The Thoughts and Ramblings of Steve

Category: Uncategorized

  • Feeling tired and uninspired, but why let that hold me back?

    OK I know that’s not my best post title ever, but as the day winds down, it’s a title that honestly reflects how I’m feeling. The tired thing is explainable, I’ve had a long work day and then I helped a friend with some technology stuff during the evening. But it’s the uninspired part I want to write about today.

    Often, when I’ve asked people why they don’t start their own blog, a common response I get is something like, “oh, nobody would be interested in anything I have to write about.” This makes me sad because I firmly believe that every life contains a story and blogging is a fantastic way to tell that story. And while it would be cool to have thousands of readers — it’d be one heck of an ego trip — the reality is that a story does not require readership to make it valid or meaningful.

    I find inspiration in stories, I love reading about the things people do, the experiences people have, the passions that drive them. I consider it an honor when someone is willing to share their story with me because it gives me an opportunity to have a rare glimpse into their life, to learn something new, to maybe shift my own understanding or perceptions about things and that helps me grow as a person.

    So, while I might be feeling tired and uninspired, I hope that someone, somewhere, will read this and maybe be inspired to start their own blog someday. Remember, you have your own fascinating story to tell and whether you have a thousand readers or none, your story is unique in only a way that you can tell it.

    So, what to blog about? I’ve blogged about a variety of things such as my experiences with Android in 2016, I blogged about how I used OneNote to help me manage a medical crisis, I blogged about the first time I drank coconut milk, directly from a coconut, I blogged about my first impressions of India when I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit. I have no idea how many people read those entries — maybe nobody — but all of them make up just a fraction of the story that is my life. In short if you’re remotely considering starting a blog, but aren’t sure where to begin, don’t over-think it, just write. Write about what you’re doing right now. Write about what you hope to do. Write about a trip you’re taking, or maybe one you’ve already taken. Write about something you believe in. Write about something that has meaning to you. And if you do start that blog, let me know in the comments here or on my contact form as I’d love to check it out.

  • An open thank-you to @YNAB for improving accessibility in an incredibly meaningful way..

    For years, I’ve been a fan of YNAB, You Need a Budget. I love the principles behind their budgeting methodology, I love the app, I love the company, I’m just a really huge fan. YNAB has helped me to pay down debt, feel more confident about where my money is coming from, and going to, and generally feel way more in control of my financial life. Unfortunately, on 07/14, I downloaded an update to YNAB’s iOS app, an update that contained significant accessibility issues.

    Tweet from Steve

    I was hurt. I was up-set. I was not sure if I had set enough money aside to cover my rent payment — in short, it was not a very good day.

    When it comes to making products and services accessible, it’s really important to understand that accessibility isn’t a nice-to-have, or a feature request. This is especially true if you offer a product or service that people might depend on. Sure I could have changed to another app, but I also would likely have had to change my budgeting method to one that would align with whatever new app I had chosen. That would have been especially challenging as I couldn’t put my financial life on pause while I figured it all out.

    Fortunately, the fine folks at YNAB were extremely responsive and understanding, indicating that they were already working on fixes and, more importantly, were working to ensure that issues like this wouldn’t happen again.

    And so here we are, roughly three weeks later, and I again get a notification that an update to the YNAB app is available. Even better, the “What’s new” section of YNAB’s App Store entry mentions:

    • Two major accessibility wins:

    ◦ We made many improvements to VoiceOver interactions.

    ◦ We changed our background colors so that the Increase Contrast accessibility setting will now apply to the YNAB app and actually increase the contrast.

    What’s New section in YNAB’s Apple App Store entry for version 3.01

    I downloaded the app and was absolutely blown away. YNAB is now more accessible than ever, it’s a complete accessibility transformation. Because of their work on accessibility, I can use the YNAB iOS app way more efficiently than ever before.

    Steve’s tweet thanking YNAB after being blown away with their 3.01 update

    So, what does all this mean? Certainly this is a win for me personally, but it goes way beyond that. By

    working to improve our approach to accessibility concerns to prevent instances like this in the future

    Mentioned by YNAB in a follow-up tweet

    YNAB has helped ensure that I remain a loyal customer: I’m happy to continue using their product, and I’m happy to continue paying for it because I feel listened to and I feel valued. And that’s a big part of accessibility that often gets left out of the conversation; accessibility is about equal access to products and services, but it’s also about listening to, and responding to, customer needs; and isn’t that a key component of many brands? When a company values me, and goes the extra mile to show me that I am valued, they create loyalty because like most consumers, I appreciate companies and brands that appreciate me.

    So Thank you, YNAB team, for your work on accessibility over these past few weeks. Not only have you transformed your iOS app in an incredible way, but you’ve also demonstrated, by taking action, that you value me and others who use assistive technologies. I’m proud of the tremendous amount you’ve accomplished and am excited to see what comes next.

  • It must be awful to be blind

    Oh if only I had a nickel for every time someone said this to me, I’d be a very rich man. I’ve heard variations of this all my life, so often in fact that when I was younger, I actually asked someone if there was something wrong with me because I didn’t feel my life was that awful. Anyway, since this is something I continue to hear over and over again, I thought I would blog about my perspective on the subject.

    Before we get started, I want to clarify that the following is strictly my perspective and may not represent the perspective of all blind people. I feel it’s important to call this out up-front because often I’ve seen that when one member of a community says something, it’s assumed to be fact for all members of that community rather than just that one person’s perspective. OK with that out of the way, let’s get started.

    Imagine this.

    To put things in perspective, let us go on a short imaginary trip. Let’s say you’re walking down the street, maybe going to work, your favorite restaurant or coffee shop, or just out for a nice stroll. It’s a sunny day, the temperature is just right, it’s just a great day to be outside, one of those really awesome days when it’s just great to be alive. As you walk, you come upon a pigeon. The pigeon is just doing its thing just as you’re doing yours when out of the blue it says,

    “Jees, it must be awful that you can’t fly.”

    How do you respond to that statement? Let’s be honest here, it would be really cool to fly. I mean birds make it seem so easy and Superman did some really cool stuff with his ability to fly. But is your life really that bad because you can’t fly?

    “I don’t know”, I’d say to my new pigeon friend, “I don’t think my life has really been that bad. I’ve gotten to visit places around the world and I’ve done it without ever flapping a wing.”

    Perspective and judgement

    Perspective is a very powerful thing. From the perspective of the pigeon, an inability to fly might seem like something that would make life very difficult. And that perspective is perfectly valid. We all have our own perspectives on things, it’s totally normal. Where perspective turns into a really bad thing however, is when judgement is cast — when the pigeon decides that since he can’t conceive of life without flight, it truly must be an awful reality. It’s one thing to shift one’s perspective, but something else entirely to reshape what one deems to be reality.

    So, is it awful to be blind? Well, I certainly don’t think so and over my 40+ years, I’ve had plenty of time to ponder the question. As mentioned above, I’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a bit including getting to visit some really cool places like Europe and India, I have a good career, I have a family, I enjoy the city in which I live, all-in-all, not really a bad life, at least in my opinion. Just like with an ability to fly, there are aspects of being able to see which I sometimes think would be cool, things like being able to jump in a car whenever I want, but even these aren’t things that prevent me from living a really awesome and fulfilling life. Take the car thing as an example: Sure it would be super convenient to just jump in a car and go, but I can get an Uber, often in less time than it would take someone to find a parking space. It’s a tradeoff, but one that is off-set by not needing to worry about car maintenance, a car payment, insurance payments, gas prices … I’m sure you get the idea. Being able to pick up and read a book or piece of mail would also be pretty cool, but with the evolution of technologies, even this doesn’t pose much of a barrier anymore. With most restaurant menus being online, I often know what I want to eat before the server even comes to take my drink order. And, with curb-side pickup offered by just about every retailer these days, shopping has gotten easier than ever. My point is that while there are times when I feel having sight would be useful, or just plain cool, there are usually ways to accomplish things without it. Do I know all these ways? Certainly not, like everyone, I’ve had to learn along the way, sometimes from friends, sometimes from family, sometimes from teachers or trainers, sometimes from books, but isn’t that how we all learn how to do things in life?

    In conclusion, I don’t think that being blind is an awful thing, it’s just a thing. Just like not being tall, or just like not being able to run very fast, or, well, anything else. I know people may be curious about how I do certain things and that’s OK, curiosity is natural, it’s why we have the ability to ask questions and it’s how we learn from one another. So just know that if you’re reading this and you have questions, I think that’s great. Just please, please don’t pass judgement based on assumption because at least for me, my life as a blind guy has not been awful; I actually think its been a very fulfilling and beautiful thing.

  • How I got into the accessibility field

    When people ask me how I got into the accessibility field, my answer is that for me, it was more by accident rather than by design. I had just graduated from college, moved to a new state, and was excited to begin my career as a network or telecommunications engineer. I knew I would be hired very quickly because after all, I had a shiny new degree and back then, I was still young enough to know everything there was to know. And so I waited for my phone to ring … and I waited … and I waited. Eventually my phone did ring, but it wasn’t with the awesome job offer I was expecting, rather it was a friend who called asking for help. My friend had gotten a new job and was excited to begin work, however, he wasn’t sure how — or even if — the computer system he needed to use could work with a screen reader. For anyone new to this blog, a screen reader is an assistive technology that takes text that normally appears on an electronic screen and renders that as speech or braille output. Put another way, it’s a technology often used by (but not exclusively by) blind/low-vision people to hear the textual information that appears on a screen.

    I was surprised when my friend called for a few reasons. First, my phone hadn’t rang in so long that the sound nearly startled me out of my chair. More important though, I had been using screen readers for quite a while and just sort of assumed that every other blind screen reader user must surely be as proficient as I was. What I didn’t fully understand is that not everyone was as into technology as I was and that my interest in technology could really be used to benefit others in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I was happy to help my friend, but even happier when I saw the impact that help had on his life. My friend told people about how I had helped him, those people told other people and before too long, my phone was ringing quite a bit.

    If I had to define what accessibility means to me in one sentence, it would be: To empower and enable people to accomplish whatever it is they want to be able to do in life. Over the course of my career, I’ve had the honor to help people utilize technology to accomplish incredible things. I’ve also gotten to play a part in the evolution of technologies which continue to help more and more people every day; it’s been an incredibly awesome journey.

    Often I’ve been asked, “What kind of background is ideal for someone wanting to get into the accessibility field?” I think what’s really needed is a passion for equality and a willingness to be open-minded. Empathy also goes an incredibly long way. Certainly there is a technical component to accessibility, but some of the best accessibility professionals I’ve met come from user experience, teaching, and a variety of backgrounds, each adding their own special experiences and perspective to what is becoming a tapestry of equality.

    One more thing I want to address in this post is this idea which I keep hearing, that people with disabilities are a natural fit for the accessibility field. Certainly there are some really amazing people with disabilities in the accessibility field, but simply having a disability doesn’t necessarily make someone a good fit. For example, I have spoken with many other blind folks who feel that accessibility would be a good fit for them because they are very proficient screen reader users. The thing is, accessibility is way more than testing content with one particular type of assistive technology such as a screen reader. I think what often gets overlooked is that accessibility is about equality, not just equality for people with a specific type of disability.

    I’m always happy to talk about accessibility, it’s an incredibly amazing and rewarding field. If you’d like to learn more, definitely continue the conversation in the comments, or feel free to contact me. Also, if there’s a particular aspect about the accessibility field you’d like me to blog about, please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to write a post on the subject.

    End

  • The Ultimate Blog Challenge and a brief introduction for those who don’t know me.

    I have decided to take part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge. The Ultimate Blog Challenge challenges bloggers to try and publish at least one entry per day throughout the month of August. So, why am I doing this? Blogging is something I keep talking about wanting to do more regularly and more consistently and yet I’m always hesitant to actually get started. My hope is that by doing this challenge, I’ll get better at that “just get started” thing and that over time, I will feel more confident publishing.

    So, who am I?

    For those that don’t know me, my name is Steve and I’ve worked in the accessibility field for all my life — well at least for most of it. I was born blind and over my life, have witnessed the incredible impact technology has changed on my ability, and the ability of others, to have access to information. That access to information thing is incredibly empowering in ways ranging from socioeconomic to vocational. When people have access to information, they are empowered to make informed decisions, they can actively contribute in so many ways, it’s just an amazing thing that I’m obviously very passionate about. I also view accessibility as a springboard for innovation, not something that impedes progress. Indeed, many of the things we take for granted resulted from some sort of accessibility-related innovation — maybe a topic for a future article?

    Whether you have followed me and this blog for quite a while, or whether you have just discovered me, I want to thank you for reading, for joining me as I attempt the Ultimate Blog Challenge and most of all, for being part of the conversation. If you would like to receive new posts from this blog directly in your Email, you can add your address below and activate the subscribe button.

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  • Can I use Apple’s new MagSafe to attach an iPhone to my fridge? Yes, yes I can.

    I was curious if I could use Apple’s MagSafe technology to attach an iPhone to my fridge and apparently I can. I’m not sure how posting a YouTube video to WordPress works, so hope this comes through.

    www.youtube.com/watch

  • Dear diary 2020 edition

    I’ve seen this all over FaceBook, but not anywhere else, hope the original author can eventually be identified and attributed.

    Dear Diary 2020 edition

    In January, Australia caught on fire. I don’t even know if that fire was put out, because we straight up almost went to war with Iran. We might actually still be almost at war with them. I don’t know, because Jen Aniston and Brad Pitt spoke to one another at an awards show and everyone flipped the f—out, but then there was a thing happening in China, then Prince Harry and Megan peaced out of the Royal family, and there was the whole impeachment trial, and then coronavirus showed up in the US “officially,” but then Kobe died and UK peaced out of the European Union.

    In February, Iowa crapped itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted and the Speaker of the House took ten years to rip up a speech, but then WHO decided to give this virus a name COVID-19, which confused some really important people in charge of, like, our lives, into thinking there were 18 other versions before it, but then Harvey Weinstein was found guilty, and Americans started asking if Corona beer was safe to drink, and everyone on Facebook became a doctor who just knew the flu, like, killed way more people than COVID 1 through 18.

    In March, shit hit the fan. Warren dropped out of the presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or bust, but then Italy shut its whole ass down, and then COVID Not 1 through 18 officially become what everyone already realized, a pandemic, and then a nationwide state of emergency was declared in US, but it didn’t really change anything, so everyone was confused or thought it was still just a flu, but then COVID Not 18 was like y’all not taking me seriously?

    I’m gonna infect the one celebrity everyone loves and totally infected Tom Hanks, but then the Dow took a shit on itself, and most of us still don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing (I still don’t), but then we were all introduced to Tiger King. (Carol totally killed her husband), and Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realized there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross.

    In April, Bernie finally busted himself out of the presidential race, but then NYC became the set of The Walking Dead and we learned that no one has face masks, ventilators, or toilet paper, or THE FREAKING SWIFFER WET JET LIQUID, but then Kim Jong-Un died, but then he came back to life… or did he? Who knows, because then the Pentagon released videos of UFOs and nobody cared, and we were like man, it’s only April…

    In May, the biblical end times kicked off historical locust swarms and then we learned of murder hornets and realized that 2020 was the start of the Hunger Games but people forgot to let us know, but then people protested lockdown measures with AR-15s, and then sports events were cancelled everywhere. But then people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were protests in every city, but then people forgot about the pandemic called COVID Not One Through 18. Media struggled with how to focus on two important things at once, but then people in general struggled to focus on more than one important thing, and a dead whale was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest after monkeys stole COVID 1 Through 19 from a lab and ran off with them, and either in May or April (no one is keeping track of time now) a giant asteroid narrowly missed Earth.

    In June, science and common sense just got thrown straight out the window and somehow wearing masks became a political thing, but then a whole lot of people realized the south was actually the most unpatriotic thing ever and actually lost the civil war, and there are a large amount of people who feel that statues they don’t even know the name of are needed for … history reasons….. but then everyone sort of remembered there was a pandemic, but then decided that not wearing a mask was somehow a God-given right (still haven’t found that part in the Bible or even in the Constitution), but then scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the center of the earth, and everyone was like DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, but then everyone took a pause to realize that people actually believed Gone With The Wind was like non-fiction, but then it was also announced that there is a strange radio signal coming from somewhere in the universe that repeats itself every so many days, and everyone was like DON’T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT, but then America

    reopened from the shutdown that actually wasn’t even a shutdown, and so far things have gone spectacularly not that great, but everyone is on Facebook arguing that masks kill because no one knows how breathing works, but then Florida was like hold my beer and let me show you how we’re number one in all things, including no Not Corona Beer, Corona Virus. Trump decides now is a good time to ask the Supreme Court to shut down Obama Care because what better time to do so than in the middle of a pandemic, but then we learned there was a massive dust cloud coming straight at us from the Sahara Desert, which

    is totally normal, but this is 2020, so the ghost mummy thing is most likely in that dust cloud, but then I learned of meth-gators, and I’m like that is so not on my f-ing 2020 Bingo card, but then we learned that the Congo’s worst ever Ebola outbreak is over, and we were all like, there was an Ebola outbreak that was the worst ever?

    In July…. Aliens? Zeus? Asteroids? Artificial Intelligence becomes self aware?

  • Anyone remember Usenet news groups? I wonder if they’re still around.

    I don’t know why, but I found myself thinking about Usenet news groups and was wondering if anyone remembers them, or if anyone knows if they’re still a thing?  For those that aren’t aware, there used to be a system called Usenet which enabled people to have discussion-style conversations on thousands of topics.  These topics were hierarchically arranged by groups, called news groups.  I used to love Usenet groups back in the early-mid 90S as I could use any number of Reader applications to participate in the groups.  While today web-based forums seem to be the popular norm, the nice thing about the older news groups was that, for me at least, I had a standard way to participate in the discussion regardless of the group.  In contrast, I personally struggle with web-based forums, each of which seeming to have its own interface: I find them often complex and I get distracted with how to participate so much that I don’t actually wind up participating at all.  mailing lists are another discussion method that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed for the same reasons, but with many users becoming overwhelmed with Email and/or not understanding how to configure filters, these too have sadly fallen off in popularity.

     

    So, does anyone out there remember Usenet news groups?  Does anyone else miss them?  For those wanting to learn more about Usenet, there’s a great Wikipedia article discussing its history which is really a fascinating read.

  • Testing to see if I can post audio to WordPress

    I wanted to see if I could record an audio clip and successfully posted to WordPress. It’s raining pretty hard here, so I thought I would try and capture some binaural audio. I hope this works.

    

    testing-in-the-rain.mp3

  • Tap tap tap, is this thing back on?

    If this actually publishes, then I have successfully moved this blog to its new home at https://www.steves.life .  Surprisingly, beside the somewhat complicated-looking list of steps I needed to follow, the process went relatively smoothly.  I do want to send out a special thanks to the extremely kind folks at JetPack Support who calmly and patiently walked me through one particular technical issue.  For those unfamiliar, JetPack is a free plugin that adds additional functionality to WordPress and they offer plans that come with various levels of support.  

     

    I want to thank those of you who have continued to follow me — despite my lack of posting activity — and to anyone new who has decided to follow, welcome to my blog in its new home.