News & Views

OK. So where have I been? Well, there's my job. Second, I launched a site called 'handiapped.com' but that didn't take off so I recently shut it down. I produce and host the weekly vidcast, "Video Sandbox" (which you can find a link to here on Macsimum News, hint, hint). Plus, dealing with governmental red tape, insurance company beauracracy, conversion van dealers, etc. In short, a full plate.

For those of you new to this column, I started it way back when, when dinosaurs and Lincoln ruled the Earth. It started as a column about how to set up your office and your work area to be as efficient and stress free as possible.

Well ... for those of you who were following along and working on plans to layout your office, I finished my plans. As for executing them ...

But I felt compelled to start this series again, if only occasionally, after watching Steve and Co. perform the keynote yesterday. There was such a strong emphasis on 'Universal Access' that I had to chime in.

Apple, at least to my knowledge, is the only company to tout these capabilities built into the OS. And as they're beefing it up a bit, I thought that we should take a closer look.

Currently, UA is broken up into four distinct categories: Seeing, Hearing, Keyboard, Mouse (sounds like an obscure Agatha Christie novel). There's various adjustments and compensations that you can make to your Mac to ease your computing experience (some not so obvious, but very useful). You know that they take this seriously when you notice that the seeing section is in what must be 32 pt. type. Obviously they are really working at this, and not merely giving us a nod and tip of the hat.

Voice Over gets the Leopard's share of additions. The first new thing that Leopard brings to the table is Alex. Alex is the new voice that was demonstrated during the keynote and runs on improved technology. I'll still talk to my beloved Victoria, I promise, but the smoothness of the Alex's inflections (while not perfect) is a major step forward in the Voice Over category. Voice over also works with any application that supports Apple's speech synthesis.

A new addition for Universal Access is the ability to support for a variety of refreshable Braille displays and note-takers. Leopard dynamically translates VoiceOver output into standard, Grade 2 contracted Braille. So, now the vision impaired can attach any supported device and start using it right away.

With object navigation in VoiceOver, you can find what youre looking for more quickly by navigating sequentially through an application or document, or skipping through a document by object. Apple explains: "For example, you could jump to the next or previous header, button, link, field, graphic, or text attribute such as font or style. Improved navigation in Leopard makes it faster and easier for those with reduced motor skills or visual disabilities to move around the Mac. VoiceOver features spoken audio and sound effects that communicate whats happening onscreen. In Leopard, positional cues help you more easily locate and remember the location of items on the screen. All you need is a pair of stereo headphones or standard stereo speakers."

There's also more customization options for audio output. You can now adjust your preferences to provide greater detail in descriptions, then reduce the amount of audio information as you become more experienced. "You can also rearrange the order in which VoiceOver describes objects and events, so you hear the information you want most, first."

Additionally, there's improved QuickTime support which will automatically display the CEA-608 closed captioning text standard in analog broadcasts in the U.S. Can Apple Home Theatre be far behind?

It's comforting to know that Apple (not to exclude third parties) are not only ensuring that everyone can enjoy the Mac experience, but that they are trumpeting it. So, whether I complete the office makeover or not at least my computing experience will be pleasurable.

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2006 Frank Petrie
Macsimum News contributing editor, Freelance writer, Curmudgeon Email: frank@macsimumnews.com
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