm making some progress. I'm still a long 
way from my fantasy of sitting back in an easy chair with the laptop on my 
knees and just typing away; even when I get more of the keyboard memorized, 
I know I'll probably always be struck by the feeling that it isn't a normal 
typist's keyboard. Wrong hand position, and that slab of "hand rest," I 
guess it's thought of, just screws things up if you're a serious typist. If 
children were all given their first piano lessons on something akin to this, 
not many of them would grow up to be serious pianists, I'm afraid.

But I'll keep working at it and see if I can develop a level of skill and 
comfort that's "good enough," to steal a phrase from psychology. The 
good-enough mother, it was.

Thanks again for the moral support. I was starting to think I was really 
lame. Now I see it's truly difficult, but can be done if you're determined.

Joel
comfrot comfory sts, I'm afraid. up enconenienced comp7utguess)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ted Shelly" <tshelly at optonline.net>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard

Joel,

I use a laptop regularly and a desktop with a normal keyboard.  It is a pain
memorizing two different layouts, but it just takes practice.  I also have
partial sight, but not enough to see the key markings on my laptop without
using a video magnifier.  Occasionally I do get out the magnifier when I
can't remember where some of the function keys are (like the one to switch
to an external monitor).  But mostly I've learned to manage.  I'm on my 4th
laptop now and fortunately laptop keyboards are similar so there has not
been too much of a learning curve to switch.

Keep working with the laptop and eventually you will get the hang of it.

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 3:14 PM
To: GUI-Talk
Subject: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard

Hi listers,

Okay, please come clean. I know some of us are totally blind and some are
partial. I'm partial, myself, but I have no central vision thus can't read
at all with my eyes. Only with Jaws, recorded literature, and so forth. So
in dealing with this new machine of mine, which I'd hoped would be a handy
tool, I'm at a loss.

I thought I'd be able to get the hang of the keyboard with some effort. it's
an Acer with a number key pad so I don't have to learn the Jaws laptop key
commands.

but still there's no space between the keys and the sections of keys as I'm
accustomed to on a normal keyboard, and no matter how patiently I sit and
turn on Jaws Keyboard Help to explore and get the lay of the land, so to
speak, I just am finding it nearly impossible to operate the machine.

Please bear in mind that I'm a pretty damn good touch typist, plus a Jaws
user from way back with the current release. Ordinary stuff like that is not
impeding me. But try as I might, my fingers just can't figure out where keys
are, except in small, lucky instances and a few keys I happen to have taught
myself by now. I don't think this is gonna work.

I know I can get a USB keyboard to plug into this laptop, then set the
computer within earshot and sit back with only the keyboard on my lap. But
this ain't what I'd daydreamed about. I guess I didn't anticipate
realistically how tough this would be to do blind.

Please just tell the truth, guys. I think a number of you are using laptops,
at least as your secondary computers. How many of you actually use your
laptops (mine's an Acer PC, for what that matters) normally, and how many
use an auxiliary keyboard? Am I in a very low-skill class, sort of, if I
can't figure out how to type on something like this the way sighted people
do with their own laptops?

Ug. Bummed out. thanks for any helpful feedback.
and Happy New Year.

Joel

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