The BC government shows no signs of re-instating $45/year subsidized bus pass for people with disabilities. Nevertheless, InclusionBC , TAPS  and other advocacy groups are continuing their campaign…

Source: When Fish are More Humane

Windows Ribbons Explained by Christopher-Mark Gilland
*Note: I thought some of our GTT Followers would get some benefit from this article so I’m sharing it here. If you have questions for Chris I will pass them on to him, so send them to Albert Ruel, GTTWest@CCBNational.net

Posted on Thu 3/10/2016 1:39 PM on the Windows 10 Screen Reader Users
List at, Subscribing: win10+subscribe@groups.io

I want to start out by explaining what exactly is meant by a ribbon. Let’s take this into literal terminology which could be probably compared to something concrete that you can visualize in your mind.

Do you know what a clothes line looks like? OK, you have this big long rod, right? It’s totally horizontal. It might span over say, 5 or 10 feet long from the left end to the right end in width. Basically just imagine a sheet of paper, then take a ruler and place it on the paper, in a horizontal left to right position going across the very top edge of the page.

OK, that’s the line itself. Now, imagine what it looks like when this line is full of clothes. It has maybe shirts, skirts, dresses, pants, sweaters, coats, whatever, kackies, you get the point, hanging from it with clothespins. So, if you can kind a visualize this for a second, you have this long horizontal rod running left to right from end to end. Dangling from it, you have a piece of clothing, then a teeny little bit of space, then moving on to the right, you have another piece of clothing which is dangling from the bottom side of the rod. Then a little more space, keep working to the other end of the line, you have a third set of cloting. Right? So on so forth. Are you following me so far up to this point?

OK. This is exactly how the ribbon bar behaves. The ribbon is basically two levels in height. Think of it like a 2 story house. You have an upper level, and you have a lower level. OK, let’s go back to the clothes line for a second here. Take all those clothes you have hanging from the rod. Let’s say you have three shirts. OK, so all three of those shirts are grouped together in their own section of the clothes line. Then, you have a little space, thenyou’re your pants are grouped together side by side. Then a little space, then say, maybe, oh, I dunno, maybe, you have a few dresscoats all aligned together side by side. In other words, each type of item is in its own group. Again, this is exactly how the ribbon works.

So, let’s go back now to the ribbon. Honestly speaking? Get the word ribbon totally out of your head! just forget entirely that you ever were told it was a ribbon. I think that was the stupidest! Term Microsoft ever could have used! Why? Because it doesn’t really per sé look like a ribbon. I know MS’s logic of thinking, and where they were trying to go with that, but honestly, they really made it harder than it has to be, and really have obviously confused a lot of people, both sighted or not with things by introducing that lingo. So, again, I want you to just totally throw the word ribbon away. It doesn’t exist for now.

I’m sure you understand how the menu bar looks though. You have menus which go across a horizontal line/bar, hence why they call it a menu… what?… bar! Going left to right, you have things in the top level of that bar, right? Things like File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Table, Window, Help.

Once you navigate to one of those menus, what do you do? You down arrow to open it. right? Why do you do that?

Well? Think about it.

You have a virtical menu which pops open right below the top category, be it file? Edit? Whatever.

Within each of those menus, you may have a submenu, or as Window eyes users would know it, a pulldown. So, what is a pulldown/sub menu? Exactly! It’s a menu which branches off to the right of the original menu item. If you remember back in the days of Windows XP, you may remember under start, you had programs submenu. When you went to programs, what happened? It brought up another menu with all of your programs over to the right of the start menu itself. Correct?

OK, well, guess what! The um… word we’re not gonna remember… LOL? is the same way in escence.

So, think of it like this for your ribbon.

You have two levels. An upper ribbon, and a lower ribbon. Underneath your lower ribbon, you have items which are sectioned off into groups.

So, for example. Let’s take Outlook for instance. I’m not where I can open up Outlook right this second to give you the literal order/hierarchy of the Outlook ribbon, but that’s actually a good thing, as I don’t want you looking right now. I want you to totally do this cognitively in your head.

So, the top of your ribbon has these different categories. Those categories are called tabs, BECAUSE, ESSENTIALLY, SURPRISE SURPRISE, THAT’S ALL THEY ARE! Yes. You heard me 100% correctly. That’s all? they, are. Just tabs. No more? NO less. As you move across the top level, the bottom level will dynamically change and update accordingly. So, for instance. To access the ribbon, hit your alt key, doesn’t matter which one. Either your left or your right is fine, your choice.

You now will hear the last tab that you landed on. Now, if you left and right arrow, you will horizontally move and activate each of these tabs. So, say for example that you want to compose a new message. You’d hbit the alt key. Next, you’d arrow left and right across the top of the ribbon. Let’s say that you hear things like, Home, view, message, I’m saying this not in one big cluster, I mean as you move. So again, Home, View, Message, Format, Insert, so on so forth. Once you left and right arrow to either end of the bar, it will wrap you back around. So, say that the far left most tab was Home. The far right most tab was format. So if you’re on home, and you left arrow, you’d reach what?

Exactly! Format! So, say you’re on Format, and you right arrow once. Exactly! Now you’re on what? Home! Good job! See? This isn’t so hard, is it! All it did is wrapped you around, just as any menu/dialog box would do.

Once on the tab you want, though it visually! has dynamically updated your lower ribbon, we’re still on your upper ribbon, so we need to now activate that tab and get down inside of it. To do that, how do you activate most things in Windows? Exactly! You hit the enter key. Great job! So, that’s exactly what we’d do here. So, let’s go back to our little example. We want to compose a new e-mail message. Again, going across the top, let’s say that we have from left to right: Home? Message? View? Insert? and Format.

Which one of those tabs do you think most likely compose message would be inside? Well, obviously, it’s not going to be inside View. That would be for modifying the way things look. Would it be under Insert? No. You’re not insertting anything. What about Format? Nope. That would be for setting fonts and such. What’s left? Yes! Message it is.

So, you’d navigate left and right with your arrow keys. You’d hit alt to enter the ribbon bar. You’d arrow left and right until you heard Message tab. Now we need to get to the stuff inside of the Message tab. So, we now activate the message tab by pressing the enter key.

This now will drop us down to the lower ribbon. If you need to go back up to the upper ribbon, then just hit your up arrow key once.

OK, so now we’re down inside the Message tab. Now, you may hear something like Composition group: New Message Button. That’s what we need. So, we could just press enter.

OK, let’s now talk more about groups in your lower ribbon. Remember me saying that the lower ribbon has things in groups? So think of a group as basically what a classic based menu would call a submenu.

So Within our e-mail message, we want to make a bulleted list. Up to the ribbon we go with the alt key.

We now find the Format tab and activate it, again, how? Right! With the enter key.

Now, again, we’re in the lower ribbon. Again, left and right arrow, just like before, and we want to find the bullets button. Now here’s however where things get really cool! Let’s say that as you’re right arrowing, you hear things like color Group: Text color button. You right arrow, and hear Highlight color button. You go again and hear, center button. Again, Justified button. Again, bold button. Again, Italic button. Again, now, pay attention here. You hear the Following:

Paragraph group: Bullets button.

Look at how much work that took to get there! Gee! Willikers! After hitting enter on the Format tab in the upper ribbon, you had to then arrow 7 times roughly to the right before you hit that bullets button. Well, here’s the thing. There’s a way to move group by group.

If you press the alt key, you’ll get into the upper portion of the ribbon. This is where all your main tab categories reside. In this example, you’ll move across the top until you find the Format tab, then you’ll activate it with enter. Now, you’re again, in your lower ribbon. Right?

OK, now watch this. Rather than right arrowwing aa’aall? The, freaking, way, over to the bullets button, We know it’s not in the color group. Bullets have nothing! to do with color, do they? So, that doesn’t even make sense for them to be there. So, rather than waisting your time going through that whole group, just navigate with ctrl+Right arrow to the next group.

Think of it this way.

What do just the left and right arrow keys do when reading through a document? Exactly. They move item by item, or in that case, character by character. What if you want to jump in a bigger increment? Say, word by word? Excellent job! You’d hit ctrl+Left, or ctrl+Right arrow. So, Think of the items in your lower ribbon as individual characters. Then think of your Groups in the lower ribbon as words.

If you wanted quickly to get to the letter G in the word oranges in the following sentence:

The fruit on the plate consists of oranges, pineapples, and grapes.

You really don’t want to start on the capital T in the word, the, and then right arrow all the way over to the G, do you? Well, if you do, then O, Kayyy, more power to ya, but that’s really a waist of time!

You’d move item by item! Group by broup. Each group in that case would be like a word.

So The would be one group, fruit would be one group, on would be a group, etc.

So, you’d ctrl+right arrow to the, oranges, group, then within that group, the first item is, O. then you’d right arrow through that group on your lower ribbon, until you got to the G. Then you’d activate it with enter.

The final thing about the ribbon I’d like to talk to you about is something known as split buttons.

OK, so this is really easy! All that a split button is is, think of a button that has a virtical divider which extends across the whole virtical height of the icon. This virtical bar/line seperates the button in half. Think of the way a bandaid looks once it’s out of it’s rapper. You have two pieces of tape, with the little square pad in the middle. Right? Basically a split button is a bandaid. The little padded square is your split. It splits off the button, if you will, in two parts. I’ll give you a great example where you may have seen this, even if you don’t have Office.

Go to IE 11, and download a file. When your information bar pops up asking if you want to run or save the file, hit alt+N. Then tab. You’ll hear save split button. That’s because the save button is divided into two pieces. The left side is Save. This will do just that. It will save the file in your default location, probably your downloads. However, the righthand side of this same button is split off and says, Save as. This would bring up the standard save as screen letting you name the file, and choose where! to save it.

So, the way split buttons work is like this. If you press the enter key, you’ll activate the primary action of the button, which is the lefthand side of the button. If! however, you want to activate the secondary action of the same button, then once you land on the split button, instead of pressing enter, hit your down arrow key. Note: I’m speaking of your arrow keys not on your numeric keypad. I’m speaking of the invertted T arrow keys usually right below your 6pack on a desktop keyboard, and probably bottom right edge on most laptops.

What this will do is open a dropdown menu that you now can up and down arrow through to select either of the two actions. Arrow to the one you want, then, you guessed it. Hit enter.

One more way to think of the ribbon bar is like a multi-tab dialog, like you’d have in Control Panel, or whatever. Your tabs across the top which you could hit ctrl+Tab, and ctrl+Shift+Tab to move between would be basically like the top level of your ribbon. Things like General, etc.

Then, all of the content on that tab, populates directly under those tabs going across the top. The ribbon bar is the exact same principle. The ribbon is basically nothing more than a multi tabbed dialog, with the exception of pressing enter to activate the focused tab, and that you cannot ctrl+Tab nor ctrl+Shift+tab between the items in the upper ribbon. Aside that though, it’s identical!

Everyone have a great ribbon of a day! LOL! Just kidding.

As the Canadian public debates the Government’s promise to support the right to die legislation, there is another conversation taking place in our community: Do we as blind, deaf-blind and partiall…

Source: Can non-profit service providers sometimes cause more harm than good?

One of the phone meetings of the Philadelphia Computer Users’ Group for the Blind and Visually Impaired discussed various resources available to obtain free technical help. I compiled a list …

Source: Free Computer Help and Support Resources for the Visually Impaired

Source: Judy Dixon’s Accessible Game Book

GTT Victoria Summary Notes:
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Held at the Greater Victoria Public Library, Main Branch Community Room from 1:00 until 3:00 PM

IN ATTENDANCE:
Tom Dekker, Albert Ruel, Aeden, Skye, Hanna, Elizabeth Ferrington, Linda Bartrum, Vera Crowson, Douglas, Trevor, chari Adamson, and Sharon and Kelly (library staff.)

Albert Ruel announced that the CCB’s awareness campaign, White Cane Week, is scheduled for the week of February 7 to 13, 2016. He handed out White Cane Week badges for all those who were interested in helping to promote the event. Albert also informed the group that February is also an awareness month for retinal diseases.

Discussion took place regarding the monthly meeting agenda and that it could be a good idea to let everyone know what is upcoming, especially those who do not have email. A phone tree was suggested for those without email. Aeden proposed we reverse our typical agenda and use the first half of the meeting for peer mentoring. That way, if the meeting topics are not totally relevant for everyone, at least those in attendance will benefit from the technology mentoring. All were in favour of this change.

Aeden, a GTT member from Nanaimo, addressed the group on the topic of accessible gaming for the visually disabled. The following are sites and games he recommended people check out:

Cobalt.com
https://cobolt.co.uk/contents.asp?id=1
Shop for a wide range of products including talking clocks, talking multi function radios, talking combination ovens, talking watches, microwave cookware, a range of glasses, mouse magnifier and cordless mouse magnifier and more.

Audiogames.net
http://www.audiogames.net/
This site contains a listing of archived games, including strategy games, puzzle games, word games, adventure games and many more.

AppleVis
http://www.applevis.com/ios-app-directory/games
For Apple users, check out this site for accessible games, including a series entitled: Blindfold games, including blindfold BOWLING, Blindfold CRIBBAGE and more.

PCS.NET
Check out this site for more games. It’s been updated recently. Mostly Windows based.

Two Apple fun and fitness games to try are:
The Walk; and
Where’s My Yellow Ducky?

Rsgames.netg
This site is great for games that can be played with other people.

Quentin C’s play room
http://www.qcsalon.net/en/
The Playroom is a free online gaming platform, especially made to be accessible to visually disabled people. Join in on games with others on this site.

SpoonBill Software
http://www.omninet.net.au/~irhumph/
Spoonbill Software, Albany, Western Australia, the home of free computer games for sighted, vision-impaired and blind players. All games are free though most of them are for the Windows platform.

GVPL Overdrive Software
Tom announced that the upgraded version of Overdrive works really well on the library system. He will work with library staff to show them how best to use it.

Library staff reminded members that local libraries will all have at least one computer with screen-reading capabilities for use by visually disabled persons.

Albert did another demonstration of the Orcam video unit.
Tom will present on music apps at our next meeting.

Technology Tips and Tricks

1. Deleting lots of text in an iPhone edit field.
Tap the delete key once and hold it down on the second tap.
It will delete from the end of the field to the beginning of the field.
2. Messaging with Siri.
Use the Add command to let Siri know you want to add to the text message rather than starting the message over again.
3. Voiceover Starter is an iPhone app/game that is super helpful with learning all the
NEEDED gestures FOR I PRODUCT USE.
4. If you need to check if something is level, go to the second page of the compass and
you’ll find the level feature.
5. Apple’s Voicedream Reader
Will play pretty well every book format on the iPhone.
6. Email Albert Ruel if you’d like a copy of a super-accessible calendar in a Word doc format.

Respectfully submitted,

Hanna Leavitt

GTT Vancouver Summary Notes

November 18, 2015

Present: Shawn, Rosamunde, Carol, Fay, Louise, Pat, Albert, John, Peg, Mary, Clement, Matthew, Lilo

Clement and Matthew presented a variety of ways that Podcasts and both eBooks and Audiobooks can be accessed with iDevices:

iBooks App:
• iBooks can play both eText and audiobooks
• Some of the more popular places to get audiobooks are; iTunes, Audible.com, Publishing companies and directly through iBooks
• iBooks that you get from I-tunes might be from Amazon or many other places. eBooks will be read by Voice Over whereas audio books are read by a live narrator
• When you open iBooks you get 5 tabs along the bottom; My books, featured books, top charts, search, and purchased
• Once you purchase an audiobook it will show up in my library
• When you click on the title it will start reading the book where you stopped reading last time
• You can skip back 15 seconds by doing a one-finger double tap on the Back Button, or double tap and hold it and it will keep skipping back in 15 second segments providing beeps at each 15 second interval.
• The purchase tab is just for E-books, not for audiobooks
• eBooks are electronic files which are read by your screen reader or Voice Over. Audiobooks are a recording of somebody reading the book.
• In an iBook there will be a table of contents tab

The Sleep timer:
• Once you have selected the number of minutes in sleep timer the user must click the Done Button
The sleep timer can be engaged after a number of minutes or at the end of the current track/chapter

Gestures that work in iBooks:
A Two-finger double tap will pause and resume playing the audio book you’re listening to.
A two-finger single tap will pause and play an eBook you’re listening to

A two-finger swipe down will start reading from where you are in an eBook
If your phone rings while you are listening to music or any type of book a two finger double tap will answer the call, and the same gesture will hang it up again. When your phone starts to ring it will pause your book or music immediately, and it will resume playing as soon as the call is terminated.

The Audible App and Audible.com:
• You must purchase audio books over the internet on a computer or your iDevice
• Once your books are purchased you can open the audible app on your iDevice or the Audible app on a computer to access them
• Tapping the Refresh Button will update all your purchased books on your phone for you to download
• Rate and review – they will recommend other books that are similar to the ones you rate high
• Good Reads is an app that will recommend books
• Mark as finished allows you to search by unfinished books which will make your list shorter
• Once you start downloading a book you can start reading almost immediately
• You can set the sleep timer to turn your book off in a desired number of minutes
• You can change the number of seconds to skip back if you do fall asleep or lose your place in the book for some reason
• The Sleep timer can be found under the more Button
• Make sure you have selected device instead of cloud to ensure you are not using data to listen to your downloaded books.

Audio and Video Podcasts:
• A podcast is a radio show that you can listen to on demand
• Topics range from sports, assistive technology, life skills, religious info, schools, etc.
• You subscribe to a podcast to transfer files to your device – either audio or video
• Once subscribed to a podcast you will automatically receive the latest ones when you connect to WIFI
• Podcasts are free
• You can listen to your favourite internet radio program

Downcast is a good app for listening to podcasts and costs $3.49 on the App Store:
• Once you are in the downcast app you can search through the podcasts you have
• To add a podcast you select Add at the bottom of your screen
• To add a podcast manually you can enter the web address with the internet feed
• Top podcasts are the popular podcasts
• You can go to Search and type something like CBC; You’ll get a list of about 120 CBC podcasts
• Once you select a podcast it will give you options to add the podcast or subscribe
• You can adjust your settings to only download when you are on WIFI
• Look for other adjustable settings within the app
• You can set it only to download the last 5 or 10
• In downcast settings you can set it to only keep the last 5 podcasts you have listened to and it will automatically delete the rest.

Clement and Matthew recommended podcasts:
• AppleVis
• CoolBlindTech
• iFocus – Hadley School for the Blind
• Americas Test Kitchen
• Joe Rogan is a good comedy podcast

Next Meeting will be December 16 and we will not have a set topic planned. Plan to come and bring your technology questions and get some help and answers.

My Experience with the Lower Mainland Skytrain VIP Service:

I was recently able to travel the Vancouver area Skytrain System independently, and with confidence and grace to attend the GTT meeting in New Westminster hosted by Blind Beginnings at their offices at 227 6th Street thanks to the VIP assistance services offered by TransLink staff. It was my first attempt at travelling on public transit alone in the Lower Mainland, and it came to pass because I asked Rob Sleath about the VIP assistance that I had heard about, but never inquired after before this most recent trip. Here’s how it all went.

I arrived at the South Terminal of YVR on a flight from the Qualicum Beach Airport and took their 7:30 AM Shuttle service to the YVR Canada Line Skytrain Station. A fellow Shuttle rider assisted me to the bottom of the escalator, whereupon I called the Control Room for the Canada Line portion of the Skytrain system, 604-247-5703. An attendant showed up soon thereafter and guided me to the next train heading for the Water Front Station, and she called ahead to arrange someone to meet me there to guide me to the Expo Line Station. I’m not sure if they coordinated with the Expo Line folks, so I called their control room just to make sure, 604-520-5518. She turned me over to an attendant who works that line mid-way there, and he once again ensured that I was on the next train heading for New Westminster Station, and he also called ahead to arrange for someone to meet me at that end. The final stage was the biggest surprise to me, as that attendant guided me through the Station and on to the Bus Loop so that I could catch the next #106 to my final destination, where I arrived at about 9:30 AM.

I was hugely impressed with the services rendered and with the timing of it all. At no point did I have to wait all that long for them to arrive, and each of them were respectful and courteous.

If anyone is planning a trip to this area and plan to use the Skytrain system please don’t hesitate to call on them for support. Store those two numbers in your phone before you leave home. I must also note that the noise on the 30-year old Expo Line trains is considerable, so hearing the Station announcements was hit-and-miss. I turned on my Blind Square App just to make sure I stayed in touch with my location along the way. It seems this 30-year old line is getting to be a little worse for wear, so be sure to select a seat under a speaker for your own security and confidence.

I really want to thank all the advocates who have ensured that we have this great level of support should we choose to access it. I can foresee a time when I might do some travelling on this system completely independently, however for now I won’t ever hesitate again to ask for the help I need.

Thx, Albert

The Perkins School for the Blind’s video, “Technology: Making a Difference in the Lives of People Who are Blind” is pure and simply worth the click. Check it out at this link  

Source: Worth the click: Perkins School for the Blind’s video, “Technology: Making a Difference in the Lives of People Who are Blind”