In attendance (13 participants):
Martin Kelly, Vera Naughton, Noreen Meagher, Bert Brown, Michael brown, Annette
McCarthy, Gerry Eastwood, Tom Langan, Eamonn O'Connor, Declan Meenagh,
Cearbhall O'Meadhra, John Chambers, Mary Lavelle.
Apologies: Paul Griffith
Traffic, public spaces and cycle lanes featured strongly today.
As all who are registered blind are entitled to a disabled parking permit, the
use of this facility was discussed at length. It was noted that the permit can
only be used when the visually impaired person is present. Taking a chance of
using the permit when the person is not present can result in a fine. It was
agreed that the least troublesome way of applying for a permit would be through
the NCBI who have the applicantâs medical details and can validate the claim
more easily.
However, one can also apply through the disabled drivers association and
through the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA).
Out of the car or bus, once on the pavement, the next problem is caused by
cycle lanes. The latest traffic scheme, generally, is to share cycle lanes and
pedestrian footpaths. Some cycle lanes are marked with a coloured line that is
undetectable non-visually. A mixture of bollards to mark the edges of the cycle
lane vary from waist high bollards to low bollards that rise to just above the
ankle. The danger of the lower bollards is that the visually impaired walker
cannot avoid falling if they trip over one of these. Cyclists are notorious for
speeding without use of a bell or any other warning sound depending solely on
being seen. Fighting Blindness is holding a zoom meeting with Dublin
corporation to discuss the new cycle lanes for Hume Street and Ely Place. The
meeting asked that traffic crossing be discussed at the conference.
Summer is here and passports came up for discussion. Joan was delighted to find
that she could request a new passport on Sunday and was delighted when the
physical passport arrived two days later by post. She needed sighted assistance
to create a suitable photo image for the passport but, otherwise, was able to
make the application online. The passport Office had a special deal offering a
traditional hardcopy passport along with a passport card. that can be used
anywhere in Europe for â¬100.
The Public Service card and the very useful bus pass need to be checked to make
sure that they have not expired. It was noted that these are not renewed
automatically and so every user must check that their card has not expired. In
the case of travelling on the Luas, it was pointed out that it is hard to find
the pole where the travel card should be recognised and so many travel without
bothering and only show the card to an inspector if asked. Joan found a handy
card holder that hangs around the neck and avoids the problem of dropping the
card.
Moving on to matters technological, Bert pointed out that the After Shocz
headset does not work with Zoom on the windows desktop. This is due to the
default graphics card in Windows. However, this headset works perfectly with
zoom on the iPhone.
there was a healthy discussion on the use of Outlook and Windows Live Mail for
managing emails, saving them to folders and saving attachments. Declan pointed
out that simply cutting and pasting will save attachments to a desktop folder
and vice, versa copying and pasting a file will transfer it to a new email as
an attachment. vera pointed out that she keeps bills until they have been paid
and then deletes them. If she needs to retrieve any, she can do so from the
vendor's web site.
Tom raised the issue of voice control of the Sky Box. He found that a separate
remote control is needed to allow him to operate sky Voice Control. He was
informed that Sky needs a satellite dish to maintain services. Full information
is available under the search key "open voice guidance" or from the
accessibility team in Sky.
There was a very intense session on the use of password managers to avoid
problems caused by hackers. The Firefox and chrome browsers provide passport
management by default without the need for a master password. This is only
partial security. Fuller protection is possible by setting up a master password
in either browser. It is also necessary to make the password manager aware of
each web site that needs to be covered. This proved to be a difficult topic for
one conversation and might be worth a separate training session of it own at
some time in the future. After the recent HSE attack, it is worth being more
careful.
The meeting ended.
All the best,
Cearbhall
m +353 (0)833323487 Ph: _353 (0)1-2864623 e: cearbhall.omeadhra@xxxxxxx
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