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shown unwavering commitment to implementing and updating the accessibility features found on OS X and iOS, even going so far as to tip its hat to the accessibility community in its iPhone TV ads. The accessibility features found on Apple’s platforms enable users with special needs- myself included-to interact with their devices with as much fluidity and delight as the fully-abled do. But while the norm is to focus on accessibility software, accessibility can apply just as aptly to hardware. For me, Apple’s iPhone 5s is a perfect example. I’ve used the iPhone 5s since launch day and have found Apple’s flagship iPhone to be a terrific accessibility tool for three reasons: its larger display; thinner, lighter body; and its Touch ID sensor. All together, these features make using my phone easier than ever, and a lot more fun too. It’s easier on the eyes Every iPhone I’ve had since the 2007 original has been of the 3.5-inch variety. That changed this past September when I upgraded from my trusty companion of two years, an iPhone 4S, to a shiny new iPhone 5s. As a visually-impaired person, I greatly enjoy the extra screen real estate I get from the larger, 4-inch display. As a visually-impaired person, I greatly enjoy the extra screen real estate I get from the larger, 4-inch display. Generally speaking, bigger is always better for someone like me, and the iPhone 5s’s display is awesome. Not only do I retain the glorious Retina display, but also the bigger screen has benefitted me as I find myself not squinting as much as I used to on the smaller screen. Since the screen is bigger and can hold more information, I don’t have to search as much for items. What’s more, the Larger Dynamic Text option introduced in iOS 7 makes it so that apps can support my preferred font sizes system-wide, saving me from having to always adjust manually. My eyes were accustomed to my old iPhone’s screen and did well with it, but after using the 5s’s 4-inch screen regularly now, I can’t go back. By comparison, the screen on the 4s feels comically small and cramped, and makes my eyes hurt almost instantly. It’s easier to hold I never felt my old iPhones were too bulky or heavy; I held and carried them everywhere I went without much hassle. Still, because of cerebral palsy, I have to grip my phone more tightly than most to compensate for reduced strength in my fingers, which means my hands wear out. I also have small hands, which make it more difficult to wrap my fingers around a large phone comfortably. Hands on with iPhone 5sJason Snell Thin and light, the iPhone 5 and 5s are much easier to hold for people with small hands or limited strength in their fingers. The body of the iPhone 5s is so much thinner and lighter than my 4s that I find I don’t need to grip it as tightly. The aluminum enclosure is much lighter (and more durable) than the glass on my 4S, making it easier for me to hold it for prolonged periods without getting muscle cramps. The phone’s size also makes it easier to get it in and out of my pocket-something I do repeatedly throughout the day. It’s easier to use, with special thanks to Touch ID When Phil Schiller revealed the Touch ID sensor as the marquee feature of the iPhone 5s, I immediately started contemplating its potential impact on accessibility. I was so intrigued by the idea that I wrote about it twice, wherein I posited that the fingerprint sensor would be a dark-horse accessibility tool. For those with vision- and motor-related disabilities, the fact that you’re able to just rest your finger on the Home button to carry out common security tasks is an absolute game-changer. It turns out I wasn’t alone in my thinking. For me, the hypothesis turned out to be correct. Simply resting my thumb on the Home button to unlock my phone and to make iTunes purchases is worlds better than clumsily hunting-and-pecking out my passcode and Apple ID password. For those with vision- and motor-related disabilities, the fact that you’re able to just rest your finger on the Home button to carry out common security tasks is an absolute game-changer. In fact, I would say Touch ID alone makes the 5s a worthwhile buy for any user with special needs; it’s that good. touchid Touch ID isn’t just a nifty tool for me; it makes using my iPhone much, much easier. What’s next? Truthfully, there aren’t many nits to pick about the iPhone 5s. I love it. But, looking forward, I hope Apple will keep improving the iPhone’s accessibility features, both in hardware and software. Siri for everyone: Siri, Apple’s voice recognition-based personal assistant, sounds like a great idea for people with motor or vision difficulties. After all, if you can just dictate your text messages and tell your phone to remember appointments, you’re spared the need to type or tap. If you have speech impediments like me, however, it’s a bust. I stutter, which makes it very hard for Siri to understand me. Oftentimes it takes a few seconds to get out the words, and Siri will cut me off because it thinks I’ve finished talking. The bigger issue, though, is that more often than not Siri inaccurately parses what I did say, which leaves me frustrated. It’s gotten to a point where Siri is so unusable that I forego using my voice to do anything. (And, let’s face it, I’m not the only one who has trouble with Siri.) If Apple wants to continue touting Siri as a hallmark feature of the iPhone, it had better work hard to ensure Siri plays well with everyone. A wearable option: As for hardware changes, I believe a wearable, wristband-type device would be a great complement to the iPhone, in terms of accessibility. Because of my cerebral palsy, there are times when holding my phone is hard. I sometimes find myself in situations (like the grocery store) where I need to act on an important message, but my hands are full and I can’t comfortably reach for my phone. A wristband device could allow me to tap a button to read a message and then use (a working version of) Siri to act on it. Rather than just being cool toys, wearable devices could have a major role in enhancing the iPhone’s accessibility appeal.]]>

and the difference in reliability between enterprise and consumer drives . Today, Backblaze has spilled the beans on which drive manufacturers are the most reliable. The comparison is between Seagate, Hitachi, and Western Digital. (The company has a few Toshiba and Samsung drives, but not enough for analysis.) Backblaze says they buy the least expensive drives that perform well, based on stress tests and a few weeks in production. As with the previous analyses, Backblaze measured the reliability of the drives by looking at the annual failure rate, the average number of failures while running a drive for one year. Here is a pretty telling chart: The company has also broken it down by drive model on their blog. The Hitachi GST Deskstar (7K2000, 5K3000, and 7K3000) had the lowest annual failure rates, from 0.9% to 1.1%. Meanwhile, the Seagate Barracuda Green had a whopping 120% annual failure rate (an average age of 0.8 years). While those were warranty replacement drives-likely refurbished ones already used-the other Seagate drives had failure rates between 3.8% and 25.4%. Overall, most of the drives survived for at least three years, but looking at this data, you might want to consider going with a Hitachi or WD drive instead of Seagate, unless you read other reviews of a specific drive’s reliability. Because Backblaze has a history of openness, many readers asked what drive models work best and which last the longest. Given our experience with over 25,000 drives, they asked which ones are good enough that we would buy them again. In this post, I’ll answer those questions. Drive Population At the end of 2013, we had 27,134 consumer-grade drives spinning in Backblaze Storage Pods . The breakdown by brand looks like this: Hard Drives by Manufacturer Used by Backblaze Brand Number of Drives Terabytes Average Age in Years Seagate 12,765 39,576 1.4 Hitachi 12,956 36,078 2.0 2,838 2,581 2.5 Toshiba 58 174 0.7 Samsung 18 18 3.7 As you can see, they are mostly Seagate and Hitachi drives, with a good number of Western Digital thrown in. We don’t have enough Toshiba or Samsung drives for good statistical results. Why do we have the drives we have? Basically, we buy the least expensive drives that will work. When a new drive comes on the market that looks like it would work, and the price is good, we test a pod full and see how they perform. The new drives go through initial setup tests, a stress test, and then a couple weeks in production. (A couple of weeks is enough to fill the pod with data.) If things still look good, that drive goes on the buy list. When the price is right, we buy it. We are willing to spend a little bit more on drives that are reliable, because it costs money to replace a drive. We are not willing to spend a lot more, though. Excluded Drives Some drives just don’t work in the Backblaze environment. We have not included them in this study. It wouldn’t be fair to call a drive “bad” if it’s just not suited for the environment it’s put into. We have some of these drives running in storage pods, but are in the process of replacing them because they aren’t reliable enough. When one drive goes bad, it takes a lot of work to get the RAID back on-line if the whole RAID is made up of unreliable drives. It’s just not worth the trouble. The drives that just don’t work in our environment are Western Digital Green 3TB drives and Seagate LP (low power) 2TB drives. Both of these drives start accumulating errors as soon as they are put into production. We think this is related to vibration. The drives do somewhat better in the new low-vibration Backblaze Storage Pod , but still not well enough. These drives are designed to be energy-efficient, and spin down aggressively when not in use. In the Backblaze environment, they spin down frequently, and then spin right back up. We think that this causes a lot of wear on the drive. We measure drive reliability by looking at the annual failure rate, which is the average number of failures you can expect running one drive for a year. A failure is when we have to replace a drive in a pod. blog-fail-drives-manufacture This chart has some more details that don’t show up in the pretty chart, including the number of drives of each model that we have, and how old the drives are: Number of Hard Drives by Model at Backblaze Model Size Number of Drives Average Age in Years Annual Failure Rate Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000) 4.0TB 5199 0.3 3.8% Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K2000 (HDS722020ALA330) 2.0TB 4716 2.9 1.1% Hitachi GST Deskstar 5K3000 (HDS5C3030ALA630) 3.0TB 4592 1.7 0.9% Seagate Barracuda (ST3000DM001) 3.0TB 4252 1.4 9.8% Hitachi Deskstar 5K4000 (HDS5C4040ALE630) 4.0TB 2587 0.8 1.5% Seagate Barracuda LP (ST31500541AS) 1.5TB 1929 3.8 9.9% Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 (HDS723030ALA640) 3.0TB 1027 2.1 0.9% Seagate Barracuda 7200 (ST31500341AS) 1.5TB 539 3.8 25.4% Western Digital Green (WD10EADS) 1.0TB 474 4.4 3.6% Western Digital Red (WD30EFRX) 3.0TB 346 0.5 3.2% Seagate Barracuda XT (ST33000651AS) 3.0TB 293 2.0 7.3% Seagate Barracuda LP (ST32000542AS) 2.0TB 288 2.0 7.2% Seagate Barracuda XT (ST4000DX000) 4.0TB 179 0.7 n/a Western Digital Green (WD10EACS) 1.0TB 84 5.0 n/a Seagate Barracuda Green (ST1500DL003) 1.5TB 51 0.8 120.0% The following sections focus on different aspects of these results. 1.5TB Seagate Drives The Backblaze team has been happy with Seagate Barracuda LP 1.5TB drives. We’ve been running them for a long time – their average age is pushing 4 years. Their overall failure rate isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either. The non-LP 7200 RPM drives have been consistently unreliable. Their failure rate is high, especially as they’re getting older. 1.5 TB Seagate Drives Used by Backblaze Model Size Number of Drives Average Age in Years Annual Failure Rate Seagate Barracuda LP (ST31500541AS) 1.5TB 1929 3.8 9.9% Seagate Barracuda 7200 (ST31500341AS) 1.5TB 539 3.8 25.4% Seagate Barracuda Green (ST1500DL003) 1.5TB 51 0.8 120.0% The Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB drive, though, has not been doing well. We got them from Seagate as warranty replacements for the older drives, and these new drives are dropping like flies. Their average age shows 0.8 years, but since these are warranty replacements, we believe that they are refurbished drives that were returned by other customers and erased, so they already had some usage when we got them. Bigger Seagate Drives The bigger Seagate drives have continued the tradition of the 1.5Tb drives: they’re solid workhorses, but there is a constant attrition as they wear out. 2.0 to 4.0 TB Seagate Drives Used by Backblaze Model Size Number of Drives Average Age in Years Annual Failure Rate Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000) 4.0TB 5199 0.3 3.8% Seagate Barracuda (ST3000DM001) 3.0TB 4252 1.4 9.8% Seagate Barracuda XT (ST33000651AS) 3.0TB 293 2.0 7.3% Seagate Barracuda LP (ST32000542AS) 2.0TB 288 2.0 7.2% Seagate Barracuda XT (ST4000DX000) 4.0TB 179 0.7 n/a The good pricing on Seagate drives along with the consistent, but not great, performance is why we have a lot of them. Hitachi Drives If the price were right, we would be buying nothing but Hitachi drives. They have been rock solid, and have had a remarkably low failure rate. Hitachi Drives Used by Backblaze Model Size Number of Drives Average Age in Years Annual Failure Rate Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K2000 (HDS722020ALA330) 2.0TB 4716 2.9 1.1% Hitachi GST Deskstar 5K3000 (HDS5C3030ALA630) 3.0TB 4592 1.7 0.9% Hitachi Deskstar 5K4000 (HDS5C4040ALE630) 4.0TB 2587 0.8 1.5% Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 (HDS723030ALA640) 3.0TB 1027 2.1 0.9% Western Digital Drives Back at the beginning of Backblaze, we bought Western Digital 1.0TB drives, and that was a really good choice. Even after over 4 years of use, the ones we still have are going strong. We wish we had more of the Western Digital Red 3TB drives (WD30EFRX). They’ve also been really good, but they came after we already had a bunch of the Seagate 3TB drives, and when they came out their price was higher. Western Digital Drives Used by Backblaze Model Size Number of Drives Average Age in Years Annual Failure Rate Western Digital Green (WD10EADS) 1.0TB 474 4.4 3.6% Western Digital Red (WD30EFRX) 3.0TB 346 0.5 3.2% Western Digital Green (WD10EACS) 1.0TB 84 5.0 n/a What About Drives That Don’t Fail Completely? Another issue when running a big data center is how much personal attention each drive needs. When a drive has a problem, but doesn’t fail completely, it still creates work. Sometimes automated recovery can fix this, but sometimes a RAID array needs that personal touch to get it running again. Each storage pod runs a number of RAID arrays. Each array stores data reliably by spreading data across many drives. If one drive fails, the data can still be obtained from the others. Sometimes, a drive may “pop out” of a RAID array but still seem good, so after checking that its data is intact and it’s working, it gets put back in the RAID to continue operation. Other times a drive may stop responding completely and look like it’s gone, but it can be reset and continue running. Measuring the time spent in a “trouble” state like this is a measure of how much work a drive creates. Once again, Hitachi wins. Hitachi drives get “four nines” of untroubled operation time, while the other brands just get “two nines”. Untroubled Operation of Drives by Manufacturer used at Backblaze Brand Active Trouble Number of Drives Seagate 99.72 0.28% 12459 Western Digital 99.83 0.17% 933 Hitachi 99.99 0.01% 12956 Drive Lifetime by Brand The chart below shows the cumulative survival rate for each brand. Month by month, how many of the drives are still alive? blog-36-month-drive-survival-rate Hitachi does really well. There is an initial die-off of Western Digital drives, and then they are nice and stable. The Seagate drives start strong, but die off at a consistently higher rate, with a burst of deaths near the 20-month mark. Having said that, you’ll notice that even after 3 years, by far most of the drives are still operating. What Drives Is Backblaze Buying Now? We are focusing on 4TB drives for new pods. For these, our current favorite is the Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000). We’ll have to keep an eye on them, though. Historically, Seagate drives have performed well at first, and then had higher failure rates later. Our other favorite is the Western Digital 3TB Red (WD30EFRX). We still have to buy smaller drives as replacements for older pods where drives fail. The drives we absolutely won’t buy are Western Digital 3TB Green drives and Seagate 2TB LP drives. A year and a half ago, Western Digital acquired the Hitachi disk drive business. Will Hitachi drives continue their excellent performance? Will Western Digital bring some of the Hitachi reliability into their consumer-grade drives? At Backblaze, we will continue to monitor and share the performance of a wide variety of disk drive models.]]>

The Built-In Keyboard Shortcuts of Facebook If you see Facebook as a benevolent time-waster, why not waste your time more efficiently when you’re there? Hit Alt+1 for the home page, Alt+? to search, or Alt+M for a new message. The How-To Geek runs down all the shortcuts he’s discovered. Aside from Alt+M and Alt+?, most of Facebook’s keyboard shortcuts line up with numbers. 1-5 will take you (roughly) from left-to-right on Facebook’s navigation links across the top of your Facebook page. 6-0 will navigate to less obvious settings pages. NOTE: If you’re on a Mac, you (currently) need to add Ctrl+Option+ to each of the shortcuts (Firefox on Mac is Function+Ctrl-thanks Robert Reents!). Other than that, they should work the same. . Alt+?: Search . Alt+m: Compose a new message . Alt+1: Home page . Alt+2: Your profile page . Alt+3: Friend requests . Alt+4: Your messages . Alt+5: Notifications . Alt+6: Account page . Alt+7: Privacy . Alt+8: Facebook’s Facebook page . Alt+9: Facebook Terms/Agreement . Alt+0: Facebook help center . The Geek notes, however, that the shortcuts work best in Chrome, and maybe Opera and Safari. In Firefox, you’ll need to add a Shift key to the combination, so as not to trigger Firefox’s own Alt-centered operations. On Internet Explorer, you’ll have to press Enter after hitting each combination. Alt+q to show or hide the keyboard shortcuts *II. Other Shortcuts for Facebook Many of these don’t work in Chrome and Firefox. None of them work in Firefox for Apple products.]]>

The 20 Most Important Keyboard Shortcuts For Windows PCs Document Source, HTG http://www.howtogeek.com/174952/the-20-most-important-keyboard-shortcuts-for -windows-pcs/ Keyboard shortcuts are practically essential for using any type of PC. They’ll speed up almost everything you do. But long lists of keyboard shortcuts can quickly become overwhelming if you’re just getting started. This list will cover the most useful keyboard shortcuts that every Windows user should know. If you haven’t used keyboard shortcuts much, these will show you just how useful keyboard shortcuts can be. 1. Windows Key + Search The Windows key is particularly important on Windows 8, especially before Windows 8.1 because it allows you to quickly return to the Start screen. On Windows 7, it opens the Start menu. Either way, you can start typing immediately after you press the Windows key to search for programs, settings, and files. For example, if you want to launch Firefox, you can press the Windows key, start typing the word Firefox, and press Enter when the Firefox shortcut appears. It’s a quick way to launch programs, open files, and locate Control Panel options without even touching your mouse and without digging through a cluttered Start menu. You can also use the arrow keys to select the shortcut you want to launch before pressing Enter. 2. Copy, Cut, Paste Whether you’re typing an email in your browser or writing in a word processor, there are convenient keyboard shortcuts that are usable. Copy, Cut, and Paste are extremely important keyboard shortcuts for text-editing. If you do any typing on your computer, you probably use them. These options can be accessed using the mouse, either by right-clicking on selected text or opening the application’s Edit menu, but this is the slowest way to do it. After selecting some text, press Ctrl+C to copy it or Ctrl+X to cut it. Position the cursor where you want the text and use Ctrl+V to paste it. These shortcuts can save you a huge amount of time over using the mouse. 3. Search the Current Page or File To quickly perform a search in the current application, whether you’re in a web browser, PDF viewer, document editor, or almost any other type of application, one can press Ctrl+F. The application’s search (or “Find”) feature will pop up, and you can instantly start typing a phrase you want to search for. You can generally press Enter to go to the next appearance of the word or phrase in the document, quickly searching through it for what you’re interested in. This same command can work when on a webpage. In most cases when pressing control allong with the letter F, a find dialog box appears. Type in the search string followed by tapping enter. The cursor is placed on that search for string if it appears on the page. If this happens to be a link, hitting enter will activate that link. 4. Switch Between Applications and Tabs Rather than clicking buttons on your taskbar, Alt+Tab is a very quick way to switch between running applications. Windows orders the list of open windows by the order you accessed them, so if you’re only using two different applications, you can just press Alt+Tab to quickly switch between them. If switching between more than two windows, you’ll have to hold the Alt key and press Tab repeatedly to toggle through the list of open windows. If you miss the window you want, you can always press Alt+Shift+Tab to move through the list in reverse. To move between tabs in an application, such as the browser tabs in your web browser press Ctrl+Tab. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Tab will move through tabs in reverse. 5. Quickly Print If you’re the kind of person who still prints things, you can quickly open the print window by pressing Ctrl+P. This can be faster than hunting down the Print option in every program you want to print something from. 6. Basic Browser Shortcuts Each major web browser shares a large number of keyboard shortcuts in common. Whether you’re using Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome,.. Web browser shortcuts can save you tons of time, too. Ctrl+T is a very useful one, as it will open a new tab with the address bar focused, so you can quickly press Ctrl +T, type a search phrase or web address, and press Enter to go there. To go back or forward while browsing, hold the Ctrl key and press the left or right arrow keys. If you’d just like to focus your web browser’s address bar so you can type a new web address or search without opening a new tab, press Ctrl + L or control plus o. You can then start typing something and press Enter. 7. Close Tabs and Windows To quickly close the current application, press Alt+F4. This works on the desktop and even in new Windows 8-style applications. To quickly close the current browser tab or document, press Ctrl+W. This will often close the current window if there are no other tabs open. 8. Lock Your Computer When you’re done using your computer and want to step away, you may want to lock it. People won’t be able to log in and access your desktop unless they know your password. You can do this from the Start menu or Start screen, but the fastest way to lock your screen is by quickly pressing Windows Key + L before you get up. 9. Access the Task Manager Ctrl+Alt+Delete will take you to a screen that allows you to quickly launch the Task Manager or perform other operations, such as signing out. This is particularly useful because it can be used to recover from situations where your computer doesn’t appear responsive or isn’t accepting input. For example, if a full-screen game becomes unresponsive, Ctrl+Alt+Delete will often allow you to escape from it and end it via the Task Manager. 10. Windows 8 Shortcuts On Windows 8 PCs, there are other very important keyboard shortcuts. a. Windows Key + C will open your Charms bar, b. Windows Key + Tab will open the new App Switcher. These keyboard shortcuts will allow you to avoid the hot corners, which can be tedious to use with a mouse. c. On the desktop side, Windows Key + D will take you back to the desktop from anywhere. This is true in Windows-xp, vista or seven. d. Windows Key + X will open a special “power user menu” that gives you quick access to options that are hidden in the new Windows 8 interface, including Shut Down, Restart, and Control Panel.]]>

http://yourdolphin.com/newsitem.asp?id=721 Dolphin has been grateful to work with the accessibility experts at Blind Veterans UK https://americandisabilitynetwork.com/?__site=066d0154 &sid=1&pid=59068&src=59068-1 and RNIB http://www.rnib.org.uk/Pages/Home.aspx members and accessibility staff for input to the design of Guide 8’s web browser. Guide 8 now empowers people with sight loss to get more from the web, with: * Completely re-written web support, making the web more reliable and stable than ever. * Simple voice announcements, reading out each webpage as you go * A new welcome web page with a few browsing tips, along with links to popular news, shopping and social networking sites to get you started. * A new switch to view mobile websites, which tend to be less cluttered and easier to get around. * Web pages are easier to read with options to display only the text and hide all images. * Simple keys to jump straight to the next text box, heading, link or paragraph of text to make it easier to move around the webpage. To find out more, watch the Guide 8 video , http://www.yourdolphin.com/video.asp?act=play&id=151&p=30 or read a complete list of What’s New in Guide 8 http://yourdolphin.com/productdetail.asp?id=30&z=25 on the Dolphin website. Link for Guide 8 video New to the web? Guide 8 can help If you’re new to the web, and worried there may be a lot to learn, then Guide can help. A new series of podcasts talking you through how to use the web are now available in Guide. Voiced by Dolphin’s Training Manager Maggie McCarthy, the podcasts simply explain how to open and close the web, how to read web pages, how to search the web and much more. To listen to the podcasts, press 9, 9, 1 and then 4 from Guide’s Main Menu to reach Guide’s example podcast list. Then use arrow keys to choose the “Beginners Guides to Guide” channel. Find out more Learn more about Guide 8 by calling 01905 754577 and ask about: * Free 30 day trials of Dolphin Guide http://yourdolphin.com/tryit.asp?id=30 \]]>