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A very useful hotkey for Fusion users provides a way to zoom in and out without the need to use the Zoom/Fusion interface. The hotkey combination is CAPS LOCK + UP or DOWN key. UP will incrementally zoom in your screen focusing on where your mouse pointer is located. Remember to activate your keyboard to accept Fusion hotkeys first.

Happy last day of January! January is Braille Literacy Month! January 4th (World Braille Day) was Louis Braille's 214th birthday. He invented the six dot code we are able to use today. It's a universal code used for many different languages as well as music and math. We believe it is still important for students to learn in today's society. What tasks does braille make easier in your life?

The American Council of the Blind has a post-secondary scholarship opportunity coming up! The scholarships range from $2,000 to $7,500. To be eligible, “applicants need to be legally blind, maintain a 3.0 GPA to be eligible for most scholarships, be a full-time student or a part time student who works at least 32 hours per week, and be involved in their school and local community.” The application is due February 14th, 2023 at 11:59pm (CST). Click here for more information and to apply.

Last month was Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Month. Diabetes is the most common factor of adult vision loss and the number one cause of adult blindness. We wanted to share a few prevention tips from the National Eye Institute. (You can find more of their resources by clicking here.) We agree that it is extremely important, in all cases, to have your eyes checked regularly by an optometrist. You can also benefit from following the acronym TRACK. T: Take your prescribed medications. R: Reach and maintain a healthy weight. A: Add more physical activity to your daily schedule. C: Control your ABCs. (A1C, Blood Pressure, Cholesterol) K: Kick the smoking habit.

Apple Watch Series 6 and over with an iPad or an iPhone running on iOS16 is required but if you satisfy these conditions, you are in for a surprisingly useful accessibility trick : Watch Mirroring. The feature allows your watch face to mirror on your portable device, clear and large. You can also control the watch as you would directly on your wrist but in a larger display. The feature is voiceover friendly. An obvious use if like me you have an indoor cycle, you can display instant stats on your tablet or phone while you exercise. Plenty of other possible uses of course but Watch Mirroring seems particularly useful for fitness purpose. Let us know below how you use this feature.

Apple released their brand new iPad Pro line with M2 processor with a new feature called Hovering Pencil supposed to work with the latest pencil. Apple Pencil now get detected before it hits the screen of the iPad . Apple‘s Note app shows how this works, The pencil indeed is detected before you hit the screen but it needs to be very very close to it… a third of an inch maybe… This is already a problem for people with low vision. I was hoping for an inch or so. At that distance, the pencil could have been used as a mouse on the screen instead of using a finger and hoping it falls in the right location. The screen detection is too weak to make it useful to us. I did ask a sighted friend to use the pencil and describe what he sees. When the pencil gets close to the screen, a ridiculously small icon shows up under the penci to show the size of the brush you are about to use. Even he had trouble to see this Apple said they are impatient to see what app developers will do with this… my guess : not much .

The holidays are upon us and with them stress. We already have enough of it on regular basis … Life as a blind person is not exactly simple. This can have an effect on the quality of your sleep. No sleep? No problem. We are going to show you how to train your body back to normal uninterrupted sleep in just a few weeks. This method was introduced to us by a sleep specialist from Kaiser Permanente and it worked like a charm. Keep in mind, however, that you might return to that method multiple times if your sleeping habits change over time. You need to determine how many hours you sleep every night. No need to use a calculator in the middle of the night. Just try to keep track of the time when you wake up in the middle of the night. You can use a log book to remember if you want. Do this for a week. You need an average. For me, my average was 4 hours…usually 20 minutes sleep at a time followed by 20 minutes wide awake… Your goal is now to try to sleep in just one block instead of multiple sleep sessions during the night . 4 hours uninterrupted then… Figure out when you need to get up in the morning. 6 AM for me. Plan to hit the bed so that you would meet your average sleeep time and wake up at the desired time. For me, that means bed time is at 2 AM. Every night for a week, make yourself busy until 2 AM. It‘s harder for us blind people. No TV or movies… Try an audiobook or maybe even learn a new skill during that time. I learned Yoga and read plenty of books … If you are not falling asleep immediately when you lay down in bed, then get up and get busy. Your brain needs to learn that bed is for sleep…not frustrations. Only hit the bed when you feel tired. After a week, you should see some improvement. You might feel more tired than before but the idea is for you to sleep in just one straight period. No awaking in the middle. Add 30 minutes or an hour to your sleep time and try to hit the bed at that time. For me it would mean hitting the bed at 1 AM. Use the same technique as previously described. After a week, add another 30 minutes to an hour and keep going every week or so until you reach your sleep goal. 7 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night , It took me 2 months and it worked well enough. Of course, this isn’t a magic bullet and you might need to come back to that method later on if your sleeping habits deteriorate but the method is good enough; got me to keep sane and relatively fresh all day. Tell us if it works for you or share your own method to improve sleep quality in the comments below.

Tired of typing your long email address everywhere ? What about your home address ? Apple got you covered for that with one of the most useful accessibility feature no one is talking about . You probably already use shortcuts like BRB or TTYL . Do you know you can set your own ? Read below. Go to Settings Tap on General then scroll to Keyboard Tap on Text Replacement. You will see a list of all preloaded shortcuts. Time to add yours. Click on the Add sign on the top right corner Enter shortcut first . For example BLSG. In the next field below enter what the shortcut stand for For our example : BliindSanityPodcast@gmail.com Don’t forget to save. you are done. Now if you type the shortcut into any text field , your phone or tablet will replace it with the whole word or sentence. You can also do this for your home address if you tend to use it very often. Share with us your favorite text replacement in our comments section below .

An entire episode about tax preparation … From charitable contributions to medical records . All you need to do before December 31st 2022. Head over to our podcast page or click below for a direct link . DOnt Don’t forget to subscribe to receive new episodes as they come out. https://www.blindsanity.com/podcast-1/episode/e7239b1f/s02e15-end-of-year-tax-prep

Not enough patients … only 300 in the US. See links below. One can only hope that this will demonstrate the value of CRISPR. Still....what a waste. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3909176-editas-pausing-enrollment-of-blindness-drug-trial-to-find-partner-shares-down-15 https://www.science.org/content/article/groundbreaking-crispr-treatment-blindness-only-works-subset-patients

With Twitter about to implode… or at least crash during the World Cup starting Sunday, you may wonder where to go next . Mastodon gained millions of new users fleeing Twitter . It’s an odd social network to use with some major differences compared to twitter and even Facebook. Let’s see how you can create an account. Download Mastodon From the App Store. Take your sunglasses before opening the app. The splash screen is super bright . Activate Voiceover or TalkBack. Look for the Sign up button and click on it. Mastodon requires your account to be hosted on a server. And there are many many servers on Mastodon. All with their own rules and topic … You can find a server dedicated to tech … LGBTQ…Food… Select the server category . We chose General. Scroll through the available servers and read their rulesand what they are dedicated to. We chose the server named Mastodon.SDF.org Cloick Next then read the server rules. Clivk Back if you don’t agree with them and find another server. Time to create your account now… Enter an account name. For us, it is Blind Sanity. Choone a username. enter your email address gor verification and enter a password . You will be found on mastodon under the handle @username@server. For us its @BlindSanity@mastodon.sdf.org Submit then verify your account using the link in your email inbox. You are done.

Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is close to our hearts since it is the reason Pennies for the Blind was founded. RP is a rare, mainly hereditary, eye disease which gradually affects the retina, in the back of the eye. In most cases, over time, peripheral vision is lost, and central vision may also be lost, much like tunnel vision. In some cases, vision may be affected at night, sensitivity to bright lights may increase, or loss of color vision may occur. Most cases are genetic, but some medications, infections, or eye injuries are uncommon causes. The National Eye Institute and Foundation Fighting Blindness are researching possible treatments. For more information about RP, please visit https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/eye-conditions-and-diseases/retinitis-pigmentosa.