[gui-talk] Kindle: think it's worth a try

[albert griffith]

Beth, I'm glad there are brave people like you to keep products like this
going.  As for me, I'm going to wait for a few more incarnations of it to
appear in hopes it will be even more accessible by then.  As I've aged I no
longer have the patients for all that memorization one needs with devices
that aren't quite accessible.  You go girl!  grin

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Beth Wright
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 8:54 PM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: [gui-talk] Kindle: think it's worth a try

Hi, listers.

Just got a Kindle from Amazon.com and think it's worth a try, even though
the menus are totally inaccessible and I hope their next version is more
user-friendly for the blind.  If you want to get your hands on a book, it's
available from the Kindle online store, and the powers that be haven't
disabled the text-to-speech function, don't let those silent menus spook
you.  You can shop from your computer and then, with a few simple commands,
get the book loaded onto the Kindle in a few seconds.  In fact, that's just
about the easiest part of the process, and be done without sighted help.  As
far as learning how to operate the thing and get it reading, I did need
sighted help, and probably will again, since I'm just getting started.  It's
not that hard, though, and the buttons are pretty easy to use, because it's
much bigger than a lot of electronic devices such as cell phones and music
players.  I bought it mainly for cookbooks because they're notoriously hard
to scan, not too many are available in Braille and, they're not well suited
to the audiobook format, I figured that many would be available with
text-to-speech enabled.  The one minor drawback is that the cookbooks, for
whatever reason, aren't as heavily discounted as some of their titles but,
as I say, that's only minor.  After all, as we never get tired of saying, we
want equal access, which doesn't necessarily mean free acess.

Since I'm getting started with this, I don't feel terribly equipped to
answer questions, but just thought I'd put in my two cents' worth.  Maybe
the more technically savvy Kindle owners can fill in some of the blanks, so
to speak.

Beth
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