A Unique Resource For the Blind of the World

The National Federation of the Blind says it best when they call the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind a “unique resource for the blind of the world.” This center, located at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore, Maryland reviews technology, both products created specifically for the blind and products created for the mainstream market but which is accessible in one form or another, sometimes completely accessible, either through intentional universal design or by chance (such as the iPod Shuffle, a media mp3 player that is accessible because it has no screen, though the design was intended for people who are doing active exercise and cannot pause to look at a screen. The latest version of the iPod Shuffle, the iPod Shuffle 8.0 is even more accessible, as it has a Voiceover that tells the user the title and author of the song and has a folder feature.)

The staff at the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind evaluates, demonstrate, and train people in the use of the products they have. If you are able to visit the center, as I did on May 17, they can demonstrate the products in person. While there, I learned about various note takers, testing weights and ease of use. Because of my quickness to fatigue and pain, a note taker that is easy on my body and not too heavy is very important for me. However, I had very little access to the variety of note takers that are available on the market today. Before visiting the technology center, I had only seen three: the BraillePlus, the PacMate, and the BrailleNote, and had not had the chance to test any of them, as they are essential parts of the owners’ lives. So, when I was given the opportunity to visit the National Center for the Blind with a group from my state, I was overjoyed, knowing I would get to see many different note takers and test them. I was in for a surprise!

The technology center tries to have one of every product available that is accessible to the blind in some fashion….that includes two long tables full of note takers and similar electronic interfaces, dozens of ways to print, type, and read Braille, and hundreds of products for reading, writing, and daily living. I had limited time, so I concentrated my time on the note takers there, and had no chance to see the rest.

However, I still have the chance to learn about the other products, as do the millions of blind people who cannot go to the center in person because of distance, finances, or any other reason. The staff can also consult with blind people, professionals, or family members via phone. Some of the questions they get asked often, according to the NFB’s website include:

What do I need to get a blind person on-line and connected to the Internet?
How can I make my website accessible to the blind?
What electronic note taker is “best” for a person who is blind?

The website says they welcome questions, and the staff I spoke to in person was very welcoming and friendly, as well as knowledgeable and helpful. The Center is located at 200 East Wells Street at the Jernigan Place in Baltimore, Maryland. Their phone number is (410) 659-9314, x5. Further, they can be reached via fax at (410) 685-565, or via e-mail at access@nfb.org. For more information about the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind, visit the NFB's site for the Center.

YeoSoft Text to Speech Recorder

Ever wanted a quick and easy way to record what you typed up, whether it’s a grocery or shopping list, notes you took while doing a phone interview, or notes you typed while listening to a book, movie, or speech? It takes forever if you hold your recorder up to the speaker, and the sound is not great. Using a text to speech recorder is a much better way of converting your text files to MP3 files. I found quite a few on the Internet Archives, and tested most of them, but only one was easy to use with a screenreader, and allowed me access to all of the program’s features. Some of them were hard to figure out, and a few of them did not have full access via screenreader.

Yeosoft Text-to-MP3 , which can be downloaded as a free trial,> appears to be fully accessible with the JAWS screenreader. A friend noted that it is very difficult with NVDA, however. Please comment and let me know how it works with other screenreaders (WindowEyes, ScreenAccess, etc.)

NFB ShareBraille

Do you have shelves full of Braille books that you don’t want to trash, but never read any more? Maybe you are just starting out your Braille library and want a less expensive way of getting your own books. Either way, NFB ShareBraille is the place for you!

This website, NFB Share Braille , is a free service of the National Federation of the Blind. The concept is simple. Say you outgrow that Babysitter’s Club collection you had in elementary school, or you no longer want that Spanish textbook that you couldn’t find a new home for. You go to NFB ShareBraille, register for free, and add your book to the Available Book list. When someone clicks a link showing interest in the book, you send the book to them via Free Matter for the Blind, and voila! They have a new book, and you have more room for new books.

The other way around works just as easily. If you are looking for books to add to your small (or large) collection, go to the Available Book list, and if you find one you want, click its title, then on the information page, there is a table at the bottom with links to get the book. Then the person with the book will send it to you.

I got some great books this way, including Braille.com and Beyond (which I plan on passing on soon) and Florence and Michelangelo (which has become a permanent part of my collection, as it is a great little treasure).

It is easy to navigate around the NFB ShareBraille website, and enjoyable to see what books are available that I might be able to get. I like to check it all the time, to see what’s new. So should you! Check it out, and share your books or get shared books from other Braille users!

Jim Kitchen Games: Five Stars and Two Thumbs Up!

Growing up, we didn’t have much money for video games, but we played lots of board games and interactive games. Monopoly and Battleship were among the most popular, though I loved to play Mastermind, if I could find anyone to play it with me. BopIt! And Memory were also favorite of my siblings and me. Nowadays, though, everyone plays computer games, and physical board games are almost a thing of the past, especially the expensive Braille editions of board games. I mean, who has the $150 to just throw out there for a Braille copy of Monopoly when they are on a fixed income, like many blind people are.

Okay, okay, I’ll get right to the point. Don’t want to pay for those expensive Braille board games, but want to play them in an accessible, enjoyable way? Jim Kitchen has made some amazingly awesome games! I have seriously spent hours playing the Monopoly game he created with my friends, and have created three boards of my own with the cool board maker. Yes, there are already nearly forty board games to choose from, but I wanted a Holiday board that went from “Happy New year! (Go) through Christmas in July (Free Parking) to Christmas (Boardwalk). The most enjoyable board for me and my friends has been the Harry Potter 2 board. I edited it to make Jail “Azkaban” and Income Tax “Decree 121: Everyone must pay room and board” and it has turned into great fun for hours of “I’m paying rent at the joke shop; you better give me some fizz bangers and canary custards!” and “You must have murdered your duel partner; you just got a Duel (Chance) card that says Go to Azkaban!”

But Monopoly is only one of his great games. There is also Yahtzee, which has a really easy scoreboard that you can check at any time in your turn. Yahtzee also includes Double Yahtzee and Triple Yahtzee. Mastermind and Battleship are great versions of those childhood favorites, and Simon Says will test your hand-ear coordination as you try to remember if the pattern was Dog-Cat-Lion-Lion or Dog-Cat-Lion-Cat. I got to level 32, but I got lucky and had seven dogs in a row!

Other classic games include:
Concentration- can you remember if the match was at A6 or D6?
, Hangman
Snakes and Ladders
The Game of Life, changed to ease of use on a computer and with realistic inflations
Skunk- a dice game where the ones on the dice are replaced by skunks, and you have to get to a designated score, but if you get a skunk, you lose that turn’s points, and if you get two skunks, you lose all of your cumulated points
Star Mule- a Galactic drug dealing game
Trivia, with categories ranging from astronauts to the World Series. You can also create your own trivia files. I think this will be an awesome studying tool for when I tart college.
Pong, an audible version of the very old game

Admittedly, sports games don’t really interest me, but I tried out the football game for ease and coolness factor. A quick hint that I wish I had known: hit F5 to hear the special keys (Function keys, mainly)). The background crowd was too loud for me to hear the beginning speech very well, but that was quickly fixed once I learned how to lower different voices. I don’t know how to play football, and never was good at it, but this game seemed simple enough. My team gained 29 yards after two turns, but the other team intercepted, and it went downhill from there. I’m sure football fans would do much better. Other sport games include golf (with a huge number of courses to choose from) and baseball.

There are also a few adult games. One I won’t describe, as I find it too vulgar for the blog, but the other is not too bad. It’s called Spanker, and you have to listen to where the girl’s voice is coming from (left speaker, right speaker, or right in the middle), and hit the corresponding arrow key to “spank” her. It is an adult version of BoppIt!, which is also available. This is also a great hand-ear coordination tool. Not trying to brag, but my highest score is 103 swats. If you get higher, leave a comment with your high score! There is a rumor that Jim Kitchen is working on a version of Spanker with male voices for us girls, and maybe even a mixed male and female voices. Just a rumor, of course.

There are other programs, like some racing games, a few clock and timer programs, and a Braille reference that will tell you what that contraction you can never remember is.

Overall, I have found that the games are enjoyable, easy to play, and require very little reading of instructions if you already know the basic concept of the game. Even if you don’t, you will very quickly. There are three types of games: Windows Sapi5 text-to-speech, self-voicing, and screen reader-friendly. I like the Sapi5 text-to-speech games, because they are put into a menu listing that makes it easy to go through all the programs available to run. It uses the Sapi5 that nearly all PCs have these days. They are great for people who don’t have a more advanced screen reader, too, and I find the Sapi5 voices easy enough to understand (you can choose from five different voices). The self-voicing games are great for people who don’t have a screen reader, too. I’m not particularly joyful about the screen reader-friendly DOS games, but they do work, and they aren’t bad. I just had trouble getting them to run, as I don’t know how to work DOS very well.

All of Jim Kitchen’s games are *free* and can be downloaded at his website:
Kitchens, Inc. .

If you enjoy the games, be sure to e-mail Jim Kitchen and thank him!

Look forward to many other reviews of accessible computer games, including PCS Games and VIPMud.

An Alternative to Print Phone Books

Since the phone book is in such tiny print that most people with low vision can’t read it, let alon blind people, the only good alternative is 411 directories. Can you imagine a Braille phone book? Oh dear…that would be hundreds of volumes that would have to be reprinted every year…a blind person would come home to find a pile of Braille as tall as their door waiting for them! And sighted people thought they had it bad with the multiple copies of phone books they get constantly…

So, if phone directories are the best alternative to a phone book, you should expect to pay for each 411 call through your phone provider, right? Wrong! In this post, I will talk about free 411 phone directories, as well as the ones provided by such phone companies as AT&T and Verizon. Let’s first look at the 800 numbers you can call for phone directory services.

The first phone directory number I learned is called Free 411. It can be reached at 1-800-FREE-411. For those of us who can never remember what number stands for what letters (like myself), that’s 1-800-373-3411. This 411 service provides easy access to phone book directories at the touch of a finger. They provide directories for residential numbers (your famiy, friends, and neighbours), businesses (the local store or mall), and government (your public library, Social Security office, or Human Resources office). They also offer weather reports, movie listings by movie and theatre, humour and gossip, horoscopes, a contest for a $100 Wal-Mart gift card, and a free call option for a 5-minute phone call to anywhere in the world. The drawback of this service is all the advertisements. Between each step of the service, there is a approximately half-a-minute to one-minute advertisement for companies like Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Wal-Mart and other sponsors of the service. This is the company’s way of providing this free phone directory.

The second phone directory that I use and enjoy is called Tell me! It can be reached at 1-800-555-TELL (1-800-555-8355). This phone directory does not have the advertisements that Free 411 has, but they do not have many options for phone number searches. This phone service only provides business phone numbers. The other services available at this phone number include traffic reports, stock quotes (which does have an advertisement), a news center that has a few articles each day with real people’s voices, not synthesized speech) provided by ABC News, sport updates (also has advertisements), entertainment (including a free Blackjack game with a Sean Connery-synthesized voice), travel (connections to airlines, hotels, taxi companies, and more), and a list of popular shortcuts. It even has a time function in case you forgot your talking watch at home. If you find a business you want, it will give you the phone number, address, and step-by-step directions from any address.

I love Tell Me! And its voice-activated menus, but I use Free 411 to access residential and government directories. Between the two, I can always find the phone number or address I need. Now if only they had a bus service directory of similar proportions in my area!

Blind Mice Mart's Movie Vault
www.blindmicemart.com

Are you tired of asking your friends to describe scenes when you get together to watch a movie? Do you want more DVS (Descriptive Video Services)? Check out Blind Mice Mart's movie vault for thousands of recorded DVS movies in mp3 format! There is a wide variety of movies, from black-and-white oldies to modern favourites like Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series (six of seven). Best of all, the movies are free. The only downside is for people with some usuable vision; because the movies are in MP3 format, they are audio only. Therefore, there is no visual. This has not been a problem for me (I'm unable to see what's on the screen anyway), my friend who has some residual vision (he has 20/200 vision), or my sighted friends who "watch" these movies with me. Because it has DVS, which describes all the important visual actions (such as someone gesturing instead of speaking), seeing the movie is not necessary for enjoyment. In fact, a few of my sighted friends have told me that they prefer these DVS movies because it lets them use their imagination more. I think of them as half way between an audio book and actually being there.


Go to the Blind Mice Mart website at www.blindmicemart.com, go down to the heading that says “Blind Mice Movie Vault,” click on that, and you'll go to the movie vault page in a seperate window. It is seperated into headings that are easily navigated by screenreader users. The actual download part takes a little getting used to, though, because of all the advertisements in the download page.

On the Movie Vault page, the next from last Heading gives basic instructions for downloading. I do one thing different, and that is that when I get to the Sendspace popup window after pressing “Regular Download,” I press the N key (for non-link text) until I hear “Note” and arrow up. There is a blank line, then a graphic, another blank line, and the next line is the download link. I find this faster than tabbing up from the bottom.

Another Note: Some of the movies are categorized differently. For example, while Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is under the C Heading, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is under the T heading (for The). So, if you don’t find the movie you are looking for at first, try it under alternate alphabet headings. So, you might look under the S heading for “The Sixth Sense,” but it’s under the T heading for “The,” and while some of the Agatha Christi movies are under A for “Agatha,” some are under the actual name of the movie (for example, the Number heading for “13 for Dinner”)

If you have any trouble with the DVS movie vault, let me know, and I’ll see if I can help! Enjoy your movies and being able to talk to your friends about the movies you watched and could actually understand.

Look for future posts in this blog about:
The National Library Services’ DVS services
Movie Theatres that have DVS
Organizations’ work toward access to DVS for theatres, DVDs, and television programs

When these posts are added, I will make the above into links.