Lost?  Need help?  Click here.

TIME FOR YOUR ANNUAL PART D PLAN CHECK-UP Why is it important that I check my Medicare Part D plan each year? ❖ Plans change the list of drugs they cover every year. ❖ Plans change how much you pay for your drugs every year. ❖ Plans change their pharmacy networks every year. ❖ ~75% of beneficiaries stand to save money on their out-of- pocket drugs costs through our Part D plan assistance. Available FREE services: Medicare HEALTH FAIRS 2022 Date Created: September 2022 FOR MORE INFORMATION, please visit go.pacific.edu/medicare or call (209) 910-DRUG (3784) ❖ Part D plan review- to see if you can save money on your drug costs ❖ Comprehensive review of your medications ❖ Narcan nasal spray ❖ Flu and COVID vaccines ❖ Health screenings including: • Blood Pressure • Bone Density • Cholesterol • Diabetes • Falls risk assessment Sunday, November 13 MEDICARE HEALTH FAIR EVENT CALENDAR 11 public events in Northern/Central California this year. The event schedule and details can be found below. If you want help with your Medicare Part D drug plan and/or a complete drug review, PLEASE MAKE AN APPOINTMENT! Please call the number provided below each event to make an appointment. PLEASE REMEMBER If you plan to attend an event, bring your: 1. Medicare card 2. ALL of your medications Saturday, October 15 Sunday, October 16 10 AM – 6 PM University of the Pacific School of Pharmacy 757 Brookside Rd., Stockton (209) 946-7658 1 PM – 6 PM VIRTUAL EVENT (415) 292-1200 or e-mail: sschulz@jccsf.org 10 AM – 4:30 PM Lolly Hansen Senior Center 375 E. 9th St., Tracy (209) 831-6240 Saturday, October 22 Sunday, November 6 10 AM – 4:30 PM University of the Pacific Dugoni School of Dentistry 155 5th St. (at Minna St.), San Francisco (415) 742-1747or e-mail: MedicareClinics@pacific.edu Saturday, November 19 10 AM – 4:30 PM LOEL Senior Center 105 S. Washington St., Lodi (209) 369-1591 Sunday, October 30 1 PM – 6PM VIRTUAL EVENT (209) 232-5531 or e-mail: MedicareClinics@pacific.edu 10 AM – 6 PM University of the Pacific School of Pharmacy 757 Brookside Rd., Stockton (209) 946-7658 Friday, October 21 1 PM – 6 PM VIRTUAL EVENT (209) 232-5531 or e-mail: MedicareClinics@pacific.edu 10 AM – 4:30 PM VMRC 702 N. Aurora St., Stockton (209) 473-0951 Saturday, October 29 Saturday, November 12 10 AM – 4:30 PM Bethany Home Town Square Campus 1350 Nikkel Way, Ripon (209) 599-4221 Ext. 121 Sunday, November 20 10 AM – 5 PM Hutchins Street Square 125 S. Hutchins St., Lodi (209) 333-6782

About shingles in the eyes: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1665136/shingles-signs-symptoms-eye-rash-blindness About organ donor research: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1665136/shingles-signs-symptoms-eye-rash-blindness

In this week's episode: -News: Shingles in the eyes -News: Using organ donor eyes for research on blindness -Topic of the week: 15 minutes all-you-can-learn on the White Cane Click here to listen or go through our Podcast Page to access this and any other episode in our show. Source: https://www.blindsanity.com/podcast-1/episode/2d9002e9/s02e06-15-minutes-all-you-can-learn-on-the-white-cane-and-more

On an android, you can assign physical buttons to activate TalkBack on and off. You can also add other accessibility features to the same buttons. You can add magnification for example using the same button shortcut. When you click those buttons, a list of all accessibility features will appear on your screen and you will just have to choose which one you want to use. If you have TalkBack already activated then clicking on the accessibility features on that list will describe them to you before selection. In real life application -I assigned TalkBack, magnification, screen invertion to the up and down volume button pressed together.

Introducing Pennies for the Blind, a charitable organization dedicated to offer easier access to assistive technologies for low vision and blind individuals through monetary donations and fundraisers. With instruments such as refreshable Braille displays costing as much as $5000, this organization is trying to ease the financial burden visually impaired people face in acquiring the tools they need. Pennies for the Blind is operated by Natalie Schneider, who spent many years assisting her great grandmother's needs as a blind person. You can checkout her website at www.PenniesForTheBlind.org! BlindSanity is happy to welcome this organization who will be posting regularly on our blog page. A bio, information, and link to Pennies for the Blind will be accessible on the About Us page, in the blogger section [to be announced], soon.

You own an Apple Watch with a MacBook or a Mac ? Unlock your Mac automatically with your unlocked watch. On your Mac, click on the Apple Logo Select System Settings Type 'watch' on the search bar Select Unlock with Apple Watch On the right panel of the setting app, toggle the option to the ON position Follow any pop up message that may appear on your screen. I had a password request ... but you may have another message. Done From sleep mode, Mac will detect your watch and unlock automatically. You still need to wear the watch and have it unlocked.

-News: we discuss the New York Times article about the definition of blindness. -News: We talk about the incoming Android accessibility review. -Part 3 of our month long series on voice assistants. This week Google Assistant. -We wrap things up with mail-in comments from our website. Checkout the episode on our Podcast page or click here for a direct link. Source: https://www.blindsanity.com/podcast-1/episode/2be535de/s02e04-nyt-op-edgoogle-assistant-review

You asked a friend to help boot up your brand new phone ? Well order a pizza for delivery, that friend may stay around for a while / It really depends on if you need to transfer from and old phone to a new one or if you migrated from one OS to another. Iphone to iPhone actually is a smooth process. All you have to do is get your old phone backed up and physically close to the new one. Apple will handle the transfer automatically. Even better all your accessibility settings will be transferred as well. Basically when your mew iPhone is ready, you will be able to do whatever is needed the same way you did on your old one. A caveat however... if you are in a beta testing program. The transfer may be Buggy. Transferring from Android to Android is more of a hassle. Mainly because manufacturers are adding skins and their own softwares to a clean Android OS. Contacts from Samsung are stored in a third party app unrelated to Google Contacts app for example . And the success of an android transfer is related to Google Suite and Google One. If you backed up all your data and settings with Google itself, you should be okay assuming you were using google apps in your old phone. You may need to transfer data from non Google apps to Google apps before starting the transfer to your new android phone. You will definitely need help to be sure all data are transferred. Not a problem with iPhone. Also things get icky if you have to deal with anew version of Android AND a different manufacturer... No matter what phone you have, from an accessibility standpoint, you should keep the same OS. At least your accessibility settings will transfer and you always be able to fix issues down the line on your own. If you change OS however, that pizza may come handy. You won't be able to use your new phone until your friend not only setup the phone from scratch but find and activate accessibility features for you. It isn't as big a problem for iPhone which activate VoiceOver on demand early on during the setup process but it is a huge issue for Android which doesn't offer voice assistance. And you will need that friend again to transfer manually data from one OS to the other. There are tools but they are not known to be accessibility friendly. So yes... just in case you didn't realize yet, keeping the same kind of phone simplifies things a lot. Accessibility features between iPhone and Android aren't equal however and you may want to switch operating system and a friend with good eyesight and patience will come handy. We will talk about clean setup with no transfer in part 4 of next week.

It just doesn't make sense... So you got the phone of your dreams or at least a vital part of your everyday life as a low vision individual and what you need to do once you receive it ,,, call a friend to set it up for you. Why ? Because iPhone and Androids phones are not designed for accessibility out of the box. Oh yes ! It is great once it is setup correctly so why not out of the box ? No matter what phone you are dealing with, you will always see the same flaws: - Dim screen with even worse... ambient dimming - No way to invert screen - Small text size - No VoiceOver or TalkBack. Worse ! Both phones offer an accessibility option at first boot out of the box but make it hard to find and activate. What is the point ? Well there is a reason for that... Manufacturers wants to make the first boot experience looks magical and big ugly font on a black background with a robot voice talking to you when you first start your phone is just too ugly. So,, screw accessibility at first ! Those blind people will figure something up ! They are a minority anyway ! It shouldn't take too many engineers to find a way to switch the phone to a special accessibility mode at first boot if needed. But no... we have to call friend Both phones fail miserably here but Android more than iPhone . iPhone at least gets some limited voice assistance assuming you can find the menu to activate it. Android accessibility menu at first boot is very limited... no brightness toggle ... basically all you get is font size and other not so useful accessibility features. If you move from an older iPhone to a new one, apple makes it simpler to transfer all your settings by getting the two phones close to each other but you will still need your friend to do that. And things get from bad to worse when you start your setup process. That's in part 3 coming out tomorrow.

My Google Pixel 6 has arrived . Full android OS without skin from Samsung. Just a clean system. Let's look at how both phones and OS handle accessibility right out of the box. Packaging is very similar between the two phones. Android copied the luxurious packaging from Apple. Might seem like not much but it's all about touch with people with eyesight disability. From this standpoint at least the experience is identical. Small detail here but Apple seals the box with tape requiring a knife at hand. Google seals the box with tape with a tab. No need for a knife here. The way the phones are packaged is also identical with a protective layer of paper covering the screens. Easy to remove in both cases. Both boxes contain reading material not accessible to the blind ... but again who reads these instruction booklets. A single power cable is provided in the box. No wall outlet. As far as the phones themselves, the design is very different but identically luxurious and expensive to the touch. Power button and volume controls are easy to figure out. Plastic for Pixel, metal for iPhone. Since the phones both have a brushed metal bumper on the edges of the phones, the difference in quality for the buttons isn't noticeable. The unboxing experience is identical for both phones and manufacturers. It is pleasurable to the touch and to the ear. You will know you are dealing with quality product here just by the touch. The screens for both phones feel and sound sturdy. Tappping does not feel shallow. The back of the phone is glass.... I think. Pixel feels more plastic tho. Pixel is more roundish than iPhone and easy to drop. Iphone camera setup compared to Pixel setup makes the android phone more stable on the table. No matter which phone you deal with, you will need a protective case. Something to protect iPhone and make it more stable on the table . Something making Pixel less smooth and less prone to drop from your hands. Time to power on both phones. This is where the experience differs dramatically between Android and IOS. More tomorrow in part 2.

This is the article I mention in today's podcast. Click here to access the article. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/16/opinion/blindness-retinitis-pigmentosa.html

Took a while but we are finally getting an Android 12 device. Google's own Pixel 6 with the latest Android OS. No skin (sorry Samsung) and no bloatware either. A clean Android experience to review accessibility features non Apple owners can enjoy. Never had a non-iOS phone before, the change should be interesting. See you back Wednesday for more.