News
June 16, 2011

Even though the news section has not been updated very regularily this project is still very much alive.

Spanish, German and Dutch translations are in progress.

A user in Ohio is using Sue Center to write her memoirs as a gift for her mother's 100th birthday!

A user in Sibenik, Croatia used Sue Center to make a comprehensive and detailed catalog of 28 video tapes.

A young Hispanic girl in Watsonville, CA uses Sue Center to control her television.

More later...

Sponsored Link: Stair Lifts in the UK
March 1st, 2007

Hello Everyone,

I'm sitting at the Bagelry having my morning bagel and chai using their wireless internet.

It has been a busy month for Sue Center and many things are in process.

There's a film, a newspaper article, a national web conference, and the conference in southern California is coming up soon.

There are several new features in Sue Center that I think are major additions. My muse is working overtime!

I have contracted with Christopher Thompson of Sound Vision Productions to make a short film about Sue Center. It will be shown at the conference at the end of March, will be streamed from the web site, and can likely be effective when applying for grants. I have become aware of the great technical expertise and time-consuming attention that making even a 10 minute film requires. These things translate into another word: expensive. Christopher is a 20 year professional and has very generously given me a deep discount. The film will star Gloria and Christina!

I made a weak attempt at a 'screenplay' for the film and then got some much needed advice from Jeremy and Wendy Lezin. They also referred me to Andrew Allansmith who sweetly volunteered to do the voice-over and give me assistance with the screenplay. I meet him today.

The newspaper article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel will appear in the next week or so. Christina was interviewed by Peggy Townsend last week.

Tomorrow I'm part of a web conference described here. It is titled "Into the Future with Portable AT".

I was invited to participate by Steve Jacobs who has become my advisor and oracle in the Assistive Technology field.

The CSUN conference is at the end of March. Here's a link to my session.

This conference will be a major event for Sue Center. Many opportunities to network with others.

What's new in Sue Center???

  1. Word prediction - it remembers what words follow each other and suggests them in the word list area. So if you type
    I eat bagels.
    Then the next time you type "eat" it will suggest "bagels" in addition to whatever else you (or others) have eaten recently.
  2. UnScram - a word unscrambling game like Jumble in the newspaper. Christina showed this off to Peggy with a ten letter word!
  3. Searching - you can search for a pattern (even a regular expression!) within files OR within entire directories. With this you could find everywhere in the Bible where the word "Moses" appears!
  4. Bird Call Chimes - Inspired by Sylvia Mandell (a person with MS that may not be able to use Sue Center). 12 different bird calls to ring the hours along with a quick chirp at 15 minutes after. A good addition to the Tibetan bowl, I think. I spoke with Christina yesterday and before saying goodbye she said "oh.... I LOVE the birds. Even Pico [her dog] gets excited when he hears them". That made my day.
  5. Web browsing - thanks to the lynx text browser. It is limited to text and images (no Ajax or fancy fonts or popup ads or forms or ...) but pretty cool! This is still somewhat experimental but does open up Sue Center users to the humongous world of information the web offers.
  6. MailMe Weather - Christina asked for this yesterday and I made it happen last night. From weather.com by zip code. Last night I looked up the zip code for Kotzebue, Alaska (with the web browser) and then selected and copied it and got the weather report. Cool! Or COLD! :)
  7. Bible Commentary - Gloria asked for this and now you can say:
    C Luke 4
    and you will be mailed (MailMe style) the John Wesley commentary on Luke 4.
A logo for Sue Center is in the works and then I can get some business cards made. I've never had a business card before. I'm much more an artist than a business man. Maybe I can make them different somehow... Maybe use the golden ratio proportion instead of the normal?? :)

That's all folks!
Thanks for listening,
Jon

February 1st, 2007

Hello Friends,

I have added you to a newsletter list for people interested in what is happening with Sue Center.

Sue Center has a new web site:

Check it out and send me any and all comments/suggestions.

It doesn't look very slick or fancy (yet) but there's a lot of useful information there that I'm pleased with. At the 'Contact' link you can subscribe or unsubscribe from this newsletter.

Today I became a reseller for the excellent SmartNav input devices so I can offer a new user this device an at-cost discounted price of $99.

Gloria Kaswen's sister sent Gloria this email today and she forwarded it to me:

Do you think Jon would be open to talking with a friend of mine at IBM whose husband also has MS? She is very interested in this application, and also thought she could help him market/sell it. If so, please send me his contact info and I'll send it to my friend. She lives outside of Chicago.
Also, today I received two U3 flash memory devices from Steve Jacobs. He would like Sue Center to be part of his project to put Assistive Technology software on a portable memory device that would enable a user to take it with them to any computer. This site describes the project:

Tomorrow I show a new user around Sue Center. Her name is Diana Steil and Wendy introduced me to her. She lives in Capitola at the Pleasant Care nursing home. She says that she used to be a writer before MS made it impossible.

Friday I'm being interviewed by a journalist named Peggy Townsend from the Santa Cruz Sentinel for an article about Sue Center and Wendy Lezin's organization - MS Community Services. I'll suggest that she go talk with Christine and Gloria, as well. That's where the real story is.

Wendy Lezin arranged for me to speak at the MS Support Group in Santa Cruz on Feb 17th.

I will be making a presentation at the CSUN conference (Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference) on March 21st. Here's a link to the session abstract:

I hope to put together a video for that presentation starring Gloria and Christine. It could also go on the web site!

Finally, my muse gave me two new ideas for Sue Center that I hope will be either useful or fun:

One - an ability to search for a pattern within a file or within a directory of files.

Two - another game - Scramble - like Jumble in the newspaper - a word reordering game. Hmmm. Perhaps it should be named Unscram. You aren't scrambling words or jumbling words you are UN-scrambling them.

In the next few days I'll see if I can make this happen.

Boy! I'm having lots of fun with this!

Jon