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Ricky Buchanan
I'm 36 years old and the founder and main writer for
ATMac and
No Pity City as well as several other websites. I'm bedridden with severe CFS/ME or perhaps a primary mitochondrial disorder - the doctors are not sure. When I'm not working on my websites I make crafty things, take photos, listen to audio books, design T-shirts, do disability advocacy, watch TV with my flatmate, and enjoy my cat.
You are browsing the archive of all posts by this author.
By Ricky Buchanan on July 21, 2011
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released today. For the first time it’s available via download instead of on DVD and comes with international voices for speech synthesis users. There’s also multi-touch gestures, auto save, and a bunch of other updates relevant to accessibility.
Posted in Assistive Tech Needs, Information, New Software, OS X, Product Review, Users |
By Ricky Buchanan on May 17, 2011
Most computer games get faster, relying on reflexes and coordination. Untimed games such as turn-based games rely on strategy and tactics instead, which makes them excellent if the user’s disability affects perception, thinking/memory, or movement.
Posted in Autism/Aspergers/ASD, Dexterity Impaired, Dyslexia/Reading Problem, Educators, iDevices, Information, Intellectually Impaired, Neurologically Impaired, Other Impairment, Primary Switch Users, Supporters, Users, Vision Impaired |
By Ricky Buchanan on April 8, 2011
A comprehensive list of groups that I know of who are currently accepting applications for an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to be used for AAC and communication.
Posted in AAC, Autism/Aspergers/ASD, iDevices, Information, Supporters |
By Ricky Buchanan on March 17, 2011
The American company Lasered Pics is now making keyguards available for the iPad. Keyguards for the standard iPad keyboard, Proloquo2Go, TapSpeak Choice and Speak It! are available, and custom keyguards are available on request.
Posted in AAC, Dexterity Impaired, Intellectually Impaired, iPad, Neurologically Impaired, New Hardware, Users | Tagged key guard |
By Ricky Buchanan on February 21, 2011
Use Mac OS X’s MovieCaptioner to quickly and efficiently produce captions, subtitles, and transcripts for your iPod, iPad, DVD and Flash film and video segments. MovieCaptioner is now upgraded to version 4.2 and can also read YouTube’s captioning format so you can let YouTube try to auto-caption your video and then correct and re-upload the results.
Posted in Content producers, Deaf, Hearing Impaired, Neurologically Impaired, OS X, Upgraded software | Tagged captions, close captions, flash captions, open captions, YouTube captions |
By Ricky Buchanan on November 11, 2010
There are three hardware-based options of which I’m aware for accessing the music playing functions an an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, as well as customisable software programs. These won’t help you to use the programs on an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad – just to play the music, audiobooks and podcasts you’ve already put onto the device.
Posted in Dexterity Impaired, iDevice Peripherals, iDevices, Intellectually Impaired, iPad, iPhone/iPod Touch/iTouch, iPods, Neurologically Impaired, Primary Switch Users, Users |
By Ricky Buchanan on October 24, 2010
There was a special Apple event in Cupertino on the 20th of October entitled “Back To The Mac”. We were treated to a plethora of Mac-related announcements which have plenty of fantastic accessibility implications. I’m going to briefly run down what each announcement was, and why it matters for Mac accessibility.
Posted in AAC, Deaf, Dexterity Impaired, Hearing Impaired, Information, Intellectually Impaired, Mac Computers, Mac Laptops, Neurologically Impaired, OS X, Other Impairment, Primary Switch Users, Users, VoiceOver | Tagged apple announcements, features |
By Ricky Buchanan on October 10, 2010
This video describes how to set up your iPhone 4 or iPod Touch with the ZVRS app and use it to call the ZVRS ASL video relay service in America.
Posted in Deaf, Hearing Impaired, Information, iPhone/iPod Touch/iTouch, Users | Tagged video relay, video relay service, videophone, vrs, zvrs |
By Ricky Buchanan on September 21, 2010
Nuance Communications today announced the release of Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.0, a paid and rebranded upgrade for MacSpeech Dictate.
Posted in OS X, Speech to Text, Upgraded software, Users | Tagged commercial, dictation to text, mac speech, speech commands, speech recognition, Speech to Text, talk to your mac, Text to Speech, tts, voice commands, voice to text |
By Ricky Buchanan on September 9, 2010
There have been a plethora of stories in the mainstream news and in blogs about the iPad and the amazing positive effects it’s having for people with various disabilities. Children with autism are the subject of many of these stories, but there are plenty of others who are getting amazing results from their iPads.
Posted in AAC, Apple Programs on Windows, Audience, Complexity, Content producers, Dexterity Impaired, Educators, Intellectually Impaired, iPad, Neurologically Impaired, Other Impairment, Primary Mouse Users, Supporters, Text to Speech, User Stories, Users, Vision Impaired, VoiceOver | Tagged features, ipad for autism, ipad for cerebral palsy, ipad stories |
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