Last week I finally made it to a CNIB Office to purchase a
new Victor Stream machine. My old one bit the dust shortly before Christmas and
that left me without reading material over the holiday period. Now I say my
“old” Victor Stream with a touch of irony. I bought my original device in 2010.
That’s only six years ago. However, in these days of the accelerated progress
of technology, I suppose that something from the dinosaur days of 2010 is positively antiquated.
My new Victor Stream is very similar in design to my
previous one, but it is smaller and can be held easily in the palm of my hand. The
face with the command buttons has only a couple of keys that are different. One
major feature is the Airplane Mode button which reads either off or on. When
the button is off, the Stream is able to access WiFi.
While I understand that most people would prefer to utilize
this aspect of the Stream, I chose to continue with the hardware attachment for
recording books. Probably this isn’t as convenient as downloading from a computer
or iPad, but at the time I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with learning new ways
of doing things, and yes, as I have written on previous occasions, my computer
programs are also antiquated. To upgrade was my New Year’s resolution of last
year and it is my New Year’s resolution again for 2017.
When Brian (Calgary CNIB Coordinator for Client Support Services)
had finished explaining to me about my new Stream, I asked him about the latest
version of JAWS. JAWS is an audible screen reading program used by many people
who can’t see the print on a computer monitor. I was quite disappointed to
learn that CNIB no longer offers training sessions in the use of this program.
Apparently CNIB has lost the funding which enabled the organization to offer
this valuable training and educational service. I know that the lessons were extremely
helpful for me when I first began using JAWS in 2004.
Anyway, progress continues and I must try to keep up. I have
now recorded my first book on the new Stream and I should take a break from
typing and relax with some new listening material.
There is a picture with this post. It shows me with Brian as
he described the various function buttons on the surface of my new Victor Stream.
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