POP3 and geek talk

[Guest guest]

Pre-script: I found out my dad was on this list.. I dunno how active he was on

it. (Harold ) Anyone remeber him? I imagine he'll be back on the list

shortly as we get his computer stuff sorted out.

Aletta Mes wrote>>

>>Elliot, where were you last month when I was madly searching for a free

POP3 account. I finally found one at lycos.nl,<<

Heh.. where was I last month? I was spending my days hanging out with a friend

of mine.. skipping school, drinking, corrupting minors, doing all sorts of

illegal drugs (to the extent that you might actually _induce_ some of the

symptomes of MSA,) driving, drinking and driving, coloring and cutting hair,

sometimes without the full knowledge of the person whose hair was being cut..

sneaking around in abandoned and collapsing houses and buildings.. listening to

loud and brilliant music, (folk, pop, acid, punk, feminist, and other stuff) and

generally disturbing the neighbors with loud parties and such.. except that I

*personally* don't drink or do drugs, but that's the general ambiance. I

recommend it highly! At present I'm in a suburb of New Orleans and everyone is

so middle class and straightlaced around here I'm going to kill myself I swear..

If I were in the ghetto it wouldn't be so bad.

Aletta, your e-mail you sent there about the government screwing everything up

and wanting your money back, you know I agree with your points of view there.

It reminds me of that Meat Loaf album (Bat out of Hell II) the song " Life is a

lemon(and I want my money back!) " That's a cool song. Kinda serious but... not

serious at the same time. what's the word.. self... self-somthing.

>><<

Elliot's response:

thanks for your advice! Hey so you're in Louisiana too? small world. my dad

worked for Xavier for a few years until he went on disability. he was running

their 'international program' or something (I can't remember the name of the

program exactly)

so you're a geek! Nice to meet you!!!! I'm glad I'm not the only one here!!!

so okay then, we can talk geek on this list, without worrying that noone is

interested!!

as far as accessible software and OSes go.. the Mac OS is pretty impressive out

of the box. It's got voice recognition,(not seriouslly useful, but still

interesting) speech synthesys (however you spell that) and a few miscelleaneous

adaptations to the GUI elements for the physically challenged, (and tons more

available as shareware if I remember correctly) not to mention the fact that to

start with, the interface isn't organzed as if and doesn't look and respond like

it was drawn on someone's knee on a napkin on a bumpy bus ride on the way to

work, which is nice.. it really does make a difference I think.

but not to start and OS war, I'm not the least bit interested in that..

yeah so I just got a DSL line, am using a Mac as a server right now (strictly IP

daemons running.. so I can shuttle files back and forth.. I'm working on a POP

daemon and smtp server and such..) I'm going to migrate to linnux eventually

here.. I just got an ethernet card to work in my windows machine.. finally.. I

only had to try 3 different ethernet cards, finally had to go with an ISA card..

only had to reboot the OS like literally 50 times.. and finally the driver was

installed.. yeaa.. all those years doing tech support for Gateway finally pay

off..

So yeah I've got a wireless lan, my dad just got an ibook laptop.. so that is

critical for him.. he can be anywhere seated in any position and still use the

laptop. He uses his easy chair, which is in need of an upgrade..

but yea as far as input goes.. for the mouse.. my dad uses a track ball.. it

seems much more workable for him.. there is also the option in the Mac OS to

control the mouse pointer with the keyboard.. haven't explored that yet.. we're

still concentrating on teaching him the basic elements of the GUI so that as he

uses the applications he has an idea of *what* he wants to do and after he is

more familiar with *what* he's doing then he will be better able to evaluate how

best to do what he wants to do.

as far as voice recognition goes.. I realize that with speech problems, standard

off the shelf packages will probably crash and burn. However I am sure there

have to be some packages out there that are adapted to people with speech

problems? I haven't had a chance to research it yet. I know too as far as

input goes.. mouse control.. keyboard control of applications in lieu of mouse..

there is a lot of 3rd party stuff out there for both the Mac and Windows

platform.

There are those keyboards that have 6 or 7 or so keys.. I forget what they're

called.. and by pressing different combinations of keys you can have like 128

different characters.. if you were to hook something like that into a database

of commonly used phrases with an appropriate GUI element.. someone might be able

to speak at a fairly decent clip, despite having slow motor control of the

fingers. I'm sure it has to have been done already out there..? again I need

to research that..

One thing that I am noticing is that due to the rapid onset of symptomes of MSA,

it has to be especially challenging for someone with MSA to research the

assistive technology that is out there. One day you can read a paper. a few

months later it takes an hour to flip through all the pages. Whereas someone

who has been paralyzed or had a mobility impairement all their life will have

had all their life to get acquainted with strategies and techniques for coping.

Due to the rapid onset and progression of symptomes I am starting to realize how

critical it can be to get assistance in coping such as from a physical therapist

and from people who have already figgured out coping strategies. We all have

different strong points and so one person will figgure out this technique in

this area where someone else might continue doing it the hard way.

for example with transferring.. There is an easy way to get my dad into the

van, allowing him to use as much of his dexterity as he can, and there's a hard

way... in any event, we will have to look at getting a ramp or something of

that nature.