NaNoWriMo is both an easy and hard thing to define. It’s an event. It’s a challenge. It’s a game. It’s work. It’s art. It’s paradoxically social and anti-social. The event takes place on the NaNoWriMo website and in the computers and notebooks of aspiring writers the world over. The latter is where the work gets done and the former is where everyone goes to talk about it. The site lets you keep a tally of your word count, chat with other Wrimos on the forums, and stay up to date with all things NaNo. It’s social novel writing. And it’s brilliant.

It’s also inclusive. Thanks to the concept of a “home region” on the NaNoWriMo forums, I was able to get in touch with folks in Mississippi who were participating in the event. A few of us got together in person just before the first of the month to talk about our ideas (and then several times throughout the month). It was the first meetup I had been to. It was interesting and fun meeting new people who had the same dorky goal as I did. Something occurred to me. At our table, there sat a lawyer, a high school student, a waitress, an architect, and a web designer. It was a diverse bunch indeed.

And that’s when I realized that I had stumbled upon something special. I had found an activity that was inherently inclusive. At a concert or sporting event I would need special seating and other accommodations. And many activities that I can do are passive. They involve watching and being entertained. But NaNoWriMo is active, and I can participate as well as anyone else can (except the ones who finish their novels; they are totally out of my league). I think it’s important for people with disabilities to have social activities that they can participate in, especially if they spend a lot of time confined at home. NaNoWriMo is a good one because one can talk to fellow writers on the website and one can step it up a notch and attend a local meetup. And a local meetup is usually a small group conversation over coffee, so no worrying about large crowds, weird access problems, and other obstacles people with disabilities run in to.

I didn’t get to the finish line this year, but I had fun and learned things that will help me get there next November. If you are looking for an inclusive, social activity be sure to check out NaNoWriMo. And if you can’t wait until next November, then check out other Office of Letters and Light events, including Script Frenzy, and Camp NaNoWriMo.

From a broader perspective, I see NaNoWriMo as yet another exhibit of evidence that creative pursuits are worth the time and effort and that they can be especially beneficial to people with disabilities. So to all my fellow creatives out there, keep doing what you love. And to all my fellow Wrimos, here’s to a wordy 2012.

Part of it is the economy. Part of it is a stigma that I have as a person with a disability. I hate to say it, but it’s true. I had a potential employer that was interested in me, but when they learned that I was disabled, I never heard from them again.

The point I want to make is that employment for people with disabilities can be complicated for a variety of reasons. I’m not passing any judgement on people with disabilities who are working. More power to them. I’m also not passing judgement on people with disabilities that aren’t working (for whatever reason). But I know that there are some pretty talented disabled folks out there who, regardless of their possible unemployment, have some great skills to offer.

Now that you know the backstory, here’s the idea:

Create a social networking site for the purpose of connecting people with disabilities with common interests and various skills and facilitate their collaboration on projects of their own creation.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say Dave has a passion for fantasy novels. He also enjoys strategy board games. He decides that he wants to create a board game. Dave is a great writer and has all sorts of ideas about the storyline behind the game. He has some idea of the gameplay. But he wants the game to have great fantasy art as well. And Dave is no illustrator.

So he creates the board game project on our community site, describing what the project is about.

Soon, Lee sees the project listing. Lee loves fantasy art and is a pretty good illustrator. He contacts Dave through the site. Dave creates a group on the site and sends Lee an invitation. Now the two of them have a place to collaborate.

They get some great concept work done and want to share their progress with the community. So they create a blog on the community site as a place to post updates about their project. Pretty soon, they’ve got quite a few people interested in what they are doing. That’s when Ava, who loves paper crafts, contacts the team about helping create the board and pieces for the game. Dave and Lee are excited about the opportunity and invite Ava to the group. After some hard work by the three of them, a sweet new fantasy board game has been created.

Who knows? If the fan base is large enough, perhaps they sell the game and split the resulting revenues.

The point is that, individually, they could not have completed the project. But by combining their skills and passions, they were able to create something that benefits themselves as well as anyone interested in the game. And they became friends along the way.

Admittedly, the idea has little to do with disability. That is, anybody might enjoy such a site. But the idea here is to connect people with disabilities who spend a lot of time alone. There’s no reason to spend so much time in isolation when you could easily connect with others who are in similar situations.

I don’t have it all worked out. This is the inception of an idea. I don’t know that anyone would care to join and foster such a community. But I think it would be a great way for people with disabilities who have trouble getting out to meet new people and make or do some cool things.

What do you think?

Lately I have, for better or for worse, been neglecting the social side of the interwebs. And since my work and various projects often have me staring into the void of RGB, miserably alone and loathing my pathetic existence, I think it’s important to spend a little time connecting with people online. But my water coolers of choice, Twitter and Facebook, have grown to be more complicated and cumbersome than they used to be. The barrier to connecting has become a bit too much. As a result, I found myself spending much less time on those sites during breaks and much more time playing Galcon on my iPhone. Of course that exacerbates the issue of spending so much time alone. So I set out to make Facebook and Twitter more useful.

Enter Fluid. This so-called “single-site browser” has been around for a while and I dabbled with it in the past. But with the big social networking sites getting so out of hand with their gizmos and thingamaboppers, I decided to give Fluid another shot. What this little app does is pretty simple. It allows you to take a web app (like Facebook) and make it act kind of like an app on your Mac. So you can have a nice little Facebook icon in your dock that opens Facebook. Just Facebook. Not a bunch of toolbars and useless buttons. Just the stuff you need. All in its own dedicated window.

But having Facebook in its own uncluttered window isn’t all we’re after. We want Facebook itself to be simpler, remember? Fortunately, Fluid can make your little app into a handy MenuExtra instead of a traditional window. Wondering what that is? Keep reading; because we’re about to walk through an example.

I’ve decided that the best Twitter experience to be had is with a slick, punch-packing web app called Hahlo. Hahlo is designed for your touchscreen phone. Side effects include simplicity, intuitive design, and awesome-induced nausea. But we’re not using it on our phone. We’re using it on our Mac through Fluid.

First, you need to download Fluid. Go ahead. Do it.

Now, double-click that bad boy. Oh, you were expecting more? Sorry to disappoint. All we need to do is tell Fluid what site we want to create an app with, and what we want to call our app.

Hahlo SSB Creation

Once we’ve done that, we can launch our new app from our Applications folder.

Hahlo Application Mode

If you have trouble authorizing Hahlo with Twitter, just go to your app’s preferences and add Twitter as an allowed site.

Hahlo Advanced Prefs: Add the line "*twitter.com*"

Now, this app is cool and all. But we want to make it a MenuExtra so that it displays as an icon in our system menu and drops down when we click on it. Peanuts. Click on your app’s name in the menu bar and choose the option “Convert to MenuExtra SSB.”

Hahlo > Convert to MenuExtra SSB

Your app will restart itself as a MenuExtra. And when you click it’s icon in the menu bar, Hahlo will drop down and be ready to use.

Hahlo as a MenuExtra

Just click the icon (or anywhere else on your screen) and Hahlo will disappear into the menu bar as quickly as it appeared.

Cool, huh? But I know you’re wondering how this would work with Facebook. I mean, it would need a lot more space, right? Wrong. When you visit Facebook on your touch phone’s browser, you are actually redirected to http://touch.facebook.com/, which is especially designed to take up minimal space. Plus, you get the added benefit of stripping out all that pointless Facebook App debris that junks up your News Feed. Mouth watering yet?

So just create an app using the touch-friendly version of Facebook.

Facebook SSB Creation

Repeat the above step of converting your app to a MenuExtra and you get a familiar, simpler, and, frankly, more enjoyable Facebooking experience. And it’s all just a dropdown away.

Facebook as a MenuExtra

If you are still with me, I hope you were looking to make Facebook and Twitter an even bigger, easier part of your life. Otherwise, I’m so sorry. I’ve wasted your time.

Have you used Fluid for other cool sites? Please share in the comments.

Me: I’m behind the default daily goal. I let the unknown slow me down instead of embracing it. I’m also struggling with making up things that I know I could research if I had more time. For instance, how the FBI works. Or how time travel should theoretically work. Or how love works (maybe I can’t research that one!). But I’m catching up.

lighningshock:watch Dr. Who while you work then you’ll know ALL about time travel. (and you’ll devellop a healthy British accent)

Me: Two things I’ve always wanted!

And just for kicks, here’s an excerpt of my forthcoming novel:

The facility was small. It was basically one large room with a few smaller rooms that were really just oversized closets adjoined to it. It was windowless, lit only by a few dim fluorescent lights, a couple of desk lamps, and a large computer monitor. With notes here, chunks of miscellaneous rubble there, and terabytes of information stored only in my father’s brain, it was a primordial soup of ideas waiting to evolve into fully formed concepts.

“I’ve got a big development on the way,” he said not yet turning around to greet me. “Did you know that a typical Bureau employee uses his standard issue retractable pen an average of 27 times a day. Each of those times he must click the pen twice, once at the beginning of the session and once at the end. I have created a pen that will only write on paper, will not dry out, and will not leak ink in desk drawers and coat pockets, thus eliminating the need for retraction. One can pick up the pen and use it immediately. This will save approximately one second per writing session. That’s about a half a minute of time savings per person per day. If you multiply that out over the entire organization, that’s about 75 hours of time saved every day.”

“Interesting,” I lied.

I remember a better time. I was shiny and new. I strutted off of the assembly line with ambition. I was going to find my human. I was duped into believing that every car had a human that it was supposed to be with. Marketing goes both ways, you know. I would find that human who would love me, take care of me, and most importantly, drive me. We would bond as they pressed my accelerator and steered my wheel. I would be his or her love. CD’s? I got you. Air conditioning? I got you. You want to put junk in my trunk? I got you. Think you might need room for kids later in life? I got you. Bottom line is I am there for you when your human friends aren’t. You want to take the scenic route home? Let’s do it. You need to get away from the spouse, let’s do it. You want to relax at the local bar with a Margarita? Do it. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to take you places.

Yes, those were the days of blissful ignorance. My first human was a lemon. But I couldn’t take him back for a refund. No. I had to lug his fat, sweaty body of mush through every drive-thru grease bucket in town. I did so without enough fuel, oil, and other basic needs. Finally, Meathead couldn’t pay my note anymore. He sold me. And now I am sitting here in the parking lot of Super Used Auto Sales, rotting away, missing the glory days, and steaming about the name of this stupid place that feels it has to remind me every day that I am, in fact, super used.

But then comes a customer. I can tell she doesn’t really want me. She wants that sports car across the lot because he could fill the void In her miserable love life. Or she wants one of these little Japanese cars that have the ability to run on nothing and just take it. She doesn’t have time for a car like me. I’m high maintenance. I’m long past my prime. And I’m quite the pessimist. I’m just a regular Joe car. Nothing special. Not anymore. I can’t play her iPod. I can’t show DVD’s. I don’t have a sun roof. I don’t have a rear facing camera. I can’t parallel park for her. I can’t do anything those new guys can do. We’re doing good if we get off the lot on the right foot.

Needless to say, her initial offer isn’t anywhere close to what the salesman has in mind. I know I am not going to get this girl and it hurts me deep inside my gearbox. She knows it too. But something changes in her voice and body language. She has given up on the other cars. She wants me. Am I all she can afford? Can she see past my dirty exterior and see the beauty that I once was? I don’t know. But I feel for the first time in my life, someone is going to appreciate me for who I am. But this stupid salesman has to stop this, this… massacre against hope. This blitz in the name of a fast profit. You can go lower. But he doesn’t. The realization that this has been nothing more than a bone just out of reach begins to sink in. She’s going to walk. I can see it on her face.

Then… she starts to cry. The other customers are looking over at the salesman. He’s off his game. He’s been thrown a curve ball and he doesn’t know how to swing at it. She crying louder, harder. The salesman is sweating. Not from the summer’s heat but from a crowd of onlookers who have gathered round. I get it. My girl planned it this way! That’s why she looked at the other cars first. She really wants me! You know what?! Screw iPods, DVDs, and rear-facing cameras. Screw sunroofs, sports cars, and shiny paint. Screw fuel efficiency and compact design. You want a car with a soul? I got you. You want a car with a dream? I got you. You want a car that appreciates you? I got you. Bottom line is you sign that bottom line and we’ll drive off into the sunset as partners in crime, making our own way and not taking nothin’ from nobody.

The American dream.

Times change. Ever since the unveiling of the iPhone several years ago, I knew that one day, I was going to have one. I was already a Mac user and an iPod user; becoming an iPhone user was the next logical step. But much time would pass before I would finally justify the cost of owning an iPhone. At first, I considered it to be more of a luxury than anything else. But as time passed, I began struggling more and more with using my computer. The number one reason? Typing. I finally lost the ability to type. It’s almost as if it happened overnight. I then went on a search to find a way to type without a keyboard. After trying various methods, I settled on KeyStrokes, an onscreen keyboard for Mac, to do 99% of my typing, occasionally using voice recognition software for long form writing. It proved to work well and it still does.

In Fall 2008, my brother got an iPod touch as part of a back to school deal when he purchased a MacBook at Ridgeland’s then 1-year-old Apple Retail Store. I began to become more familiar with various apps that were available. Fast forward to Summer 2009. One of my long time attendants purchased an iPhone. That’s when I really started getting interested. By this time, there were tons of apps on the App Store with tons coming out all the time. The “there’s an app for that” campaign was in full swing. My mind began coming up with all sorts of ideas about how iPhones could be helpful to people with disabilities, especially people with severe mobility impairments like mine. One iPhone fearure that really appealed to me, however, was built in. It was as if Apple engineers had peered into my mind and figured out what I needed before I even knew what I needed. Because the iPhone has one quite literally tiny feature that is perfect for someone with almost no strength and no mobility: an ultra-small keyboard with zero-force, touch-sensitive keys. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?

Of course, the catch is that the keyboard is on a phone, not my Mac. Well, remember all those apps I was talking about? There is one that lets me use the awesome iPhone keyboard to input text on my computer. But it does so much more.

Meet HippoRemote Pro: The Web Surfing, Tweeting, Universal App Remote. Here is how the HippoRemote Web site describes the app:

HippoRemote Pro turns your iPhone and iPod touch into a wireless keyboard, multi-touch mouse and remote control for all your favorite apps. It works over Wi-Fi, giving you complete control of your media center Mac/PC from anywhere in your home or office.

Not only does it let me type with the iPhone’s keyboard, it also functions as a trackpad and has specialized control interfaces for controlling applications on your computer like iTunes and Firefox.

It’s worth mentioning that typing solutions designed especially for people with disabilities can easily cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. You might be saying “Yeah but your iPhone was $199 plus your ongoing wireless plan.” True. But, by way of comparison, the KeyStrokes onscreen keyboard cost $299. And my phone is also an iPod, a Web browser, and a mini, mobile computer. Many times, a consumer product can be used creatively to achieve better results than a product specifically designed for a disabled consumer.

I have had my iPhone for exactly two weeks. I just purchased HippoRemote Pro today and this blog post was the experiment for trying it out. It has worked well. Definitely worth the five bucks I paid for it. It has been an exciting two weeks and I can’t wait to see what other apps can be used for assistive technology purposes. Who knows what exciting discoveries are in store? At least I can say this:

Want to use your iPhone to type on your computer? Yeah, there’s an app for that.

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.

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.

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