I just wanted to tell you about my 80 year old dad and computers. He's never used one (Although he tells me he did two years of typing, the nuns thought it important that he knew)
Dad is mostly blind, and the thing he misses the most is newspapers. He's an avid follower of news, and misses the indepth articles. Using Ubuntu, an old modem and Orca Screen reader, I've set it up for him to read the Age Online - text version. http://www.theage.com.au/text It works quite well Knowing he wouldn't be able to handle a mouse, I used the configuration editor to map the Control keys to firstly dial the modem (control + 1) and then open firefox (control + 2) (had all sorts of problems with firefox always starting 'offline') I set the sticky keys to allow him to press the control button and let it go, then press 1 and let it go. (I put some raised felt number stickers on the keys for him - from a craft shop) I also slowed down the key rate so he wouldn't open multiple browsers. Somewhere along the way I set Firefox to allow a cursor to scroll through a web page. I increased the zoom level of the browser, to what I assume is maximum and 3 or 4 words appear on each line. Orca then reads those words and he using the down arrow to scroll through The Age index, he can hear the words and which helps him work out what's on the screen, he then presses enter to go the article, and follows the same procedure to read the article the back space to get back to the index. He handled it pretty well. With a bit of practise he'll do fine. He shuts the computer off by simply pressing the power button. I set Firefox so that it wouldn't ask if he wanted to restart a crashed session. Now that he seems happy with it all, I'll talk to him about an ADSL connection, although the dial up works fine with the text version of The Age. I also just used an old computer lying around at home and an old CRT. I'm hoping that I can get the site up on his huge Plasma screen and a wireless keyboard so he can really see the words. I wasn't able to work out how to start Firefox already on full screen (it appears you have to start it then press F11) and I haven't yet worked out how to get Firefox to 'jump' to the next headline using keyboard combinations. I thought I'd try some other browsers to see if any of the others worked in a better way. Any suggestion on how to make this an even better experience for him would be most welcomed! I hope someone finds this useful. Greg. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
