James Gallagher
Hello to all the members of the European Deafblind Network Newsletter. My name is James Gallagher And I am a Deafblind person living in Great Britain.
I have been asked to write a little article for you all. My greatest interest is in trying to open the minds of the sighted hearing to what people like ourselves can really do, My only way to do this is through computers and the Internet.
This is why I have used the name of this article »The way forward for us all«.
I really think that computers and the internet is our only real Future, Why do I think this well communication for most of us all in the sighted hearing world can be almost impossible without using the Deafblind manual alphabet or Sign Language, but with computers we are on the same playing field as every one else and at long last too.
Mr. Lex Grandia asked me to write this article because he and Ann Thestrup found my web sites on the internet, and with some gentle pushing from them both here am I telling you how I started with computers and with the net.
I own and run two web sites all about Deafblindness on the net these are A-Z to Deafblindness http://www.deafblind.com and, A Deafblindness Web Resource http://www.deafblind.co.uk
I first started trying using computers about 7 or 8 years ago. The first time I sat in front of one was when I had just bought it, and I had it put into my own room at home, it was a Compaq computer.
When it was turned on I sat there asking my little self what have I done, here, I thought this was a big mistake, I could not even move files from a floppy disk to the computers hard disk.
But I taught myself over many many months how to use that old dos computer,! have never asked for help from any member of my family or any sighted hearing person on how to do anything on my computers. I wanted to do it all myself and I did just that. And I did not have a clue about computers in any way. And in a way I still have not got a clue what I am doing but I enjoy it so very much because it keeps the old brain going. I never went to a course or class about computers or the net. I do believe that these will help many people but for me there is nothing better than trying to work it all out yourself.
Yes many mistakes will be made on this road of learning and a few tears, as well and asking yourself why on earth did I start this but for me it was worth every moment.
When I had got used to using my first computer I started asking myself what else can I do with it, My Mother and my father thought it would be a good idea for me to try the net. I did not think this a good idea myself, I thought to myself that these people on the net are far too intelligent for me to give this a try. I thought that you really had to be quite clever to do this. what A big mistake I made there.
After a little time I thought that this would be worth a try, if you never try it then how do you know.
Well this was the best decision that I have ever made in my life, but on my old dos computer all I could do on the net was send and get e-mail letters but for me this was a very big step and a good one.
In 1997 I moved up to Windows 95 with a new computer that I had just bought, This is when things started to get moving for me, with having more software to play around with I started to try new things.
The first was to have complete access to the internet using windows 95 and go to web sites to learn as much as I could and as fast as I could, for the first time I had all the information that I had ever wanted at my fingertips and I can say that this is a great feeling to have.
When I did enter the net at first I tried to search for other deafblind people like myself on the net, but there where so few and too few web sites about Deafblindness that I thought that this was so very wrong. So after a good number of months on the net I thought to my self that I would give a try of making my very own web site. And on the 1st August 1997 I created A-Z to Deafblindness that web site was at http://www.s55wilma.demon.co.uk, and buy the way the Wilma part is the name of my Guide dog Wilma.
Now my first web site I have to say was a right mess but it give me the push to keep working at it until I thought it good enough for the sighted hearing net user to use it, but my sites are made by a deafblind person for deafblind people on the net. That is why this was all started.
The site at first had only a couple of pages on it but today there are well over three hundred of pages on the site. I still find it a bit hard to make new pages for my site because it can take me about three to four days to make a simple page with using Netscape Composer as my HTML editor, I am always having to check that there are no mistakes in what I am working on but slowly and surely this is the only way I can do this. Sighted hearing people could make one of my pages within one hour but that does not matter to me one little bit.
It is the satisfaction that I did it all myself, this is what makes me go on with pushing myself to what else can I do now on the net.
On January 1999 I bought a domain name for my site, You maybe asking what is a domain name well this is what a domain is.
A domain name is a textual name that can be used as a convenient way of finding services such as web sites. Domain names are part of a system called Domain Name Service (DNS) which was developed to aid us in remembering addresses. DNS converts domain names, which are 'human-friendly' into Internet Protocol (IP) numbers such as 194.217.99.10 so that computers can understand.
The domain name that I bought was deafblind.com I thought that this would be much easier for people to remember than my old web address. And with this name people would find the site much more easier to find on the net.
With moving to the new domain name my site has grown into something that is getting a bit hard to deal with now. Many of the people visiting my site believe that it is a part of a large Organization or a charity, This is all my own work and I say this with hand on heart.
I am getting about Nine Thousand people coming to A-Z to Deafblindness a month, Now that is hard to believe but since the site moved to the new address it's been about nine thousand people a month going to the site. I cannot believe this myself but this is the truth.
These are just some of the features on my site at http://www.deafblind.com.
The first one is the latest new feature I added a couple of months ago, it is called the DB Techies Newsletter, this is a Newsletter for Deafblind people on the net.
I feel that there is no real on-line newsletter for Deafblind people about the new Technology that we live with and what the net can offer us. And so with this reason DB Techies was borne, I do not really know how long the DB Techies will last because there are not that many people interested in it but here is the URL for DB Techies Newsletter http://www.deafblind.com/dbtechies.html. It is published monthly on the first Friday of each Month. And will be e-mailed to the Subscribers.
My favorite page is the poetry page. This is poetry by and for deafblind people, but you are not to worry I have not written any of them myself, I could never in a thousand years make up such beautiful and thought provoking words, I only wish I could, but that's not to be. But this is a nice page I think. And just one more that may be of some interest to some of you I have put together a page with a list of accessible search engines on the net that we all can use. There are so many pages that I could never give all the information in this little article.
I also have a page which I am trying to gather as many Deafblind manual alphabets as I can from all over Europe and the rest of the world. I have a number of them at the moment, I have a number of images of these manual alphabets and for us there is a small number of them that have a description of the deafblind manual alphabets in text so that we can read how others communicate to each other in far off places. The other reason why I do this is because if a sighted hearing person ever meets one of us they just may have a good idea of how they can start communication with us. And just maybe they may have read this information on a web site.
I know not much of a chance but you never know So I collect deafblind manual alphabets and Sign Languages, in graphical images for the sighted and for us as a text description if I can find them.
A Deafblindness Web Resource
Now on May 1999 I was asked by Hugh Sasse who owned a site called A Deafblindness Web Resource to take over his site which in my thoughts is one of the very best deafblind web sites on the internet. I said yes to this, and on May I took over the site and moved it to a new domain name site at A Deafblindness Web Resource at http://www.deafblind.co.uk
So I now own and run two very large Deafblind web sites on the net. I have to say that I find this a bit hard to do because I am starting to find it hard to get time to myself these days.
Right I have went on a bit to much about my web sites, Some of you may be asking what kind of equipment do I have and use. And what kind of person am I?
The Equipment that I use myself
I have to say first that I have bought everything myself, this equipment is all my own.
I said above that my first computer was a dos one well, I used my Tieman Keybraille 45 cell braille Display with this computer and I am still using it to this day.
My main computer is a desktop computer which is a Compaq Presario. which is using windows 98 and I have to say that windows was very hard to get used to when I first started using it. It took me quite a long time to get used to how windows worked and I have to say I thought I would go back to dos as I just could not pick it up for some time, But I know that the dos days were numbered and windows was the only way I could go, So after many months I started to really understand the ins and outs of windows and quite like it now.
I have to say that I do try out a lot of software on my computers and in this time I have learned a lot and picked up some useful software along this road, some of these I have talked about them in my DB Techies Newsletter. And I am still finding new and better things on the net.
I use Eudora Pro 4.2 to read e-mail letters and Gravity as my newsgroups software. These software are very easy to use, and for me the easier the better.
To access my computer I use my Telesensory Navigator 80 cell braille Display which is a good Display, The software I use to run my braille display is Jaws 3.20. Now I have to say that I think that I made a big mistake with this software, I believe now I should have got Windows bridge as this supports a lot more braille Displays than Jaws will ever do. I am thinking about buying windows bridge because of this. I need very good braille feed back, with Jaws I think that I am not getting as good as I think I should. But again this could be just me.
I also use a laptop, which is a Dell Inspiron 3000, I use a Blazie Powerbraille 40 cell braille display to use this laptop computer, and again jaws is running the braille display. I bought the Dell- Laptop and the Blazie Powerbraille 40 cell display about a year ago. I needed a very good backup computer because I started to have some trouble with my desktop computer and for a number of days I was without a computer, so this made up my mind that I needed a back up and the Laptop is it.
Most of my life savings are in all the equipment
that I have, but for me the ability to have total communication with the world that I live in makes up very very well for what it has all cost me. I would have never been able to buy this sense of independence that I have from any shop, you can never put a value on this because it is priceless.
I do know that there are many deafblind people out there who just given a chance with a PC and some help that they would be so pleased to know these things could make life a little bit more easier, The very big problem is the cost of the equipment that fellow deafblind people will need such as the PC itself a Braille Display or if the deafblind person has some hearing a speech software. All these things are so expensive for us to buy.
Now for a little information about myself, there is not that much to say here as I don't do that much. I am totally blind and almost profoundly deaf person, I am 36 Years old and I live in Scotland within the United Kingdom, I live with my mother. One is too used to the good old home cooking, I do not work, there is not that many places that would employ people like myself. But I do not sit around the house doing nothing, I keep my self very busy with helping others on the net or working with my web pages. I do some workshops for Deafblind UK in Scotland in my own time, these workshops are to try and show the sighted hearing people what we can do if we only get the chance, these are quite interesting some times, at these workshops I use my laptop and the Powerbraille display to show these people what a braille Display is like.
I also try with other workshops to encourage other Deafblind people to try the net but for a great number of them this is a very big step to do, and the others think that using a computer is far to hard for them. My point to them is that if I could do this then they can do it too. You do not have to be the brain of Britain or Europe to use a computer. If some one like me could do this then imagine what some one like yourself could do on the net.
We all must take this chance to move forward, computers are our future to the world of total communication, through computers and the internet we will find a great deal more independence than we ever thought possible, here is just a couple of them on the net. We in time should be able to do our banking online, our shopping online and it should be sent to us at home when we want it sent. And read what is happening in the news at the same moment that the sighted hearing do every day of the year.
Yes some of these things will take a good bit of time for us to get access to but surely that day is not that far away.
The biggest thing that is keeping us back is the cost of all this, and I understand this very well, and there is no easy way out of this for many of us.
I do hope that some of you found this little article of interest. This was the first time that I have ever said yes to some one asking me to write an article for there organization newsletter, and with the way I have written this one I think it will be my last. I not very sure about these things. I am most happier to read them from others than doing one of them myself. So please forgive me if I went on a bit to much.
I wish all of you all the very best of luck.
And thank you for taking the time to read this.
Take care
Yours James
Original address of this page:
EDbN Newsletter 2000-04-06
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