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• Learn to listen fast, and help write the software we need
• Posted: 2011-12-11 09:48:29 By Bill C
• I am 48 years old and was only diagnosed with Stargardt's last summer. I'm one of those rare people with non-functioning red cones, which probably explains why it took so long for my central vision to begin to fail.
  
  I don't know anyone else with this disease, but I would like to find them. I want to help people learn how to use text-to-speech technologies that can help them in college and in their careers. I personally read books much faster than I ever did before, using free text-to-speech software that I'm helping develop. I get free e-books from bookshare.org, and I convert them to mp3 files I can play on my Android phone. The Astro Nova player on Android incorporated some code I wrote to speed up the speech, and I can listen at any speed from normal to six times faster. I prefer listening at about 3.5 times speed for now, or about 700 words per minute.
  
  With all the smart people with stargardt's it seems to me there's an opportunity to work together to build any technology we need to make life easier. I'm not letting this disease stop me. I'm a highly paid programmer, and my family depends on me to keep getting paid to write software. The tools out there for people with vision impairments aren't good enough yet, which is why we have to build them ourselves. I so some volunteer coding for the Vinux project, which is an operating system for people with vision impairments based on Ubuntu. I also work with the NVDA and Orca guys who develop free screen readers for the blind. I'm helping integrate the best free text-to-speech program, called Open Mary, into NVDA and Orca. However, it's really strange that I'm the only one I know with stargardts disease doing any of this. Where are all the young smart people who want to contribute to building the tools we need? There are many blind people involved.
  
  Best regards,
  Bill

• Lrts do it!
• Posted: 2011-12-22 23:27:10 By Agata P
• Hi, I'm a 24 year old college student and boy am I glad you came along! I definitely agree that there isn't enough good technology for us to use. My vision is probably a lot worse then yours but I've been able to find a bunch of things that have helped me in the past. I've also been dealing with this since I was 9, so I have some practice. Thanks to my Macbook, which has pretty decent zoom and easy to invert colors ans the Text to speech on my Kindle, its made life mush easier, but it doesn't work for everything...
  
  So I'd be happy to help in anyway I can.
  
  agata_pirog@yahoo.com if you'd like to get in tough that way.
  
  -Agata

• Get involved
• Posted: 2012-01-12 13:19:51 By Cheryl K
• Bill,
  
  Sorry to heard of your diagnosis. My son, now 21 also has Stargardt's and has for 10 years.
  
  I am also a programmer, interested in the technologies that you use. Let me know if I can help in any way.
  
  Cheryl

• I am here to help too
• Posted: 2012-03-08 04:05:24 By Konstantinos K
• Well I am not that young - 35 years old and I don't know if I am smart.
  I've been a professional software developer for about 10 years now although recently I changed my career to project management.
  I can still code! What's the idea Bill C?

• Hi
• Posted: 2012-05-21 10:48:32 By Jennifer H
• I was diagnosed with Stargardts at 34 and Im now 38.