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Panel – Craig Burns, Belva Smith, Josh Anderson, Wade Wingler | Q1 Math and screen readers Q2 Where can I donate an AAC device? Q3 How do I initiate an AAC evaluation? Q4 Weather apps for Apple Watch Q5 Windows on a Mac with screen readers Q6 Talkback tutorial on Android Q7 Which apps say and which go?
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WADE WINGLER: Welcome to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host Brian Norton, Director of Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads. This is a show in which we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like answered on our show? Send a tweet with the hashtag #ATFAQ, call our listener line at 317-721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions, and we have answers. And now here’s your host, Brian Norton.
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WADE WINGLER: Hello and welcome to ATFAQ episode 57. My name is Brian Norton – no, it’s not. My name is Wade Wingler and today I am the host of ATFAQ because I’m filling in for Brian. He is at camp week – not our camp here but camping with his family in the woods. Brian is out so we are going to try to do an episode without him. We will see how that works.
I’m happy to be in the studio with a few of my friends and colleagues so we will get into some of the questions you sent in. Before we jump in, we will go around the studio and introduce everybody who’s here. I’ll start with Belva Smith who is the vision and sensory team lead here at Easter Seals crossroads. How are you?
BELVA SMITH: I’m good. Hey everybody.
WADE WINGLER: Josh is our manager of clinical assistance technology. What’s up?
JOSH ANDERSON: Doing good Wade. Hi everybody. Welcome back.
WADE WINGLER: Craig Burns is our cognitive mobility team lead and has been on our show many times in the past. Craig, what’s up?
CRAIG BURNS: Everything, rain, everything out there today.
WADE WINGLER: It is a rainy day here in Indianapolis. Is there a song that said God didn’t make little green apples, and it doesn’t rain it Indianapolis?
BELVA SMITH: That’s right.
WADE WINGLER: I’m here to tell you, we are recording on July 6 and it is raining in Indianapolis in summertime. That song was a lie.
CRAIG BURNS: Or sarcasm.
WADE WINGLER: I’m starting the show off with a bang. Come back, Brian, we don’t know what we are doing without you. For folks who might be new to the show, this is assistive technology frequently asked questions, or ATFAQ. Our format is pretty simple. We get feedback and questions all over the place, and we try to respond to those. We will handle five or six questions throughout the course of the show. We have our panel of experts who know a lot of assistive technology. We love it when we hear from you.
We ask you to call our listener line can’t give us feedback, or for your questions there. It’s pretty easy to do. You pick up your phone, call 317-721-7124. We have a voicemail box set up where you can record your question and we will pop it into the queue for the next show. If you don’t want to use your voice to do that, you can also send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Or we have a twitter hashtag that we monitor, #ATFAQ. It really makes Brian Norton happy if you treat him. Let’s do some Mercy tweets shall we? Send out some tweets with the hashtag. If you don’t have a question, at least a high Brian so he does that you’re listening to him.
BELVA SMITH: Say, Brian, come back.
WADE WINGLER: That’s exactly right. We know you’re listening to the show right now, but tell your friends. You can find the show anywhere you find your podcast. We are on iTunes, stitcher, Google play store. You can also find us at ATFAQshow.com or go to our main website www.eastersealstech.com. There is a place you can click to find the show.
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WADE WINGLER: Before we jump into our questions, we had one quick bit of feedback. We got an email from Josh, and he was emailing about the wildcard question. Last show we talked about the Roomba that Belva has that sweeps her house. He had some feedback. He said that Google Assisant works much better than S Voice. He said starting with android 6.0, all you have to do is hold home to pull up assistance. I know we talked about a lot of things related to Internet of things, so that was Josh’s feedback from last show.
We’re going to jump into our first question this time. We have an email from a local university in Indiana. I don’t think that means Indiana and diversity by a local university. The question is, are there resources for making math more accessible for folks to use a screen reader. We are trying to bring our statistics and economics content online and are looking for resources for best practices. What do you think of that?
BELVA SMITH: The only thing I have to respond to that one is that the Humanware BrailleSense Touch — right? That is one of the newer devices. It’s using an android tablet. Supposedly the math features that are available in that device are phenomenal. It is using Nemeth but it converts it so that the student and teacher can actually access the equally without the teacher necessarily having to know the Nemeth code. We are going to be getting a training on that in about two weeks so we will have more information after that. That’s the only thing I’ve got.
JOSH ANDERSON: It’s the BrailleNote Touch. And that wasn’t right.
BELVA SMITH: I knew “Sense” didn’t belong in there.
WADE WINGLER: We don’t do a whole lot of screen reading and braille math stuff here at our program at Easter Seals crossroads. I know there are some programs doing some of that. At Washington University, Washington.edu, there’s a program called to Do It Center. They have some very good information about MathML which is the math markup language which allows it to be made more accessible. I also know the NFB has a whole STEM initiative — Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math — and they are working particularly on technology for people who are blind and younger and that STEM area. I don’t have any great resources or answers myself, but those are two places I would look. I will look at the Do It Center and at the NFB because I think there’s going to be good stuff coming out of those and a good place to start.
JOSH ANDERSON: I worked with a few consumers who have had to take higher level math classes and have difficulty with their screen reader reading the information. We’ve used MathType. I believe it was version 6.9 at the time. There is a free download of math player that made it a little bit more accessible. It would be able to read the signs and everything and made it a bit easier for them to get through that. They were using window eyes which isn’t going to be available for a lot longer. I have never tested it with JAWS or NVDA or other screen readers, but it did work pretty well with Window Eyes. A lot of the problems we’ve seen before work themselves out.
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WADE WINGLER: We have a question about augmentative medication. It goes like this: I have an augmentative communication device that I’m no longer using. Is there someone I donate it too? All eyes point to Craig Burns because he is our in house AugCom specialist. Talk to us.
CRAIG BURNS: That’s a question that’s been an age-old question. Everybody wants to know what they do with a device when they don’t need it any longer. It depends on how old it is. If it’s more than five years old, probably going to be hard to find a place that once it. If it’s a year old or two years old or three, it might go to an ALS center, for example. Every state or region has an ALS chapter.
WADE WINGLER: ALS centers tend to use those because people who have ALS often have fast onset, rapid degradation of their condition and need those things for a short period of time, but sadly they pass on and don’t need them any longer. There is a high turn rate in the community.
CRAIG BURNS: Right. That would be a good place to start. Another place might be a school that might need it for some students that haven’t gone through the process. They can use them in their library and try them on students. It depends on the device, how complicated or easy it is.
BELVA SMITH: I know for us here, in Indianapolis, Indiana, wouldn’t reaching out to the Assistive Technology Act like we have INDATA, they would probably take it even if it is five years or older, because they would probably be able to, as long as it is in good condition, clean it up and get it reissued to someone who doesn’t have another funding source. I’m going to broaden the question to see any type of assistive technology that you might have. Obviously as you grow, your needs change, and the technology can still be used, especially a lot of times with CCTV’s and stuff, they are still in perfectly good condition but the individual’s needs have changed and they are no longer functioning for that person. Reaching out to independent living centers or your assistance technology act would be a great place to get started.
CRAIG BURNS: Some of the manufacturers, if you contact them and say I had this old device and I need to make sure it works, can I send it in, it’s a fee but they can clean it up and make sure. As long as they can get the parts for it, as long as it’s not that old. They can replace parts. Obviously it would cost, but you get a new feeling device. If it is a touchscreen device, they would make sure that works. They get to the point where they can’t keep batteries for them or can’t keep the touchscreen for them, they have to change because that’s not the industry that controls the touch panel. Just be aware that that might happen. Generally they can clean it up and take all that the tape off of them and put them back together.
BELVA SMITH: There are plenty of people that don’t have funding sources that need devices, so I would always recommend that you try to reach out and find a place to donate it rather than just let it sit in the closet until it’s so injured that I can’t help anyone or until it is no longer usable.
WADE WINGLER: Belva, you mentioned the AT act projects. There is actually an umbrella that is a little larger than that that includes the AT act projects couple others as well. Our friends over at Georgia Tech have a thing called the Pass It On Center, PassItOnCenter.org. They have a lot of information about the utilization of assistive technology that includes a lot of augmentative communication. They have one of those finder systems where you can click on a map or type in your state and will tell you where all of the reuse programs or most of the reuse programs are. I want to say a large majority of them are probably housed in the AT act projects like the INDATA project, but sometimes there are Independent living centers that have a load closet, and there are little standalone groups who are doing that same activity. PassItOnCenter.org is a great place to go and find a place to donate or find the technology if you need that.
JOSH ANDERSON: Could you reach out to your AugCom specialist? They might know some local resources and things like that that could help you out.
WADE WINGLER: The vendors and speech therapist to do AugCom know the industry, they know the local scene pretty well. They can almost always put you in a good direction.
CRAIG BURNS: Some of the foundations, like the Gleason Foundation, will take devices.
WADE WINGLER: A lot of cerebral palsy [sic] around the country do that kind of stuff and know who needs those. Work those local resources.
BELVA SMITH: Good question.
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WADE WINGLER: If you have a question, give us a call on our listener line. We’d love to hear your voice. The number is 317-721-7124. Leave your question or comment. You might just hear your voice on an upcoming show.
Our next question is a similar one. Craig, we are hitting you hard with the AugCom questions since we’ve got you. The question is what I get a lot myself. How do I go about setting up an augmentative communication evaluation? Is that something my doctor needs to prescribe or is there someone I need to call to make that happen? How do you do the whole AugCom you I wish in process?
CRAIG BURNS: That’s a good question. It normally starts with a referral from the physician. Now, maybe a lot of general physicians aren’t familiar with what AugCom is. A lot of times neurologist are, so if you’re working with a neurologist as your doctor, they probably would know. All they need to do is put a referral or script together that says “AAC evaluation and treatment,” and then they can direct you often to the place that you go to that says here’s what we do from this point on. You need to have a certified speech language pathologist to the evaluation. It’s not just anybody that does that evaluation. That requires that doctor’s prescription, and then you make contact with that SLP, and they start the ball rolling from there.
JOSH ANDERSON: Can that be any SLP? Are there ones that specialize in augmentative communication?
CRAIG BURNS: Technically there is no – I don’t think there is a requirement that it be someone that has – you want to find someone who has experience in augmentative communication because they are the ones who are going to be familiar with all of the product ranges and language levels and all that kind of stuff. Most speech pathologist who don’t have a familiarity with AugCom will tell you.
WADE WINGLER: They won’t do it.
CRAIG BURNS: Or they’ll say I won’t do that because it takes a lot of energy to do that kind of stuff. But they will put you out to someone who will have. There are people in the Indianapolis area, there is a location downtown tied into the hospital. There are other places. A lot will be tied into the hospital because there may be a neurologist that is tied into the hospital and that’s the avenue and approach that you have to take.
And then there are schools. Around here, and university has a clinic; Ball State does. Different colleges, wherever you are, may have a clinic program. They can possibly do evaluations because that’s what they are teaching their students and they have somebody who is a department head that can do that level of evaluation.
JOSH ANDERSON: Nice.
WADE WINGLER: So in the medical situation, when the doctor is writing a script for that, is that going to be paid by Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance? Under the question wasn’t about funding but it might help to talk about that.
CRAIG BURNS: Depending on what you are funding source is, if you are a Medicaid recipient, that’s covered by Medicaid. If you are Medicare, you have to have part B. It’s been a while since I’ve done that stuff. That will cover the device. I’m not sure it covers the services. It may be just regular Medicare that covers the services. Somebody will correct that. Sometimes insurance will pay for that as well. You have to check with all your resources, whatever you are signed up for. You can work in combination if it is Medicare and private insurance that can cover things. They cover devices as well, not only the services but the devices. Your funding source determines how that device purchased and what limitations you have on that device.
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WADE WINGLER: Don’t forget, if you’d like to reach out to us and asked the question – quite frankly, we want you to do that – an easy way to do that is to use twitter. You can Tweet and use the hashtag ATFAQ. We monitor for that hashtag and it’s a great way to get us your question.
Our next question is what I like a lot because I like weather and I like Apple watches. It says, I’m looking for a good weather app for the Apple Watch. Do you have when you would recommend?
BELVA SMITH: I use dark sky whether. If you do watchwear.com, there is a list of the top 10 recommended weather apps for the Apple Watch. The weather channel actually recently introduced an app for the Apple Watch as well. I guess Yahoo Weather is now available and it is rated high, although anything Yahoo scares me.
JOSH ANDERSON: Just the word or the company?
BELVA SMITH: Just the word. Also, along with this question, if you want to listen to a good podcast on different apps, if you sign up for the Apple Watch cast, they review the top apps that are released weekly and give you their experience with the different apps. That’s where I learned about my weather app.
JOSH ANDERSON: I’m probably not the best helper on that because I don’t have an Apple Watch or really used one.
BELVA SMITH: You still have a watch that doesn’t tell you the weather.
JOSH ANDERSON: My doesn’t even tell me the time right now because it’s battery is dead. I do use dark sky on my phone and seemed like a pretty much. I like the different settings. It works well on the watch, I would recommend it.
WADE WINGLER: I wear an Apple Watch and love it, and I’m a weather nerd. On my iPhone I have six weather apps installed.
BELVA SMITH: Do you have RainX?
WADE WINGLER: I don’t. I have the regular weather app, our local weather which is the TV channel WTHR, Rain Aware, Carrot Weather, AccuWeather, and Dark Sky. For me, I like dark sky’s interface the best. I think it’s smooth and makes sense but isn’t as accurate as some of the others. If I just want general weather, I look at dark sky and I love it on my Apple Watch. I like the way it looks in terms of its complications. In fact, on my Apple Watch, I have a special face that just has my weather apps on it. I have a face on my watch and it has six complications on them. I have moon phase, dark sky, twice in fact, current temperature. I have sunrise and sunset and AccuWeather. On my main watch face – I do the Mickey Mouse watch on my Apple Watch – I have my Mickey Mouse watch, but the complication in the top right is AccuWeather. I like it because it’s accurate and tells me right now it is 70 degrees – it can’t be true.
BELVA SMITH: Mine says it’s 73.
WADE WINGLER: If I touched it, they would update. It shows me the temperature however accurate it is at the moment and showed me a cloud. So it says 73 degrees and partly cloudy. I like AccuWeather on my Apple Watch for that reason.
BELVA SMITH: I think around the room, dark sky is getting it.
CRAIG BURNS: Does anyone use NOAA?
WADE WINGLER: I used to have that, the National Oceanic and Aeronautics Administration. I used to have that one. I don’t know why I took it off.
BELVA SMITH: Does it have an Apple Watch?
JOSH ANDERSON: I would think accuracy-wise, that one would have to be pretty high.
WADE WINGLER: It might be. Those are the ones that we use. Also we’ve heard that weather gods is pretty helpful, the weather, and dark sky were some others you might want to consider.
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WADE WINGLER: If you have a question, we would love to hear from you. You could just show up in the lobby and ask questions but we probably would be there. Another way to get us a question is to send an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The good and faithful Brian Norton monitors that email address and will be getting her questions into our queue so we can handle those.
Next question is a Windows/Mac question. All of a sudden Belva is smiling. She is our bilingual computer user here. I want to install Windows on my Mac and wonder if you go through the different options for making that happen. I’m a JAWS user but would like to learn voiceover. Instead of going cold turkey and using voiceover immediately, I’d like to take my time and have both jaws and voiceover on same computer. Is this possible?
BELVA SMITH: I think it’s important to know that you can do that, but you are going to be using JAWS in your Windows environment and using voiceover in your Mac environment. You can’t –
WADE WINGLER: Just switch back and forth all the time?
BELVA SMITH: Right. The first thing you’re going to need is a program that will allow you to install Windows on the Mac machine. My preferences boot camp, which is free. There is also fusion virtual machine.
WADE WINGLER: VMware.
BELVA SMITH: I believe there is a small fee for that. They may have switched to a subscription. I’m not 100 percent sure about that. Again, it’s not very expensive. Then you are going to install Windows and install JAWS. Boot camp is the free one. If you do that, you will have to reboot each time you want to leave the Mac environment and enter the Windows environment or vice versa. The fusion, I believe you don’t have to reboot. Like with parallels, you can switch from one to another. I would warn you that without the fresh reboot, you may end up not having speech properly because if everything doesn’t play nicely and let go when you switch, you may find that you are without speech from time to time.
WADE WINGLER: A couple of things. You’re going to have to have a Windows license. You’re going to have to buy the program or use boot camp or whatever, and you’re going to have to buy a copy of Windows that stands alone from the computer you got it on. Let’s say I installed parallels on my Mac and I put Windows on it and loaded JAWS on it, is JAWS going to run inside of parallels on my Mac?
BELVA SMITH: No, and that’s what I was trying to say. You’re still going to be using JAWS in your Windows environment only. It’s not going to work on your Mac, and voiceover obviously isn’t going to work in your Windows environment. My best advice is if you already have two machines, which I’m feeling you might from the way the question is worded, I would leave it that way. Don’t try to bring them together. There are some great tutorials on how to use voiceover. I would dive into those tutorials. I feel like you are asking if you put JAWS on that Mac, is it going to be there to support you when you don’t know how to do what you want to do with voiceover? No, it’s not. One is going to work in the Mac environment for one will work in the Windows environment.
JOSH ANDERSON: Belva, you may know this better because I know you ran Windows on a Mac for an extremely long time. What would happen with keystrokes with JAWS?
BELVA SMITH: You will probably have to reroute the keys because you will have to find that they will be interference. Josh, you pointed out that I was doing that for quite some time, and that’s because to do my work I had to have the Windows environment, but I needed to also become fluent with the Mac environment. I didn’t have a good experience with that myself. I currently do my work on a Windows PC, and at home I am a Mac user. I’m still using both, but not on the same device, the same computer. That’s another thing. It has a whole lot to do with what operating system you have and how much RAM you have. I wouldn’t even try to do it if you have less than eight gigabytes of RAM.
JOSH ANDERSON: If you’re trying to run JAWS and —
BELVA SMITH: That’s what I’m saying. I wouldn’t try if you’ve got less than eight gigabytes.
WADE WINGLER: I like your idea of keeping both machines going if you can and install the dropbox on both see you can pass files back and forth. If you get frustrated on the Mac and want to pick it up in Windows, you can just go to dropbox, grabber files, and you will be okay.
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WADE WINGLER: As always, we rely on your questions. If we don’t have questions, we don’t have a show. Give us a call on our listener line at 317-721-7124.
We have a question related to blindness or visual impairment. It says, I have a visual impairment and I’m currently a college student. I’m looking for a video magnifier that I can transport from class to class. I would like it to let me see worksheets and handouts in class, what the teacher is doing in the front of the classroom and convert text to speech when needed or bring me a slushy and hot dog between classes. I added that part. No slushies requred. Do you have any suggestions for a CCTV that can be used in all those situations?
BELVA SMITH: I think we mentioned a few shows back that Humanware Prodigy Connect is a very portable CCTV that allows you to do desktop distance and can also convert your text because it is using an android device as its heart.
JOSH ANDERSON: It’s pretty much a good size android device. I don’t remember exactly what size the screen is. I want to say 12 inch. It has the Prodigy software build on to it, so it can sit there and do the medication and everything, and with the touch of a button it will snap a picture and the OCR will read. It has a second piece that is out of the camera that you can clip on the side of a desk, zoom in and actually use for the distance of you.
BELVA SMITH: It folds down pretty flat so it’s pretty portable and will fit into most backpacks if you want it to. I think it has an optional carrying case, because it was really designed for a student. I would also like to suggest to this person that possibly just having an iPad could do everything they are asking in the situation, even as far as letting you see what the teacher is doing in the front of the classroom. Definitely for capturing text and having it read back to you. If you have access to an iPad, you might want to look into some different apps that might allow you to use that device to do everything that you are asking to do here.
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WADE WINGLER: One more time, we love your questions. Why don’t you email one to us. That meal is tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.
We have another question here. Is there a way for someone who is blind to find and go through the talkback tutorial on an android device. I haven’t been able to find it yet and it is frustrating. Don’t be frustrated. Belva will help.
BELVA SMITH: I’m sure that is frustrating. What I would suggest is just go to your web browser and put in support.google.com. That will bring up the android accessibility help page. As long as you know how to do your basic navigation, then that should get you through. I’m just looking at it for the first time and it’s got everything, how to turn it on, how to touch using then talkback, how do you use your home screen, lots of different tutorials. I guess I should say what I put in was I first put in talkback tutorial, and ended up taking me to the support.google.com. You might want to do that first, or otherwise you are probably going to end up with all kind of support information, not just talkback.
WADE WINGLER: Google has an accessibility hub that is google.com/accessibility. And there are links for products and features in those kinds of things. That might be a good place as well.
BELVA SMITH: Maybe Google the talkback tutorial first so that you can get directly to where I am at on this page. That’s probably easier than trying to find it through the phone, especially if you are brand-new at it. What I’m looking at is not a lot of video. It is all text so it’s not like you’re going to have to be playing videos.
WADE WINGLER: We pushed paws on the recording for just a second to see if we could figure this out. Quite frankly, it’s hard to figure out how to get android talkback to get back into tutorial mode or explore those things. Belva suspects that maybe it’s because there are so many versions of android and talkback that are available. That’s a bit of a stumper for us so I would reach out to our audience and suggest if you guys know the answer to this question, is there an easy way to get the talkback tutorial to pop up, especially after the first time it has run on an android device. We would love to hear that. You can call us on our listener line at 317-721-7124. Let us know how you get back to talkback tutorial on your android device.
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WADE WINGLER: And now it’s time for the wildcard question.
We’ve come to that time in the show where we get to do the wildcard question. Brian Norton usually teases me in some way on how I’m going to throw an off-the-wall question to everybody. Frankly he is right. That’s how we do it. Everybody on the panel has the questions we’ve covered so far in advance and at least get the chance to peek at them. This is a question I usually come up with right before the show or while I am having lunch the day that we record. Today is no exception. We are going to do something different with the wildcard question. We are going to play an interesting game.
BELVA SMITH: Never I have never.
WADE WINGLER: Not that or Truth or Dare. Here is the back story behind the game. We use apps all the time. We in this room, as a culture, as a nation, we just use apps all the time. It made me wonder what apps we use most frequently. Here’s how we’re going to do that. We are going to go around, and I want each person – because we are each using iPhones – to turn on your iPhones, double-click your home button and tell me the five most recently used apps, the five apps you’ve used most recently. Then if you had to get rid of three and keep two, which would you keep. What’s the first one you would keep, the second one, and which three you would get rid of if you were forced into that decision.
I will go first to give you guys a chance. The first thing that opens up is text messages and then Outlook and Slack and LinkedIn and Facebook. For me, I guess I would probably have to say I would keep Outlook because I use that for my email, and I could use calendar with it although I don’t. That would be my first choice to keep. Probably text messaging after that would be the will second one I would keep. I would hate to get rid of slack because we use that internally for instant messaging, especially in the IT program. I would hate to get rid of Facebook because I am not a very social person, and that gives me some way to be social. I don’t know why LinkedIn is recently opened because I don’t look at that a whole lot. I probably had an announcement or notification that I was checking. It would be email and messages that I keep, and Slack and LinkedIn and Facebook that I would have to part with.
Belva, you’re up.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t like getting rid of anything.
WADE WINGLER: That’s why it’s fun.
BELVA SMITH: The first thing for me is my email. That would definitely be a keeper. My web browser, my text messaging, my podcasts, and then my iRobot.
WADE WINGLER: Your Roomba?
BELVA SMITH: Only because she cleaned earlier today so it popped up to let me know her job was completed successfully. Then my Ring doorbell.
WADE WINGLER: Keep two, page 3. What are you keeping?
BELVA SMITH: I’m keeping the ring doorbell for sure. I’m keeping email for sure.
WADE WINGLER: That’s it.
BELVA SMITH: I’ve lived without text messaging before so I could get by without that. I think I would just have to make more phone calls.
WADE WINGLER: You are keeping your doorbell over your text messaging?
BELVA SMITH: Yeah.
WADE WINGLER: So you know when Amazon packages show up?
BELVA SMITH: Exactly.
WADE WINGLER: Josh?
JOSH ANDERSON: What if you are really good at closing out apps so you only have four open?
WADE WINGLER: That’ll be impressive.
JOSH ANDERSON: I’ll say the first one I know I use of the most. The five opened: Safari for my web browser; Notes, because that’s where I keep the questions for ATFAQ; my email; text messages; and then calendar is the one that’s not open, but I know I was looking at it and closed it out right before we set down here. I only keep two of those?
WADE WINGLER: You can keep two and ditch three.
JOSH ANDERSON: Do I have to stay employed?
WADE WINGLER: These are choices we have to make.
JOSH ANDERSON: I have to keep calendar because if it is not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist and I really have no idea. I was talking to Belva earlier and thought she was supposed to be off yesterday because I was looking at the wrong week. I am pretty good at keeping things on my calendar, just not good at remembering which date it is.
BELVA SMITH: My calendar was the sixth thing on there.
JOSH ANDERSON: Truth be told, probably text messages. I guess I would get rid of email and tell everyone to text message.
BELVA SMITH: You would get rid of email before texting?
JOSH ANDERSON: Truthfully, yeah.
CRAIG BURNS: He’s younger.
JOSH ANDERSON: Yeah. Even though Wade is in here so I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’ve trained some of my consumers to not say anything that would violate HIPAA. They seem to enjoy using text messaging and they replied to it much better. Team members, it works well for it. If I had to get rid of one, I would get rid of email. Then I do without notes.
BELVA SMITH: I’m going with Craig. I think it’s all about your age.
JOSH ANDERSON: Just so everyone knows, I’m twenty-five.
WADE WINGLER: Yeah, you’re twenty-five all right. Please.
JOSH ANDERSON: Come on.
CRAIG BURNS: That’s what I’ve heard. The youngest people don’t use email. I know they don’t use voicemail because my daughters don’t bother leaving a voicemail for me to even listen to.
WADE WINGLER: We have an employee on our team whom we love and adore, and she says I didn’t get your email. She wants me to text her in the building instead of sending an email. It’s a generational thing.
Craig Burns?
CRAIG BURNS: Reminders because I have to have them. I’m not going to get rid of those. My Outlook came up; Safari because I was just doing a search; and the app store because I was doing a search; Twitter; Waze, I have to have ways. I have to have my map so I know where I am going and find my way there.
WADE WINGLER: Keep two, page 3.
CRAIG BURNS: Twitter, I would ditch, and the app store.
JOSH ANDERSON: Which one would you keep?
CRAIG BURNS: Outlook I have to keep, reminders I have to keep.
JOSH ANDERSON: That’s it? You are not fun at anything. You are never getting anywhere. Waze is gone.
BELVA SMITH: Send me an email with directions.
JOSH ANDERSON: You’re going to have to text me.
CRAIG BURNS: Gas Buddy listens to me. I said I need to find BP stations. Now they have it.
WADE WINGLER: Like a filter?
BELVA SMITH: I quit using it because it would never pull up the BP’s for me.
WADE WINGLER: We use BP gas cards for work.
CRAIG BURNS: Or shell or Speedway, whatever you want. It’ll bring up those gas stations. Of course you don’t know where 2.97 miles is, which way.
JOSH ANDERSON: That’s still nice to know.
BELVA SMITH: This question makes me have a flashback to when I first started doing this many moons ago when we didn’t have smartphones and we didn’t have our maps in our hands.
WADE WINGLER: Printing out MapQuest pages?
BELVA SMITH: Yes. I would print out 10 pages of directions.
WADE WINGLER: Turn by turn directions on 8 1/2 by 11.
BELVA SMITH: And then to top it all off they wouldn’t be the correct directions so you are in the middle of nowhere instead of where you really need to be.
CRAIG BURNS: Well, you drop them and then you have to put them back in the order.
WADE WINGLER: In the back of your car is full of MapQuest that you don’t need.
BELVA SMITH: How many trees were wasted on directions?
WADE WINGLER: Since Brian is a way and we are in charge, I think this will be a fun thing for our listeners to do. Open up your most recent applications and tell us what five apps they are, keep it clean, and tell us what to you would keep in which three you would get rid of. I think it would be great to hear that on our listener line. We will pop you on the show if you do that.
JOSH ANDERSON: Should we give them Brian’s personal number to call those in?
WADE WINGLER: That’s a great idea.
BELVA SMITH: He’s probably hiding behind a tree somewhere trying –
JOSH ANDERSON: Trying to answer emails.
WADE WINGLER: One more time, we hope you’ll call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. We really do want your questions and feedback. Without those things, we don’t have a show. Be part of our show. Belva, thank you so much for being with us today pure
BELVA SMITH: Thank you. Have a great week.
WADE WINGLER: Josh, it’s been a pleasure.
JOSH ANDERSON: Thanks everybody pick it has been a pleasure.
WADE WINGLER: Crag, thanks for sitting in the northern chair and rounding out our panel.
CRAIG BURNS: You are welcome.
BELVA SMITH: He didn’t get the squeaky chair. Brian always brings in a squeaky chair.
WADE WINGLER: It must be a Brian thing. All right everybody, we will see you next time.
WADE WINGLER: Information provided on Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions does not constitute a product endorsement. Our comments are not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted by Brian Norton; gets editorial support from Mark Stewart and Belva Smith; is produced by me, Wade Wingler; and receives support from Easter Seals Crossroads and the INDATA project. ATFAQ is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. Find more of our shows at www.accessibilitychannel.com.
***Transcript provided by TJ Cortopassi. For requests and inquiries, contact tjcortopassi@gmail.com***
