Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[David Chittenden]

I guess I will chime in here. I was congenitally (born) blind. My brother, who 
is two years older, is also blind.

We started school at a blindness school, and then attended a bording school for 
the blind. My parents decided to mainstream us when I entered 6th grade. The 
schools for the blind taught me certain skills such as braille, quite well. 
Fortunately, I was mainstreamed early enough to get a healthy dose of normal 
(sighted) culture.

I attended a private highschool (the best school in the state) which I was able 
to enter because I scored well enough on the entrance exam. Resource teachers 
were not allowed to work at private schools, so I was pretty much on my own, in 
an academically challenging environment, from 9th grade. Note: I was registered 
in the nearby public highschool, so was able to see a resource teacher there 
for 45 minutes per day, four days per week. That person did the important 
braille transcription for tests. At school, however, everything was my 
responsibility.

I took a basic programming course when I was a senior. I enjoyed it so much 
that I decided to become a computer systems engineer. That lasted one semester 
at university. I broke my wrist, so could not type for 8 weeks. I then 
floundered at a community college for a few years, became a massage therapist, 
became a technology salesperson, became an accessibility interface evaluater 
and an accessibility advocate, failed a couple businesses, then returned to 
university for a bachelors in business admin management followed by a masters 
in counseling. After I completed university, I independently immigrated to New 
Zealand. I currently work as the mental health specialist at a small doctor's 
clinic.

I started technology working on a PDP1170 mainframe. My first personal system 
was a Blazie Braille 'n Speak 640 which I used to access local BBSs. I then 
went to DOS, followed by Windows. I switched to the Mac with OSX Mountain Lion. 
I wanted to support the only mainstream company that was actively fully working 
toward blindness accessibility.

I am now dabbling with Android as well as iOS. Because Android gives more 
control to the end user, I suspect it will eventually supercede Apple, so I am 
working with it. I remember Beta vs VHS. Sony owned both, Beta was better, so 
Sony licensed out VHS. Many more people worked with VHS, so it eventually 
surpassed Beta.

Personally, I much prefer Apple's stance on privacy and security. Kids, on the 
other hand, are so inundated with open social media, that they, for the most 
part, do not appear to have the same concerns. Oh well, time will tell where 
things actually end up going. I will enjoy the ride while I am able, and keep 
playing with these wonderfully more and more accessible toys.

As a side note: now that it has been brought to my attention, I am noticing 
that, in this decidely unscientificly random sampling, it appears to be those 
who attended normal school who seem to have adapted better to life in the 
sighted world. Well, at least, those who had annoying parents that pushed, and 
at least one resource teacher who bucked the trend. My partner, being a 
resource teacher, tells me that the resource teachers see how it is for the 
sighted students. Blindness specific teachers in blindness units in schools are 
in a closed loop, so they do not see the sighted trends.

David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: dchitten...@gmail.com
Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
Sent from my iPhone

> On 13 Jul 2016, at 15:05, Donna Goodin  wrote:
> 
> Hi Katie,
> 
> Isn't the VarioUltra the best?  Earlier tonight I was thinking about how 
> bulky things used to be.  My first braille display was a TSI Navigator.  The 
> thing was huge.  I used to carry around what was basically a large briefcase, 
> just to carry around my PC laptop and my braille display, and of course, all 
> the accompanying cables and chargers..  When I compare that with now carrying 
> around my MBA and VU,, not to mention having the option of pairing the VU 
> with the iPhone, the difference between then and now is really striking.
> Cheers,
> Donna
>> On Jul 12, 2016, at 9:38 PM, Katie Zodrow  wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Donna and Scott. I thought I would chime in too.
>> 
>> Yes, you're right about Apple starting accessibility over 30 years ago, even 
>> before we had voiceover and the mac. It sounds like my experience is 
>> somewhat similar to yours, even though I was born a few years later and I 
>> started using computers and technology at an earlier age. My dad was more of 
>> a computer and tech guy too, but both my parents used the computer often at 
>> home and at work.
>> 
>> I grew up during the 1980s and 90s. I have an older sister so I was the 
>> youngest and the only blind person in my family. I was born in Ohio 3 months 
>> premature and have been blind since birth. My family moved to the Chicago 
>> suburbs when I was 2, which is where I grew up. I lived in that area 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Katie Zodrow]

Hi, Donna.

Yes, I’ve been learning to use the VarioUltra since May and love it! :-) its 
the best braille display for me so far. I think its great you can just connect 
a device like your phone via bluetooth and it works once the pairing is 
successfully connected. I can also text or email people with just my iphone and 
the braille display, so that’s awesome I don’t always need to constantly use 
dictation. Its really cool that you can just charge the device with a USB cable 
too instead of carrying around a 12 volt charger. The only problem I have 
sometimes is opening documents. Yesterday, I tried opening a couple files with 
the USB stick connected to the device. They were in .docx format, an every time 
I’d press the navistick to open the file, I would get a warning that said the 
file could not be opened. Really strange. The VU is the lightest and smallest 
display I’ve ever seen compared to my old Braille Lite 40 and the BrailleNote 
MPower. Those were the 2 previous notetakers I used with braille displays. I’ll 
be getting some more training again with the VU in a couple days, so hopefully 
I can find out why the documents were not opening from my flash drive.
> Katie

> On Jul 12, 2016, at 8:05 PM, Donna Goodin  wrote:
> 
> Hi Katie,
> 
> Isn't the VarioUltra the best?  Earlier tonight I was thinking about how 
> bulky things used to be.  My first braille display was a TSI Navigator.  The 
> thing was huge.  I used to carry around what was basically a large briefcase, 
> just to carry around my PC laptop and my braille display, and of course, all 
> the accompanying cables and chargers..  When I compare that with now carrying 
> around my MBA and VU,, not to mention having the option of pairing the VU 
> with the iPhone, the difference between then and now is really striking.
> Cheers,
> Donna
>> On Jul 12, 2016, at 9:38 PM, Katie Zodrow  wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Donna and Scott. I thought I would chime in too.
>> 
>> Yes, you're right about Apple starting accessibility over 30 years ago, even 
>> before we had voiceover and the mac. It sounds like my experience is 
>> somewhat similar to yours, even though I was born a few years later and I 
>> started using computers and technology at an earlier age. My dad was more of 
>> a computer and tech guy too, but both my parents used the computer often at 
>> home and at work.
>> 
>> I grew up during the 1980s and 90s. I have an older sister so I was the 
>> youngest and the only blind person in my family. I was born in Ohio 3 months 
>> premature and have been blind since birth. My family moved to the Chicago 
>> suburbs when I was 2, which is where I grew up. I lived in that area for 18 
>> years until I was 20. My family has always been very encouraging and 
>> supportive. They wanted to give me the best education possible, so I was 
>> mainstreamed in public schools from age 3 to high school. The elementary 
>> school I attended was a few miles away in another city from where we lived, 
>> but they had a great Special Ed program with a resource room for all the 
>> kids with blindness and other disabilities. I would go there if I wasn’t 
>> with the regular classroom teacher during part of the day like for Reading 
>> or Math. The vision teacher in my resource room and the rest of the staff at 
>> the school were all great! Besides my parents helping me learn and 
>> encouraging me to be independent, The school provided all the extra services 
>> I needed back then like reading Braille, O and M skills, and basic daily 
>> living skills. I still use braille often, and that skill along with the 
>> others are very important for employment and being independent. In middle 
>> and high school, I worked with an itinerant teacher for an hour and was in 
>> regular classes with the sighted students the rest of the day.
>> 
>> one of the first computers I used in elementary school was the Apple II E 
>> with that robotic sounding Echo speech synthesizer. The Alex voice and 
>> synthesized speech have come a long way since then!! :-) I remember when I 
>> was about four and five years old and pressing different keys on the Apple 2 
>> keyboard. I thought it was really cool how the Echo synthesizer would 
>> pronounce everything, and that you could change the speech rate and pitch of 
>> the voice. It would always sound really funny  talking in a really high or 
>> low pitch!
>> 
>> When I was in first grade, my parents bought an Apple II GS computer. my 
>> sister and I used to play a lot of games on it and some of them had speech 
>> using the Echo synthesizer so I could play them myself. I remember using the 
>> old word processing programs too like Braille Edit and another one called 
>> ProWord ProBraille in middle and high school. Everything was all on 3.5 inch 
>> floppy disc back then, or they were on those bigger 5 and 1/4 inch 
>> diskettes. During most of my elementary school years, my mom worked at a 
>> high 

Re: semi-ot: Sonar virtual machines and dealing with virtual box

[Jonathan C. Cohn]

It has and accessible G you are right, but it also has full punctuality from 
the commandline. The commandline is accessible. If not confusing.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Cohn 

> On Jul 12, 2016, at 6:24 PM, maurice.mines  wrote:
> 
> I have a question his virtual box usable with voiceover in any way, shape, or 
> form? From the very little bit of research that I’ve done on this issue 
> previously it was thought that virtual box is completely unusable with 
> voiceover, this is still the conventional wisdom? Thank you in advance for 
> your time, and eventual response to my question.
> 
> Sincerely Maurice mines.
> FH phone, 360-524-9331.
>  Amateur radio call sign, kd0iko.
> note the text of my comments have been dictated to the computer by using 
> Dragon version 5 for Mac OS, if there’s something in the text of my comments 
> that you did not fully understand, this is due largely to either the software 
> or the dictation process. If you truly don’t understand, and wish for me to 
> clarify what I have written, please just let me know? I will do my very best 
> to clear up any misunderstandings.
>>  Jul 12, 2016, at 8:50 AM, Jonathan Cohn  wrote:
>> 
>> Scott,
>> 
>> I guess we should take this off the MV list, but perhaps the person that did 
>> my installations did not include the voice packages?  I know very little of 
>> Linux, having BSD UNIX and Solaris (Unix System V based as my primary Unix 
>> variants. I know a significant number of the tools in Linux are based on GNU 
>> tools found in MacOS and a bit more like BSD UnIX than System 
>> 
>> I certainly want to get back to using Emacs which was my primary editor in 
>> my sighted days. 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Jonathan
>> ) )
>> 
>>> On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 10:00 PM Scott Granados  wrote:
>>> Did you hold down the shift key?
>>> 
>>> Also, how long did you wait after the drums?
>>> 
>>> Would be happy to give it a host.  I’ve successfully done this with the 
>>> stock Ubuntu install.
>>> 
 On Jul 6, 2016, at 9:29 PM, Jonathan Cohn  wrote:
 
 I tried your instructions, I hear the drumbeat. But then I do not get any 
 speech. Do you have any ideas?
 On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 7:43 AM Scott Granados  wrote:
> All you do is boot holding the shift key down, you hear a drumbeat deal 
> and then speech starts.  
> 
> Should be relatively straight forward.
>  
> 
>> On Jul 1, 2016, at 7:22 AM, Devin Prater  wrote:
>> 
>> Hmm, how were you able to boot with speech? I didn’t think much of 
>> trying the mainstream distros, since I’ve heard that Unity isn’t 
>> accessible mostly.
>> Sent from my Mac.
>> 
>> Devin Prater
>> d.pra...@me.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jul 1, 2016, at 6:11 AM, Scott Granados  wrote:
>>> 
>>> How did you try to install it under VMWare?
>>> 
>>> One thing I had excellent luck with was Ubuntu under vmware fusion.  
>>> You can install it and boot with speech and you pretty much use the 
>>> normal image creation tool, select the image, enter the type of Linux 
>>> and give it a few minutes to build a VM.
>>> 
>>> That might be something to try.
>>> 
 On Jul 1, 2016, at 7:02 AM, Devin Prater  wrote:
 
 Hi all. So on my path to learning Linux stuff, I’ve gotten Emacspeak 
 to work with the help of Twitter folks, but now wanna see if Linux 
 will be useful to me as a whole. I’ve gotten Fedora working, sort of, 
 but there aren’t any blind-specific packages that I see on other Linux 
 lists, so I now turn to Sonar. I’ve had VmWare Fusion for a while now, 
 but using Sonar with it just fails after installation, nothing 
 happens. So I got Virtual Box in order to play with an Android talking 
 virtual machine, which stopped talking after updating talkback, and 
 found that besides freezes, probably from it being Android, ported to 
 x86 architecture, it ran pretty quickly and responsively, unlike 
 VmWare unless you tweet settings in VMX files. So, are there any tips 
 for more easily using Virtual Box, like adding iOS files to virtual 
 machines and running them, when I tried it didn’t work, or anyone that 
 has a Sonar Virtual machine that works in Virtual box, or VmWare 
 somehow?
 Sent from my Mac.
 
 Devin Prater
 d.pra...@me.com
 
 
 
 
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Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Donna Goodin]

Hi Katie,

Isn't the VarioUltra the best?  Earlier tonight I was thinking about how bulky 
things used to be.  My first braille display was a TSI Navigator.  The thing 
was huge.  I used to carry around what was basically a large briefcase, just to 
carry around my PC laptop and my braille display, and of course, all the 
accompanying cables and chargers..  When I compare that with now carrying 
around my MBA and VU,, not to mention having the option of pairing the VU with 
the iPhone, the difference between then and now is really striking.
Cheers,
Donna
> On Jul 12, 2016, at 9:38 PM, Katie Zodrow  wrote:
> 
> Hi Donna and Scott. I thought I would chime in too.
> 
> Yes, you're right about Apple starting accessibility over 30 years ago, even 
> before we had voiceover and the mac. It sounds like my experience is somewhat 
> similar to yours, even though I was born a few years later and I started 
> using computers and technology at an earlier age. My dad was more of a 
> computer and tech guy too, but both my parents used the computer often at 
> home and at work.
> 
> I grew up during the 1980s and 90s. I have an older sister so I was the 
> youngest and the only blind person in my family. I was born in Ohio 3 months 
> premature and have been blind since birth. My family moved to the Chicago 
> suburbs when I was 2, which is where I grew up. I lived in that area for 18 
> years until I was 20. My family has always been very encouraging and 
> supportive. They wanted to give me the best education possible, so I was 
> mainstreamed in public schools from age 3 to high school. The elementary 
> school I attended was a few miles away in another city from where we lived, 
> but they had a great Special Ed program with a resource room for all the kids 
> with blindness and other disabilities. I would go there if I wasn’t with the 
> regular classroom teacher during part of the day like for Reading or Math. 
> The vision teacher in my resource room and the rest of the staff at the 
> school were all great! Besides my parents helping me learn and encouraging me 
> to be independent, The school provided all the extra services I needed back 
> then like reading Braille, O and M skills, and basic daily living skills. I 
> still use braille often, and that skill along with the others are very 
> important for employment and being independent. In middle and high school, I 
> worked with an itinerant teacher for an hour and was in regular classes with 
> the sighted students the rest of the day.
> 
> one of the first computers I used in elementary school was the Apple II E 
> with that robotic sounding Echo speech synthesizer. The Alex voice and 
> synthesized speech have come a long way since then!! :-) I remember when I 
> was about four and five years old and pressing different keys on the Apple 2 
> keyboard. I thought it was really cool how the Echo synthesizer would 
> pronounce everything, and that you could change the speech rate and pitch of 
> the voice. It would always sound really funny  talking in a really high or 
> low pitch!
> 
> When I was in first grade, my parents bought an Apple II GS computer. my 
> sister and I used to play a lot of games on it and some of them had speech 
> using the Echo synthesizer so I could play them myself. I remember using the 
> old word processing programs too like Braille Edit and another one called 
> ProWord ProBraille in middle and high school. Everything was all on 3.5 inch 
> floppy disc back then, or they were on those bigger 5 and 1/4 inch diskettes. 
> During most of my elementary school years, my mom worked at a high school in 
> a resource room. She worked as a teacher assistant to the main resource 
> teacher preparing materials in Braille for the blind and visually impaired 
> students. When she would put handouts and other information in Braille for me 
> or the high school students, she would normally use either BrailleEdit or 
> another program called Bex. I remember my mom taught me how to use the 
> BrailleEdit software for word processing. You had to use three different 5.25 
> inch disks just to use the program, and they had to be used in a certain 
> order so the program could work correctly. We had the Apple II GS computer 
> until my junior year of high school. I got a desktop PC with Windows 98 and 
> JAWS after that. My parents wanted me to get my own computer before I started 
> college.
> 
> I used a Mac computer for the first time in the summer of 2000 after my first 
> semester of college and learned outSPOKEN. I attended Berklee College of 
> Music in Boston from 2000 to 2004, and almost everyone was using the Mac OS. 
> For a couple of my music tech classes, I used outSPOKEN when I was learning 
> Digital Performer and ProTools. I still used the Windows platform most of the 
> time from 1998 until  2013, then I decided to switch back over to the Mac. I 
> had worked in a couple call centers as a telephone reservations 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Donna Goodin]

Hi Tim,

I agree.  I think it's really fun and interesting getting to know a bit about 
list members' history and early computer experiences.
Cheers,
Donna


> On Jul 12, 2016, at 10:28 AM, Tim Kilburn  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I love reading this personal historical info on folks.  Sure, off topic, but 
> totally acceptable in my world.  The common thread here is supportive and 
> progressive parents and teachers.  I really didn't use Braille until my late 
> teens, probably due to having some usable sight and an immature desire to not 
> be considered blind.  Consequently, my Braille is limited to Grade 1, and 
> primarily only used to cheat, oops, I mean play cards with others.  I was a 
> classroom teacher for about 25 years then moved into Admin as a Technology 
> Consultant and Project Manager for a new Science & Tech Centre in our School 
> District.  Probably 95% of my computer experience has been with Apple 
> products with a smattering of Digital Equipment Main Frames and Windows.
> 
> Later...
> 
> Tim Kilburn
> Fort McMurray, AB Canada
> 
> On Jul 12, 2016, at 07:53, Donna Goodin  > wrote:
> 
> Hi Anne,
> 
> That's really interesting.  I didn't do as well as you with the Optacon.  I 
> was a very fast braille reader, and at age 11, lacked the patience for the 
> slow speed of reading with the Optacon.  But I can see where it would have 
> been different having a specific purpose in mind.  I was using it to read 
> fiction, which I could do much more efficiently with braille.  Probably had I 
> had a need to do something specific with it--and frankly, had I also been a 
> little older--I would have been more driven to stick with it.
> 
> It's funny, I still have my Optacon.  It's just sitting in our basement 
> gathering dust.  I probably should do something with it some day.
> Cheers,
> Donna
>> On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:19 AM, Anne Robertson > > wrote:
>> 
>> I grew up in England and between the ages of 7 and 17, attended schools for 
>> the blind where maths was taught, but the only science was biology, which 
>> didn’t interest me at the time. I would have preferred to learn physics.
>> I finished my secondary education in a mainstream school and specialised in 
>> languages. I studied French at university, but then I went into computer 
>> programming.
>> The tool that allowed me to work on an equal footing with my sighted 
>> colleagues was the optacon. I was able to read the terminal screen and 
>> printout. I programmed the Apple ii in hexadecimal and read all the manuals 
>> using the optacon.
>> I didn’t use speech on a computer until we got a Mac, a 2SI, during the 90s 
>> and I purchased OutSpoken.
>> It never occurred to me that I might not be able to get a job as a blind 
>> person once the optacon became available to me.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Anne
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 12 Jul 2016, at 05:15, Donna Goodin >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hey Scott,
>>> 
>>> First let me say that on a very fundamental level I agree with your post.  
>>> But ...
>>> 
>>> As a kid, I somehow sort of absorbed the fact that because I was blind, 
>>> math and the sciences weren't for me.  And this despite the fact that my 
>>> dad was a computer guy, who spent lots of time and energy conveying to me 
>>> how important tech would be for me..  Some of my earliest memories are of 
>>> him bringing home those old computer punch cards and magnetic tapes for my 
>>> brother and me to play with.  I remember going with him into the office on 
>>> Saturdays and seeing the computer, which was this great big behemoth that 
>>> took up an entire room.  I remember him teaching me base 2 at the dinner 
>>> table.  But once I got to school, my math and science teachers had no idea 
>>> what to do with me.  Classes were taught almost exclusively on the 
>>> blackboard, and I was bored out of my mind.  I grew up thinking I sucked at 
>>> math, and it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized that I was 
>>> actually pretty bloody good at it.  Back in the 80s, I went out with this 
>>> total computer geek.  I was fascinated by all the stuff he was into, but 
>>> neither he nor I knew how to make all that accessible to me.  (And by that 
>>> time, I actually owned a TSI Versabraille).  I think that had I been born 
>>> within the last 25 years, I actually would have chosen IT--or something 
>>> related--as a career.  Clearly something was different for you and John.  
>>> Maybe it was innate intelligence, maybe there was a gender bias at play, 
>>> maybe it was opportunity, I don't know.  I do know from other posts I've 
>>> seen from you that your parents seemed quite willing to think out of the 
>>> box.  I grew up in suburbia.  My mom was 20 when she had me, my dad was 22. 
>>>  Having a blind kid pretty much rocked their young, limited world.  I don't 
>>> think my 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Katie Zodrow]

Hi Donna and Scott. I thought I would chime in too.

Yes, you're right about Apple starting accessibility over 30 years ago, even 
before we had voiceover and the mac. It sounds like my experience is somewhat 
similar to yours, even though I was born a few years later and I started using 
computers and technology at an earlier age. My dad was more of a computer and 
tech guy too, but both my parents used the computer often at home and at work.

I grew up during the 1980s and 90s. I have an older sister so I was the 
youngest and the only blind person in my family. I was born in Ohio 3 months 
premature and have been blind since birth. My family moved to the Chicago 
suburbs when I was 2, which is where I grew up. I lived in that area for 18 
years until I was 20. My family has always been very encouraging and 
supportive. They wanted to give me the best education possible, so I was 
mainstreamed in public schools from age 3 to high school. The elementary school 
I attended was a few miles away in another city from where we lived, but they 
had a great Special Ed program with a resource room for all the kids with 
blindness and other disabilities. I would go there if I wasn’t with the regular 
classroom teacher during part of the day like for Reading or Math. The vision 
teacher in my resource room and the rest of the staff at the school were all 
great! Besides my parents helping me learn and encouraging me to be 
independent, The school provided all the extra services I needed back then like 
reading Braille, O and M skills, and basic daily living skills. I still use 
braille often, and that skill along with the others are very important for 
employment and being independent. In middle and high school, I worked with an 
itinerant teacher for an hour and was in regular classes with the sighted 
students the rest of the day.

one of the first computers I used in elementary school was the Apple II E with 
that robotic sounding Echo speech synthesizer. The Alex voice and synthesized 
speech have come a long way since then!! :-) I remember when I was about four 
and five years old and pressing different keys on the Apple 2 keyboard. I 
thought it was really cool how the Echo synthesizer would pronounce everything, 
and that you could change the speech rate and pitch of the voice. It would 
always sound really funny  talking in a really high or low pitch!

When I was in first grade, my parents bought an Apple II GS computer. my sister 
and I used to play a lot of games on it and some of them had speech using the 
Echo synthesizer so I could play them myself. I remember using the old word 
processing programs too like Braille Edit and another one called ProWord 
ProBraille in middle and high school. Everything was all on 3.5 inch floppy 
disc back then, or they were on those bigger 5 and 1/4 inch diskettes. During 
most of my elementary school years, my mom worked at a high school in a 
resource room. She worked as a teacher assistant to the main resource teacher 
preparing materials in Braille for the blind and visually impaired students. 
When she would put handouts and other information in Braille for me or the high 
school students, she would normally use either BrailleEdit or another program 
called Bex. I remember my mom taught me how to use the BrailleEdit software for 
word processing. You had to use three different 5.25 inch disks just to use the 
program, and they had to be used in a certain order so the program could work 
correctly. We had the Apple II GS computer until my junior year of high school. 
I got a desktop PC with Windows 98 and JAWS after that. My parents wanted me to 
get my own computer before I started college.

I used a Mac computer for the first time in the summer of 2000 after my first 
semester of college and learned outSPOKEN. I attended Berklee College of Music 
in Boston from 2000 to 2004, and almost everyone was using the Mac OS. For a 
couple of my music tech classes, I used outSPOKEN when I was learning Digital 
Performer and ProTools. I still used the Windows platform most of the time from 
1998 until  2013, then I decided to switch back over to the Mac. I had worked 
in a couple call centers as a telephone reservations sales agent for 6 years, 
and wanted to get back into the entertainment industry doing audio production 
work and music again. I majored in Music Production and Engineering in college, 
and wanted to get back into a career I enjoy and am passionate about . Now, I 
do just about everything with the Mac and my iPhone. I received the new 
VarioUltra braille display earlier this year, and use that device with the 
iphone or when I’m at work and don’t want to use speech.

I can’t believe how far we’ve come with technology since the 1980’s! Back then, 
everything was so huge and bulky 30 years ago. Now the size of everything has 
drastically shrunk down and gotten much smaller. It will be interesting to see 
what technology changes happen during the next 30 to 40 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Christopher-Mark Gilland]

Wut?  "Stupid sighted people"?  That's a little harsh, don'tcha think?  LOL! 
Smile.

---
It's all good, just am sayin'.

Christopher Gilland
JAWS Certified, 2016.
Training Instructor.

clgillan...@gmail.com
Phone: (704) 256-8010.
- Original Message - 
From: "Terje Strømberg" 

To: "Mac Group" 
Cc: "Terje Strømberg" 
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2016 3:56 AM
Subject: Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at 
only 22





Take care

Great article. So many stupid sighted people around.



12. jul. 2016 kl. 08.19 skrev Anne Robertson :

I grew up in England and between the ages of 7 and 17, attended schools 
for the blind where maths was taught, but the only science was biology, 
which didn’t interest me at the time. I would have preferred to learn 
physics.
I finished my secondary education in a mainstream school and specialised 
in languages. I studied French at university, but then I went into 
computer programming.
The tool that allowed me to work on an equal footing with my sighted 
colleagues was the optacon. I was able to read the terminal screen and 
printout. I programmed the Apple ii in hexadecimal and read all the 
manuals using the optacon.
I didn’t use speech on a computer until we got a Mac, a 2SI, during the 
90s and I purchased OutSpoken.
It never occurred to me that I might not be able to get a job as a blind 
person once the optacon became available to me.


Cheers,

Anne




On 12 Jul 2016, at 05:15, Donna Goodin  wrote:

Hey Scott,

First let me say that on a very fundamental level I agree with your post. 
But ...


As a kid, I somehow sort of absorbed the fact that because I was blind, 
math and the sciences weren't for me.  And this despite the fact that my 
dad was a computer guy, who spent lots of time and energy conveying to me 
how important tech would be for me..  Some of my earliest memories are of 
him bringing home those old computer punch cards and magnetic tapes for 
my brother and me to play with.  I remember going with him into the 
office on Saturdays and seeing the computer, which was this great big 
behemoth that took up an entire room.  I remember him teaching me base 2 
at the dinner table.  But once I got to school, my math and science 
teachers had no idea what to do with me.  Classes were taught almost 
exclusively on the blackboard, and I was bored out of my mind.  I grew up 
thinking I sucked at math, and it wasn't until I was in my thirties that 
I realized that I was actually pretty bloody good at it.  Back in the 
80s, I went out with this total computer geek.  I was fascinated by all 
the stuff he was into, but neither he nor I knew how to make all that 
accessible to me.  (And by that time, I actually owned a TSI 
Versabraille).  I think that had I been born within the last 25 years, I 
actually would have chosen IT--or something related--as a career. 
Clearly something was different for you and John.  Maybe it was innate 
intelligence, maybe there was a gender bias at play, maybe it was 
opportunity, I don't know.  I do know from other posts I've seen from you 
that your parents seemed quite willing to think out of the box.  I grew 
up in suburbia.  My mom was 20 when she had me, my dad was 22.  Having a 
blind kid pretty much rocked their young, limited world.  I don't think 
my experience is unique.  Whatever it was that jived for you guys, didn't 
carry over to lots of blind folks.


So yes, it was a fluff piece.  And yes, I wish they'd just treat blind 
folks like everyone else.  But I also hope that there's a little Donna 
out there somewhere--or maybe little Donna's parents--who don't buy into 
those preconceived notions about what someone who's blind can or cannot 
do, and that someday 20 years from now, that little Donna finds herself 
at the heart of technological developments.


Just an alternate perspective.
Cheers,
Donna


On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:32 PM, Scott Granados  wrote:

So here’s my problem with the article.

I think it’s fantastic what this young lady is doing, I absolutely 
support her efforts.  I also am thrilled that apple hired someone from 
our community for the design side.  I’m also happy Google does the same 
now and there’s discussion of teaching children to code.


My problem is with the reporter.  These articles are so damn fluff 
happy.  Look at Apple saving the day for blind people.  Like it’s 
something new.  Never mind you John and I built parts of the networks 
this reporter publishes on.:)  The article leads the reader to believe 
that blind people could only code until recently.  This blind guy as a 
child started coding 33+ years ago learning things like 6502 assembler, 
Apple Soft, PASCAL, then C and so forth. We used apples or PCs or what 
ever to get it done and in some ways have been directly or indirectly 
involved with the development of computers 

Re: This Is a Great App for Journaling or Maintaining a Digital Diary

[Christopher-Mark Gilland]

Beware, I've not actually tried the audio side of the app yet, but I did see 
the option in there.  that much I definitely! can guarantee.

---
Christopher Gilland
JAWS Certified, 2016.
Training Instructor.

clgillan...@gmail.com
Phone: (704) 256-8010.
- Original Message - 
From: "M. Taylor" 

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2016 1:41 AM
Subject: RE: This Is a Great App for Journaling or Maintaining a Digital 
Diary




Hello Chris,

Wow!  I am so glad that the Mac version of the app is so awesome.

Okay, since the OS X version allows for audio entries, perhaps I'll pick 
it up, also.


Thanks for the feedback.

Mark

-Original Message-
From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com 
[mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Christopher-Mark 
Gilland

Sent: Monday, July 11, 2016 4:18 AM
To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: This Is a Great App for Journaling or Maintaining a Digital 
Diary


Mark? Bro? Wen you find a duzy, Man!  You! really! find a duzy!  I just 
took a very hard chance.  The app in the mac app store on the OSX side is 
30 bucks, but oh! sweet! Lord! is it accessible, and worth every single 
penny of it!


This, by far! and away has gotta be the best Journal app I think I've yet 
ever! seen, regardless the platform or OS!


This was honestly probably one of the best $30 investments I yet have 
made!
Truly, this dev has put huge huge huge! efforts into making the app 
accessible.  I almost wonder if he didn't make this thing accessible by 
sheer accident.  He's gotta have done this purposely.  I mean, it is that 
good!


ON the mac side, it is so freaking accessible, to the point where F1 
through
F3 literally will even jump you around the screen from your topics list, 
your calendar, etc.  Literally 95% of things have keyboard shortcuts.


Even on the iOS version, if you have a bluetooth keyboard, he's put 
keyboard shortcuts in the app for the common tasks.


BTW, it's looking like in answer to my audio question, the iOS version 
won't let you really do audio, but the mac version sure as day will!


So yeah guys, there are two reviews in the app store both by the same 
person.  He gave it a 1 star rating, and just! brutally! and I mean 
brutally! mutilated! this poor developer!  It almost made me cry when I 
saw it.  LOL!  OK, not literally, but yeah...


Those are the only two reviews there though, both by that same guy, and 
both are horrible ratings.


Guys, we really! really! should write this dev and thank him for such a 
great app, and for being so! keened, whether he meant to be or not, to 
accessibility.


This is exactly how accessibility should be!  This app is just! beautiful!
---
Christopher Gilland
JAWS Certified, 2016.
Training Instructor.

clgillan...@gmail.com
Phone: (704) 256-8010.
- Original Message -
From: "M. Taylor" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2016 2:37 AM
Subject: This Is a Great App for Journaling or Maintaining a Digital Diary



Hello Everyone,

I was just using MacJournal for IPhone, a great little iOS app, and
thought
I would remind those of you, who like to journal, that it is VoiceOver
accessible.

Just so you know, I have never used this tool in OS X so cannot speak to
its
VoiceOver accessibility on the Mac, itself.

Mark

MacJournal for iPhone
By Mariner Software

Description

Talk about some serious journaling experience!

Introduced for the Mac in 2005 and the iPhone in 2010 (and the iPad
version
shortly thereafter) MacJournal for iPhone offers an even greater
opportunity
to document important life events while on the go. It's no wonder
MacJournal
is the world's most popular journaling app for the Mac.

Out and about? You know what we mean. Run here. Run there. And in between
all that running, events happen. Then, when you're able to stop and take 
a

breath, you think to yourself, "Now, what was that thing that happened? I
wanted to write it down." - only to realize that you forgot what it was.

Now you don't have to wait to until you sit at your desk to make an entry
in
your journal. MacJournal for iPhone gives you the ability to record an
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or that special moment.

Organize, chronicle and edit your important information fast and on the
fly.
Best of all, unlike other journaling apps out there, you can blog to any
of
the popular blog sites using MacJournal. Not a blogger? Use MacJournal on
its own or share your MacJournal data over the cloud with your other 
MacOS

and iOS devices. Even share documents via iTunes. Whichever way,
MacJournal
has you covered.

WITH MACJOURNAL YOU CAN:
Create entries in multiple journals
Attach images to your entries
Edit styles in entries
Using Dropbox, manage multiple MacJournal documents, that can reside on
your
device
Share entries to Facebook and Twitter
Blog from your journal on your iPhone or iPod Touch to one of a list of
popular servers such as Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr and 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[maurice.mines]

Good afternoon, I figured I’d chime in on this thread, my computing life 
somewhat goes like this Windows for a great number of years, then I wind up 
going to grad school and switching completely to the Mac, now rehab tells me 
that in order to get any type of employment I must use Windows, instead of a 
Mac. In truth I’m quite comfortable with both operating systems. However I 
spend most of my time on the Mac side of the house, because the dictation 
software that I’m using to write this response is on the Mac side, however some 
of the applications such as a specialized application that I use for amateur 
radio stuff is on the Windows side only, and some of the wordprocessing things 
that I have to do in office are primarily on the Windows side. I guess what I’m 
getting at here is that I use whatever operating system, and applications best 
gets a particular task done. I’m not a programmer, but I’ve got this idea for 
an application in my head and in my spare time I’m trying to figure out the 
best way to maybe one day in the distant future make it into a reality. That 
will just have to come later. As far is the discussion about using braille, 
these days I’m very definitely deaf blind so you can guess that braille is a 
very large part of my computing experience due to the fact that if there’s 
something, that I just can’t hear, I have to be able to read it and not rely on 
synthetic speech. And these days I like to have my braille by a Bluetooth, 
fewer cables connecting our devices I think is a good thing from an overall 
safety standpoint however the hassles and using Bluetooth, or whatever short 
range communications method may come in the future it is likely to outweigh the 
issues of not having a physical cable between the devices. Just my thoughts on 
this. On July like afternoon in the Pacific Northwest part of the United States.

Sincerely Maurice mines.
Message number, 360-524-9331.
Amateur radio call sign, kd0iko.
note that the text of my comments have been dictated to the computer by using 
Dragon version 5 for Mac OS, if there are errors in the text of my comments 
they may be the result of either the software or the dictation process. If 
there’s something that you truly didn’t understand please let me know, I will 
do my very best to clear up any misunderstandings.
> On Jul 12, 2016, at 8:28 AM, Tim Kilburn  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I love reading this personal historical info on folks.  Sure, off topic, but 
> totally acceptable in my world.  The common thread here is supportive and 
> progressive parents and teachers.  I really didn't use Braille until my late 
> teens, probably due to having some usable sight and an immature desire to not 
> be considered blind.  Consequently, my Braille is limited to Grade 1, and 
> primarily only used to cheat, oops, I mean play cards with others.  I was a 
> classroom teacher for about 25 years then moved into Admin as a Technology 
> Consultant and Project Manager for a new Science & Tech Centre in our School 
> District.  Probably 95% of my computer experience has been with Apple 
> products with a smattering of Digital Equipment Main Frames and Windows.
> 
> Later...
> 
> Tim Kilburn
> Fort McMurray, AB Canada
> 
> On Jul 12, 2016, at 07:53, Donna Goodin  > wrote:
> 
> Hi Anne,
> 
> That's really interesting.  I didn't do as well as you with the Optacon.  I 
> was a very fast braille reader, and at age 11, lacked the patience for the 
> slow speed of reading with the Optacon.  But I can see where it would have 
> been different having a specific purpose in mind.  I was using it to read 
> fiction, which I could do much more efficiently with braille.  Probably had I 
> had a need to do something specific with it--and frankly, had I also been a 
> little older--I would have been more driven to stick with it.
> 
> It's funny, I still have my Optacon.  It's just sitting in our basement 
> gathering dust.  I probably should do something with it some day.
> Cheers,
> Donna
>> On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:19 AM, Anne Robertson > > wrote:
>> 
>> I grew up in England and between the ages of 7 and 17, attended schools for 
>> the blind where maths was taught, but the only science was biology, which 
>> didn’t interest me at the time. I would have preferred to learn physics.
>> I finished my secondary education in a mainstream school and specialised in 
>> languages. I studied French at university, but then I went into computer 
>> programming.
>> The tool that allowed me to work on an equal footing with my sighted 
>> colleagues was the optacon. I was able to read the terminal screen and 
>> printout. I programmed the Apple ii in hexadecimal and read all the manuals 
>> using the optacon.
>> I didn’t use speech on a computer until we got a Mac, a 2SI, during the 90s 
>> and I purchased OutSpoken.
>> It never occurred to me that I might not be able 

Re: Collaborating on Google Docs with an iPad and the docs app or on the Mac

[Tim Kilburn]

hi,

Docs is actually just a web-based word processor.  I'd agree that it's probably 
easiest for you to use on your iPad.  It's actually quite accessible, although 
you may need to use arrow keys while in the text area of the shared document 
instead of VO navigation.  Haven't been in a collaboration session for a bit, 
so can't recall if you need to do anything special to refresh the content when 
on an iPad.  On the web, it tends to do it automatically, which can sometimes 
mess you up when in the document.  Overall, I would guess that it's not that 
difficult to learn as it is quite straight forward on the iOS version.

Later...

Tim Kilburn
Fort McMurray, AB Canada

On Jul 12, 2016, at 16:31, Mary Otten  wrote:

I have the need to collaborate with people on a Google doc, which is apparently 
a database sort of thing, where we have to make phone calls and notes. I would 
like to use my iPad and the docs app, as that would seem to be the simplest 
way. I have a keyboard for my iPad. I could also use a Mac which I have, or an 
android device, but I would have to get a keyboard for that, so I would prefer 
not to use it. I am looking for information from people who have collaborated 
on Google Docs with an iPad or a Mac as to how complicated it is to learn. Is 
there a tutorial or explanatory document regarding voiceover and Google Docs?
Mary


Sent from my iPhone

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Collaborating on Google Docs with an iPad and the docs app or on the Mac

[Mary Otten]

I have the need to collaborate with people on a Google doc, which is apparently 
a database sort of thing, where we have to make phone calls and notes. I would 
like to use my iPad and the docs app, as that would seem to be the simplest 
way. I have a keyboard for my iPad. I could also use a Mac which I have, or an 
android device, but I would have to get a keyboard for that, so I would prefer 
not to use it. I am looking for information from people who have collaborated 
on Google Docs with an iPad or a Mac as to how complicated it is to learn. Is 
there a tutorial or explanatory document regarding voiceover and Google Docs?
Mary


Sent from my iPhone

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Re: semi-ot: Sonar virtual machines and dealing with virtual box

[maurice.mines]

I have a question his virtual box usable with voiceover in any way, shape, or 
form? From the very little bit of research that I’ve done on this issue 
previously it was thought that virtual box is completely unusable with 
voiceover, this is still the conventional wisdom? Thank you in advance for your 
time, and eventual response to my question.

Sincerely Maurice mines.
FH phone, 360-524-9331.
 Amateur radio call sign, kd0iko.
note the text of my comments have been dictated to the computer by using Dragon 
version 5 for Mac OS, if there’s something in the text of my comments that you 
did not fully understand, this is due largely to either the software or the 
dictation process. If you truly don’t understand, and wish for me to clarify 
what I have written, please just let me know? I will do my very best to clear 
up any misunderstandings.
>  Jul 12, 2016, at 8:50 AM, Jonathan Cohn  wrote:
> 
> Scott,
> 
> I guess we should take this off the MV list, but perhaps the person that did 
> my installations did not include the voice packages?  I know very little of 
> Linux, having BSD UNIX and Solaris (Unix System V based as my primary Unix 
> variants. I know a significant number of the tools in Linux are based on GNU 
> tools found in MacOS and a bit more like BSD UnIX than System 
> 
> I certainly want to get back to using Emacs which was my primary editor in my 
> sighted days. 
> 
> Thanks,
> Jonathan
> ) )
> 
> On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 10:00 PM Scott Granados  > wrote:
> Did you hold down the shift key?
> 
> Also, how long did you wait after the drums?
> 
> Would be happy to give it a host.  I’ve successfully done this with the stock 
> Ubuntu install.
> 
>> On Jul 6, 2016, at 9:29 PM, Jonathan Cohn > > wrote:
>> 
>> I tried your instructions, I hear the drumbeat. But then I do not get any 
>> speech. Do you have any ideas?
>> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 7:43 AM Scott Granados > > wrote:
>> All you do is boot holding the shift key down, you hear a drumbeat deal and 
>> then speech starts.  
>> 
>> Should be relatively straight forward.
>>  
>> 
>>> On Jul 1, 2016, at 7:22 AM, Devin Prater >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hmm, how were you able to boot with speech? I didn’t think much of trying 
>>> the mainstream distros, since I’ve heard that Unity isn’t accessible mostly.
>>> Sent from my Mac.
>>> 
>>> Devin Prater
>>> d.pra...@me.com 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 On Jul 1, 2016, at 6:11 AM, Scott Granados > wrote:
 
 How did you try to install it under VMWare?
 
 One thing I had excellent luck with was Ubuntu under vmware fusion.  You 
 can install it and boot with speech and you pretty much use the normal 
 image creation tool, select the image, enter the type of Linux and give it 
 a few minutes to build a VM.
 
 That might be something to try.
 
> On Jul 1, 2016, at 7:02 AM, Devin Prater  > wrote:
> 
> Hi all. So on my path to learning Linux stuff, I’ve gotten Emacspeak to 
> work with the help of Twitter folks, but now wanna see if Linux will be 
> useful to me as a whole. I’ve gotten Fedora working, sort of, but there 
> aren’t any blind-specific packages that I see on other Linux lists, so I 
> now turn to Sonar. I’ve had VmWare Fusion for a while now, but using 
> Sonar with it just fails after installation, nothing happens. So I got 
> Virtual Box in order to play with an Android talking virtual machine, 
> which stopped talking after updating talkback, and found that besides 
> freezes, probably from it being Android, ported to x86 architecture, it 
> ran pretty quickly and responsively, unlike VmWare unless you tweet 
> settings in VMX files. So, are there any tips for more easily using 
> Virtual Box, like adding iOS files to virtual machines and running them, 
> when I tried it didn’t work, or anyone that has a Sonar Virtual machine 
> that works in Virtual box, or VmWare somehow?
> Sent from my Mac.
> 
> Devin Prater
> d.pra...@me.com 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> Visionaries list.
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> 
>  
> The archives for this list can 

A question regarding Avast products on my mbp

[Joseph]

Hello,
I have a few questions regarding the suite of Avast products for an mbp.

1. Is the interface completely accessible for VO users?

2. I was somewhat confused with the pricing of these products. What was the 
price you payd for your Avast package?

Thanks.

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Re: mac book pro, mac book air, or iPad pro?

['Chris Blouch' via MacVisionaries]

That's why Apple went to the RISC PowerPC in the not too distant past as 
it could crank out more work than its Intel brethern. Unfortunatly it 
eventually lost its lead and Apple had to make another migration to the 
Intel platform. In some ways, that made things easier with virtual 
machines and shared architectures under the hood. It's funny now to read 
about how the PowerMac G4 was banned from export because it was 
considered a supercomputer.


http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/17/g4.ban.idg/index.html

CB

On 7/11/16 10:14 PM, Scott Granados wrote:

First, the number in front of the CPU is basically meaningless.  The gigahertz 
number is just the frequency of the master clock.  There used to be a time 
where this had some meaning.  Chips were similar and one with a faster clock 
rate should in theory compute faster but that isn’t really the case any more.
Different instruction sets, cache sizes, pipelines, number of cores, 
word length, and on and on really are the factors.  A much better measurement 
is flops or floating point operations per second.  There are other bench mark 
standards as well but the basic idea is it’s more meaningful to actually 
measure the amount of data computed rather than the rate of the oscillator.
The way that multiprocessing used to be done is that say two processors 
would be set up in parallel and each would trigger by either the positive or 
negative of the wave form.  When the sine wave went negative it might trip 
processor A and when it went 180 degrees out of phase to the positive it would 
trip the other.  The Fairlight CMI II was a good example of a computer that 
works this way.
Now there’s all sorts of things happening with multiple processors per 
dye, possibly multiple processor chips per computer each with it’s own set of 
cores.  A Dec Alpha chip in the old days at 400 MHZ smoked the hell out of a 
Pentium at 900 MHZ because of the differences in the instruction set. If you 
want to see a discussion on benchmarking and FLOPS I’d highly suggest a trip 
over to top500.org.  It’s a fascinating look at the top 500 largest super 
computers in the unclassified space, their architecture and how each is 
measured in performance.

Hope that clears it up a little.


On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:01 PM, Brent Harding  wrote:

Yes, not sure how much the CPU speed number really means these days. It seems 
that with the airs being in the 1.5 ghz range, are they really faster than 
something, say, like an old 2008 Mac Book that had around a 2.3 or 2.4 gig 
chip? I know we have more cores and hyperthreading now, but if we didn't care 
that much about having the thinnest thing around, would we be better off 
getting the regular Mac Book?

- Original Message - From: "Scott Granados" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2016 8:13 AM
Subject: Re: mac book pro, mac book air, or iPad pro?


A TB SSD would probably be a bit thick althoughI suppose you can wire the chips 
in any physical configuration you want.  It’s not like the old IBM 990K where 
you had to have non 90 degree turns in the wiring so the electrons wouldn’t 
over heat at the turns and cause to much thermal noise.

Biggest problem with your proposed config would probably be battery drain but 
give it a few years.  We’ll have way more than that in the form factor you want.


On Jul 11, 2016, at 3:18 AM, Simon Fogarty  wrote:

Yeahscott,

My perfect machine would be an 11inch mac book air with I7 quad core processor 
and at least 32 gig ram with a 1tb ssd harddrive.

I like the size of the machine, the work time is great and the size is easy to 
fit in a bag if I'm mobile.
But I can't run the things I really want to run at one time.
Ok so that type of processor and amount of ram would probably melt the keyboard 
but surely they could put better heat disapation into the design.

-Original Message-
From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] 
On Behalf Of Scott Granados
Sent: Monday, 11 July 2016 3:27 AM
To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: mac book pro, mac book air, or iPad pro?

This is one area I have issues with apple.  Especially in the pro line I wish 
they would support more than 16GB.  As someone who likes to spin up a lot of 
VSRX instances,  it would be nice to have lots of extra memory.

Sure, I could get a Mac Pro and slap in a pile of cores and ram but I suspect 
I’m not throwing that in my work bag.:)


On Jul 10, 2016, at 12:26 AM, Simon Fogarty  wrote:

Max

The 13 inch mac book air with 8 gig ram and 512 gig ssd is a great
machine, No mac pros now have the optical drive unless you get the older model 
which there is only one model of.

The standard is a retina screan so higher resolution and the
harddrives in the pros now are ssd So although the air can do what the
pro does, the air only currently goes to 

Re: semi-ot: Sonar virtual machines and dealing with virtual box

[Jonathan Cohn]

Scott,

I guess we should take this off the MV list, but perhaps the person that
did my installations did not include the voice packages?  I know very
little of Linux, having BSD UNIX and Solaris (Unix System V based as my
primary Unix variants. I know a significant number of the tools in Linux
are based on GNU tools found in MacOS and a bit more like BSD UnIX than
System

I certainly want to get back to using Emacs which was my primary editor in
my sighted days.

Thanks,
Jonathan
) )

On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 10:00 PM Scott Granados  wrote:

> Did you hold down the shift key?
>
> Also, how long did you wait after the drums?
>
> Would be happy to give it a host.  I’ve successfully done this with the
> stock Ubuntu install.
>
> On Jul 6, 2016, at 9:29 PM, Jonathan Cohn  wrote:
>
> I tried your instructions, I hear the drumbeat. But then I do not get any
> speech. Do you have any ideas?
> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 7:43 AM Scott Granados  wrote:
>
>> All you do is boot holding the shift key down, you hear a drumbeat deal
>> and then speech starts.
>>
>> Should be relatively straight forward.
>>
>>
>> On Jul 1, 2016, at 7:22 AM, Devin Prater  wrote:
>>
>> Hmm, how were you able to boot with speech? I didn’t think much of trying
>> the mainstream distros, since I’ve heard that Unity isn’t accessible mostly.
>> Sent from my Mac.
>>
>> Devin Prater
>> d.pra...@me.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jul 1, 2016, at 6:11 AM, Scott Granados  wrote:
>>
>> How did you try to install it under VMWare?
>>
>> One thing I had excellent luck with was Ubuntu under vmware fusion.  You
>> can install it and boot with speech and you pretty much use the normal
>> image creation tool, select the image, enter the type of Linux and give it
>> a few minutes to build a VM.
>>
>> That might be something to try.
>>
>> On Jul 1, 2016, at 7:02 AM, Devin Prater  wrote:
>>
>> Hi all. So on my path to learning Linux stuff, I’ve gotten Emacspeak to
>> work with the help of Twitter folks, but now wanna see if Linux will be
>> useful to me as a whole. I’ve gotten Fedora working, sort of, but there
>> aren’t any blind-specific packages that I see on other Linux lists, so I
>> now turn to Sonar. I’ve had VmWare Fusion for a while now, but using Sonar
>> with it just fails after installation, nothing happens. So I got Virtual
>> Box in order to play with an Android talking virtual machine, which stopped
>> talking after updating talkback, and found that besides freezes, probably
>> from it being Android, ported to x86 architecture, it ran pretty quickly
>> and responsively, unlike VmWare unless you tweet settings in VMX files. So,
>> are there any tips for more easily using Virtual Box, like adding iOS files
>> to virtual machines and running them, when I tried it didn’t work, or
>> anyone that has a Sonar Virtual machine that works in Virtual box, or
>> VmWare somehow?
>> Sent from my Mac.
>>
>> Devin Prater
>> d.pra...@me.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Tim Kilburn]

Hi,

I love reading this personal historical info on folks.  Sure, off topic, but 
totally acceptable in my world.  The common thread here is supportive and 
progressive parents and teachers.  I really didn't use Braille until my late 
teens, probably due to having some usable sight and an immature desire to not 
be considered blind.  Consequently, my Braille is limited to Grade 1, and 
primarily only used to cheat, oops, I mean play cards with others.  I was a 
classroom teacher for about 25 years then moved into Admin as a Technology 
Consultant and Project Manager for a new Science & Tech Centre in our School 
District.  Probably 95% of my computer experience has been with Apple products 
with a smattering of Digital Equipment Main Frames and Windows.

Later...

Tim Kilburn
Fort McMurray, AB Canada

On Jul 12, 2016, at 07:53, Donna Goodin  wrote:

Hi Anne,

That's really interesting.  I didn't do as well as you with the Optacon.  I was 
a very fast braille reader, and at age 11, lacked the patience for the slow 
speed of reading with the Optacon.  But I can see where it would have been 
different having a specific purpose in mind.  I was using it to read fiction, 
which I could do much more efficiently with braille.  Probably had I had a need 
to do something specific with it--and frankly, had I also been a little 
older--I would have been more driven to stick with it.

It's funny, I still have my Optacon.  It's just sitting in our basement 
gathering dust.  I probably should do something with it some day.
Cheers,
Donna
> On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:19 AM, Anne Robertson  > wrote:
> 
> I grew up in England and between the ages of 7 and 17, attended schools for 
> the blind where maths was taught, but the only science was biology, which 
> didn’t interest me at the time. I would have preferred to learn physics.
> I finished my secondary education in a mainstream school and specialised in 
> languages. I studied French at university, but then I went into computer 
> programming.
> The tool that allowed me to work on an equal footing with my sighted 
> colleagues was the optacon. I was able to read the terminal screen and 
> printout. I programmed the Apple ii in hexadecimal and read all the manuals 
> using the optacon.
> I didn’t use speech on a computer until we got a Mac, a 2SI, during the 90s 
> and I purchased OutSpoken.
> It never occurred to me that I might not be able to get a job as a blind 
> person once the optacon became available to me.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Anne
> 
> 
> 
>> On 12 Jul 2016, at 05:15, Donna Goodin > > wrote:
>> 
>> Hey Scott,
>> 
>> First let me say that on a very fundamental level I agree with your post.  
>> But ...
>> 
>> As a kid, I somehow sort of absorbed the fact that because I was blind, math 
>> and the sciences weren't for me.  And this despite the fact that my dad was 
>> a computer guy, who spent lots of time and energy conveying to me how 
>> important tech would be for me..  Some of my earliest memories are of him 
>> bringing home those old computer punch cards and magnetic tapes for my 
>> brother and me to play with.  I remember going with him into the office on 
>> Saturdays and seeing the computer, which was this great big behemoth that 
>> took up an entire room.  I remember him teaching me base 2 at the dinner 
>> table.  But once I got to school, my math and science teachers had no idea 
>> what to do with me.  Classes were taught almost exclusively on the 
>> blackboard, and I was bored out of my mind.  I grew up thinking I sucked at 
>> math, and it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized that I was 
>> actually pretty bloody good at it.  Back in the 80s, I went out with this 
>> total computer geek.  I was fascinated by all the stuff he was into, but 
>> neither he nor I knew how to make all that accessible to me.  (And by that 
>> time, I actually owned a TSI Versabraille).  I think that had I been born 
>> within the last 25 years, I actually would have chosen IT--or something 
>> related--as a career.  Clearly something was different for you and John.  
>> Maybe it was innate intelligence, maybe there was a gender bias at play, 
>> maybe it was opportunity, I don't know.  I do know from other posts I've 
>> seen from you that your parents seemed quite willing to think out of the 
>> box.  I grew up in suburbia.  My mom was 20 when she had me, my dad was 22.  
>> Having a blind kid pretty much rocked their young, limited world.  I don't 
>> think my experience is unique.  Whatever it was that jived for you guys, 
>> didn't carry over to lots of blind folks.
>> 
>> So yes, it was a fluff piece.  And yes, I wish they'd just treat blind folks 
>> like everyone else.  But I also hope that there's a little Donna out there 
>> somewhere--or maybe little Donna's parents--who don't buy into those 
>> preconceived notions about what someone 

Re: Mnumonics

[Matthew Dierckens]

Hi Chris,
I too have had client who have needed these helpful tools.
Very excellent work

God bless.
Matthew Dierckens
Certified Assistive Technology Specialist
Macintosh, IOS  and Windows Trainer
JAWS for windows Certified - 2016
Canadian Phone: 519-962-9140
U.S. phone: 573-401-1018
Personal Email: matt.dierck...@me.com

> On Jul 11, 2016, at 22:05, John Panarese  wrote:
> 
>That’s pretty cool, Chris. I’ve had clients that these type son things 
> really help. Please send me your final list if you wouldn’t mind.
> 
> 
> Take Care
> 
> John D. Panarese
> Director
> Mac for the Blind
> Tel, (631) 724-4479
> Email, j...@macfortheblind.com 
> Website, http://www.macfortheblind.com 
> 
> APPLE CERTIFIED SUPPORT PROFESSIONAL and Trainer
> 
> AUTHORIZED APPLE STORE BUSINESS AFFILIATE
> 
> MAC and iOS VOICEOVER TRAINING AND SUPPORT
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:59 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland > > wrote:
>> 
>> If anyone can think of any more of these, then let me know, and I'll add 
>> them to the list.  I however just sent the first handout to the students who 
>> will be attending the first Voiceover training class tomorrow.  Basically, 
>> it's a list of a few mnumonics that throughout the corse, we'll be 
>> referencing.  I thought I'd send it here to the list as well as I want to 
>> help as many of you guys, struggling or not, as I can.  So here is a list of 
>> some little rhymes that might help people with rememberring some of the most 
>> important Voiceover concepts.  I trust that this will help someone out 
>> there!  Here we go.
>>  
>> V O keys, move with ease
>>  
>> Quick Nav on, VO keys gone
>>  
>> Interact, shows what's packed
>>  
>> V O Space, commits place
>>  
>> V O A, reads away!
>>  
>> VO+D, dock you'll see
>>  
>> VO+I, worth a try
>>  
>> Command F5, come alive!
>>  
>> Menu bars: V O M, Gets to them.
>>  
>> V O J, jump then say
>>  
>> V O K, learn each day
>>  
>> V O T, font tell me
>> 
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Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Donna Goodin]

Hi Anne,

That's really interesting.  I didn't do as well as you with the Optacon.  I was 
a very fast braille reader, and at age 11, lacked the patience for the slow 
speed of reading with the Optacon.  But I can see where it would have been 
different having a specific purpose in mind.  I was using it to read fiction, 
which I could do much more efficiently with braille.  Probably had I had a need 
to do something specific with it--and frankly, had I also been a little 
older--I would have been more driven to stick with it.

It's funny, I still have my Optacon.  It's just sitting in our basement 
gathering dust.  I probably should do something with it some day.
Cheers,
Donna
> On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:19 AM, Anne Robertson  wrote:
> 
> I grew up in England and between the ages of 7 and 17, attended schools for 
> the blind where maths was taught, but the only science was biology, which 
> didn’t interest me at the time. I would have preferred to learn physics.
> I finished my secondary education in a mainstream school and specialised in 
> languages. I studied French at university, but then I went into computer 
> programming.
> The tool that allowed me to work on an equal footing with my sighted 
> colleagues was the optacon. I was able to read the terminal screen and 
> printout. I programmed the Apple ii in hexadecimal and read all the manuals 
> using the optacon.
> I didn’t use speech on a computer until we got a Mac, a 2SI, during the 90s 
> and I purchased OutSpoken.
> It never occurred to me that I might not be able to get a job as a blind 
> person once the optacon became available to me.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Anne
> 
> 
> 
>> On 12 Jul 2016, at 05:15, Donna Goodin > > wrote:
>> 
>> Hey Scott,
>> 
>> First let me say that on a very fundamental level I agree with your post.  
>> But ...
>> 
>> As a kid, I somehow sort of absorbed the fact that because I was blind, math 
>> and the sciences weren't for me.  And this despite the fact that my dad was 
>> a computer guy, who spent lots of time and energy conveying to me how 
>> important tech would be for me..  Some of my earliest memories are of him 
>> bringing home those old computer punch cards and magnetic tapes for my 
>> brother and me to play with.  I remember going with him into the office on 
>> Saturdays and seeing the computer, which was this great big behemoth that 
>> took up an entire room.  I remember him teaching me base 2 at the dinner 
>> table.  But once I got to school, my math and science teachers had no idea 
>> what to do with me.  Classes were taught almost exclusively on the 
>> blackboard, and I was bored out of my mind.  I grew up thinking I sucked at 
>> math, and it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized that I was 
>> actually pretty bloody good at it.  Back in the 80s, I went out with this 
>> total computer geek.  I was fascinated by all the stuff he was into, but 
>> neither he nor I knew how to make all that accessible to me.  (And by that 
>> time, I actually owned a TSI Versabraille).  I think that had I been born 
>> within the last 25 years, I actually would have chosen IT--or something 
>> related--as a career.  Clearly something was different for you and John.  
>> Maybe it was innate intelligence, maybe there was a gender bias at play, 
>> maybe it was opportunity, I don't know.  I do know from other posts I've 
>> seen from you that your parents seemed quite willing to think out of the 
>> box.  I grew up in suburbia.  My mom was 20 when she had me, my dad was 22.  
>> Having a blind kid pretty much rocked their young, limited world.  I don't 
>> think my experience is unique.  Whatever it was that jived for you guys, 
>> didn't carry over to lots of blind folks.
>> 
>> So yes, it was a fluff piece.  And yes, I wish they'd just treat blind folks 
>> like everyone else.  But I also hope that there's a little Donna out there 
>> somewhere--or maybe little Donna's parents--who don't buy into those 
>> preconceived notions about what someone who's blind can or cannot do, and 
>> that someday 20 years from now, that little Donna finds herself at the heart 
>> of technological developments.
>> 
>> Just an alternate perspective.
>> Cheers,
>> Donna
>> 
>>> On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:32 PM, Scott Granados >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> So here’s my problem with the article.
>>> 
>>> I think it’s fantastic what this young lady is doing, I absolutely support 
>>> her efforts.  I also am thrilled that apple hired someone from our 
>>> community for the design side.  I’m also happy Google does the same now and 
>>> there’s discussion of teaching children to code.
>>> 
>>> My problem is with the reporter.  These articles are so damn fluff happy.  
>>> Look at Apple saving the day for blind people.  Like it’s something new.  
>>> Never mind you John and I built parts of the networks this reporter 
>>> publishes 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Donna Goodin]

Hey Scott,

You know, your posts always have so much that I want to respond to, that I 
hardly know where to begin. :) 

I didn't know that your blindness was illness-related.  That truly must have 
been frightening for you and your parents.  No one has ever really figured out 
the cause of my blindness, though it wasn't for lack of trying.  My parents 
spent lots of time and money hauling me to eye-doctors all over the country 
until I got old enough to refuse to go any more.  To this day I hate 
eye-doctors. :)

It does seem like our histories are very similar.  I think, at least early on, 
my mother was sure I was going to end up selling pencils, but happily my dad 
would have none of that.  I have heard that my mom wanted to send me to the 
local school for the blind because she was afraid the kids at the regular 
school would be mean to me.  My dad said no because he figured I was going to 
have to learn to deal with the sighted world eventually, so better sooner than 
later.  To this day I'm grateful that he did that.  I, too, was mainstreamed 
and had an amazing resource teacher,.  I know that experience helped get me off 
to a good start.  It seems that my experience with language teachers parallels 
your experience with science teachers.  I always had stellar language teachers, 
and they always took a very strong interest in me.  That undoubtedly played a 
huge part in my choice of teaching language as a career.

But there was at least one key difference; my mom never went to college.  She 
has always stayed home.  I think that as a result of that, and also of the time 
period, there probably was gender bias involved, at least to some extent.  My 
mom's quite traditional - I think that well into my college years she hoped I'd 
just find a nice boy and get married. :(  So, when it came to pinball machines 
and such, my brother was the one who played, not me.  Mind you, I'm sure that 
had I asked, I would have had the opportunity, but it never occurred to me, I 
was more into music and reading and stuff.

It's funny, I remember having the same fascination with synthesizers as a kid, 
but for me, I just wanted to get my hands on one and play it.  I wasn't really 
all that curious about what made it work.

At any rate, bringing this back on topic, I didn't get my first computer till 
shortly after I was married, in my late twenties.  Prior to that I had had an 
Optacon, a Microbrailler, and a VersaBraille, but of course, those devices 
paled in comparison to the real thing.  I didn't see my first Mac until I had 
to use one for a job in 1995 or so.  It was running OutSpoken, and I absolutely 
hated it. lol  I had always been intensely braille-oriented, and I think I just 
couldn't get my head around learning a new system, with lousy speech output and 
no braille. And yes, I completely agree about the importance of braille 
literacy.

Anyway, this has gotten pretty far off-topic, so I will sign off, now.  But it 
is interesting learning about list members' different--and similar--experiences.
Cheers,
Donna

P.S.  Oh, and some day you'll have to share how you got into and out of that 
cult. :)

 

> On Jul 11, 2016, at 11:07 PM, Scott Granados  wrote:
> 
> Donna, it amazes me how similar our histories are.  My childhood has a lot of 
> parallels to yours.  My mother and father had me at about the same time 
> frame.  My father had just come back from Vietnam serving as a marine and my 
> mother graduated college with an Art degree.  I’m not sure if it was there 
> upbringings, the marine training or just pure luck but they seemed to get 
> ahold of things pretty quickly.  I think for both our parents having a blind 
> child was an emotional ride none of us would want to have.  I know in my case 
> they were more concerned with me surviving the illness and treatments more 
> than the blindness itself.  My mother got involved with some parents groups 
> early on and stayed home to take care of me until maybe age 10 or so with is 
> a luxury many do not have.  My dad worked for a major ship builder so had a 
> wonderful middle class job as an electrician and a fantastic union health 
> plan.  I’d have probably died with out that coverage as the costs were in the 
> 7 figure range and my parents didn’t end up spending anything for my care and 
> worked with Ronald McDonald house to stay with me when I had to go to the big 
> bad city for treatments.
>   I think the difference for me was my science teachers realized I had 
> potential at a young age.  I was given typing classes from the first grade on 
> in place of hand writing, I had an amazing resource teacher who was also 
> totally blind that made all the difference in the world, and our planetarium 
> director / 8th grade science teacher took a personal interest in me and made 
> sure I was heavily exposed to anything science like.  My parents were both 
> interested in all things science and I was exposed to everything from 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Donna Goodin]

Hi David,

I've seen similar studies.  Glad we're finally figuring that out. :)

> On Jul 11, 2016, at 11:53 PM, David Chittenden  wrote:
> 
> Donna,
> 
> I am seeing current studies which are demonstrating that younger girls 
> actually tend to have greater STEM aptitude compared with boys. Something 
> changes for most of them by the time they complete secondary school. This is 
> the subject of several current research studies.
> 
> David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
> Email: dchitten...@gmail.com 
> Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On 12 Jul 2016, at 15:16, Donna Goodin  > wrote:
> 
>> Hey Scott,
>> 
>> First let me say that on a very fundamental level I agree with your post.  
>> But ...
>> 
>> As a kid, I somehow sort of absorbed the fact that because I was blind, math 
>> and the sciences weren't for me.  And this despite the fact that my dad was 
>> a computer guy, who spent lots of time and energy conveying to me how 
>> important tech would be for me..  Some of my earliest memories are of him 
>> bringing home those old computer punch cards and magnetic tapes for my 
>> brother and me to play with.  I remember going with him into the office on 
>> Saturdays and seeing the computer, which was this great big behemoth that 
>> took up an entire room.  I remember him teaching me base 2 at the dinner 
>> table.  But once I got to school, my math and science teachers had no idea 
>> what to do with me.  Classes were taught almost exclusively on the 
>> blackboard, and I was bored out of my mind.  I grew up thinking I sucked at 
>> math, and it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized that I was 
>> actually pretty bloody good at it.  Back in the 80s, I went out with this 
>> total computer geek.  I was fascinated by all the stuff he was into, but 
>> neither he nor I knew how to make all that accessible to me.  (And by that 
>> time, I actually owned a TSI Versabraille).  I think that had I been born 
>> within the last 25 years, I actually would have chosen IT--or something 
>> related--as a career.  Clearly something was different for you and John.  
>> Maybe it was innate intelligence, maybe there was a gender bias at play, 
>> maybe it was opportunity, I don't know.  I do know from other posts I've 
>> seen from you that your parents seemed quite willing to think out of the 
>> box.  I grew up in suburbia.  My mom was 20 when she had me, my dad was 22.  
>> Having a blind kid pretty much rocked their young, limited world.  I don't 
>> think my experience is unique.  Whatever it was that jived for you guys, 
>> didn't carry over to lots of blind folks.
>> 
>> So yes, it was a fluff piece.  And yes, I wish they'd just treat blind folks 
>> like everyone else.  But I also hope that there's a little Donna out there 
>> somewhere--or maybe little Donna's parents--who don't buy into those 
>> preconceived notions about what someone who's blind can or cannot do, and 
>> that someday 20 years from now, that little Donna finds herself at the heart 
>> of technological developments.
>> 
>> Just an alternate perspective.
>> Cheers,
>> Donna
>> 
>>> On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:32 PM, Scott Granados >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> So here’s my problem with the article.
>>> 
>>> I think it’s fantastic what this young lady is doing, I absolutely support 
>>> her efforts.  I also am thrilled that apple hired someone from our 
>>> community for the design side.  I’m also happy Google does the same now and 
>>> there’s discussion of teaching children to code.
>>> 
>>> My problem is with the reporter.  These articles are so damn fluff happy.  
>>> Look at Apple saving the day for blind people.  Like it’s something new.  
>>> Never mind you John and I built parts of the networks this reporter 
>>> publishes on.:)  The article leads the reader to believe that blind people 
>>> could only code until recently.  This blind guy as a child started coding 
>>> 33+ years ago learning things like 6502 assembler, Apple Soft, PASCAL, then 
>>> C and so forth. We used apples or PCs or what ever to get it done and in 
>>> some ways have been directly or indirectly involved with the development of 
>>> computers since the very beginning.  Real trail blazers like your self or 
>>> Ray Kurzweil building devices to help his child, certain musicians with 
>>> very deep pockets who brought some of the funding to the table, any blind 
>>> person at all who successfully landed a job and held it showing others in 
>>> our own little way we’re just people doing the same things that everyone 
>>> else does, try to help take care of your selves, families and participate 
>>> in our communities.
>>> I guess part of me just wishes that instead of being singled out and 
>>> made to be some sort of something special we were just dealt with and 
>>> reflected on by reporters especially as 

Re: only want to back up a few items

[-]

In terminal there are a few ways to do a selective backup.  This one 
allows one to choose which folders and if wished to backup only those 
files that have changed since the last backup.


Better than Time Machine: backup your Mac with rsync

http://www.haykranen.nl/2008/05/05/rsync/

On Mon, 11 Jul 2016, Traci Duncan wrote:


Is there a good back up/sync solution if I only want to back up a handful of 
items?  For example, I want to back up music, photos, a folder inside 
documents, and a couple protected DMG folders.  The DMG folders inside 
documents often change and update, they are works in progress.

From my Googling, it sounds like it is difficult in Time Machine to only 
include items.  Time Machine?s set up is to exclude.  If I want to back up a 
handful, I imagine my exclusion list would be large.

Any advice or guidance on this?  Also, is there a way in Time Machine to limit 
the number of snap shots?  I?m not really looking to access a snap shot from 3 
Months ago.

I remember I had this cool program in Windows, where I plugged in a USB drive 
and had it set up to back up 3 or 4 folders on my system.  It had something 
like 3 options to back up changes, replace, or duplicate.  If I remember 
correctly, it was meant for the person that may take their USB drive to work or 
school, change files on it, then want to save those changes to their system at 
home.  They could then continue to work on the files at home and save those 
changes back to the USB drive.  I cannot remember the name of the program, but 
it met my needs perfectly.  :)

Thanks for your thoughts.

Traci

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Re: mac book pro, mac book air, or iPad pro?

[Terje Strømberg]

Then, it is good to know that $ is an rating of how fast it is. Higher number 
in $, faster in speed. Not always, but most often true.

Take care


> 12. jul. 2016 kl. 04.14 skrev Scott Granados :
> 
> First, the number in front of the CPU is basically meaningless.  The 
> gigahertz number is just the frequency of the master clock.  There used to be 
> a time where this had some meaning.  Chips were similar and one with a faster 
> clock rate should in theory compute faster but that isn’t really the case any 
> more.
>   Different instruction sets, cache sizes, pipelines, number of cores, 
> word length, and on and on really are the factors.  A much better measurement 
> is flops or floating point operations per second.  There are other bench mark 
> standards as well but the basic idea is it’s more meaningful to actually 
> measure the amount of data computed rather than the rate of the oscillator.
>   The way that multiprocessing used to be done is that say two processors 
> would be set up in parallel and each would trigger by either the positive or 
> negative of the wave form.  When the sine wave went negative it might trip 
> processor A and when it went 180 degrees out of phase to the positive it 
> would trip the other.  The Fairlight CMI II was a good example of a computer 
> that works this way.
>   Now there’s all sorts of things happening with multiple processors per 
> dye, possibly multiple processor chips per computer each with it’s own set of 
> cores.  A Dec Alpha chip in the old days at 400 MHZ smoked the hell out of a 
> Pentium at 900 MHZ because of the differences in the instruction set. If you 
> want to see a discussion on benchmarking and FLOPS I’d highly suggest a trip 
> over to top500.org.  It’s a fascinating look at the top 500 largest super 
> computers in the unclassified space, their architecture and how each is 
> measured in performance. 
> 
> Hope that clears it up a little.
> 
>> On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:01 PM, Brent Harding  wrote:
>> 
>> Yes, not sure how much the CPU speed number really means these days. It 
>> seems that with the airs being in the 1.5 ghz range, are they really faster 
>> than something, say, like an old 2008 Mac Book that had around a 2.3 or 2.4 
>> gig chip? I know we have more cores and hyperthreading now, but if we didn't 
>> care that much about having the thinnest thing around, would we be better 
>> off getting the regular Mac Book?
>> 
>> - Original Message - From: "Scott Granados" 
>> To: 
>> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2016 8:13 AM
>> Subject: Re: mac book pro, mac book air, or iPad pro?
>> 
>> 
>> A TB SSD would probably be a bit thick althoughI suppose you can wire the 
>> chips in any physical configuration you want.  It’s not like the old IBM 
>> 990K where you had to have non 90 degree turns in the wiring so the 
>> electrons wouldn’t over heat at the turns and cause to much thermal noise.
>> 
>> Biggest problem with your proposed config would probably be battery drain 
>> but give it a few years.  We’ll have way more than that in the form factor 
>> you want.
>> 
>>> On Jul 11, 2016, at 3:18 AM, Simon Fogarty  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Yeahscott,
>>> 
>>> My perfect machine would be an 11inch mac book air with I7 quad core 
>>> processor and at least 32 gig ram with a 1tb ssd harddrive.
>>> 
>>> I like the size of the machine, the work time is great and the size is easy 
>>> to fit in a bag if I'm mobile.
>>> But I can't run the things I really want to run at one time.
>>> Ok so that type of processor and amount of ram would probably melt the 
>>> keyboard but surely they could put better heat disapation into the design.
>>> 
>>> -Original Message-
>>> From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com 
>>> [mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Scott Granados
>>> Sent: Monday, 11 July 2016 3:27 AM
>>> To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
>>> Subject: Re: mac book pro, mac book air, or iPad pro?
>>> 
>>> This is one area I have issues with apple.  Especially in the pro line I 
>>> wish they would support more than 16GB.  As someone who likes to spin up a 
>>> lot of VSRX instances,  it would be nice to have lots of extra memory.
>>> 
>>> Sure, I could get a Mac Pro and slap in a pile of cores and ram but I 
>>> suspect I’m not throwing that in my work bag.:)
>>> 
 On Jul 10, 2016, at 12:26 AM, Simon Fogarty  wrote:
 
 Max
 
 The 13 inch mac book air with 8 gig ram and 512 gig ssd is a great
 machine, No mac pros now have the optical drive unless you get the older 
 model which there is only one model of.
 
 The standard is a retina screan so higher resolution and the
 harddrives in the pros now are ssd So although the air can do what the
 pro does, the air only currently goes to 8gig ram, and 512 gb ssd, the 13 
 inch retina can give you up 

Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Terje Strømberg]

Take care

Great article. So many stupid sighted people around.


> 12. jul. 2016 kl. 08.19 skrev Anne Robertson :
> 
> I grew up in England and between the ages of 7 and 17, attended schools for 
> the blind where maths was taught, but the only science was biology, which 
> didn’t interest me at the time. I would have preferred to learn physics.
> I finished my secondary education in a mainstream school and specialised in 
> languages. I studied French at university, but then I went into computer 
> programming.
> The tool that allowed me to work on an equal footing with my sighted 
> colleagues was the optacon. I was able to read the terminal screen and 
> printout. I programmed the Apple ii in hexadecimal and read all the manuals 
> using the optacon.
> I didn’t use speech on a computer until we got a Mac, a 2SI, during the 90s 
> and I purchased OutSpoken.
> It never occurred to me that I might not be able to get a job as a blind 
> person once the optacon became available to me.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Anne
> 
> 
> 
>> On 12 Jul 2016, at 05:15, Donna Goodin  wrote:
>> 
>> Hey Scott,
>> 
>> First let me say that on a very fundamental level I agree with your post.  
>> But ...
>> 
>> As a kid, I somehow sort of absorbed the fact that because I was blind, math 
>> and the sciences weren't for me.  And this despite the fact that my dad was 
>> a computer guy, who spent lots of time and energy conveying to me how 
>> important tech would be for me..  Some of my earliest memories are of him 
>> bringing home those old computer punch cards and magnetic tapes for my 
>> brother and me to play with.  I remember going with him into the office on 
>> Saturdays and seeing the computer, which was this great big behemoth that 
>> took up an entire room.  I remember him teaching me base 2 at the dinner 
>> table.  But once I got to school, my math and science teachers had no idea 
>> what to do with me.  Classes were taught almost exclusively on the 
>> blackboard, and I was bored out of my mind.  I grew up thinking I sucked at 
>> math, and it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized that I was 
>> actually pretty bloody good at it.  Back in the 80s, I went out with this 
>> total computer geek.  I was fascinated by all the stuff he was into, but 
>> neither he nor I knew how to make all that accessible to me.  (And by that 
>> time, I actually owned a TSI Versabraille).  I think that had I been born 
>> within the last 25 years, I actually would have chosen IT--or something 
>> related--as a career.  Clearly something was different for you and John.  
>> Maybe it was innate intelligence, maybe there was a gender bias at play, 
>> maybe it was opportunity, I don't know.  I do know from other posts I've 
>> seen from you that your parents seemed quite willing to think out of the 
>> box.  I grew up in suburbia.  My mom was 20 when she had me, my dad was 22.  
>> Having a blind kid pretty much rocked their young, limited world.  I don't 
>> think my experience is unique.  Whatever it was that jived for you guys, 
>> didn't carry over to lots of blind folks.
>> 
>> So yes, it was a fluff piece.  And yes, I wish they'd just treat blind folks 
>> like everyone else.  But I also hope that there's a little Donna out there 
>> somewhere--or maybe little Donna's parents--who don't buy into those 
>> preconceived notions about what someone who's blind can or cannot do, and 
>> that someday 20 years from now, that little Donna finds herself at the heart 
>> of technological developments.
>> 
>> Just an alternate perspective.
>> Cheers,
>> Donna
>> 
>>> On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:32 PM, Scott Granados  wrote:
>>> 
>>> So here’s my problem with the article.
>>> 
>>> I think it’s fantastic what this young lady is doing, I absolutely support 
>>> her efforts.  I also am thrilled that apple hired someone from our 
>>> community for the design side.  I’m also happy Google does the same now and 
>>> there’s discussion of teaching children to code.
>>> 
>>> My problem is with the reporter.  These articles are so damn fluff happy.  
>>> Look at Apple saving the day for blind people.  Like it’s something new.  
>>> Never mind you John and I built parts of the networks this reporter 
>>> publishes on.:)  The article leads the reader to believe that blind people 
>>> could only code until recently.  This blind guy as a child started coding 
>>> 33+ years ago learning things like 6502 assembler, Apple Soft, PASCAL, then 
>>> C and so forth. We used apples or PCs or what ever to get it done and in 
>>> some ways have been directly or indirectly involved with the development of 
>>> computers since the very beginning.  Real trail blazers like your self or 
>>> Ray Kurzweil building devices to help his child, certain musicians with 
>>> very deep pockets who brought some of the funding to the table, any blind 
>>> person at all who successfully landed a job and held it showing 

Re: Mnumonics

[Anders Holmberg]

Hi!
Thats great Chris.
Good luck.
/A
> On 12 Jul 2016, at 03:59, Christopher-Mark Gilland  
> wrote:
> 
> If anyone can think of any more of these, then let me know, and I'll add them 
> to the list.  I however just sent the first handout to the students who will 
> be attending the first Voiceover training class tomorrow.  Basically, it's a 
> list of a few mnumonics that throughout the corse, we'll be referencing.  I 
> thought I'd send it here to the list as well as I want to help as many of you 
> guys, struggling or not, as I can.  So here is a list of some little rhymes 
> that might help people with rememberring some of the most important Voiceover 
> concepts.  I trust that this will help someone out there!  Here we go.
>  
> V O keys, move with ease
>  
> Quick Nav on, VO keys gone
>  
> Interact, shows what's packed
>  
> V O Space, commits place
>  
> V O A, reads away!
>  
> VO+D, dock you'll see
>  
> VO+I, worth a try
>  
> Command F5, come alive!
>  
> Menu bars: V O M, Gets to them.
>  
> V O J, jump then say
>  
> V O K, learn each day
>  
> V O T, font tell me
> 
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> list.
>  
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> 
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Re: This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

[Anne Robertson]

I grew up in England and between the ages of 7 and 17, attended schools for the 
blind where maths was taught, but the only science was biology, which didn’t 
interest me at the time. I would have preferred to learn physics.
I finished my secondary education in a mainstream school and specialised in 
languages. I studied French at university, but then I went into computer 
programming.
The tool that allowed me to work on an equal footing with my sighted colleagues 
was the optacon. I was able to read the terminal screen and printout. I 
programmed the Apple ii in hexadecimal and read all the manuals using the 
optacon.
I didn’t use speech on a computer until we got a Mac, a 2SI, during the 90s and 
I purchased OutSpoken.
It never occurred to me that I might not be able to get a job as a blind person 
once the optacon became available to me.

Cheers,

Anne



> On 12 Jul 2016, at 05:15, Donna Goodin  wrote:
> 
> Hey Scott,
> 
> First let me say that on a very fundamental level I agree with your post.  
> But ...
> 
> As a kid, I somehow sort of absorbed the fact that because I was blind, math 
> and the sciences weren't for me.  And this despite the fact that my dad was a 
> computer guy, who spent lots of time and energy conveying to me how important 
> tech would be for me..  Some of my earliest memories are of him bringing home 
> those old computer punch cards and magnetic tapes for my brother and me to 
> play with.  I remember going with him into the office on Saturdays and seeing 
> the computer, which was this great big behemoth that took up an entire room.  
> I remember him teaching me base 2 at the dinner table.  But once I got to 
> school, my math and science teachers had no idea what to do with me.  Classes 
> were taught almost exclusively on the blackboard, and I was bored out of my 
> mind.  I grew up thinking I sucked at math, and it wasn't until I was in my 
> thirties that I realized that I was actually pretty bloody good at it.  Back 
> in the 80s, I went out with this total computer geek.  I was fascinated by 
> all the stuff he was into, but neither he nor I knew how to make all that 
> accessible to me.  (And by that time, I actually owned a TSI Versabraille).  
> I think that had I been born within the last 25 years, I actually would have 
> chosen IT--or something related--as a career.  Clearly something was 
> different for you and John.  Maybe it was innate intelligence, maybe there 
> was a gender bias at play, maybe it was opportunity, I don't know.  I do know 
> from other posts I've seen from you that your parents seemed quite willing to 
> think out of the box.  I grew up in suburbia.  My mom was 20 when she had me, 
> my dad was 22.  Having a blind kid pretty much rocked their young, limited 
> world.  I don't think my experience is unique.  Whatever it was that jived 
> for you guys, didn't carry over to lots of blind folks.
> 
> So yes, it was a fluff piece.  And yes, I wish they'd just treat blind folks 
> like everyone else.  But I also hope that there's a little Donna out there 
> somewhere--or maybe little Donna's parents--who don't buy into those 
> preconceived notions about what someone who's blind can or cannot do, and 
> that someday 20 years from now, that little Donna finds herself at the heart 
> of technological developments.
> 
> Just an alternate perspective.
> Cheers,
> Donna
> 
>> On Jul 11, 2016, at 9:32 PM, Scott Granados > > wrote:
>> 
>> So here’s my problem with the article.
>> 
>> I think it’s fantastic what this young lady is doing, I absolutely support 
>> her efforts.  I also am thrilled that apple hired someone from our community 
>> for the design side.  I’m also happy Google does the same now and there’s 
>> discussion of teaching children to code.
>> 
>> My problem is with the reporter.  These articles are so damn fluff happy.  
>> Look at Apple saving the day for blind people.  Like it’s something new.  
>> Never mind you John and I built parts of the networks this reporter 
>> publishes on.:)  The article leads the reader to believe that blind people 
>> could only code until recently.  This blind guy as a child started coding 
>> 33+ years ago learning things like 6502 assembler, Apple Soft, PASCAL, then 
>> C and so forth. We used apples or PCs or what ever to get it done and in 
>> some ways have been directly or indirectly involved with the development of 
>> computers since the very beginning.  Real trail blazers like your self or 
>> Ray Kurzweil building devices to help his child, certain musicians with very 
>> deep pockets who brought some of the funding to the table, any blind person 
>> at all who successfully landed a job and held it showing others in our own 
>> little way we’re just people doing the same things that everyone else does, 
>> try to help take care of your selves, families and participate in our 
>> communities.
>>  I guess part of me just