Louis Braille

www.screenreder.net

I should think that everyone knows who invented Braille. Louis Braille, of course and all the blindness charities round the world will rightly be celebrating Louis’ wonderful achievement, Margaret and I very much with the rest. Our personal lives have been transformed by Braille.

But Louis Braille was really all about information, communication, reading and writing if you can’t see. Paper and bodged dots was the technology available to him at the time; but what if Louis was around today? What would 21st Century Braille be like?

I fancy he would be like us at Screenreader.net and getting very excited about the modern computer that can speak, read, tell you what you are writing and amazingly put you in touch with people and information un-dreamed of in his dots and paper age. He might too, like us, have wanted all this to be a free option, there for even the poorest blind person.

He lived in an institution, died largely unrecognised except by his close mates and, like many brilliant inventors, failed to reap material rewards for his genius. I wonder who his boss was, if he had a Line Manager or a business plan. My guess is that he never got invited to the posh charity events of his time. How many of us know the name of the very important blind institution where he worked or even what his “proper job” was supposed to be. I wonder if it entered his head to charge his blind peers for Braille books, so much per page, per dot etc.

Its very right to be celebrating the memory of Louis Braille’s birth on January 4 and throughout 2009, but let’s learn some basic lessons and celebrate the human being, the inventor, the genius of a blind man and not just milk it to raise funds.

I was emailed by RNIB and asked to publish details of Louis Braille celebration events mostly here in the UK and I am pleased to be able to do this so that our many Thunder supporters round the world can pay tribute to a great man. But I do like the Australian touch best: A day on the beech in the sun.

The Louis Braille Bicentenary
Louis Braille was born on the 4th January 1809. To celebrate the achievements and legacy of this remarkable man, organisations across the globe are planning special programmes of events for 2009. A brief summary follows:-
RNIB events
RNIB will be using the year not only to raise awareness of braille but also to encourage more people (particularly adults) to learn braille
• From January 2009, there will be an advertising campaign and media relations demonstrating how braille has changed peoples lives.
• On the 4th January RNIB will launch an exciting new look website containing lots of up to date information, podcasts and videos
• There will be a high profile signature event in March. David Blunkett, the patron for the years celebrations, will attend the proceedings
• Two amateur radio enthusiasts have secured the call sign GB2HLB. They will be in contact with other enthusiasts around the world between the 26th December 2008 and 22nd January 2009.
• RNIB Cymru will be holding a children's essay competition. Children will be invited to write an essay with a welsh theme in either English or Welsh braille
• In Late Spring 2009, RNIB will be publishing the results of a major piece of research on the issues facing adults learning braille
• Two key products will be launched. The first, a grade one braille course is for both sighted and touch learners. The kit will contain braille writing equipment so that learners can immediately start to label things and write short notes. The second product is the innovative 'upward' writing frame which means that braille no longer has to be written using the reverse mirror writing method. The stylus makes 'upward' dots.
• A book will be published in conjunction with the EBU. It will contain a selection of winning essays entitled 'How Braille changed my life'
• The annual UK Techshare conference highlights the role of technology in the everyday life of people with disabilities. In September it will have a braille theme and it is hoped it will host the French traveling exhibition on Louis Braille and his legacy
Other UK Activities
• RNIB, Torch, Blind Catholics, Guild of Church braillists, St. John's Guild, and others are organising a Louis Braille thanksgiving service to be held at St. Martin's in the Fields, London on Saturday March 21st
• The BBC world service plan to broadcast a programme on the 4th January 2009, highlighting the global reach and appeal of braille in its many forms. There will also be sections on the life of Louis Braille and braille and innovation.
• Traveleyes, a company specialising in holidays for blind and partially sighted people is organising a trip to France in May 2009 with a Louis Braille theme.
• National Braille Week are organising an international Chess tournament in Edinburgh running from the 2nd January to the 4th January 2009. All moves will be recorded in Braille. There will also be a braille exhibition.
Some International Events
• The French organising committee (CINAL) are having a 4 day symposium beginning on the 4th January 2009 with a concert in Paris in the Notre Dame Cathedral. The conference is entitled 'Braille 2009 - 6 dot writing and its future'.
• The Americans have produced a silver dollar featuring the face of Louis Braille on the head side. It will cost $11 dollars and the $10 premium will be directed to groups which benefit the blind.
• CINAL are organising a second conference in June. It will take place in Coupvray (the birth place of Louis Braille) and will cover independence, integration and access to knowledge. It will inform the 'Coupvray Charter' which will have 10 key political proposals. The activities will conclude with a concert featuring Stevie Wonder and Andrea Bocelli
• National Braille Press has produced a range of promotional items (lapel pins, notelets, Bookmarks, Key chains, Poster) These are all for sale at www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/louis
• On the 4th January the Australians are having a celebration on the beach with a 50 metre long braille sand sculpture. 'The spirit of Louis Braille will meet the spirit of Australia in the sand the sun and the surf'.

Thunder Working Now with Windows Vista

It doesn’t matter how good your offer is. If you don’t market it to the world, there are no customers. So today I have been drafting a Press Release about our Thunder software working well with the newly released Windows Vista operating system. I have passed my words to a PR expert and, hopefully, she will get it into the Press. So this is what I wrote for her:

Windows Vista available to Blind Computer Users Right Ready Now

People with little or no sight have always lagged behind the rest of when a new version of Microsoft Windows hits the shops. But not this time and it’s a couple of UK companies who are on the ball.

Thunder is a piece of software that makes a modern computer talk so that blind people can surf the net, email and deal with documents on an equal footing. Amazingly, its free for home use and easy to use. Developed by Sensory software Ltd, Stockport, it is distributed as a download by screenreader.net in Peterborough. The download website for Thunder is www.screenreader.net.

There will be blind and partially sighted people who can’t wait to get to grips with Vista and they can, right now. All they need to do is to spend a few minutes downloading Thunder and the new adventure begins. Thunder includes a specially designed web browser called, rather quaintly, WebbIE which presents websites as line by line text, easy to manage and listen to. There is even a WebbIE option to make the print as large as you like on screen for those with some useful vision.

So right from day one, Vista is usable by blind and partially sighted people who will be able to enjoy the new Microsoft Office 2007, including MS Word and Excel. They will be able to email using the new Windows Mail which has replaced Outlook Express and they will be able to continue to perform many of the other Windows functions and the enhanced security and benefit from the improved multimedia offerings and there’s more too!!!

Many partially-sighted people need magnification software to maximise their productivity on a computer. Sensory Software Ltd have developed and released Lightning, a software package which does just that. Its not free like Thunder but costs £159 and, here is the real Magic, it can come on a memory stick and the user can pop this into the USB port of any modern Windows Vista or XP computer and they are ready to go with print as large as they need it. There is a similar memory stick version of Thunder too at the same price. All this is fantastic news for a disadvantaged disability group which so often has been let down and made to wait and pay dearly for computer access. Says Roger Wilson-Hinds: “It’s always been our dream to be on time with disability Assistive software and this is all excellent news for schools, libraries, Public bodies and individuals with little or no sight”.

Contact Details:


Roger Wilson-Hinds
Screenreader.net
7 The Rookery
Orton Wistow
Peterborough PE2 6YT

Tel: 01733 234441
Fax: 01733 370391
roger@screenreader.co.uk
ask@screenreader.net
www.screenreader.net

Flying Out to Austria

In March I have to spend a few days in Austria because we have been given some European Community money to develop our free software in several east-European languages. So I thought it would be great to make the flight bookings online as a blind person using our WebbIE browser software with our free Thunder talking software. Two hours later and having learned a lot…well this is what you do. But in the future, it will only take about 15 minutes and, hopefully, you too will be able to do the same or similar bookings.

From the Start Menu, go to All Programs and Cursor down to WebbIE and Enter.

Shift Control W, to search the web, and type in “book ryanair”. Not the quotes, of course.

Enter on the first choice and cursor down to hear the following:

Webpage: Ryanair.com - The Low Fares Airline
Link 1: www.ryanair.com
SEARCH » SELECT » CONFIRM » CONTACT » PAYMENT » ITINERARY
Radio button 1: [Selected] Round Trip
Radio button 2: [Not selected] One Way
Where are you flying from?
Select Item 1: (Origin)
Select Item 2: (Destination)
Date to fly out?
Select Item 3: (24)
Select Item 4: (January 2007)
Link 2: javascript:open_calendar(1)
Date to come back?
Select Item 5: (24)
Select Item 6: (January 2007)
Link 3: javascript:open_calendar(2)
Number of passengers?
Select Item 7: (0)
Adults
Select Item 8: (0)
Children (under 16 years)*
Select Item 9: (0)
Infants (under 2 years)*
Input button 1: (SEARCH FOR FLIGHTS)

You need to go through the earlier items one by one by cursoring down and selecting, by pressing Enter , on what you want. In my case, I wanted a Return Trip which was already selected so I did not have to change that selection.

Pressing Enter on “Where are you flying from” allowed me to Cursor Down until I found London Standstead” so I pressed Enter on that choice.

Cursor Down some more and Enter on “Dates to fly out” and “Dates to Come back”. In each instance, press Enter and cursor down to the appropriate date and again press Enter.

Unless you have a bit of useful vision, just ignore the links such as link 3 that refer to Java Script and Calendar because it just doesn’t happen with speech.

I was not concerned with the children details and just opted for 1 passenger.

Press Enter when you reach “Input Button 1” and you will be able to use the Cursor Keys to listen to the page which gives you masses of information on flight options, prices, insurance and baggage etc. Its all very accessible. Good old Ryanair and I got the whole journey with insurance etc for £70 on the very days I wanted it, Stanstead to Gratz Return.

But there is a bit more to learn later in the website to do with payment and filling out your credit card details. All this is now pretty standard so I will do a separate Blog on card payments on the internet which applies here and to many other websites.