I received an email from Chris Hofstater last month, informing me that he has started to blog at http://blindconfidential.blogspot.com/. Chris is a former VP at Freedom Scientific and one of the main forces behind JAWS. He has relocated to Florida and seems to be occupying his time with more things that I could keep up with.
For starters, we both have a love of saltwater fishing. While he likes to go out in a kayak, I prefer to keep my feet on an old pier or breakwall. He has also started a new endeavor, Project Paddle Odyssey, based on his love of outdoor sports, as a way to help other blind people can become independent in outdoor sporting.
His blog is full of both commentary and very insightful stories about dealing with blindness and the expectations or frustrations that one goes though. If you are a sighted person, I recommend reading Chris’ blog even more, as he communicates with honest intensity about his life. He does a very good job of bringing ideas and thoughts to people who have never had to experience what he has, and he is an outstanding representative to do so. His post about learning Braille and the actors in his mind re-awakening is foundational, and should be required reading for any sighted person commenting on blindness.
However, his blog is not just rants, observations and some irreverent humor; he has some solid technical posts about AT, podcasting, blogging and PDA’s. His comments on adapting adaptive technology are telling for anyone that is in the field. The love-hate affair with Audible had me rolling in laughter, yet starting to understand his life even more.
Head on over to Blind Confidential and add it to your subscriptions. You won’t be disappointed.
And Chris, “Braille booth babes for the blind”? That may catch on – I won’t be surprised if they are at the next show that I attend.
Hello Matt and other blog readers. I am posting from another computer with JAWS so please bear with me. I say this only because this computer is acting extremely sluggish. It is located at my parents’ house. Anyway here is what I wanted to say. I have been to Chris’s blog and I find it most informative and enjoyable. I am a JAWS user, and have been for several years. I think it is a fabulous screen reader. Other screen reader users prefer Window-Eyes over JAWS, and that is fine. I’ve also used WE a bit and I like it. I’ve never used Hal, but hopefully someday soon I’ll find a demo and run it on my computer. It would be fun to compare the three screen readers in different applications. But I think the folks at FS are doing an outstanding job. It seems that the company has improved with this merger rather than gotten worse. I suppose this might be contrary to a lot of companies who merge with other companies. But I have honestly found the tech-support representatives at FS, for example, to be not only extremely knowledgeable which they should be, but also very friendly and courteous. Granted, I haven’t used FS’s tech support in quite a while. But yes, Blind Confidential is definitely worth everyone’s time.
Comment by Jake — May 13, 2006 @ 4:16 pm