User blog

Hi, my name is Jikke.
I live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
I subscribed on this community because I’m teaching a young man, Ismail, using his MyTobii. Ismail is 29 years old. Like the rest of you he can use (only) his eyes very well. He uses MyTobii with VS Communiocator V4.
I’m teaching him things about the computer like how to use the chat or email functionality. But I’m changing the Page Sets of VS Communicator too, so they are always adapted to his (growing) capabilities. I did some changes in Windows too, so for example he can close windows easier and can access the menubar easier now.
I like it a lot to see him growing and becoming more and more independant.
He is learning English at the moment, so maybe he will write some words here in the future.

I see Ismail 1,5 hour per week. But we chat and send email a lot. And often I have to do some work at home (like changing his page sets because he wants to send attatchments in his emails). So in total I spend a lot more time on him.
Ismail uses Viking Communicator V4. He uses a start page where he can choose what to do: communication, email, chat, word processing, music player, changing his phrase list, an extra keyboard for use in Windows, calculator, calender, and a page set to change the volume and voice.
I changed the standard page sets so he uses the same keyboard in every page set. And so the exit button is at the same place everywhere. And so on…..
I’m still working on this page sets of V4. There are still some bugs in it and Ismail has some new wishes to be fullfilled. When it is ready, I will put some screenshots online for you to look at it. Maybe you can have some profit of it.
Jikke

Hello all,

Mediated by the national TV programme “Voor elkaar” (RVU), Andrei found somebody who wants to teach him to draw and paint on his My Tobii. Quinta is a very nice person and even more she is a really artist, a painter. She comes now every wednesday afternoon after school to teach Andrei how to paint in Tux Paint. Andrei makes more and more progresses.

If you would like to see the TV programme, this link helps: http://player.omroep.nl/?aflID=8260798. The programme ‘Voor Elkaar’ is about finding volunteers for more people. Andrei is just one of them. We think that the images tell a lot, even if you do not understand Dutch. Andrei appears several (short) times in the whole tv-programme.

Your reactions will be very appreciated. Thank you!

All the best!
Mihaela, Arie and Andrei

At Communication Matters in Leicester, UK I had the privelige to visit a seminar by the ACE Center in Oxford (http://www.ace-centre.org.uk). They are constantly working on solutions for people with need for AAC and now the turn had come to Web Browsers.
Most of you probably know of Internet Explorer if you are using a Windows based PC and Safari if you have a Mac. But there are lots of other Web Browsers to be downloaded from the internet. One of the most used is Mozilla Firefox. Some also have smart add-ons for easy access using keyboard or mouse shortcuts.
Below you find a list of links to an entire world of web browsers that might or might not work well for just you.

Mozilla Firefox – Mouseless Browsing / Mouse gestures / FireGestures / easyGestures
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/879?id=879
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/39
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6366
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/29
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5809

3B – Find your favourites in 3D environment
http://3b.net/browser/newhome.html

Communicate: Webwide
http://www.widgit.com/products/webwide/index.htm

Qualiweb Lite
http://www.qualilife.com/products/index.cfm?id=212&prodType=0&prodTarget…

KidRocket
http://kidrocket.org/

Browsealoud
http://www.browsealoud.com/

Flock
http://flock.com/

Google Chrome
http://www.google.com/chrome

Maxthon
http://www.maxthon.com/

Avant
http://www.avantbrowser.com/

Safari
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Surf on!
/ Lars

Here is a tip that you may like. It helped me immensely while using eye tracking in windows mouse control. I had a problem selecting from the File, Edit, View menu of most software I used. In order to resolve this problem:

1. I went into Display settings in the Control Panel.
2. Chose the appearance tab.
3. Chose the Advanced button
4. In the Advanced Appearance window, under Item, I chose Menu.
5. I set the size of Menu to 32
6. I then set the size of the Font to 12

Now I have no problems selecting menu items.

my name is asdis and i am from iceland. i wonder what program do you use for writing? do you use some scanning or what? best regards asdis