Accessible Worlds, Linux for the Blind #1

Accessible World: Linux and the Blind

Presented By

Shawn L. Djernes

Monday, November 20, 2006 at 00 UTC

Program Outline.

1. Glenn's Intro
   
   
   
   1. Shawn will cover
      
      
      
      1. A Brief History of Linux
         
      2. Why you may want to use Linux in your Home/Office
         
      3. Ways of accessing a Linux system.
         
      4. What kind of and status of screen access technology their currently is for Linux, and coming in the future
         
      5. Provide Links on his blog to the sites where you can find more information and download things to try.
      
      
   2. Shawn's Biography
      
      
      
      1. June 3, 1976 Born is Aurora, NE
         
      2. 1980 Started working with computer on the Apple II at age 4
         
      3. 1989 Moved to the Macintosh LC at age 13
         
      4. 1990 Got his first taste of Unix and the Internet with shell account from Nebraska Department of Education at age 14
         
      5. 1993 During High School was introduced to the PC world
         
      6. Summer of 1994 attended WAGES and worked for Bryan Memorial Hospital in the Information Services department
         
      7. Same summer attended the first session of Nasa's Space Camp for Blind Youth.
         
      8. 1995, May Graduated Grand Island Senior High School
         
      9. Summer of 1995 attended a internship program at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, while there worked with OS/2 and Screen Reader/2 testing applications for accessibility.
         
      10. Fall 1995 got a PC and my first copies of Jaws for Windows and Jaws for DOS and a Type 'n Speak
          
      11. Summer 1996 through early spring 1997 Attended the Orientation Center
          
      12. 1997 did contract work for NSVI and other private companies / people.
          
      13. Summer 1997 met Brian Blazie and discussed a technical support job. Started working for Blazie in August/September.
          
      14. Winter 1997 bought my first copy of Red Hat linux and started running it on an old 386 machine as a mail server and router.
          
      15. Summer 1998 Met Brenda Loughrey during a training on Telesensory Products that Blazie had purchased rights to. Discussed her need of a technician for her new Access Technology Company. Interviewed Halloween Weekend 1998 after being in a car accident on my way up for Maryland to Pittsburgh PA. Started working for Athena Computer Technologies December 1st 1998
          
      16. Spring 1999 Went to my first WPLUG (Western Pennsylvania Linux User Group) meeting and shortly there after met Frank Carmickle and started exploring the Blindness side of Linux
          
      17. 2001 got introduced to the Asterisk PBX project and started working with it as a phone system on Linux
          
      18. 2003 got introduced to the MythTV DVR project and started using Linux to record TV
          
      19. 2003 Athena Computer Technology Closes
          
      20. 2004 Start back to College in Application Development
          
      21. August 2004, My Sister's Wedding, NCBVI's first Technology Expo, and A Job opening for the Omaha Program Specialist of NCBVI all happen at the same time. In one week I watch my sister get married I help with a Workshop and Get interviewed for a Job and fly back to Pittsburgh to start classes again the next Monday.
          
      22. September 2004 start working for NCBVI as a staff trainee.
          
      23. Maintained a Consulting Business doing web design and hosting and customer accessible network configuration / application design.
          
      24. Spring 2005 give my first Asterisk Talk at the OLUG (Omaha Linux Users Group).
   
   
2. Shawn Starts.
   
   
   
   1. A Brief History of Linux
      
      
      
      1. Unix
         
         
         
         1. 1971 Bell Unix
            
         2. 1985 Richard Stallman's Manifesto starts the Free Software Foundation and the GNU OS / the GPL
            
         3. 1987 Linus Torvalds is Introduced to GNU Minux as a Computer Science Student.
         
         
      2. Linux
         
         
         
         1. 1991 August Linus Torvalds announces his hobby OS on a GNU list. Later asking for help on making it more workable. Releases 0.1 under the GNU License in December which Organizations like Debian, RedHat and others start distributing.
            
         2. 1999 RedHat and several other Linux Based Businesses go public. Large Companies such as IBM and Dell start supporting Linux on their hardware.
            
         3. 2001-2003 Linux Embedded starts to show up in various mass marketed products, such as Cable DSL Router, Home Entertainment Devices, MP3 Players and many other categories.
      
      
   2. Why you may want to use Linux in your Home/Office
      
      
      
      1. You need a place on your network to backup or share files with Coworkers or Family
         
      2. You want a firewall / Web parental control system that you have full control of.
         
      3. You are interested in Home Automation and wish to have an accessible control interface for both you and your family.
         
      4. You or someone you know needs a system to do basic to advanced computing but can not afford or does not want to pay expensive cost for restrictively licensed software.
         
      5. All or note of the above. You think of it Linux probably has a way to do it.
      
      
   3. Ways of accessing a Linux system
      
      
      
      1. Directly with a Keyboard, Mouse and Monitor (last 2 optional), on the console of the machine
         
      2. Through a Terminal / Remote connection program running on another computer.
         
         
         
         1. A direct cable from one computer's serial port to the Linux system
            
         2. Using telnet protocol over a network connection, *Very Insecure, Not recommended*
            
         3. Using SSH (Secure Shell) over a network connection. Some Recommended Programs:
            
            
            
            1. Windows: CygWin OpenSSH client
               
            2. DOS: Don't know one
               
            3. Mac OS X: ssh command in terminal
            
            
         4. File Transfer / Sharing: FTP, Windows File Sharing w/ Samba, NFS
            
         5. Web Browser, some of the best applications for Linux are web based
      
      
   4. What kind of and status of screen access technology their currently is for Linux, and coming in the future
      
      
      
      1. Currently Available
         
         
         
         1. SpeakUp -- For the Text Console
            
            
            
            1. Kernel Based, speech from load to power off
               
            2. Very Stable at Release 2.0
               
            3. Now supports both Software speech (ttsynth and others) and older hardware synthesizers.
               
            4. Available in many distributions.
            
            
         2. BRLtty -- For the Text Console
            
            
            
            1. Daemon that talks directly to the Console Driver
               
            2. Supports Most Braille Displays on the market.
               
            3. Beginning to have speech support.
               
            4. Available in many distributions.
            
            
         3. ORCA -- X Windows GUI / GNOME
            
            
            
            1. Works with GNOME 2.14 and 2.16
               
            2. Python based and scriptable.
               
            3. Works with Java applications
               
            4. Uses gnome-speech or emacspeak driver to access synthesizers
               
            5. Currently has Speech, Braille, and Magnification interfaces.
               
            6. Many Accessible Applications available and more coming
               
            7. Packages available for Ubuntu Dapper Drake and Fedora Core 6
         
         
      2. Coming Soon
         
         
         
         1. KDE Accessibility
            
            
            
            1. Currently Planed for KDE 4
               
            2. Modular using DCOP
      
      
   5. Useful Links
      
      
      
      1. Distributions
         
         
         
         1. Debian
            
         2. Fedora Core
            
         3. Ubuntu
         
         
      2. SpeakUpmodified.org
   
   
3. Questions
   
4. Wrap-up

iTunes and iPod not but could be

This is the contents of a message I posted to the apple forums about the lack of effort on Apple's http://www.apple.com part to make their products accessible to the blind and other people with disabilities.

VoiceOver was a joke. OK write a screen reader but don't make your own Word Processor "Pages" and AppleWorks usable with it. Their best answer to what a blind person is to use for a Word Processor was TextEdit equiv to WordPad on the PC/Windows environment.

In any of the updates to Itunes or Ipod has the ability to use the product by the Blind been considered? Being a Low-Vision/Blind user I think accessibility has gotten worse instead of better. This is not just an Itunes on Windows Issue. Itunes on the Mac barely works with VoiceOver

In 7.0.X here are a few things that broke.

1. The Album flipping view mode cause Screen Magnifiers to have problems with Overlay and the Album art is not magnified.
2. No way to navigate the Itunes store if you are totally blind. Why not just let us browse it in Internet Explorer or Firefox and then download afterwards into Itunes.
3. Standard methods for navigating Menus, Tree Views (source list / play list side) do not work always and some times have very unexpected results.

There are very easy ways to fix this. As you are updating the application make sure that each control or widget gets its own MSAA information. On the Mac side make your developers actually follow your own standards for accessibility even if it means rewriting the program. Well they are at it they can fix most of iLife and Pages.

Now onto the Ipod 3g 4g 5g and the Nano 1g and 2g, These devices with some practice can be used by a blind person if they are setup correctly by someone sighted. Thats all well and good except if you just went out and bought a shinny new 80gb Ipod and now don't know how to navigate it. Well the solution to this is actually very easy. During startup it could play a quick set of clicks to let a blind user know it is doing something. Then once it is up and running the menu system could playback via the headphones recorded speech files stored in directory already on the shinny new Ipod. Something like "Main Menu" "Music", the user slides their finger around the wheel one spot to the right and "AudioBooks" and so on. Now your question comes to artists and genre's and Album titles. This could be a feature of the new ITunes 7.1.x where when you are syncing your Ipod it goes to the iTunes store and gets the appropriate audio files needed. or using the Very Nice Apple TTS makes the files on the fly and stores them. You say this would use up space on the Ipod, well yes it would and you could make so a sighted user could turn it off until the iPod resets or they if they are really cramped for space could remove the directory with the sounds in it, but restoring the iPod would put these features back in place. These features have more use then just for the blind, who are highest population for buying audio content be it Unabridged audio books, CD's, or from online sources. Once these features are out in the general public and touted as be available you will have the busy business traveler to the jogger using them, especially when it is not appropriate to take your eyes from something else, like driving. A driver could just reach down and touch the iPod and press the menu key and here "Music Menu", "play lists". Now we click the center button and our drivers heres "Gym Workout" clicks the wheel around to the right and heres "Peaceful Drive". He/She press the play button and heres "Playing, Peaceful Drive, 15 items in list" now this next part would need to be toggled on and off, while the iPod is cuing up the song it could say the song name and artist but this could be distracting.

Now if you really got brave with this project you could just add the TTS (Text to Speech) program into the Ipod. It would probably only take as much space as the new games you are selling for the 4g 5g and nano's. I know the Ipod has enough processor power. If it can play compressed video it could be executing a speech synthesizer in the background. With the dropping cost of the iPod I can see you may have to make this an add-on. That would be fine but include like a ten-day trial period with each new firmware update and have it on by default. This way allowing the user base to have time to see what it can do for them. If this is the choice then it should be a very inexpensive add on. Like in the $40 range. With the very extensive user base of Ipod's out there the Return on Investment should be very quick. if just 10% of the 300,000 blind people in the USA bought it, that equals 30,000 times $40 equals $120,000. This is not including the Learning Disabled, general population, and people in foreign countries who would love to have the stuff read it them. Now back to the blind, currently the devices made for the blind that are "accessible" cost from $400 and up that can play digital content not burned to a CD. So, if this was made for the Nano 2g a blind person could spend $200 on the device and $40 on the speech after the ten-days are up or they are coming close. The are still ahead by $160. Now if the person is a eclectic listener like my self then I would buy the 80gb unit at $350 and add the speech for $40 and have all the space I needed for my music, books, and my recordings I do with the Belkin recorder.

Another feature that should be looked into is the ability to play Daisy Content from Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic http://www.rfbd.org This is the new style of releasing text books to those you can not read regular print. They are stored on a CD in mp3 format with a encrypted index. Now this type of thing is not a problem since you already have support for your own and Audible's digital rights management in iTunes and adding another method would not be that hard. An iPod Nano 4gb could hold 6 to 8 books for a Grade School, Middle School, High School, or College student. That would be great, one small device to play content and no worrying about what Cd the chapter is on or where you put the CD's, and not having to carry around a CD player just for the books. Also an iPod has become common place enough to not be notices.

Shawn,
This will be cross posted to my blog and to the Ipod Forum here.
My Blog was located at http://wizardwlf.spaces.live.com
The new location is http://djernes.org

These are some of the responses I have received and my responses in return.

I have left feedback with Apple, now it is time for all of you to leave some feedback with your concerns about the useability of this product.

In the Itunes Mac Forum Colin Robinson wrote:

Hi WizardWlf,

Interesting post but you do know that this is a User-to-User Forum don't you?

Here is the main Feedback page:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Best Regards,
Colin R.

To Which I responded

My goal is not to directly influience Apple. I am trying to influiece you the customer to write feedback to Apple, if not on your own behalf, for your family member who is blind/low vision, a blind co-worker at your office, a friend of a friend even. Apple will see my one comment in feedback and say he is just an extremist and being it is just one comment just ignore it becuase their are much cuter things some marketing person wants them to do. They may just respond with use the Shuffle it doesn't have a screen. Why should the blind be limited to 1GB of space?

So here is your chance. Talk to your friends who use the Ipod/Itunes, talk to the manager at your local Apple store, tell them all to think about what they could do with a talking iPod, let alone the accessibility this would give the blind.

The Mimico Kid wrote this in the iTunes Windows Forum
Shawn,

I did a quick search of the Apple web site and found a fair bit of information on accessibility issues for the Mac OS X operating system in general (you might want to have a look here if you're interested) but couldn't find anything relating to iTunes for Windows in particular.

Since Apple has set up these forums for users to help one other with their problems, there isn't much we can do as far as acting on your suggestions. You might want to submit your comments directly to Apple by filling out the forum on this page: http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html .

All the best!


I wrote back:
Yes that is a pretty advertisement page for the Tiger Accessibility and for the accessibilty of the hardware.

But what is missing is the same page for iTunes and iPod. Those two products which right now are Apple's Hot market. They do not even train the sales staff in the Apple Stores to use and demonstrate these features to a parent / spouse/ child of someone with a disability.

VoiceOver is great in the finder and terminal and mostly works in Safarie and Mail. It mostly works in system dialog boxes but forget AppleWorks, GarageBand, Microsoft Office. The ProTools folks are actually working on making that program work with VoiceOver even better.

My best recommendation to anyone on this forum who is a Mac User. Use SearchLight to find VoiceOver. Now read some of the documentation to get the gist of how it works. Once you have done this, Start VoiceOver and turn off your screen. Try using the keybard commands you just learned or even the ones you think you know in iTunes. You will find it extremely hard to navigate.

Shawn