I often share the frustration but I don't think the blame is entirely with the agencies. People blind from childhood are far more likely to be independent than are those of us who, like me, went blind later in life from RP or some other degenerative disorder or accident. The kids are "in the system" and have all sorts of training from age 3 and up (at least in our part of Florida, computer training starts at 3).
We later in life people, though, have no idea where to turn to even ask questions. When my vision got really bad, I had a blazing 100 mhz PowerMac and wrote my own sort of screen reader for it. It wasn't good but it did the job. Then, a friend of the family who is also blind from RP and was the best man at my parent's wedding told me about Window-Eyes so I bought a Gateway laptop and WE and was off to the races. I saw on the HJ web site that they needed someone like me, I applied for the job, Ted sent me a copy of JAWS, they gave me a job, I dropped out of my graduate program at Harvard and moved to this god forsaken sandbar and the rest is history. I started my evolution onto the Macintosh about a year and a half ago and now rarely use Windows. I also use GNU/Linux distros but will be mostly in a nice, stable Ubuntu distro for a while. cdh On Nov 30, 2009, at 12:41 PM, Mark BurningHawk Baxter wrote: > gI think you've hit it right on the head--the blind are removed from > the capitalist marketplace "for their own good." If we abolish the > agencies, a lot of blind people would be left like fish flopping on > the floor of a boat--having never been taught the principles nor given > the power to compete, having been sheltered under the umbrellas of the > agencies and special dispensations and charities, they have no clue > what's out there, that it could work for them for less, that they > could empower themselves instead of waiting for someone to give it to > them. This is only part of my rant on why we need to completely > reform the way blind people get access to technology. Having said > that, I'm on the verge of accepting a training position with one such > agency and will teach any and all of the products offered by the > umbrella companies, so I guess I'm a hypocrite--but I'm also hungry > and unemployed. That said, I recently built, from a junked PC desktop > and various scrounged parts, and using SATOGO and an old version of > XP, a functional computer for a blind friend; with it, he will then be > able to claw himself up by his own shoelaces to a point where he can > get a Mac or a better PC or a netbook or something--ut will he be able > to afford Jaws? SaToGo is great, but you can't do everything with it-- > yet. NVDA is open source, and if he teaches himself to script it, > it's a;also an option--but it seems to me that if the agencies didn't > exist, the blind would shape up and stop whining in no time. I'm one > of those who kept saying, as the economy was bottoming out and > programs were being cut left and right, that the various charities and > agencies for the blind were going to be the first on the chopping > block--if a worst collapse happens, as I feel it inevitably will, I > think this *WILL* be the case--and what will the dependent blind do > then I, too, got a lot of my equipment from agencies--because they're > convenient and easy, once you know how to play the game; but that > doesn't make it sound future planning, or even honorable. > > Okay, rant over for now... > > > Mark BurningHawk Baxter > > Skype and Twitter: BurningHawk1969 > MSN: burninghawk1...@hotmail.com > My home page: > http://MarkBurningHawk.net/ > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
