The Thistle Lass

[thistle]

Hi,

I am so excited to be here. I've been ivolved in social networking for a while now, but I'm excited to connect with more folks who share my Scottish and maybe my Irish herritage. Among other things, it'll make it that much more exciting when I make it across the pond.

I really don't know what to tell about myself. I love learning and I enjoy many things. I suppose I'll just reveal more bit by bit as I navigate around the community.

I want to sign off by thanking whoever made the community so excessible to visually empaired users. While I have been able to use just about any community I choose with the aid of a screen reader, I find it so refreshing when it seems that a site has done everything it can to make it just that much easier. God bless you all.

Thistle

[Alastair]

Re: The Thistle Lass

I have to confess I hadn't thought of visually impaired users making use of our site so whatever we did we likely did it in ignorance. Could you tell us more about this as we wouldn't want to change anything that is making it easier for you to make use of our community.

Alastair

[thistle]

Re: The Thistle Lass

Well, let's see. Registration first of all. The abillity to request an audio challenge helps me overcome one of the biggest challenges. Not all forums offer this option. Secondly, the way the forums, threds, and posts are organized with headings makes navigation more timely. Other than that, I can't think of any features that stand out at the moment. Thaks again.

[Alastair]

Re: The Thistle Lass

Thanks for letting me know... we did in fact have a top lawyer complaining that it was difficult to register so we sent the person a wee copy of your posting in encouragement. [grin]

[Papa Bear]

Re: The Thistle Lass

HEY!!! This was NOT done without thinking or by mistake. I am following USIIA suggested guidelines for Site Access to hopefully ensure that we are fully accessible....

Sheesh...Do some work without saying anything and it gets blamed on a mistake <grumble - grumble>

[thistle]

Re: The Thistle Lass

lol Sorry, had to chuckle. Either way, it ais appreciated. I'm usually one to say that it is a sighted world and I have to learn to live in it, but as I said, the situations when it is made just that much easier are a blessing. Thanks.

[Alastair]

Re: The Thistle Lass

Well I can appreciate to some extent your loss of vision. I've just had eye surgery to restore the site in one eye that filled with blood... my other eye is fine but it sure made a difference to my depth perception. It would often take me three or even four attempts to back the car into the garage.

My mother lost her sight towards the end of her life. The talking books service was a God send. We used to have fun with selecting the books. You picked 30 books from a catalogue and I had to read out the titles and the description for her to select them. We found a talking watch which she wore like a pendant. It was also my job to weigh out things which is partly where I got my cooking skills. I also got the job of reading her the Sunday Post newspaper each week. I found out there was an audio version of the paper so got that but it was made rather clear that she preferred that I read it to her so that service got stopped.

Mind you if you read out loud long enough you find you vary your voice quite a bit but after a while you start to get a bit mono tone in your reading and it used to lull my mother to sleep [grin]

Alastair

[thistle]

Re: The Thistle Lass

I enjoy being read to. I have a friend that is as much of a book-worm as I am, so sometimes we get together and she reads. We end up making commical commentary throughout and I keep threatening to make a recording one of theese times. Most of the time, I am read to by a computer. I download a book from one of the services I subscribe to, set the screen reader going, and engage in other tasks whilst enjoying a good story or whatever. I thank God for computers and the internet. I learned to type on an old Apple IIE that my school had with a basic, sometimes hard to understand screen reader. Now, I serf the net and do geek stuff like learning HTMl. I went to a school that tought me how to cook, shop, and all that jaz. I'm sorry you had to go through sergery. I was blessed by having an eye condition that really doesn't require care like that. No drops, and only peeriottic routine checks. I can imagine having an eye fill with blood hurts. But hey, at least they let you make the attempt to park the car. I can't get anyone to even let me drive in an empty parking lot. Although, I did drive a little tracter a couple of times. My friend walked along and yelled directions. When I reminded my mom of this at one time, she says, "and you wrecked it to, right?" I says "No, she did." Meaning my friend. lol In all fairness, I know their just concerned about what might happen. I just like to rub it in sometimes, hee hee.Scuse me. I'm thinking I've been bit by the ramble bug. *Figuritively bites tungue.*