technology

Heil PR 20 Demo

After hearing Dr. Bob Heil speak at HARC, I decided to upgrade my computer’s microphone. He joked that a lot of people use microphones that they say cost $40...

Rediscovering Radio

As the Coronavirus situation unfolded, it became clear to me that I needed to buy a new radio. It seemed strangely absurd to me that I had all this fancy ham...

Welcome Back to the World

Welcome to my new upgraded web site! This marks the completion of a long migration to a new server. The last two years have changed me. The song Through Bein...

Technical.ly Philly Profile

Technical.ly Philly published a wonderful profile about me as part of their series about accessibility. The article pretty much speaks for itself. My eyes hu...

A Thanksgiving Gift from Apple

It has taken over three years, but my first app Eyes-Free Fitness has gone live in the app store! I wrote it in RubyMotion. The project involves a team of pe...

BarCamp 10

It all begins at BarCamp! I gave my first speech at the unconference in 2012 and just gave another at the tenth anniversary of this defining event.

Replacing AirPlay with the Raspberry Pi

A number of years ago I decided to use AirPlay to stream audio through my condo. I picked the best solution for the time but had issues since day one. For a ...

My New Blog

“That which has been spoiled through neglect can be rejuvenated through effort.” - I Ching

Back to my Open Source Roots

So much has happened, I hardly know where to begin. I haven’t written any articles in a while and have pretty much stayed off social media, except for an occ...

TechGirlz!

This week I volunteered to help teach a class about web accessibility for TechGirlz. This amazing nonprofit organization offers free workshops to help girls ...

The Accessible World and Beyond

I’ve had an amazing few weeks! At the end of April I gave the technology track keynote speech at the Accessible World, a conference about accessibility which...

Disboardia

Happy Groundhog Day! Every February second I think about bulletin board systems, as I started mine twenty-five years ago, on February 2, 1991. Before the int...

Clojure: the Holy Grail

Every few years I feel like learning a new programming language. After some thought and an amazing synchronicity I have decided to learn Clojure. Functional ...

The Apple Fancast

I just took part in an email interview with the Apple Fancast for their segment the Rounded Rectangle. They asked me a series of questions. They did the same...

I Love my Apple Watch

I finally got around to writing my review of the Apple Watch and its accessibility features. When I first got it, I deliberately held off, figuring that anyo...

Don’t Panic Alarm

I recently celebrated Towel Day, a day to honor the life of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The book sells so well because it ...

EvoHaX and the Accessibility MacGuffin

A few weeks ago I participated in EvoHaX, an accessibility hackathon which happened as part of Philly Tech Week. Ather Sharif of EvoX Labs did a wonderful jo...

On The Pulse for a Second Time

At the end of 2013 I appeared on a radio show called The Pulse, which airs on WHYY. I really enjoyed the experience of broadcasting, and hoped one day to do ...

Discordian Holyday Calendar

Discordians have their own wacky take on the Gregorian calendar with its own seasons and holydays. After I missed Afflux yesterday I decided to atone to Godd...

CocoaLove

Last month I spoke at CocoaLove, a conference about people, not tech. After traveling so much it felt wonderful to speak at a local conference. It had the fe...

TEDx Philadelphia 2014

In late January I received an email inviting me to speak at TEDx Philadelphia, the local version of the famous TED talks. At first I mistook it for spam, but...

EuruCamp 2014

This summer I spoke at EuruCamp. It took place in Potsdam, Germany. I spoke twice, participated on a panel, and made some new friends. Watch the video. I als...

Free NoIP!

I just had a little service outage. Sorry if anyone tried to access a file and couldn’t. As it turns out it has an interesting story that deserves attention....

#inspect 2014

I just spoke at #inspect2014, the second annual RubyMotion developer’s conference. The first one happened in Brussels. This year’s happened in San Francisco....

Philly Tech Week 2014

Every year Philadelphia has a week-long celebration of tech events called Philly Tech Week. Last year my friend Sonia and I had a braille street art table. T...

The Pulse on WHYY

As I noted a few weeks ago, I recorded a version of my Ignite Philly talk which would air on WHYY. It aired on friday on a program called the Pulse. It felt ...

Nerds!

I just saw the musical Nerds. I loved it. Every nerd in Philadelphia should see it. It runs through the end of December. Since I haven’t read a detailed revi...

Ignite Philly

I’ve had so much going on, I finally had time to write an article about the speech I gave at Ignite Philly. Adam Teterus, one of the organizers of the event ...

Fear and Loathing in the Nickel City

Recently, I attended the Nickel City Ruby conference, in Buffalo, New York. I went with Alex Kaplan of Neomind Labs. We gave speeches, had Buffalo wings, saw...

Motion-Accessibility

I just released my second RubyMotion gem. I call it motion-accessibility. It makes it much easier to make your applications accessible by providing Ruby-like...

Asbury Park Adventure

While speaking at the RubyMotion conference in Belgium I met Bret Morgan, who runs a coworking space in New Jersey called Cowerks. Since we live near each ot...

Join the Ridesharing Revolution

A few weeks ago I attended Open Access Philly. While there, I heard a presentation about a new service called SideCar, which does something called ridesharin...

Golden Sections

I just released my first RubyMotion gem. I called it Golden Sections. It lets you create views based on the golden mean. I hope you enjoy it.

Braille Street Art at Philly Tech Week

Since publishing my initial article about braille street art, interest has increased. It has taken us by surprise. A friend who does sticker art inspired me ...

The Journey Home

_This concludes my trilogy covering my trip to the #inspect 2013, the first RubyMotion conference. If you haven’t, you should start by reading about the trip...

#inspect 2013

This article makes up the second part in a little trilogy about going to #inspect, the first RubyMotion conference. I expect a few updates as more content co...

An Unexpected Journey

I just spoke at the first RubyMotion conference in the magical city of Brussels, Belgium. RubyMotion allows a developer to write iOS apps in the Ruby program...

Philly Give Camp 2013

This weekend I attended Philly Give Camp. At this weekend-long event, volunteers give their services to nonprofits who need them. The event took place at the...

RubyMotion and Accessibility

I just gave a great talk at the Philly Cocoaheads group. We met at the life-transforming Indy Hall. I covered basic iOS accessibility, RubyMotion, and how th...

My First Visit to Indy Hall

At long last I have finally come to Indy Hall, a coworking space in Philadelphia. Many people told me I HAVE to check it out, and now I see why. The web site...

Austin’s Accessibility Adventure

This weekend I attended BarCamp Philly. Everyone promised a life-changing time. They spoke the truth. I had a lot of fun, met some great people and even ende...

Links as Language

Recently I attended a talk put on by the Philadelphia Area New Media Association, entitled <Links as Language: how Hyperlinks are Changing the Way we Read...

RubyMotion Rocks!

Ever since I started using an iPhone, I have wanted to learn how to write apps for it. I made several attempts to learn Objective C, but it never worked out....

Why Ruby Works

I recently wrote that I had begun drinking beer and coding in C++ again. I wondered about a possible correlation. I found one. Both can cause headaches. I’ve...

My Beautiful Birthday Bluetooth Boombox

I recently got two Logitech products in one day. First I got the Logitech Keyboard Cover for the iPad. Since my birthday of July 14th would happen soon, I al...

The Logitech iPad Keyboard Cover

Ever since I held an iPad 2, I have pictured it as some kind of supermodel. It just has such a sleek and beautiful feel to it. The proportions feel just righ...

Beer++

I drank beer in college. I learned C in college. After I graduated I stopped doing both. Now I have begun using C++ and drinking beer again. Coincidence?

Taking a Byte of the Raspberry Pi

I became excited about the Raspberry Pi as soon as I heard about it. I had no idea if a blind person could even put one together, but I ordered one anyway. I...

Access Unlimited

I just appeared on the excellent show Access Unlimited, an award-winning show on KPFK in Las Angeles. I talked about my first experiences with computers, the...

Operation FLAC

This equinox I had a profound revelation. MP3 sucks! I know others have stated this, but the full realization has really hit me. Now I feel obsessed with pre...

The First Philadelphia VoiceOver Event

The Philadelphia regional chapter of thePennsylvania Council of the Blind partnered with Apple to put on the first VoiceOver event in this area. The event to...

Aftershokz!

I feel very excited to review the Aftershokz bone conducting headphones. These new headphones use bone conduction to deliver sound, leaving your ears open to...

What Apple TV Means to Me

I have recently gotten AirPlay working to prepare for a move. As I wrote, I got an Airport Express and an Apple TV. At the time of writing I had to wait t...

How to Make MPD work with AirPlay

As I wrote last night, AirPlay rules! As I have written previously, iTunes does not. It has always seemed like a bloated program to me. I far prefer the M...

AirPlay All the Way

The time has come to move! By the end of the month I will have moved from the suburbs into the city of Philadelphia. I feel excited about it, but I’ll sav...

The Death of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has died at age 56. Family said he passed peacefully in his sleep. This has sent shockwaves around the net, and I thought I’d throw in my own litt...

Scrivener

I have discovered an awesome writing tool for the Mac called Scrivener. They also make a version for Windows, but I cannot use Windows for psychological reas...

Object Oriented God

Ask a programmer to explain object oriented programming, and they will say something like: “Well, everything is an object.” Ask them to explain an object, an...

Ben King: Dead or Alive?

A friend of mine named Ben King died on June 28th, 1996. Every year I do a memorial for him. Recently, a guy named Andrew emailed me who had lost track of a ...

Random Creation

Sun Ra fans celebrated his arrival on this planet as they do every year on May 22nd. I always have some revelation about equations, mathematics, and things o...

What Hath Goddess Wrought!

I have loved radios as long as I can remember. This caused me to become interested in amateur radio, which caused me to learn morse code. Recently, I thought...

The Quest for my iPad 2

I have it! I have my iPad 2. Getting it proved one of the strangest experiences in recent days. Listen if you will to my tale.

Let there be Light Detectors

I feel glad to report that we can now add light probes to the list of blind technology now made obsolete by the iPhone. Recently, I received an email from a ...

A Trip to the Mac App Store

Today, Apple released Mac OS 10.6.6, which adds the Mac App Store. I wanted to give a sneak peak, especially from an accessibility point of view. I also want...

Green or Gone

I thought I’d start the new year off with a little humor. In a blog post, Jason Scott said that for him, the combination of green text on a black background ...

MobileMe or Die!

Firstly, let me say that I write this using an awesome program called Mac Journal. It lets me work directly with my blog. I hope this works. Now, onto busine...

On CBC’s Spark!

A few weeks ago, Dan Misener from the CBC contacted me, asking if I would like to do an interview for their weekly technology radio show Spark. Of course, I ...

Let’s Go Skywatching!

For years I have sought ways for me as a blind person to relate to the night sky, especially since sighted people cannot seem to describe it. “Oh no. It’s al...

Hearing Emoticons

As a programmer, it always amazes me when a simple feature makes a profound difference. Any programmer will know what I mean. In this case, I refer to VoiceO...

Rejoining the Apple Family

This summer has inadvertently become the Summer of Apple. First, I got an iPhone, which changed my life. Next, I got an iPad, which I love as well. The other...

My First Week with the iPhone

Last Wednesday, my life changed forever. I got an iPhone. I consider it the greatest thing to happen to the blind for a very long time, possibly ever. It off...

My Awesome New Router and Firmware

I find it ironic that after bashing an inferior phone company and praising Verizon in my previous article, that I should now rail on them a little. This conc...

Unclear Rate Communications

So many companies these days have misnomers for names. Clear Rate Communications comes to mind. I thought I would do something to save money, but ended up ge...

I love my Bag Elite!

I love my netbook, but have wanted a case with a shoulder strap. The one recommended on Amazon only had handles. Friends felt similarly, and recently, one em...

Network Administrator

I haven’t blogged in a while. I have had a lot going on, including having my living room repainted. I wanted to share a funny thing that happened tonight.

Summer Shines in the Winter

I have done it! I have gotten Linux installed on my Netbook. Specifically, I used Arch Linux for the Blind. Coming from Slackware, it made a good choice, sin...

Guess the Algorithm

A few days ago while aimlessly surfing the world wide web’s waves, I came across [Vintage Basic. ](http://www.vintage-basic.net) I don’t even remember what ...

Big Boom!

I write this article under strange circumstances. On Sunday, we had a thunderstorm. It quickly escalated into a very severe storm, with wild lightning and ma...

More mysteries of the EeePC 1000HE

Like a woman, a netbook has many layers and mysteries. I have solved two more I felt worthy of documenting as I freely write from my armchair in the living r...

Netbooks: the end of Notetaker Fascism

the blind have had notetakers for years. i remember first purchasing a braille ‘n speak, a wonderful beloved device about the size of a vhs tape. it used a b...

Some basic tips for the EeePC 1000HE

I finally got a text version of the manual for the 1000HE. It doesn’t look pretty, but it works! I wanted to share a few tips to help get acquainted.

My first post from my Netbook

During my Summer Solstice Lord of the Rings party and ritual, I dubbed this the Summer of the Netbook. Shortly thereafter, I ordered one, an Asus EeePC 1000H...

The Editor Wars Continue WIthin

I know I have considered myself a born-again Vim user, and I love Vim, but I have recently begun investigating Emacs. It definitely has some interesting pote...

Back in Slack!

I write this from a barely configured system. I sincerely hope I don’t need to reinstall it, but we shall see. I wanted to document what happened, in case so...

Moving to a New Machine

The time has finally come. I got my Windows computer redone with all new hardware. I thought I’d gradually get my other two Linux machines redone, and contin...

The Genuardi’s Experience

I detailed the problems shopping while blind in the previous post, and won’t rehash that. After our harrowing experience with Acme, we decided to give Genuar...

The Acme Experience

Shopping while blind presents several obstacles. The idiot dorks at independent living centers tell blind people that they must behave like sighted people at...

My Awesome New Cherry Keyboard

I finally got a serious keyboard. I spent $60 on amazon for the Cherry classic 104-key keyboard with a PS/2 port. I got so tired of typing on crap, and just ...

Panasonic TG9332T

I have gone through several cordless phones since they became popular. At first, I didn’t use them, then got one, then realized their convenience, and now I ...

The FiOS Chronicles

I will chronicle my experience with FiOS. I just got it installed yesterday. Verizon FiOS provides a fiber optic line right to the house. The technology has ...

Born Again Vim User

I have discovered vim, vi improved. For those who don’t know, Bill Joy, of Sun Microsystems, first wrote vi in the seventies to serve as a more humane altern...

A Question of Liability

I posted this after the event in question. I repost it now because of the referenced bout with godaddy, who I can now tell to SUCK IT!