In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we describe and set up a new Amazon Echo. The Amazon Echo is a midrange smart speaker from Amazon. Its capable of providing a midsize room with halfway decent music quality and most importantly Alexa. To follow along, you will need to have installed the Amazon Alexa app on your iPhone. In this episode we will:

* Describe the Echo

* Walk through the process with the Alexa app to set up the Echo

If you are wondering what the Echo looks like, imagine a large pop can covered with your standard speaker cloth. On the top, you will find four buttons, while the bottom edge will have a notch for the power cord and the 3.5mm audio jack. To orientate the Echo, placed the power adapter notch facing away from you. When placed this way, the four buttons on top do the following:

* Volume Up at 12 o’clock

* Volume Down at 6 o’clock

* Action at 3 o’clock and has a bump dot in the middle

* Mute at 9 o’clock

If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, feel free to send us an email here. All of our podcasts and other information related to Veterans, blindness, acceptance of a disability, and other resources may be found at BlindNotAlone.com

Don’t miss another Blind Vet Tech teleconference, click here to see a list of our teleconferences and others we support.

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we review and rank the four most popular methods one may type on their iOS devices. The four we selected includes the new FlickType universal keyboard in beta, Voice Over’s Braille Onscreen input, Dictation, and touch typing. All options provide a fantastic way to express yourself in short messages and notes to longer social media posts and emails. However, not all are equal in terms of actual typing efficiency. For this episode, we type the line, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” We then approximate the duration and calculate the average words per minute and conclude with our thoughts. This is a very simplistic testing method, and should be considered as a point of reference for you to test each item out yourself. Below is our preliminary results and rankings:

* Flick Type universal keyboard and Braille Onscreen Input, 50-56 words per minute

* Dictation, 84 words per minute

* Touch Typing, 10-12 words per minute

Please note that dictation might have the most words per minute, but anyone who used it knows the discrepancies commonly found when dictating complete emails, social media posts, and longer body of text.

If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, feel free to send us an email here. All of our podcasts and other information related to Veterans, blindness, acceptance of a disability, and other resources may be found at BlindNotAlone.com

Don’t miss another Blind Vet Tech teleconference, click here to see a list of our teleconferences and others we support.

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we demonstrate how En-Vision America’s ScripTalk works. Reading the labels of most medications and prescriptions remains a very daunting task for us with visual impairments. OCR apps and devices often time struggle to extract the text or group text into segments that makes sense. Individuals relying on magnifiers find themselves squinting at small text with background colors and watermarks obstructing their view. The best solution is to rely on sighted assistance, like an AIRA agent or family member to identify bottles and boxes. En-Vision America established ScriptAbility to resolve these issues. This service is free through certain pharmacies, like Walmart, CVS, Express Scripts, and other partnering pharmacies. ScriptAbility encompasses ScripTalk, ScriptView, and a Braille label.

ScripTalk enables individuals with visual impairments to hear what is on their medication labels. Each label contains a special chip that the ScripTalk station, ScripTalk Mobile on Android, or ScripTalk Mobile on iOS reads. Of these, the ScripTalk station is the widest solution currently used. Listen to this episode of the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News, and Reviews to learn how to use the ScripTalk station.

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If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, feel free to send us an email here. All of our podcasts and other information related to Veterans, blindness, acceptance of a disability, and other resources may be found at BlindNotAlone.com

Don’t miss another Blind Vet Tech teleconference, click here to see a list of our teleconferences and others we support.

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we demonstrate how to control our privacy and security settings through the Facebook iOS app. During our Blind Vet Tech News Update for April and Blind Vet Tech teleconferences, we discussed the issues around Facebook and how to secure and protect ourselves and our friends. After all, our safety and security within Facebook is first and foremost our responsibility, should we opt to share on the social network.

Facebook does offer a wide range of tools and resources to learn more about your privacy and security options, however many do not have the time or patience to explore each of these items. With this in mind, we take a look at the basic privacy options and how to preform a quick privacy check up.

* Open the Facebook app

* Tap on the Navigation tab at the bottom right corner of the score

* Tap on the Show Privacy and Security button

* Tap on the Privacy Checkup

* Control who can see your posts

* Control who can see different parts of your profile

* Control what third party websites and apps you use Facebook as a SSO

* Explore the remaining items on the page to visit your activity log, block users, limit who can contact you , and much more

If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, feel free to send us an email here. All of our podcasts and other information related to Veterans, blindness, acceptance of a disability, and other resources may be found at BlindNotAlone.com

Don’t miss another Blind Vet Tech teleconference, click here to see a list of our teleconferences and others we support.

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we start our My Healthy Vet demystification series to empower Veterans to manage their healthcare goals. The My Healthy Vet portal for Veterans is the primary method to keep track of your healthcare information, appointments, medications, communications, and much more.

Over the last couple of years, the VA enhanced the accessibility and usability of the A portal. To demonstrate how usable the system is, we will explore different pages and complete various tasks within My Healthy Vet. This first episode will focus on the top navigational menu bar and the Home Page.

To start, we first must navigate to My Healthy Vet and log into the system. Here is how to do this:

* Open https://www.myhealth.va.gov/

* Navigate to Login, which is after the initial menu bars

* Insert your user name and password

* login or just press enter after inputing your password

There is a show button after the password to uncover your password in the event you wish to. Make sure you typed in the correct information

After logging into the My Healthy Vet portal, there are two major sections on the home page. The first is a series of tabs at the top of the screen. The second is a series of major headings located within the body of the webpage featuring the most commonly used services and tools. Its from these two areas all other tasks from My Healthy Vet will be performed.

My Healthy Vet Tabs

The main tabs at the top of every My Healthy Vet page enables you to navigate all of the available tools and features of My Healthy Vet. With a screen reader, these appear as collapsed buttons, and visually they look like standard tabs commonly found on webpages and apps. Expanding each tab just requires. You to activate the button, which will uncover the various links under each tab. Here is a complete list of the tabs and the available links under each tab:

* Home

* Home page (this is the page we explore in this episode)

* Personal Information

* Personal Information, main page for the Personal Information section

* My Profile, page where you update your personal contact information, email notifications, and other information for My Healthy Vet

* Download My Data, page with links to download health related data

* Change Password, page to update your password

* In Case of an Emergency, page to add and update any emergency points of contact within My Healthy Vet

* My Account, page with additional links for your account’s activity, status, and who has access

* Health Information Card, page to print a medical card based on the information you. Input throughout the My Healthy Vet. Portal

* My Handbook

* My Links

* Pharmacy

* Pharmacy

* Refill VA prescriptions, page to request refills

* VA Prescriptions History

* VA Prescription Tracking, page to track your prescriptions

* My Medications List, printable. List of medications listed on both the VA medication list and self enter medications page

* VA Medications List, printable page. With just. Your VA prescriptions

* Self Entered Medications Plus Supplements, page to input any over the counter, private provider medications, and supplements

* Research Health

* Research Health, series of pages with information about healthy living, medical conditions, treatments, and much more

* Healthy Living Centers

* Mental health

* Medical Library

* Get Care

* Get Care, main page for Get Care

* Caregivers, page to identify any providers

* Treatment Facilities,

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we continue our “getting Started with Narrator” series. This series enables one to learn the basics of Narrator by bringing the Get Started with Narrator by Microsoft’s Accessibility team support guide alive in a podcast. Our Getting Started with Narrator series is a companion tool for our monthly Blind Vet Tech Monthly Narrator Talk which occurs on the second Tuesday of the month at 1300 CST. To learn how to connect, click here.

To follow along, you will need your Windows 10 computer updated to at least the Falls Creator version or the new April 2018 update, since earlier versions of Windows 10 do not have many of the same key combos or functions as newer versions of Windows. Anyone with Windows 8 or older will not be able to follow along on their computers, since Narrator was very limited in these versions. We feel very strongly that Narrator’s updates since Windows 10, and especially after Falls Creator update, there is little need for JAWS or NVDA if you require a screen reader to preform simple tasks like emailing, surfing the web, drafting Office documents, reading PDFs, or interacting with apps.

The most efficient method to read with Narrator requires one to leverage the features of Scan Mode with the commands for reading with Narrator. If you are not familiar with Scan Mode, review Chapter 3’s lesson on how to use Scan Mode with Edge, apps, and tables. When you feel comfortable navigating with Scan Mode, here are our favorite reading keyboard commands:

* Caps lock plus Y Moves Narrator’s focus and cursor to the beginning of a document or webpage

* Caps lock plus B Moves Narrator’s focus and cursor to the end of a document or webpage

* Caps lock plus H reads the entire document or webpage

* Caps lock plus R or Caps lock plus M starts the continuous reading of a document or webpage from Narrator’s current location

* Caps lock plus Right Bracket starts the continuous reading from the start of a document to Narrator’s current location. Useful for reading back what you wrote in an email.

* Caps lock plus A changes the verbosity level from 0 (least) to 5 (greatest)

* Caps lock plus F announces information about the font or object in Narrator’s focus

If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, feel free to send us an email here. All of our podcasts and other information related to Veterans, blindness, acceptance of a disability,

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we unbox, setup, demonstrate, and provide our initial review about AIRA’s Horizon glasses. We previously published an article on this amazing service that relies on a pair of smart glasses and an AIRA Agent to understand their environments, sort laundry, read a book, and so much more. The Horizon glasses showcases AIRA’s commitment to building upon feedback they receive from us, “explorers,” through the Horizon’s:

* Camera that is located on the bridge of the glasses and not on the arm

* Devising a system whereby one needs not possess a smart phone or even know how to use a smart phone to utilize AIRA’s service

* Develop the Chloe AI, enabling Explorers the opportunity to read documents without an agent through built in OCR features

* and so much more….

Listen to the podcast to learn more about AIRA’s Horizon and our views about the feel and capabilities. Understand that the demonstration utilizes a beta form of the AIRA Horizons, and may lack some of the updates available in later public releases.

If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, feel free to send us an email here.All of our podcasts and other information related to Veterans, blindness, acceptance of a disability, and other resources may be found at BlindNotAlone.comDon’t miss another Blind Vet Tech teleconference, click here to see a list of our teleconferences and others we support.

Welcome to April’s edition of the Blind Vet tech News Update. In this episode we announce the times and dates for our Blind Vet Tech teleconferences for May, Windows10 April update, iTunes on the Windows Store, and Microsoft and Apple declare peace.

May Blind Vet Tech Teleconferences

If you have any questions with life with a visual impairment or methods to address barriers associated with low vision and blindness, join us on one of our Blind Vet Tech Monthly Talks. Our Monthly Talks provide visually impaired individuals the chance to learn and share information about their favorite devices. Below is a list of our calls for April and how to connect via your computers, smart phones, or landline phones. We rely on Zoom for our teleconferencing platform, which is very usable. More information may be located by clicking here.

* May 8th – Blind Vet Tech Monthly Narrator Talk

* When – 1300 or 1PM CST

* Dial – (646) 876-9923,,7854091838#

* URL – https://zoom.us/j/7854091838

* May 10th – Blind Vet Tech Monthly MacOS Talk

* When – 1300 or 1PM CST

* Dial – (646) 876-9923,,7854091838#

* URL – https://zoom.us/j/7854091838

* May 17th – Blind Vet Tech Monthly Tech Talk

* When – 1300 or 1PM CST

* Dial – (646) 876-9923,,7854091838#

* URL – https://zoom.us/j/7854091838

* May 17th – Blind Vet Tech Open Mic Night

* When – 1900 or 7PM CST

* Dial – (646) 876-9923,,7854091838#

* URL – https://zoom.us/j/7854091838

Windows 10 April 2018 Update

On April 30th, Microsoft released the April 2018 update to Windows 10. Here is Microsoft’s official announcement. However, here are the three items that interest us the most.

* Dictation may be activated by pressing Windows Key plus H

* Synchronize and pick up tabs from Edge between IOS devices and Windows 10

* Stabilization, Tab, and Braille updates to Narrator

iTunes on the Windows Store

After a year of waiting, Apple finally released iTunes on the Windows Store. The biggest reason to switch to this version is iTunes updates occurs in the background. More importantly, Windows 10S users finally may download iTunes and start enjoying Apple’s media services. This is the same version of iTunes available off Apple’s website, but I do foresee a time when apple just might redirect individuals to the Windows Store.

Microsoft and Apple ends their feud

The Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft announced the end to the long standing feud with Apple and other tech companies over. This is not exactly a surprise,

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we continue our “getting Started with Narrator” series. This series enables one to learn the basics of Narrator by following along by bringing the Get Started with Narrator by Microsoft’s Accessibility team support guide alive in a podcast. Our Getting Started with Narrator series is a companion tool for our monthly Blind Vet Tech Monthly Narrator Talk which occurs on the second Tuesday of the month at 1300 CST. To learn how to connect, click here.

To follow along, you will need Windows 10 Fall Creators Edition or later, since earlier versions of Windows 10 do not have many of the same key combos or functions as newer versions of Windows. Anyone with Windows 8 or older will not be able to follow along on their computers, since Narrator was very limited in these versions. We feel very strongly that Narrator’s updates since Windows 10, and especially after Falls Creator update, there is little need for JAWS or NVDA if you require a screen reader to preform simple tasks like emailing, surfing the web, drafting Office documents, reading PDFs, or interacting with apps.

Chapter 3 focuses on navigating with Scan Mode. Scan mode is an interesting combination of single key navigation found within JAWS, the Voice Over Rotor in iOS, and the MacOS Voice Over Keyboard Commander. Pressing Caps Lock plus Spacebar will enable and disable Scan Mode, so if you hear Narrator announce that Scan Mode is On when you switch to an app like Edge, this is how to deactivate it and use basic keyboard navigation. However, Scan Mode provides a more efficient method to navigate around webpages to apps like Netflix with single or multiple key commands. Here are some of the notable key commands for Scan Mode:

Caps Lock Spacebar activates and deactivates Scan Mode

* Up and down arrow keys will navigate you to the next and previous paragraph or element on the screen

* Spacebar activates links, buttons, and page elements

* Heading navigation only requires the pressing of H or Shift H; 1, 2, 3, 4, etc….; or Alt up or Alt Down

* Link navigation only requires the pressing of K or Shift K; or Alt left or right arrow

* Table navigation requires pressing of Control, and Alt with any arrow key to move to the next or previous cell

Scan Mode offers many more key combinations you may learn about through this podcast or by visiting Microsoft’s official Get Started with Narrator guide.

If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests,

In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we explore the changes to the Battery settings included in the iOS 11.3 update. In January’s News Update, we talked about the scandal after Apple admitted to throttling the performance of iPhones and iPads base on battery health. In the 11.3 update, apple included some new features for users to monitor the health of the battery and disable performance throttling based on the battery’s health.

If you wish to learn more about your iPhone’s or iPad’s battery, visit these two pages by Apple:

* Why Apple uses lithium ion batteries and and what is a charge cycle.

* Your battery’s health and performance.

Within iOS 11.3, here are the settings you will find:

* Ability to toggle battery percentage in the menu bar on or off

* Low Power Mode’s on and off toggle

* Shortcut to the Displays menu to reduce the brightness of your screen

* Information about your battery’s health

* Table depicting apps and services using your battery

* Time since you last fully charged your device

Knowing about these settings and following the tips and tricks Apple outlines in their support pages will increase the longevity of your iPHone’s and iPad’s health.

href=”http://blindnotalone.com/zoom/”>If you enjoy the Blind Vet Tech Podcast series, we invite anyone interested in assistive technology for the blind to join us on our monthly tech teleconferences. Click here to see a list of our calls and how to connect via Zoom.

Stay Informed

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Blind Vet Tech team, by doing one of the following:

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech News and Announcements podcast on iTunes

* Subscribe to the Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides and Tutorials on iTunes

* Follow the Blind Vet Tech podcasts on your Victor Reader Stream, Hims Blaze, or podcasting app by searching for Blind Vet Tech in the podcast section

* Receive an email about any posts by subscribing to our blog

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, feel free to send us an email here. All of our podcasts and other information related to Veterans, blindness, acceptance of a disability, and other resources may be found at BlindNotAlone.com

Don’t miss another Blind Vet Tech teleconference, click here to see a list of our teleconferences and others we support.