The on-screen keyboard in Windows 7 is a giant leap forward
3.10.10 at 9:40 pm by Blake
I was helping a friend with a printer problem earlier today which gave me the chance to use Windows 7 for the first time. I have been an Applehead for about three years. The last version of Windows that I used on a daily basis was Windows XP. As much of an Apple fanboy that I am, I admit Windows has always had a better built-in on-screen keyboard than Mac OS in as much as you can call Mac OS’s Keyboard Viewer an on-screen keyboard. That thing is not suitable if you are going to be typing via a mouse or switch. Personally, I use KeyStrokes, an on-screen keyboard for Mac. It’s great, but it’s also $299. If you have a disability, you don’t necessarily have that kind of cash laying around. Probably because you spent it on a $400 accessible spoon or something of that sort (because an angled spoon is high tech!). Okay, seriously, KeyStrokes is worth it but not everyone is in a position to buy it. My brother’s stance on the discrepancy in virtual keyboards between operating systems was succinctly summarized when he wrote:
Windows comes with a free Onscreen Keyboard that works perfectly. Surely Mac wouldn’t let themselves get beat out…
Now Windows is getting even further ahead of Mac in the on-screen keyboard game. The new keyboard has an improved look and feel. It is resizable. And, possibly the biggest change, it has text prediction built right in! There is one catch. Prediction isn’t included in the Home Basic version of Windows 7. Still, this is huge, especially when compared to Mac’s Keyboard Viewer. But don’t take my word for it. See the new keyboard in action:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows7/Type-without-using-the-keyboard-On-Screen-Keyboard
Getting accessible books should be this easy
2.28.10 at 2:56 pm by Blake
Yesterday, I was browsing various design websites in search of inspiration for a new project I’ve begun. I got sidetracked by clicking on a few off-topic links (that never happens!) and somehow ended up reading the first chapter of “Speak Human” by Eric Karjaluoto.
The book discussed the advantages of not being a huge company. Though the publisher is giving the book away free one chapter at a time via the Web site, I could not wait to get my hands on the rest of it. After a little investigation, I discovered that the book was published by a “digital agency” called smashLAB. They seemed cool enough, so I used a strategy which has failed me when dealing with other (larger) publishers: I simply asked for an on-screen version. In a tweet, that is. What normally would have taken weeks, or months, or never, took only an hour and a half. It went like this:
blakewatson: Hey @smashLAB, is there a way to get a digital version of “Speak Human” on my Mac?
smashLAB: @blakewatson Not at this time. For now it’s paperback, Kindle, and free in browser. That said, I hear Amazon is working on Kindle for Mac.
blakewatson: @smashLAB I’d gladly buy the paperback, except I can’t hold it.
smashLAB: @blakewatson That’s the first good reason I’ve received for a screen-only version. Let me see what we can sort out. :-)
smashLAB: @blakewatson Do you run Parallels or have a dual-boot machine?
blakewatson: @smashLAB I run Vista with VirtualBox.
smashLAB: @blakewatson In that case, you could install this: http://gu.nu/Ify and then get this: http://gu.nu/aI9
Problem solved.
Okay, I admit that it is not the most ideal fix. I’m not really looking forward to doing my reading inside Windows Vista, but hey, it is a fix and it is better than struggling with a paperback. I may wait for Kindle on Mac or until the Web site version is posted in its entirety. Probably whichever comes first.
Of course, the interesting point in all of this is that smashLAB lived up to the ideas in the book. Guess you will just have to check out the book to know what I mean. ;-)
A dream
2.9.10 at 10:45 pm by Blake
A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Fourth Quarter
12.29.09 at 5:17 pm by Blake
John Elway, screenshot of Tecmo Super Bowl
I use to be near the forefront of video gaming technology. When I was a kid I usually had a better video game setup than my friends. My first system was the NES. One of my first games, if not the first, was Super Mario Bros. Since my father was a big football fan, he taught me football basics when I was young. Our game was Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES. Perhaps you could say that was our way of playing football in the back yard.
Video games often filled a void in my young life. I loved sports and competition. And I especially loved winning. In 1998, I bought Madden NFL 99 for the N64. That marked the beginning of a long tradition. I have either bought or been given the annual edition of the Madden series for 11 straight years before this year. I loved it. The more the game evolved into an accurate simulation of football, the more I loved it.
But the day that I feared would come finally did. I lost the ability to use the controller. It did not happen overnight, but sometime between this blog’s origin in the summer of 2008 and now, I crossed the I-just-can’t-do-this-anymore threshold. It happened at about the same time that I lost the ability to type. I had sort of given up on playing Madden this year, so I didn’t buy the game. And I had yet to make the switch to the next generation of consoles. That changed this year when I got a Playstation 3 for Christmas along with Madden ‘10. I had not played at all for months, and I knew that my left hand in particular was significantly weaker than it was last time I picked up a controller. To my dismay, I just couldn’t do it. And it really bothered me. I had a Playstation 3 and Madden ‘10 right in front of me and I couldn’t play it. It’s not just another ability in a long line of abilities that I have lost because of my SMA. Okay, it is, but it’s more than that.
Losing my gross motor skills didn’t affect my general outlook on life because I had other abilities to fall back on. So even though I didn’t have the ability to shoot hoops on the basketball court, I could do other things. I enjoyed creative writing. I watched movies. And I could play Madden. And that was something I could do to have some competition with my friends.
But SMA took football from me. And it took writing (by making it slow and tedious). It keeps taking and taking. Its hunger is never filled nor its thirst quenched. I feel like I am going into the fourth quarter and SMA is up by two touchdowns.
Coincidentally, my favorite NFL player of all time is John Elway. I’m too young to fully appreciate him as he retired just after I began keeping up with sports in 1999. Nonetheless, I was interested in him in when I was young. In high school, I wrote a paper about his career.
As a rookie, he was ambitious, perhaps cocky. He boasted that he would win five Super Bowls during his career, earning a ring for each finger. You could call John Elway a comeback king. It’s debated as to weather he is the comeback king, but he led his team to victory in the final quarter of many games. One of those comebacks relied on Elway to lead the offense on a breathtaking 98-yard march known as “The Drive.”
I continue to adapt to worsening situations. The pages of this blog exhibit the various techniques I have used and considered for typing. I plan to experiment with some alternative game controllers, though many are out of my price range. Video games might seem an unimportant hobby to be so concerned about, but for me, it is a gateway into another world.
It’s time for my comeback.
How to win a video contest
11.1.09 at 10:14 pm by Blake
Okay, so this is my official announcement (and acknowledgment) regarding the status of the “What Can YOU Do?” video contest hosted by the Campaign for Disability Employment. My entry, “Meet Sue,” was the overall winner of over 130 entries. Suffice it to say that I was surprised and overwhelmed at the very idea. Thanks to all the contestants who entered the contest, many of whom produced videos better than mine. And my thanks to all the folks involved in the campaign, including the nice folks from Best Buy, who put on a wonderful screening event. Flowood, MS represent! Apologies to the guy who blinked. It happens to the best of us.
Me receiving over-sized gift card from Best Buy.
Now that we’ve covered all of the important stuff, I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about the making of the video.
Making a video without a camera
When I talk about the making of “Meet Sue,” I always end up mentioning the fact that I can not even begin to lift and hold a camera. It’s true. Although I wanted to enter the contest, I struggled with the idea of how I would actually create the video. But then I remembered something. Something I saw on YouTube months before I knew of this contest. It was a rather nerdy video, but what I remembered about it was its emphasis on text. Mind you, this is the first time that I have revealed where exactly the inspiration for the format of the video came from. It came from this:
Although my text effects are nowhere near as cool as the ones in this video, you should be able understand where the format of the “Meet Sue” video came from. Using text and music was going to be my alternative. All I needed to do was to tell the story. And that’s when it got fun.
Having a disability without “having a disability”
If you tell a story about a fictional character, you create the character. The reader (or listener) of the story comes to know the character as you reveal the character’s, well, characteristics. So the goal of the story became to tell people about the Sue that they would see if they were not distracted with the fact that she has a disability. In other words, I told many things about Sue before mentioning that she has a disability.
It is a personal issue in many ways. Sue is me. And “Meet Sue” is a fantasy scenario where people get to know me before knowing that I have a disability. Maybe it is some unknown need to peel away my disability to see what people think. I don’t know. At this point, I’m just speculating. All I know is that you can tell when people don’t take you seriously, and sometimes it happens. Not because people are bad or want to suppress people with disabilities before they infiltrate society at all levels in a massive attempt to take over human civilization. It’s just a matter of feeling uncomfortable and unsure around people who are different than you. I sometimes feel uncomfortable around people who have different disabilities than I do. It happens.
So the moral of the story is that we all need to understand the similarities that connect us and appreciate the differences that make us unique. So all that being said, I leave you with…
Meet Sue
And here is a transcript:
Meet Sue.
Sue is an employee.
Sue is an employer.
Sue is a manager.
Sue is a mentor.
Sue is a teacher.
Sue is a writer.
Sue is a speaker.
Sue is smart.
Sue is funny :-)
Sue is exciting!
Sue is engaging.
Sue is a wife.
Sue is a mother.
Sue is a person with dreams.
Sue is a person with aspirations.
Sue is a person with a disability.
Sue is a person.
(at 60 seconds, video fades to credits)
Created by:
Blake Watson
www.blakewatson.com
Thanks to everyone who made this incredible experience possible.
Of disability, Web design, and opportunity
10.13.09 at 3:21 pm by Blake
Greetings stairhaters. A couple of posts back, I gave you a rather vague idea of what I was planning to get myself into professionally.
First, I’m laying the groundwork for forming an LLC through which I will do professional Web design work. Second, in order to gain experience and help out the community which has helped me so much, I’m planning a “project” through which I will offer free Web design services to charitable, non-profit organizations based in Mississippi. Will share more about that soon. Third, I may be getting involved with a local organization who has made it a priority to stop SMA.
Let me explain my logic behind the first and second ideas in the quote above. I intended to start out doing volunteer work for charitable, nonprofit organizations based in Mississippi. I wanted to iron out my workflow, improve my portfolio, and contribute to my community. Once I decided I was ready, I was going to form my LLC and begin taking commercial projects. As a bonus, I was hoping to still be able to do volunteer charity work as well as get other new web designers and developers involved.
Then I met Jeff Horton, president of the newly formed Stop SMA. We had lunch and a nice talk wherein I agreed to be the webmaster for Stop SMA as well as help with their events and other projects as a member of the Advisory Committee. Shortly thereafter, I attended Stop SMA’s first board meeting. It was a great experience, and before long, I had agreed to work on Stop SMA’s print materials. Since I’ve been spending a lot of time doing stuff for Stop SMA, my charity project idea has sort of taken a backseat. More accurately, it has changed forms. Although I didn’t realize it at first, volunteering with Stop SMA is a huge opportunity for me professionally as well as personally. Here’s why.
Let’s start with the really obvious stuff. I have SMA! Being able to work with a local charity who is trying to cure my disease is too good of an opportunity to pass up. Now only that, but they want me to be their webmaster and graphic designer, which is exactly the field I was looking to get into.
In preparing Stop SMA marketing materials and planning for the next version of the Stop SMA website, I have been reading a lot of articles and several books on various relevant topics. What’s so exciting about working with Stop SMA is that there is seemingly endless possibilities. The organization is very young and excited about moving forward. Getting to know the people involved has been a great experience. Everyone has had a great attitude. The climate of the organization fosters openness, honesty, and the free flow of ideas. It’s about doing something for others. It’s about being part of something bigger than yourself. It’s about working together.
Yesterday, the following idea struck me. I am in an organization who has given me a great amount of freedom to influence their entire marketing strategy. Heck, they’re letting me write the strategy! Really. For the last week or so, I have been planning Stop SMA’s content strategy. This strategy includes the next version of the Stop SMA website, our entire social media presence, and various print materials. Obviously I am not, nor have I intended to be, a dictator. Everyone in the organization has input and the buck does not stop with me. But they are letting me do much of the planning and organizing for our various marketing outlets. For being an organization as a new graduate for just about a month, that’s a whole lot of responsibility. I’m grateful that they trust me enough to give me this much responsibility. It has been and will be a great learning experience. It will give me the chance to take a project from the early planning stages all the way through to the end. I will be able to see what worked and what didn’t work. And all that experience will make me a better web designer and project manager.
So right now, I see Stop SMA at sort of an internship or a jump-start into a career in web design and consulting. It’s exciting. It’s fun. And it’s for a really great cause that affects me personally. I don’t believe I could have asked for a better opportunity than this!
Thanks to all the folks at Stop SMA who have given me the chance to prove myself in a world where new grads need 5 years experience to get an interview. And thanks to all those who have been supporting the efforts of Stop SMA. Together, we’re going to make great things happen.
Cheers.
Apple and the value of universal design
9.10.09 at 10:57 am by Blake
If you’re the techie type or an Applehead like me, then you know that Apple has announced exciting new updates to its iPod+iTunes product lineup. The highlight of the revisions is arguably the new and improved iPod nano, which touts a larger screen, an FM tuner, and the ability to record video on the fly via a built-in camera. But one of the features that struck me was the use of VoiceOver, a Mac OS accessibility feature, to announce the artist and title of a song.
VoiceOver on iPod nano (Source: apple.com/ipodnano/features/voiceover.html)
I don’t know how the folks at Apple decided upon VoiceOver as an iPod feature, but I would like to think that they were fully aware of the need for universal design. People who have blindness or low vision will find this feature useful. People who have mobility impairments, like me, will appreciate not having to hold the iPod up to look at the screen (since, you know, I can’t). Oh yeah, and people who are running or working out or doing any number of activities can find out the name of that cool song on their new album without missing a beat.
It’s all good
Universal design works for everyone, thus the term. Fellow disability blogger, Cheryl, gave us an interesting case study of universal design at her school’s gym. The moral of the story was that it didn’t take wads of cash and new stuff to make the gym more accessible. It took some planning and thoughtful consideration for various types of people with differing abilities. The end result was more space and better access for everyone.
The iPod nano’s ability to announce the title and artist of the current song reused pieces of technology that was already on the Mac.
VoiceOver dialog in Mac OS
VoiceOver itself, is normally used to navigate through Mac OS (and apps and Web sites) without the need to see the screen or the need to point and click with a mouse. Its purpose is mainly to provide full (or almost full) control of Mac OS to people who have blindness or low vision by allowing them to use the keyboard to navigate. VoiceOver uses the text-to-speech capabilities of Mac OS to read labels and Web site text. Reusing this technology on the iPod for a seemingly different purpose demonstrates that more accessible design can benefit more than people with disabilities. A possibly better example is the iPod shuffle, which has been making use of VoiceOver for the last few months.
How VoiceOver works on the iPod shuffle (Source: http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/voiceover.html)
I’ve highlighted the nano because I tend to think it is a more popular model than the shuffle, but VoiceOver on the iPod shuffle solves an interesting design problem. The iPod shuffle is made to drop all the barriers of the usual clickwheel and screen interface and get straight to the music. There was formerly a play button and a couple of skip buttons. It was ultra-small. You could put it on, hit play, and go. The downsides were that you could not see title and artist information and you could not have multiple playlists—two essential portable music features. VoiceOver and an unobtrusive button on the earbuds now enables listeners to know what’s playing and be able to navigate multiple playlists on the fly. By holding down the earbud button, VoiceOver lets you know what’s playing. Keep holding it and it will read off your playlists. Users of the old shuffle and Mac users who are blind have similar user interface challenges. They both need to use the interface without a screen. VoiceOver solves that problem for both users!
I hope at this point you are thinking to yourself… Aaaaaahhhhhhhh. :-)
Where to go from here?
This section represents my wishlist of Apple accessibility features. For starters, I would like to see the navigational capabilities of the iPod shuffle expanded to the other iPod models. As it turns out, my iPod interface challenge is similar to the examples I previously described. I normally use an iPod nano when I’m traveling long distances in my van. I hold the lightweight iPod in my lap and I can operate the clickwheel, but I can not lift the iPod to view the screen. As such, I normally create a long playlist, set it, and forget it. However, I would love to have the ability to navigate through my playlists using VoiceOver. An unrelated feature I would also love to see is the ability to use iPhone and iPod Touch keyboards to control my Mac. For people who have fine motor skills but not the strength to make large movements, a super-compact, touch keyboard would be a great feature.
Now I turn it over to you. Give us an example of universal design that has made your life easier or suggest an accessibility feature (of anything) that you would like to see.
The end of an era
9.6.09 at 9:11 pm by Blake
After twenty-four years of life, eighteen years of education, and one summer of unemployment, the result is an underwhelming product: an MBA who loves a field for which he did not go to school, has been thrown into a world of economic hardship, and is confined to a state in which ten percent of people willing to work do not have jobs.
Oh, and I redesigned the blog.
I would like to thank Lucian Marin for his wonderful Andrea theme, which I have used for just over a year. I discussed the beautiful WordPress theme more in my post entitled “Needless theme change.” This new theme change is arguably more needless than the last. It was more about scratching an itch than anything. I’ve wanted to have my own design as long as I have had this blog. In the beginning, I opted for getting a jump start as opposed to designing a blog theme first. I was eager to write! But that eagerness was recently overshadowed by the lacking feeling of incompleteness. And so I have taken it upon myself to fix the situation. To balance my yin and my yang.
Introducing the official “I hate stairs” theme, creatively dubbed IHS. I originally set out to create a sort of backward, upside down, or otherwise crazily unique layout while still coming off minimalist. But what I ended up doing was not particularly mind-blowing. It’s just a regular old blog layout. But regular blog layouts work. They have become a convention (or a lull, perhaps). Try taking everything out of the sidebar and putting it somewhere that doesn’t look like a sidebar. Difficult. I did manage to pull off a few interesting stunts, however.
I tawt I saw a gwid!
That’s right. I built the layout on a 12-column, 940-pixel grid with a 21-pixel baseline. If you have no idea what that means, click this switch to toggle the grid. Note, however, that not all elements will line up perfectly. I have only thoroughly tested the grid in Firefox. If you are using Internet Explorer, some page elements might be way off. To my knowledge, the blog should look fine in IE6 and higher, but my testing was limited. But for most folks, the grid provides some structure and pays respect to the old saying “a place for everything, and everything in its place.”
My images are bigger than yours
The idea behind letting images break out of the normal reading area is to throw in some tension and shake things up. It’s like when your preacher suddenly yells out a powerful declaration and kicks you out of your daze (it is usually followed by an amen). I have to insert a disclaimer here. I don’t know if all this image trickery will work in specific versions of Internet Explorer, so I apologize if it is a mess. I do plan to do some more thorough testing.
What will our hero do now?
Enough about the design. Let me fill you in on what’s going on with me. I figure my difficulty finding a job in Web design stems from our crappy economy and the fact that there aren’t as many jobs in Mississippi as other locations. Nonetheless, some exciting developments are taking shape. First, I’m laying the groundwork for forming an LLC through which I will do professional Web design work. Second, in order to gain experience and help out the community which has helped me so much, I’m planning a “project” through which I will offer free Web design services to charitable, non-profit organizations based in Mississippi. Will share more about that soon. Third, I may be getting involved with a local organization who has made it a priority to stop SMA. This involvement may go beyond the aforementioned charitable project (i.e., Web design) and include attending meetings and contributing to projects. I apologize for being so shady, but all these things are in the early stages of development.
Stay tuned. Cheers.
Meet Sue
7.18.09 at 9:31 pm by Blake
The following is a video short I created for the What Can YOU Do? Video Contest hosted by the Campaign for Disability Employment. The goal was to make a 60-second video that is related to people with disabilities and employment. The contest is over now, but a winner has not yet been announced. This was my entry:
And here is a transcript:
Meet Sue.
Sue is an employee.
Sue is an employer.
Sue is a manager.
Sue is a mentor.
Sue is a teacher.
Sue is a writer.
Sue is a speaker.
Sue is smart.
Sue is funny :-)
Sue is exciting!
Sue is engaging.
Sue is a wife.
Sue is a mother.
Sue is a person with dreams.
Sue is a person with aspirations.
Sue is a person with a disability.
Sue is a person.
(at 60 seconds, video fades to credits)
Created by:
Blake Watson
www.blakewatson.com
Onscreen Keyboard FAIL: Why Mac’s Keyboard Viewer Is Utter Atrocity
7.1.09 at 10:23 am by Matt Watson
Update 9/6/2009: The Keyboard Viewer’s modifier keys (including shift) seem to be working in Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) as expected when the “sticky keys” universal access feature is turned on. Even without sticky keys on, caps lock seems to work properly. Snow Leopard is a $29 upgrade from Leopard (Mac OS 10.5). -Blake
Matt, here. Like my brother Blake who runs this blog, I have some trouble typing, although the word “trouble” may be kind of stretching it. I can use a regular laptop-sized keyboard, but it takes a little work to get my left arm on the table to be able to operate the keyboard. And after a while of holding my arm on the table, my hand starts going to sleep. Therefore, when I’m at home relaxing from a hard day’s work, or when I’m being lazy, I just use the mouse and an onscreen keyboard to type unless I’m writing a lengthy e-mail message or a treatise on things like … well, onscreen keyboards.
This is where the problem begins. Short story: Apple computers’ “Keyboard Viewer” sucks primordial fluid. Long story: After reading countless news articles on how Twitter will change our lives forever, I’m sitting at home making def tweets and checkin’ the latest on Facebook, when suddenly I have to type a capital letter (because I’m proper like that and haven’t yet fallen into the habit of typing everything lowercase). And not only do I need to type a capital letter, but I also have to type @sexxybbaby4×92. However, the modifier keys (e.g. caps lock, shift, control, command, etc.) on Mac’s Keyboard Viewer do not stick when they are clicked. That means you can’t click on “shift” then on “2″ to write the @ symbol or “A” to write a capital A. What I usually end up doing is holding down the shift button with my righthand index finger while I aim the cursor and click the mouse with my middle finger, a stunt that has taken me months to master.
But yesterday, I got sick and tired of it all, and I asked Blake where on the Internet I could download Keystrokes, which is what he uses. He was like, “Just google it, but it costs like 300 bucks. Get Voc Rehab to pay for it.” “Screw that,” I said. I’m not going to pay $300 just to be able to push the dang shift key. Windows comes with a free Onscreen Keyboard that works perfectly. Surely Mac wouldn’t let themselves get beat out on something so simple as an onscreen keyboard with a functioning shift key. Surely there was a way to make the infamous Keyboard viewer work. Aha! Sticky keys. Just turn sticky keys on and it will work.
Nope. OK let’s see. Aha! Just hack the system. Well, two problems here: 1) I don’t know how to hack the system even with good directions, and 2) it still doesn’t work that well for people who have tried it. For instance, on the Apple discussion page, one disgruntled customer “even tried trashing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.KeyboardViewerServer.plist and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist, but these were also no help at all.” Whatever that means, but you get the point.
OK, I’m starting to get tired at this point. I begin to slowly accept defeat. As one blog commentor said on The Apple Blog, “Apple just informed me that I’m the proud owner of a useless Macbook–there is no fi[x] for the shift problem on the onscreen keyboard.” So many others got the same response from Apple, with one person even claiming Apple told her they would fix it on the next version but never did.
So then I’m like, “Well that sucks. Looks like I’m going to have to search for some kind of freeware point-and-click keyboard program.” Nope, they all cost money, and I’m not paying money when it is my Windows-given right to be able to operate the onscreen keyboard shift key for free, dadgumit.
In a conversation with my brother, I found out the key difference between the Windows Onscreen Keyboard and the Apple Keyboard Viewer. Windows means for its keyboard to function as an accessibility feature. That is, it is meant specifically for people with disabilities who have trouble typing. It is even listed under “Accessibiity.” However, the Keyboard Viewer’s primary funtion is to be able to find the hidden keys. In other words, if I hold down shift, I can bring up the Keyboard Viewer and see that shift+2 would be @ or that option+N would be the ˜ sign or that shift+option+? would be the backwards question mark (¿) that comes in so handy when I’m typing my Spanish essays. So, the Keyboard Viewer is not really meant as an onscreen keyboard, and indeed it’s not even listed under the computer’s “Universal Access” section. There is another section where you find it (“International”).
“That’s stupid,” I said. And for good reason. Apple has lied to me! I say this because in the “Accessibility” section of their Web site under “Physical & Motor Skills,” it says the following:
Onscreen Keyboard
If you find it easier to use a pointing device than a keyboard, you can use the Keyboard Viewer to enter text. You’ll find this onscreen keyboard in the International pane of System Preferences. Keyboard Viewer floats above other applications (so you can’t misplace it). It can be displayed small or big, and, though you “type” with a mouse or other pointing device, it otherwise works just like a physical keyboard.
LIES!!! It is not a real onscreen keyboard and it does not work just like a physical keyboard.
The real issue that bothers me is that many people all over the Internet have complained to Apple about this and Apple just won’t fix it. It’s so utterly simple. Just make the modifier keys stick on the Keyboard Viewer. Simple, simple, simple. Yet Apple either makes empty promises about fixing it or refers people to outside software they have to buy. Come on, Mac. You’re gonna let PC be the disabled-friendly computer? The Keyboard Viewer may seem like a small feature no one really cares about, but hundreds of people with disabilities who have trouble typing have found the Windows Onscreen Keyboard extremely helpful, especially when they are at public computers in places like libraries, where they haven’t installed $300 software. Yet, when we go up to a public Mac computer with a physical keyboard that may be too big for us to handle, we have to rely on the Keyboard Viewer as the next best thing to an authentic onscreen keyboard. C’mon.
If you’re dying to know, the only free thing I have found on the Internet is something called Kiiboard that looks like this on my computer screen:
Kiiboard
Yeah, it’s huge, and you can’t resize it either. And don’t make the mistake of calling this an onscreen keyboard. As the site I linked to says, it was “originally designed for use with the Wii Remote IR mouse driver for Mac OS X.”
If you happened to have found any other better free alternatives, please let me know. Thanks.