The contents of this column are a reflection of the letters we had received at the time of publication, September 15, 2003, and reflect all of the mail we received this month. "The Braille Forum" is not responsible for the opinions expressed herein. Opinions expressed are those of the authors, not those of the American Council of the Blind, its staff or elected officials. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for clarity, style and space available. We can print your letters only if you sign your name and give us your address.
Regarding Ken Lovern's Article in June "Braille Forum"
I would like to comment on the article written by Ken Lovern entitled "My Computer: An Appreciation from a Guy with Bad Vision," which appeared in the June "Braille Forum." The article was well-written, and it captured feelings which many of us share.
I got my first personal computer as a high-school graduation gift several years ago. That computer was a Pentium, running DOS. I could type documents on it using WordPerfect 5.1, and I could have them read aloud to me. I could edit what I wrote; if I found a mistake I could correct it on the spot. The only drawback to that computer was that it did not have online access. My parents wanted me to upgrade to Windows, so my father took that computer to a recycling facility.
Then my parents contacted a place here in the Chicago area that sells and distributes hardware and software to people with disabilities. They ordered me a brand-new Gateway equipped with JAWS. The computer was delivered to my house, and a representative even set it up for me. Then somebody else from the company started training me on the Gateway. It wasn't long before I could prepare and edit documents in Microsoft Word.
There were several delays in getting me online, but my Internet access problems were solved when an instructor from the Hadley School for the Blind came to my home and showed me how to access the internet with JAWS for Windows. Now I am happily surfing the world wide web, and I get reliable output from the Eloquence speech synthesizer. I have thought about getting a braille display in addition to my screen reader, but that costs money which I don't have right now.
I think computers are cool, especially today because assistive technology for people who are blind and disabled has advanced so much. Some day I would like to take a tour of Bill Gates' house.
-- Jacob Joehl, Kenilworth, Ill.