iBooks with voiceover: how to.

Dear reader,

 

I know that we all have heard lots of horror stories about iBooks for Mavericks, I might even have spread a few.

 

I have done some investigation in the meantime, and have found an efficient way to make use of this app.

 

The first problem you will usually find, is difficulty with reading book titles, authors etc. 

 

This is easily fixed by selecting the list radio button.

 

Another common problem is not being able to open a book. This can be also fixed by selecting the list radio button, interacting with the table with the books, and using command oh to open the book.

 

Reading books is a bit more complex, but each chapter has its own HTML content area within the scroll area. I usually read my books in iOS, thus have not really read using iBooks for the Mac. Will post a second blog on iBooks at a later date.

 

More from me soon.

Some of the quirks of Mac OS X Mavericks

Hi there,

 

For those of you who have updated to Mac OS  Mavericks, you might have noticed A few quirks. One of the most interesting of these, is noncontiguous selection.

 

In Mountain lion, if used to be VO command space, but that keystroke has now changed to show an actions menu. The keystroke has now changed to VO command return. In the past, you had to hit the VO command space twice to start the selection process and once for every item you wanted to select. This is not true anymore. You can now use VO command return on the first item you want to select. This will immediately start the selection process.

 

Being that I only have the one working hand, IAM not sure if this will work with quicknav turned on.

 

There are still a few quirks that needs sorting out, but I will get to those in due time.

 

Please leave a comment if you have any more information on any quirks of Mac OS Mavericks.

 

I hope you found this useful,

 

More from me soon.

BBM and some of its inadequacies

Dear reader,

 

This post is regarding a relatively new release on the iOS app store, namely BBM, (BlackBerry messenger)."

 

I will say upfront, what I have to say is not necessarily very nice.

 

First, the setup. Obviously, installing the app is as simple as they usually are, in other words, extremely so. The issues begin with creating your own BlackBerry ID. the sheer amount of information required strongly and not pleasantly remind me of South African bureaucracy.

 

Okay, now we have the setup done. Annoying yes, but not completely undoable. 

 

The problem comes when excepting invitations from people, or rather, trying to do so. When catching an invitation from the lock screen on your phone, it is no problem whatsoever. If, however you missed the invitation, you will have to wait for the next invitation to come through and hope you catch that one on the lock screen. If not, the cycle starts all over again.

 

That is not the only issue however, if and/or when you are trying to communicate with someone, you cannot send any media using voiceover. Thus, no photos, videos or voice notes.

 

With all the other messaging apps out there, I can honestly and with a clear conscience say, this app is totally redundant, unnecessary, and unnecessarily inaccessible.

 

If you like redundant, incredibly difficult to use and just plain pointless apps, feel free to go ahead and get it, I will start praying for you.