Guides

Accessing Audio Described DVDs on a Mac Computer.
 
I was recently very excited to discover that I could play Audio described DVDs on my Apple computer. after inserting a DVD into my MacBook Pro and expecting my wife to have to help me turn on the audio description, I was shocked to find that I was actually able to do this independently, without having to rely on sighted assistance.
 
I sat back and waited until the computer loaded the DVD which in this case, was a…

Intro

As many of you know, Apple recently opened up its OS X beta testing program to anyone. So long as you have an Apple ID and a Mac that can handle Mavericks, you can test upcoming OS X releases. Note that this is not for iOS testing - that is still limited to developers only.

Please remember that discussion of how to get and run OS X betas is perfectly fine on AppleVis. However, when you agree to become…

Partitioning a Drive

When you partition a drive, you essentially make your computer see two different drives where there used to be one. This is useful for a variety of reasons and is something you may find yourself needing to do, but the process on a Mac is a bit complicated. It may be easy to do visually, but using Voiceover, there are some tricks you should know. So, let's get started.

First, open Disk Utility. If you want to browse to it manually, it is in applications/…

Intro

Safari is the Mac's default web browser, and it does all the usual web browser things - opens webpages, downloads files, plays audio, all that. It has some neat tricks, too, like the Reader that can show you only the meat of an article.

However, if you are coming to the Mac for the first time, especially from a Windows background, Safari can seem like a clunky app at best, and a totally unusable mess at worst. As with all things on the Mac, though, you just have to…

What's a Commander?

A commander is a really handy feature of VoiceOver. With it, you can quickly move around, change a setting, or even run an app or Applescript file. Commanders are very useful and, among many other things, they are an easy way to give the Mac a way to speak the time and date with a single keystroke.

There are four commanders in total, but the ones available to you will vary based on the hardware you have. They are:

• Keyboard: use the option…

The Finder

Finder is the Mac's file browser. With it, you can look at files and folders on internal, external, and network drives; copy, cut, and paste items; tag files for easier locating later; search for files; and more. The problem is that, particularly for those transitioning to the Mac from Windows, Finder is a confusing mess that makes you scared to even go looking for a file. I understand that, because I was there too. Hopefully, in writing down what I've learned over the…

Hi all I have some good news if you want to use Windows on your mac using VMWare Fusion. I can now tell you how to re-map one of the keys on your mac keyboard so it becomes an insert key. Here we go.

1. Open Fusion.
2. Press command-comma to open preferences.
3. Interact with the toolbar and click on keyboard and mouse button.
4. Stop interacting with the toolbar and click on the keymap tab. Skip this step if this tab is selected.
5. Check the enable keymap…

Note October 17, 2016: a new and updated guide on iOS text editors is now available here.

Introduction

iPhone and iPad users have a bewildering abundance of plain text editors from which to choose. For projects not requiring complex formatting, there's really no need to bother with a word processor. Devotees of minimalism will revel in the files these…

Intro

So, you're a developer of Apple software. You've followed Apple's guidelines for making your iOS app accessible , or making your OSX app accessible to…

Introduction

iWork 13 was a big update. One that excited blind people, and at the same time annoyed power users. Because the iWork apps were rewritten from scratch, not every feature was included at first. One of these features is assigning hotkeys to styles, which later was brought back in an update. A couple times I’ve seen people asking how it works, so I sat down to figure it out.

How it’s done?

• Open up pages
• Create a new document
• Jump…

What Are Tags?

Starting in macOS 10.9 Mavericks, files could be given one or more "tags", to help users keep things organized. A tag is simply a text label you can assign to a file, letting you organize your files with categories instead of, or in addition to, folders. For example, a student might have a science folder, holding a textbook, handouts, tests, notes, assignments, research papers, and more. What if a quiz deals with thermodynamics, as do some files of notes and a paper…

Updated: iOS 9

Listed below are some common commands which can be used with Siri in iOS 9.

Accessibility

• "Show Accessibility Settings"
• "Turn on Voice Over"
• "Turn on Invert Colors"
• “Turn on Guided Access”
• "Turn on Assistive Touch"
• "Show me the Accessibility Settings"
• "Open VoiceOver settings"

Phone

• "Call Randy"
• "Call my wife on her iPhone"
• "Call home"
…