macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis Good Stuff Cheap – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

Good Stuff Cheap

There is a discount store called Ollie’s.  Their motto is “good stuff cheap”. I am going to steal that motto to talk about my new toys!

standnew1The first thing I got yesterday was the Justand V2e.  It is made in China and distributed by Procomputing, Grapevine, Texas. My BVS rehabilitation therapist said they paid $120 for it.

What the Justand does is hold your iPad steady. That way you can use the free magnification app you downloaded from the App Store and turn your tablet into a magnifying reader just like a CCTV! If you are not really mobile, your Justand and iPad can also take the place of your regular reader. My reader was $600.

Justand= $120. iPad = $450. Magnification app = free. This set up is $570.00 as compared to the $3500 paid for my CCTV. Add the $600 for the reader onto that and we are talking about saving some serious money.

The second thing I got today was the KNFB Reader. The KNFB Reader is for sale in the App Store for $100. Watch out for this one when shopping. I saw something that looked the same on Amazon and the price was $1,000. Of course I may be wrong. We all know what it is like to not have the sight be what it used to be. Maybe what Amazon is selling is more than software???? Anyway, caveat emptor.  [Lin/Linda here: what Sue found on Amazon is indeed not just software, it is a phone which is only sold in Florida and costs $1,325.]

KNFB Reader is apparently made by Kurzweil, the people who were pioneering the technology in the 70s, in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind. K and NFB; get it?

You take a picture of a page, hit a button and the machine reads to you. For some reason my iPad voice is an Aussie. Doesn’t matter. I understand her.

There are a variety of other languages available besides dialects of English. My habilitation person had a page written in English read in Turkish. Since my Turkish is, shall we say weak – OK, nonexistent – I had no clue how good the translation was. At least it sounded Turkish-ish.

The last thing I got was another app, AudioNote. The idea is to record lectures, etc., at the same time you are writing or typing notes on a page of the iPad.  I haven’t had a chance to play with it since I only received it yesterday. I will let you know if I get an opportunity to use it. The INDATA Project of Easter Seals has a how-to video on YouTube if you want to see what it looks like. Audio Note is $5 in the App Store.

I still have one more app coming. My habilitation worker thinks I need it. I have no idea what it is. I guess I will be surprised.

So, there you go. Good stuff cheap. Hope some of this is more in your price range.

Next: to a good home

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