ATMac

I thought I’d pass on the news that MacWorld just published an interesting news item about one of our very own, Giesbert Nijhuis. Giesbert has started selling his own line of T-Shirts under the label, AssistiveWear. Congratulations Giesbert!
You can check out the full article here.
- Paul Natsch

MacSpeech Dictate is a great program but learning so many commands at once can be intimidating. I’ve put together two documents to help you learn and remember all the global commands found in Dictate version 1.2.1.

VoiceOver is a screen reader primarily used by blind Mac OS X users, but sighted people also use it for a variety of reasons, either for themselves or to better support a blind user. So, where would one start with learning to use it?

Power’s what assistive technology gives us, really. The power to communicate, to read, to type, to plan, to play, to control things. The power to achieve things that we couldn’t otherwise achieve. Here are some ideas for gifts to empower assistive technology users.

Switching to the Dvorak keyboard layout doesn’t cost anything but it does take time and effort. Here’s how to go about it, and why it’s worth the energy to do so.

Keeping your CD and DVD collections on the computer can make them much easier to access and use. ITunes makes it easy to keep music from your CDs on the computer - just use the iTunes “import” command and your music is copied to the computer. Keeping a DVD collection on the computer is a little trickier, but you don't have to be a geek to do it.

Apple put on a September Special Event yesterday, announcing iTunes 8, the iPod Nano 4G and other smaller upgrades to software and to the iPod Touch. These announcements, especially that of iTunes version 8 now with full accessibility for Windows and OS X Mac, are fantastastic for users with a disability and reaffirm Apple’s commitment to accessibility.

One feature missing from the still-new MacSpeech Dictate program is the ability to control the mouse. This addition won’t let you control the movement of the mouse, but we can teach you how to use your voice for mouse clicks. For those who have the ability to move the mouse, this could make the difference between a usable computer system and an unusable computer system.