The Canadian Council of the Blind Podcast

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

 

GTT is an exciting initiative of the Canadian Council of the Blind, founded in Ottawa in 2011 by Kim Kilpatrick and Ellen Goodman.  GTT aims to help people who are blind or have low vision in their exploration of low vision and blindness related access technology.  Through involvement with GTT participants can learn from and discuss assistive technology with others walking the same path of discovery. 

 

GTT is made up of blindness related assistive technology users, and those who have an interest in using assistive technology designed to help blind and vision impaired people level the playing field.  GTT groups interact through social media, and periodically meet in-person or by teleconference to share their passions for assistive technology and to learn what others can offer from their individual perspectives. 

 

Show Notes:

April 29, 2020

Presenter: Gerry Chevalier

In this first episode of Using Windows From the Keyboard, Gerry introduces basic concepts of using Windows without a mouse emphasizing the most important keyboard keys to use instead of the mouse. He also describes the main working areas of Windows: the Desktop, Start Menu, Task Bar, and System Tray. He concludes with examples of the importance of using the Applications key.

For more information please contact your GTT Coordinators:

 

Albert Ruel                   or                       Kim Kilpatrick

1-877-304-0968,550                               1-877-304-0968,513

[email protected]                [email protected]

 

CCB Backgrounder:

 

The CCB was founded in 1944 by a coalition of blind war veterans, schools of the blind and local chapters to create a national self-governing organization. The CCB was incorporated by Letters Patent on May 10, 1950 and is a registered charity under the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The purpose of the CCB is to give people with vision loss a distinctive and unique perspective before governments.  CCB deals with the ongoing effects of vision loss by encouraging active living and rehabilitation through peer support and social and recreational activities.  

CCB promotes measures to conserve sight, create a close relationship with the sighted community and provide employment opportunities.

 

The CCB recognizes that vision loss has no boundaries with respect to gender, income, ethnicity, culture, other disabilities or age. 

The CCB understands in many instances vision loss is preventable and sometimes is symptomatic of other health issues.  For the 21st century, the CCB is committed to an integrated proactive health approach for early detection to improve the quality of life for all Canadians.

As the largest membership organization of the blind and partially sighted in Canada the CCB is the "Voice of the Blind™". 

 

CCB National Office

100-20 James Street Ottawa ON K2P 0T6

Toll Free: 1-877-304-0968 Email: [email protected] URL: www.ccbnational.net

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

GTT is an exciting initiative of the Canadian Council of the Blind, founded in Ottawa in 2011 by Kim Kilpatrick and Ellen Goodman.  GTT aims to help people who are blind or have low vision in their exploration of low vision and blindness related access technology.  Through involvement with GTT participants can learn from and discuss assistive technology with others walking the same path of discovery. 

GTT is made up of blindness related assistive technology users, and those who have an interest in using assistive technology designed to help blind and vision impaired people level the playing field.  GTT groups interact through social media, and periodically meet in-person or by teleconference to share their passions for assistive technology and to learn what others can offer from their individual perspectives. 

Show Notes:

April 8, 2020

Theme: Accesibuild Indoor Navigation App

Presenters: Jeff Godfrey, app developer,  can be reach through Accesibuild web site.

Brian Bibeault, beta tester

In this regular CCB-GTT national conference call, the presenters demonstrate this new iOS and soon to be Android free indoor navigation app. The app helps anyone including blind and low vision people find points of interest in a building based on a digitized 3D map created by the app developer that is downloaded to the user’s smartphone. The building owner pays for the map development while the app is free for the user.

For more information please contact your GTT Coordinators:

Albert Ruel                   or                       Kim Kilpatrick

1-877-304-0968,550                               1-877-304-0968,513

[email protected]                [email protected]

CCB Backgrounder:

The CCB was founded in 1944 by a coalition of blind war veterans, schools of the blind and local chapters to create a national self-governing organization. The CCB was incorporated by Letters Patent on May 10, 1950 and is a registered charity under the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The purpose of the CCB is to give people with vision loss a distinctive and unique perspective before governments.  CCB deals with the ongoing effects of vision loss by encouraging active living and rehabilitation through peer support and social and recreational activities.  

CCB promotes measures to conserve sight, create a close relationship with the sighted community and provide employment opportunities.

The CCB recognizes that vision loss has no boundaries with respect to gender, income, ethnicity, culture, other disabilities or age. 

The CCB understands in many instances vision loss is preventable and sometimes is symptomatic of other health issues.  For the 21st century, the CCB is committed to an integrated proactive health approach for early detection to improve the quality of life for all Canadians.

As the largest membership organization of the blind and partially sighted in Canada the CCB is the "Voice of the Blind™". 

CCB National Office

100-20 James Street Ottawa ON  K2P 0T6

Toll Free: 1-877-304-0968 Email: [email protected] URL: www.ccbnational.net

5G Networks Explained by Monty Lilburn

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

GTT is an exciting initiative of the Canadian Council of the Blind, founded in Ottawa in 2011 by Kim Kilpatrick and Ellen Goodman.  GTT aims to help people who are blind or have low vision in their exploration of low vision and blindness related access technology.  Through involvement with GTT participants can learn from and discuss assistive technology with others walking the same path of discovery. 

GTT is made up of blindness related assistive technology users, and those who have an interest in using assistive technology designed to help blind and vision impaired people level the playing field.  GTT groups interact through social media, and periodically meet in-person or by teleconference to share their passions for assistive technology and to learn what others can offer from their individual perspectives. 

Show Notes:

13 GTT New Westminster Meeting Show Notes, JAWS and NVDA OCR, November 28, 2018

Presenters: Matthew Alvernaz, [email protected] and Albert Ruel, [email protected]

This is an older recording from November 2018 that we thought could still assist those who are struggling to access PDF and other graphical images from their PCs. 

Matthew Alvernaz and Albert Ruel demonstrated the use of the JAWS Layered Keystrokes to scan and read printed documents, convert PDF files to text, and how to access some graphics on the computer screen.  These features have been available to JAWS users since version 14. 

NVDA OCR features were also discussed and demonstrated by Matthew.  NVDA may work better at this task with the OCR Add-on installed in order to provide access to PDF files with the keystroke NVDA/Insert R. 

 

NVDA Download Page:

NVDA OCR Download Page: Important: if you are using NVDA 2017.3 or later on Windows 10, please consider using buit-in Windows 10 OCR.

Performs optical character recognition (OCR) to extract text from an object which is inaccessible. The Tesseract OCR engine is used. To perform OCR, move to the object in question using object navigation and press NVDA+r. You can set the OCR recognition language by going to the NVDA settings panel and selecting

JAWS For Windows Download Page:

JAWS Layered Keystrokes for OCR: Layered keystrokes are keystrokes that require you to first press and release INSERT+SPACEBAR, and then press a different key to perform a function in JAWS. Layered keystrokes are easy to use and remember, and they do not interfere with native keystrokes within applications.

Kurzweil Scan and Read for PDF Conversion: Kurzweil 1000 combines traditional reading machine technologies such as scanning, image processing, and text-to-speech with communication and productivity tools.

Openbook Scan and Read for PDF Conversion: OpenBook converts printed documents or graphic-based text into an electronic text format on your PC, using high-quality speech and the latest optical character recognition (OCR) technology. OpenBook is innovative software designed to enhance success for people who are blind or have low vision who need access to printed and electronic materials. OpenBook and the PEARL document camera create a complete scanning and reading system for work, home, and school.

For more information please contact your GTT Coordinators/Trainers:

Kim Kilpatrick 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 513

Albert Ruel 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 550

David Green 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 509

CCB Backgrounder:

The CCB was founded in 1944 by a coalition of blind war veterans, schools of the blind and local chapters to create a national self-governing organization. The CCB was incorporated by Letters Patent on May 10, 1950 and is a registered charity under the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The purpose of the CCB is to give people with vision loss a distinctive and unique perspective before governments.  CCB deals with the ongoing effects of vis

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

GTT is an exciting initiative of the Canadian Council of the Blind, founded in Ottawa in 2011 by Kim Kilpatrick and Ellen Goodman.  GTT aims to help people who are blind or have low vision in their exploration of low vision and blindness related access technology.  Through involvement with GTT participants can learn from and discuss assistive technology with others walking the same path of discovery. 

GTT is made up of blindness related assistive technology users, and those who have an interest in using assistive technology designed to help blind and vision impaired people level the playing field.  GTT groups interact through social media, and periodically meet in-person or by teleconference to share their passions for assistive technology and to learn what others can offer from their individual perspectives. 

Show Notes:

November 27, 2019

Theme: Library and Reading Apps for iOS

Presenters: Ryan Fleury, [email protected] and Albert Ruel, [email protected]

Apps Demonstrated and Discussed:

Voice Dream Reader/Writer Download from the AppStore.

4 Apps in This Bundle

Voice Dream Reader: demonstrated how to download audiobooks from Dropbox, the Files App and CELA Library. 

Voice Dream Writer: demonstrated how to create documents and save them to VDR and how to use it for following an agenda during meetings.

Voice Dream Scanner: not demonstrated, however mentioned in terms of scanning on the fly or downloading from previously scanned documents.

Voice Pack: US English

Safari Browser, CELA Search and Favourites: demonstrated how to search for and download audiobooks to iOS devices, and how to set the CELA Library to the Favourites list.

CELA Library, Daisy Zipped and Direct To Player: demonstrated how to search for and send audiobooks to the Direct To Player bookshelf.

Dolphin EasyReader, CELA Library Direct To Player Download from the AppStore: demonstrated how to download Direct To Player audiobooks to this app from the CELA Library website.

Reading app for Dyslexia & VI by Dolphin Computer Access Ltd

Audible.ca/com: demonstrated how to use the app to listen to purchased audiobooks from the user’s Library.

Google Play Books download from the AppStore: demonstrated how to use the app to listen to purchased audiobooks from the user’s Library.

Other Audiobook Listening Apps Mentioned:

Amazon Speakers

Google Speakers

Overdrive

Cloud Library

Hoopla

Libby

Kindle

iBooks/Apple Books App

For more information please contact your GTT Coordinators/Trainers:

Kim Kilpatrick 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 513

Albert Ruel 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 550

David Green 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 509

CCB Backgrounder:

The CCB was founded in 1944 by a coalition of blind war veterans, schools of the blind and local chapters to create a national self-governing organization. The CCB was incorporated by Letters Patent on May 10, 1950 and is a registered charity under the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The purpose of the CCB is to give people with vision loss a distinctive and unique perspective before governments.  CCB deals with the ongoing effects of vision loss by encouraging active living and rehabilitation through peer support and social and recreational activities.  

CCB promotes measures to conserve sight, create a close relationship with the sighted community and provide employment opportunities.

The CCB recognizes that vision loss has no boundaries with respect to gender, income, ethnicity, culture, other disabilities or age. 

The CCB understands in many instances vision loss is preventable and sometimes is symptomatic of other health issues.  For the 21st century, the CCB is committed to an integrated proactive health approach for early detection to improve the quality of life for all Canadians.

As the largest membership organization of the blind and partially sighted in Can

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

GTT is an exciting initiative of the Canadian Council of the Blind, founded in Ottawa in 2011 by Kim Kilpatrick and Ellen Goodman.  GTT aims to help people who are blind or have low vision in their exploration of low vision and blindness related access technology.  Through involvement with GTT participants can learn from and discuss assistive technology with others walking the same path of discovery. 

GTT is made up of blindness related assistive technology users, and those who have an interest in using assistive technology designed to help blind and vision impaired people level the playing field.  GTT groups interact through social media, and periodically meet in-person or by teleconference to share their passions for assistive technology and to learn what others can offer from their individual perspectives. 

Show Notes:

GTT Beginners National Conference Call, iOS 13 New Gestures, November 26, 2019

Elmer Thiesen kindly provided this presentation.  For questions contact him directly. 

Adding The 2-Finger Swipe for Rotor Gesture

The following are instructions for adding the 2-finger swipe right/left to turn the Rotor in iOS 13X.

Scroll to Settings, One finger double tap.

Scroll to Accessibility, one finger double tap.

Scroll to Voiceover, one finger double tap.

Scroll to Commands, one finger double tap.

Scroll to All Commands, one finger double tap

Scroll to rotor, one finger double tap.

Scroll to Next Rotor, one finger double tap.

scroll to Two Finger Swipe Right, one finger double tap to add.

Go back two pages by one finger double tapping the Back Button at the top left corner of the screen twice.

scroll down to previous rotor. One finger double tap.

Scroll to add gesture, one finger double tap.

scroll to Two Finger Swipe Left, one finger double tap to add.

Go back two pages by one finger double tapping the Back Button at the top left corner of the screen twice, or just close the whole Settings page, your newly added actions are now available with a two finger swipe left or right to rotate your rotor.

Adding the 4-finger Swipe Up/Down Gesture to Open the Voiceover Settings Page

To those interested, the following is instructions on setting up a gesture that will take you directly to the Voiceover Settings Page. 

Go to settings one finger double tap.

Go to accessibility, one finger double tap.

go to VoiceOver, one finger double tap.

scroll down to commands, one finger double tap.

scroll down to all commands, one finger double tap.

scroll down to voiceover, one finger double tap.

Scroll to open voice settings, one finger double tap.

Scroll to add gesture, one finger double tap.

Scroll down to whatever gesture you wish to choose, one finger double tap. I chose a four finger swipe down.

For more information please contact your GTT Coordinators/Trainers:

Kim Kilpatrick 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 513

Albert Ruel 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 550

David Green 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 509

CCB Backgrounder:

The CCB was founded in 1944 by a coalition of blind war veterans, schools of the blind and local chapters to create a national self-governing organization. The CCB was incorporated by Letters Patent on May 10, 1950 and is a registered charity under the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The purpose of the CCB is to give people with vision loss a distinctive and unique perspective before governments.  CCB deals with the ongoing effects of vision loss by encouraging active living and rehabilitation through peer support and social and recreational activities.  

CCB promotes measures to conserve sight, create a close relationship with the sighted community and provide employment opportunities.

The CCB recognizes that vision loss has no boundaries with respect to gender, income, ethnicity, culture, other disabilities or age. 

The CCB understands in many instances vision los

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

 

Show Notes:

October 9, 2019

On October 9, 2019 the GTT National Conference Call discussed the above topic with the help of the below presenters, which was followed by a number of spirited questions from the floor.  The presenters were asked to talk about 3 of the things they like and don’t like about the version being used on that date, namely iOS 13.1.2.  Since then additional updates have been released so depending on the date you read these Summary Notes your experience may be different. 

 

To learn more about iOS 13 visit this Apple Website:

 

To access many fantastic iOS 13 AppleVis Podcasts follow this link:

 

Presenters: Michael Feir, Elmer Thiesen, Tom Dekker, Kim Kilpatrick, Brian Bibeault and David Green. 

 

Michael Feir:

Michael expressed frustration over the hang-up bug, and suggested that in iOS 13.1.2 users can use triple click on the home button three times to turn off Voice Over, which always resolves the freeze being experienced.

To set the triple tap on the Home or Side buttons to Voice Over do the following: Go to Settings, Accessibility and select the Accessibility Shortcut to launch Voice Over.

Be careful not to accidently click the button five times in a row without sufficient pause or you can activate the SOS call to 911.

Custom Controls Can Be used to limit or expand the haptic feedback and sounds given off by iOS 13 devices. The user can also re-define existing gestures, and define undefined gestures to functions that are difficult to manage, like the turning of the Rotor dial.

The Reminders app is another area where iOS 13 has made great strides. It is far more customizable and configurable to the needs of the end user. It now boasts some project management features that make it really good to use.

 

Elmer Thiesen:

Elmer indicated that for him the ability to customize gestures is a really big deal, and the first one he changed was the Rotor gesture to use two fingers sliding across the screen left or right to turn it in those directions.

He also expressed that the Vertical Scroll Bar is a great addition to iOS 13. It allows the user to scroll pages of information far more easily and efficiently.

Elmer likes the ability to establish Activities with desired features like, having a specific voice read emails with no punctuation, and another voice work on word processing apps with all punctuation turned on. These can now be customized to the user’s preference.

One of the bugs Elmer has struggled with is that Siri would get lost in what she was asked to access and keep repeating the same irrelevant thing over and over again until he re-set the Network Settings. Apple Support assisted in getting this sorted out.

 

Tom Dekker:

Screen Recording is the thing Tom likes most about the upgrade to iOS 13. it never quite worked well before iOS 13, and now works very well with good quality sound.

Commands and the ability to customize them is another of Tom’s favourite things about iOS 13.

On Screen Braille keyboard is better than ever. He can now type more quickly and with more accuracy than before.

Tom thinks that a weird thing is the iPhone User Guide downloaded to the iOS Books app. It only reads the first line or two of each paragraph. It doesn’t track anything correctly. Older Guides work well, but not this one.

 

Kim Kilpatrick:

Kim agreed that the iOS 13 User Guide doesn’t work well.

As for the hang-up bug, her experience seems to be that it only happens when she uses the microphone button on the wired earbuds. She also indicated that this bug didn’t come up during the beta testing phase, which she has been on since the beginning.

Kim expressed that a great feature of iOS 13 is that Accessibility is not buried in General and that it has its own spot in Settings.

Kim has heard that Low Vision users are liking the Dark Mode offered in iOS 13.

She indicated that there are some good things added to Braille suppor

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

 

GTT is an exciting initiative of the Canadian Council of the Blind, founded in Ottawa in 2011 by Kim Kilpatrick and Ellen Goodman.  GTT aims to help people who are blind or have low vision in their exploration of low vision and blindness related access technology.  Through involvement with GTT participants can learn from and discuss assistive technology with others walking the same path of discovery. 

 

GTT is made up of blindness related assistive technology users, and those who have an interest in using assistive technology designed to help blind and vision impaired people level the playing field.  GTT groups interact through social media, and periodically meet in-person or by teleconference to share their passions for assistive technology and to learn what others can offer from their individual perspectives. 

 

Show Notes:

September 25, 2019

How to use Reader View on the Mac, PC, iOS and Android Browsers

 

What is Reader/Simplified View, and why does anyone want to explore it?  Here’s an article that might explain it, followed by instructions on how to activate it in your favourite, or soon to be favourite browser. 

 

Reader View

First posted on July 12, 2018 by Rob Tomlinson

“Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s dictum that “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” can be re-deployed most helpfully when discussing Reader View, a topic that touches on web page design and browser behaviour.”…

 

PC Browsers:

 

Simplified View for Google Chrome on the PC:

Google Chrome Download Page;

type this into a new tab in Google Chrome

chrome://flags/#enable-reader-mode

press enter.

A Chrome settings page comes up that you can navigate using headings.

Press the letter H until you get to reading mode.

There is a combo box that shows that reader mode is disabled.

Press enter to go into forms mode if using Jaws.

Press the down arrow to get to enabled and press enter.

Go to the bottom of the page with control end and there is a restart chrome button, and Press enter.

Now visit a page that has news stories such as this article from the Victoria Times Colonist,

You can try down arrowing through the page and see all the links, controls and advertisements on the page.

Press the Alt Key to bring up a menu and either up or down arrow to “Toggle distilled page contents” and press enter.

you will hear your screen reader say, “Simplified View”.

Now what you have is the news article in its entirety without the ads and other controls.

To get the page back to normal view, repeat step 11 and press Enter.

Press the Escape Key to close the menu.

 

Reader View for Firefox on the PC:

Reader View is a Firefox feature that strips away clutter like buttons, ads and background images, and changes the page's text size, contrast and layout for better readability.

Mozilla Firefox Download Page;

Open Firefox and enter the address of the page you want to visit, let’s use the Victoria Times Colonist article again.

Examine the page with down and up arrow keys to see that it is cluttered with links, controls and advertisements.

Press the f9 key to enable reader view.

If nothing happens then reader view is not available for the current page.

If reader view is available, the page loads and is clutter free.

 

Mac Browsers:

 

Reader View for Safari on the Mac:

Safari Browser for the Mac Download Page;

To display an article in Reader on the Mac, do the following:

Click the Safari icon on the Dock or Launchpad.

Type in the URL for the website you want to visit.

For example, you might visit The New Yorker at www.newyorker.com.

Click the article you want to read. You see the article with various advertisements, banners, photos, links, and so on.

Click the Reader button, or press Command+Shift+R.

If the article runs over several pages, Reader displays it as one continuous page so you need only scroll down, not click from on