Fourth Quarter

Dec 29, 2009 5:17 pm by: Blake Watson

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 [...]

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How to win a video contest

Nov 1, 2009 10:14 pm by: Blake Watson

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 [...]

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Of disability, Web design, and opportunity

Oct 13, 2009 3:21 pm by: Blake Watson

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 [...]

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Apple and the value of universal design

Sep 10, 2009 10:57 am by: Blake Watson

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 [...]

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The end of an era

Sep 6, 2009 9:11 pm by: Blake Watson

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 [...]

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Meet Sue

Jul 18, 2009 9:31 pm by: Blake Watson

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 [...]

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Onscreen Keyboard FAIL: Why Mac’s Keyboard Viewer Is Utter Atrocity

Jul 1, 2009 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, [...]

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Disabilism

Jun 9, 2009 7:37 pm by: Blake Watson

The following was taken by a “professional” photographer. Click to see full-size.

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Dr. Torchinsky and Dr. Pepper

Jun 7, 2009 2:43 pm by: Blake Watson

A big thing for me right now is keeping tabs on my weight. Or at least that’s what they tell me. Apparently, if you can’t move (e.g., you have SMA), you shouldn’t eat as much as other people do. Makes sense, but it is difficult to put into practice, especially considering that I live in [...]

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Handwriting recognition with Bamboo Fun

May 28, 2009 9:56 pm by: Blake Watson

Fellow stair-haters, this is an update to my last post. It’s a screencast about how to use the Bamboo Fun tablet for handwriting recognition. I forgot to mention this in the video, but the Bamboo Fun tablet can be used on Windows or Mac. http://vimeo.com/4894750 If you can’t view the video, or you just want [...]

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A new toy

May 26, 2009 8:26 pm by: Blake Watson

It’s been a strange summer. The last two weeks of school went by in a hurried flash. I spent quite a few long nights in the business college while finishing up a project. Then suddenly, six years of school were over. I enjoyed the beginning of the summer as I was able to sleep late [...]

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Finding your happy ending

Apr 26, 2009 9:43 pm by: Blake Watson

Now that I’m finishing up my last semester in school, I’ve been thinking about the future, about the opportunities I will have, about the opportunities I have let pass, and about the difficulties I will face on the road ahead. Sometimes, the difficulties bring me down. Sometimes, my mind dwells on the things I can’t [...]

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Now you can hate stairs too.

Apr 20, 2009 9:54 am by: Blake Watson

It’s official. The “I hate stairs” store is now open. There are many styles and sizes available. Visit http://ihatestairs.com for the scoop. More designs will coming out in the near future, so be sure to check back. Thanks to all you stair-haters for your patience and helpful feedback. http://ihatestairs.com

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T-shirts coming soon

Apr 13, 2009 9:49 am by: Blake Watson

UPDATE: Shirts now available at http://ihatestairs.com/. Fellow stair-haters, I have an important update for you. Way back in July, I introduced an idea that my brother and I had. The name of the post was “Disabled people are funny looking” and it presented several ideas for funny T-shirts. We got some good feedback (and a [...]

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Reaching for the Straw

Apr 8, 2009 10:17 pm by: Blake Watson

A little creative problem solving combined with an obsessive love for the 23 flavors of Dr. Pepper can yield satisfying results. Literally.

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So with this in mind, I began to reach out to people of this marginalized community to get to know them more. And then I had epiphany number 2: These people are brilliant and amazing. Actually that doesn’t encompass it well enough, the are BRILLIANT and AMAZING. Yes, all caps is needed here.

The people I met are super intelligent, creative, patient, passionate and compassionate. They have discovered methods and tools to accomplish many of their goals, which are usually the same as yours and mine. Yet, despite being able to prove the desire and skill to do what drives them for a living, they are denied employment.

That’s the dream: To build a design and development agency comprised primarily of people that have the skills but are denied the opportunity because something allows the government to call them “disabled”, because they are not.

I’ve been thinking of something like this in the dark corners of my mind. But this is the first time I’ve seen it written down. And you know what that means? It’s more likely to happen! Read more about Gregory’s idea.

Jan 27, 2012 9:50 pm by: Blake Watson

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A quick shoutout to my friend Marissa at Abled Is. She is undertaking a fascinating exercise in empathy in 2012 by getting to know a new person each month who has a health condition or worthy cause that needs to be learned about and shared. She’s calling it “12 Months, 12 Journeys, 12 Lessons”. I’m thrilled that she has asked me to be one of the 12 participants in order to share about my condition, spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). It’s going to be interesting and fun and I can’t wait to see who all she interviews. Stay tuned.

See the very raw video explaining the idea.

Dec 20, 2011 9:49 pm by: Blake Watson

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A rough idea:

A SaaS model that allows users to choose from a range of web features that are not accessible to them. Those preferences are saved on the Service. Web developers can check users’ preferences before programmatically implementing the features in question.

For example, before a jQuery slideshow is implemented, a check is done against the Service to make sure that slideshow transitions are OK for the current user (because it could cause motion sickness for some people). This would probably be done in a PHP function. If there is no conflict, a PHP function is run to implement the slideshow. If there is a conflict, a fallback PHP function could be run.

Graceful degradation.

Oct 11, 2011 3:52 pm by: Blake Watson

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Media guru and good friend of mine, Dylan McLemore, touches on what makes good products great.

We like the idea of being Macs, not PCs. Computers were boring plastic boxes meant to function as part of an office workspace (it’s called a “desktop” for goodness sake). Macs aren’t just trendy; they embody a creative spirit. From the physical design to the applications they are best at running – Macs were made for artists – and everyone wants to be an artist.

Oct 5, 2011 9:57 pm by: Blake Watson

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When my disability took away my ability to type on the clunky keyboards of times past, Apple released the thin notebook-style keyboards that allowed me to keep typing. When I was no longer able to type on those keyboards, a wonderful Mac onscreen keyboard app saved me. When I lost the ability to play video games because I wasn’t strong enough to operate a controller, the iPhone’s touch technology brought it back. When I wanted to write a novel and pointing and clicking on an onscreen keyboard was too slow, an iPhone remote app let me type on my Mac using the iPhone’s small touchscreen keyboard.

The technology inspired by Steve Jobs has helped me keep going when my atrophied body was trying to stop me. I applaud his accomplishments and am grateful for his help. So here’s to the crazy one himself.

Oct 5, 2011 7:14 pm by: Blake Watson

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