Whenever my daughter wants something she just says “papa can you get ‘whatever she wants‘ for me in the box”. The box she is referring to is the box in which UPS delivers the goodies and she is asking me to order it online. This gives an idea that how important computer access is for me.

My hands are so weak that it is impossible for me to use a regular keyboard and mouse/trackpad. As a result of this weakness I have to use a switch to access the computer. A switch is small device that sends a signal when activated. There is wide range of switches to choose from, and the one I use is called a bean switch. It just needs a light touch to activate. The switch is connected to a usb device called a switch interface. A switch interface is designed to convert the signal from the switch and send it as a mouse click to the computer. Switch interface can generally emulate key press or a mouse click or a joystick. And again there is a wide range to choose from. I am currently using a switch interface called Swifty.

On the software side I use a scanning program called SwitchXS. SwitchXS is activated when I press the switch and with few presses it allows me to do anything on the computer. I am also using a predictive typing software called KeyStrokes to help with typing. This screen shot will give you an idea about how it works.

The way scanning works is: the first switch press activates SwitchXS which in turn starts scanning a panel. I then press again when the scanning line highlights the row which has the function I want to use. SwitchXS then starts scanning the row and I press again when it highlights the button for the function I want.

To a regular computer user this might sound slow and tiring but the fact is that it is not and with some clever scan panel design I can do things faster and easily. I have designed two scan panels to make my life easier. here is one for general computer use.

This is the one I use for typing.

When time to use a speech program comes, I simply need to add a text to voice software to the mix making my Mac a full-fledged AAC. And in future if my current switch does not work for me any more than all I need to do is get a different type of switch that will work!

I could definitely use one of these. It will nice to have a robotic arm around to help me with stuff in future.

More Details: Researchers Develop "Brain-Controlled" Wheelchair Robotic Arm

Yesterday I got a legitimate fully unlocked iPhone 8GB from Hong Kong. After opening the package, I just popped in my ATT GoPhone sim and it worked. Even though the phone was brought from Hong Kong, it’s locale was set to US-English, so didn’t had to do anything with the regional settings. In case you didn’t know, iPhone is available in Hong Kong for sale without any contract. You can read more about it on Gizmodo. The reason I got it from Hong Kong is because I hate cell phone contracts and am not in a big need of a data plan.

One of the things I was annoyed with is that I have to enter the address in my GPS manually. I didn’t find anything that will "send" the address to GPS from my computer. For my upcoming trip to Hawaii, I wanted to add lot of addresses, and typing them in would be pain. So while playing with Google maps I found this neat trick.

1. Connect you GPS to the computer (using USB)
2. Browse to Google maps and find your address, this is particularly useful when you are planning your trip online. In such a case you can find the address online, and locate it in Google maps.
3. Now click that "Send" link
4. Clicking on send will bring up this box:
5. Choose GPS and the brand. For now it’s only available for Garmin, Pioneer and TomTom.
6. Click send. This will take you to get GPS manufacturer page which will do the remaining.
7. Done.

This saved me a lot of time. If you own a Garmin device, you can also read about it here. In case you own a BMW or Merc, you can send it to the car as well.