Ask a Blind Guy, Part 3

It's a REAL QUESTION. Hooray! Feel free to add more: notnotblind@hotmail.com (or just leave a comment).

Q: "...I'd even be curious as to how you can see to type this blog, or correct its typo's."

A: First off, I apologize. This was a comment from exactly a month ago, but I didn't see it. Seriously. I just figured out how to quickly check for comments, and I'll be doing that more often from now on.

I do a lot of typing, and most of it is by feel. Not to say that I can't read the letters on the keyboard -- I can -- but I have to lean in very close, and that would be bad for my beck, back, and dignity. Besides, I'm too busy leaning in to see the screen. I also never really learned to touch-type the way you're supposed to... so instead, I just do a lot of hunting and pecking for keys. I use the keyboard enough that I don't really have to look anymore. OK, once in a while I forget where exactly the "b" key is, but doesn't everybody?

As for typos, I have a few different ways to check.

1) I have a great, fairly inexpensive program called ReadPlease that can read anything on my screen aloud. What's more, the voice is pretty good. I listen at what most friends describe as an insanely fast speed, where I can understand the voice but others usually can't. This took years of practice, listening to sped-up books on tape from Recordings for the Blind. I still can't understand auctioneers, though.

2) I have another great little program called Screen Beagle that turns the mouse pointer into a magnifying glass. It's pretty ideal for looking at punctuation and checking small type.

3) I have a 19" screen, and I can make fonts as big or small as I want to with Firefox.

4) Spell-check.

5) I'm fairly careful. That said, I miss stuff from time to time; did anyone catch my typo from the last post? I've fixed it since then, but when somebody says, "Let's talking about this thing," doesn't that sound a little German-gone-wrong?

Anyway, hope that answers your question. Thanks for sending it in!

By the way, somebody else commented on my last post that this was coming out in WingDings. Does anyone know why that might happen? And if you're reading this, I assume you're reading it in English, and not in fake hieroglyphics.