Author: chad

There are many different types of Assistive technologies that can be used by people with disabilities of many kinds. There are technologies for the blind and the physically disabled. I will touch on both of these in this blog post. I use assistive technologies to help me type sometimes when i am blogging, I will mention ones that already exist within the operating system as well as some paid versions of different assistive technologies that exist.

the most popular assistive technology that is used for typing is Dragon Naturally Speaking, they have since dropped the NaturallySpeaking part of the program and it is now called Dragon Professional, they do have a cheaper version which has the NaturallySpeaking in the name but i have opted for the Professional version. You can buy Dragon by going to Nuance.com and selecting Dragon on their website, you may also be able to find Dragon cheaper other places such as Amazon, but since Nuance is the manufacturer of Dragon i would suggest that you buy it from a reliable source. I have never had any issues with the software itself, i have been using it since Windows 7. There are dictation features built into windows, as well as Mac, but in my opinion those aren’t as good as Dragon in regards to features.

There are also screen readers which will read what is on your screen, the most popular one that people use is JAWS Screen Reader, according to WebAIM it was the most popular screen reader used worldwide. If you are a Mac user, the only option you have is VoiceOver which is built into the mac operating system.

For other operating systems such as Linux there are free screen readers that can be used.

Hopefully you find this an interesting read, and subscribe to my blog to receive updates, when i post new blog entries! You can do so on the right hand side of the page.

You are probably asking yourself, is an antivirus program really necessary? It depends on what you will be doing online, If you are just doing basic web browsing and checking emails, and are very careful about opening attachments from only people that you trust, then i would say no its not necessary, but if you are downloading movies, going on Facebook, and doing online shopping then i would say you should invest in an Antivirus program. There are free ones, one is even included in Windows 8 and 10. Now if you are looking for extra protection, possibly one with Email scanning, and a firewall, then you will need to invest in an antivirus suite which includes those features. Staying safe online is important because if you click on the wrong thing online then you may download a virus to your computer and that may lead to data loss, and possibly needing to reinstall your operating System. Windows computers are more susceptible to downloading viruses on to your computer then an Apple computer, or if you are running Linux. But if you are careful them you should be good to go.

I will not be going into those here on this blog post, please feel free to contact me on the Contact page for any questions or if you are looking for the right solution for all of your needs. Also visit our facebook page and send us a message and we would be happy to discuss your options whether you are a small business or a home user. Chad’s Computer Services will be able to determine what the best solution for your needs is, and if you have multiple devices then we will also be able to design a solution depending on what you are looking for.

If you already have an antivirus program, and need a way to test it, you can go to eicar.org, or Google “EICAR test file” and there are instructions on how to create the file and test your current antivirus solution to make sure that it is working properly.