[stylist] Adventures in learning the Mac and braille

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

April,

Congrats! I applaud you for being proactive and pushing forward with
your life and training. I know how good it feels to be able to continue
on with life and your goals.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Donna
Hill
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2014 2:40 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] Adventures in learning the Mac and braille


April,
Glad to hear you are making progress with Braille! Also, the idea of
writing up procedures when you're actually learning them is a good one.
I have a whole Procedures folder that has been a God-send on many
occasions. Cheers, Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of April
Brown
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2014 11:24 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] Adventures in learning the Mac and braille

Good morning,

      I don't want to tread on my friend's toes who writes the
"Adventures in Low Vision" blog.  However, today is time for a post on
"Adventures of the Hard of Hearing and Low Vision."

      I've been a computer geek for ten years.  Never paid attention to
my hearing loss, though I did get a hearing aid, likely five or more
years ago. I thought VoiceOver should be easy to learn.  Insert hyena
laugh, and every cartoon laugh you ever heard.

     I've been a reader all my life.  I have low memory due to brain
damage a few decades ago.  Lost most of my memory.  I have little
appreciation of shortcuts, as I can't comprehend them.  I thought
learning braille wouldn't be likely.  I had to try anyway.  Insert hyena
laugh, and every cartoon laugh you ever heard.

What happened?

Computer geeky: Yeah right.  What do those terms mean again?  Does
anyone have a definition?  Yesterday, I had 1.5 hours to study VoiceOver
again.  I took over an hour to get the nerve up to turn it on.  This
after having been told no one has time to create, or even send a link,
to a step by step Voice Over manual.  Guess what?  In that 30 minutes, I
made a little progress using it in Pages. I'm leaving the Internet alone
for a bit.  I've lost over 100 hours trying to figure out how to use it
there.  At least in Pages I can now find the menu, and even change the
font size.  Oh, and search and find. I wrote out a step by step manual
for what I succeeded on yesterday.

Reading braille?  I was too bored with the slowness of the online
course.  I found the contracted braille, computer braille, and
everything else I needed online.  I've been studying that as well.  Um,
I'm about a year ahead of the course.  Oh, and I got my first braille
book from the library to read last week.  I am excited.  I can now read
again when my eye is too painful to hold open.

I had tried the talking books.  Being partially deaf, and having
comprehension of vocalization issues, they weren't working.  Unless I
sat completely still, not even twiddling my thumbs to listen to the
novels.  I don't have that kind of time!

April Brown

Writing dramatic adventure novels uncovering the myths we hide behind.



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