Hey guys,
Steve here.
I’ve been wanting to write this post all day, but since my school recently got a new website blocking filter, wordpress has been blocked, thus eliminating the possibility of that happening at school. And when I got home this afternoon, I was far too tired to produce anything better than a sloppy, short, rushed life update post.
Okay guys, I’m really sorry for annoying you… but it’s really important to me that you vote on the, you guessed it, pole that will be presented below. Unfollow me if you wish… but I need to get your opinion. If you can just bear with me, this will only stick around through April 16, but until then, here you go.
[polldaddy poll=7937065]
So you want to know what’s up with me lately? Presumably, seen as how you’re reading this post. Well Since last Wednesday, much has happened in this life of mine. So where do I start? Well I guess how about Thursday and Friday. Yes, I’m sorry, the most boring days of my last week.
Since that severe weather day post was posted on Thursday, you could gather that we had another severe weather outbreak. The day was still rather uneventful for me; all the storms stayed north of us, and I spent the evening practically attached to my radio.
As for Friday, nothing much happened then either, and besides goal ball and my favorite weather (rain), Saturday was the same.
Sunday, however, was a good day, right from the moment I woke up. Sunday morning was one of those rare occasions when I get to wake up to the exciting yet comforting sound of thunder. And when I got up, I had a wonderful breakfast of eggs and sossage, then it was off to church.
After church, and a little bit of house cleaning, something really awesome happened. My brother Justin, whom I hadn’t seen in 3 years, came over for dinner! It was nice, but shocking, to finally get to see him again. Man… he’s already 20, and has a job. I still remember those days when he was 15. And, the day I last saw him was April 12, 2011, just 9 days before I started this blog!
Anyway, after the excitement of seeing my brother again, Monday and today were normal. I didn’t even have to write a Monday’s musings post last night; I wrote it on Saturday, and scheduled it to appear on the blog last night. That’s another neat feature of word press :).
As for the future, I’m going to miss school on Friday. My o&m teacher is taking my sister and I, and I think some other kids, to the firewheel town center. I’m not sure exactly what the field trip is for, but I’m looking forward to it. Since I don’t know exactly how the day will go, I’ll be sure and blog about it.
Besides the field trip, the beginner Orchestra Festival is next Tuesday. Basically, my orchestra class will be going up to a high school, where we’ll practice our songs (I might be wrong), but then we’ll come back in the afternoon. And at 6:20 Tuesday evening, we’ll have to be right back up at the high school, where we’ll be performing our music.
I guess that’s it for future life events.
Moving on, I did mention programming updates in the post title… right? Well here’s why.
As a programmer, you know I couldn’t stay away from my code for too long… so I didn’t. Last night, I decided to start working on sQuad word once again, and messed around with some of the code. By messed around with some of the code, I mean adding autosaving (never worry about your work being erased), and majorly tweeking the configuration. It used to be that, if say you wanted to show the version number in the window title, you’d have to check that option in the options menu, restart the program, then it would take affect. But now, it will automatically do it, no restart required. This is the same for the word wrap option.
And while on the subject of software, my dad and I will look in to getting a Patton (I think that is another word for software license) soon. If we get that, I’ll publish version 1.0 of sQuad word. But remember, I still have some visual testing to do, to at least make sure the thing works for you sighted users.
As for Trash, that will require a bit more tedious code work. Thus, I’m not even going to bather with that until I get the patton.
Well I guess that about wraps up tonight’s post. I hope you enjouyed it. Have a good night all of you, and try not to get bored to tears by the end of this workweek. Believe me, I’ll take that advice myself :).
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
Tag: software
It's Sunday… yet I'm still excited
Hey guys,
Steve here.
It’s Sunday, the day before the long stressful week starts, however I’m still in as good of a mood as I would be on Friday. First of all, it’s the start of the week of my birthday, and second of all I’m seriously almost done with Trash.
To start off, let me tell you what I mean by “seriously almost done with trash.” I don’t mean that it’s almost ready to beta test–it’s still too buggy to play; I mean it’s in the process of being tested, and almost all bugs have been eliminated.
Since I last posted, here’s what I’ve implemented:
-wild card. What is a card game without a wild card? So far, you can place the wild card on any position that doesn’t have a face up card already in it, however the computer can not yet utilize the card. When this is complete, I plan to have it where you can move said wild card around. Why you ask? Say you have the wild card in the second position, and you draw a 2. Say that then you still need a 5. I want you to be able to replace the wild card in the second position with the 2, then put that wild card in the 5. See what I’m saying?
Moving on, but also on the subject of software, I didn’t get a chance to test the visual aspects of sQuad word on Friday, because Luke, the friend I’m testing it with, decided it would be a great idea not to come to school. Oh well… we’re not in a hurry with this, are we?
Also, something that happened to my sister gave me an idea for another feature. She had almost finished a, I think 50, question test, when her computer shut down, causing her to lose her answers. So, I decided, as that has happened to me before, that I would implement an autosave feature. Thus, I think this will further delay sQuad word’s release… but you can rest assured that your documents won’t be erased should your computer unexpectedly shut down.
Completely changing topics, I had quite an awesome weekend. I spent both nights Skyping Danny, beta testing his snow boarding game for the blind with him, and programming and testing Trash. As for yesterday during the day, I had to get up at 6:00 in the morning, because my sister had some test, and then her, my mom and I were going to north park mall with one of our vision teachers, MS. Kristie Smith. I’m not sure why we were going, but it ended up being fun.
So after Libby’s test, we went to the mall as expected. There were other blind and visually impaired kids there. While we were there, we went to the apple store (I got to test out an iPhone 5, and an IPad air). Ever notice how light an iPad air is compaired to other apple products?
Anyway, after that, we went to build a bare, and just for the fun of it, I made a white bare and named him “bob.”
Afterward, we tried out tea samples, something I wasn’t a big fan of, since I’m not a tea person. And after that, we tried out some lotion samples, then ate ice cream.
When we got home, I crashed for about an hour and a half, before eating lunch… and spending my night talking to Danny and all that stuff.
Today was a more relaxed day. The only thing worth blogging about that I did was going to church.
Well that about concludes today’s post. I’m ending this so soon because next Sunday is 5th Sunday singing, and I’m going to the church at 5:30 to practice a song I’ll be singing… and I have to get ready. That, and I don’t have much else to say.
So, I hope you look forward to steve eve, and the day of the best. Also, don’t forget to stay in tune for the Monday’s musings post tomorrow night.
Monday’s Musings 12: Is the world of accessible technology going backward, for computers anyway?
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Warning: If you aren’t in any way intrested in technology, don’t read this post. But I have some thoughts on it that I need to get out… so… I thought I might as well post this.
This particular subject has been bugging me since I was first introduced to Google, and it intensified once I got into using Windows 8. What I am here to muse about, as the title says, is the world of accessible technology.
You’ve seen a similar post from me before, however that one was me wondering why it has to cost so much. While on the subject of that, I recently found out about an accessible Twitter client, that someone is celling for $15. Crazy, huh?
Anyway, getting back on topic, let me elaborate a little bit. A while back, in 2009, google’s gMail was accessible right out of the box. However, through the recent years, it has come to a point blind users who wish to use it must first search for the “basic html” link, activate it, so they can get a basic accessible view. That is only one example. In fact, google in general has been slowly getting less screen reader friendly. Google sights, youtube, and google docs are just three things from google that have accessibility issues. Although youtube is fairly usable, some buttons and graphics are not clearly labeled, so it’s definitely not a site I would recommend to a blind person just starting out with computers. As for google sites and docs, the two products, as of the last time I tried to use them, are practically unusable if you are using a screen reader.
Google is not the only problem here. Let’s take Microsoft Windows, another product I use daily, for example. Windows XP, a version of the Windows operating system that is so old it will no longer be supported as of April 8, was the most basic, accessible verson I’ve used. Windows 7, released in 2009 or 2010, was pretty much just as accessible. However, Windows 8 introduced a whole new layout, one that I am so unhappy with, I will probably install classic shell, an application that will give windows 8 the feel of windows XP or 7. Why you ask? Well let’s just say this. The menues, and even task manager application, are laid out in a grid. The task manager, I’ll admit, is quite useful, and I like the way they did it. But the start menu… well not so much.
The reason, I think, has to do with the increasing popularity of GUI (graphical user interface). I think, that with new technology available, Microsoft, like most other software companies, google included, is trying to make their software more appealing to sighted users. And although Microsoft has worked hard on a narrator application that is better than it has been before, the overall look and feel of windows 8 is still hard to get used to. And to top it off, what is google doing? Even edmodo, a social media platform used by schools, what is that doing to make it more accessible?
Just to let you know, I’m not ticked off or anything. I believe that these companies lay out their software this way for a reason. And if I really want something accessible like that, maybe one day someware far down the road I’ll program it. And besides, to end this post on a good note, I can feel better knowing that there are people out there developing software for us. As long as there are people like that out there, I can believe that we are heading toward a future with more accessware, a future in which I will be included.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.