The Free Internet Cafe for the Blind & Visually Impaired, the first in the whole of Africa, which opens the World Wide Web, making The Gambia a leading light in Africa, with this technology by allowing free and total access to surf the net send and receive emails and for students to enhace their studies with the aid of this pioneering software. No more do they need to rely on a third party to read to them newspapers, magazines, books, letters and world wide information. Nonvision.KingfisherGambia.com - Personalisation of your computer
 

6.7 PERSONALISATION OF YOUR COMPUTER

It may be worth getting help to set up the appearance of your screen to suit you. If you are helping a new user with seeing difficulties, please let the user choose the settings rather than you making assumptions.

The Personalisation window contains separate options which make up a theme. A theme is a set of colours, sounds, desktop icons, fonts, mouse pointers and screen savers that can be downloaded to change the way your computer looks and acts.

Many people with sight loss find some themes much easier to work with than others and you can tweak some settings to suit your preference.

To get to Personalisation, go to the Start menu, type "per", ARROW DOWN to get to Personalisation and press ENTER. Move between the items with TAB, and press ENTER on your choice. TAB through the next options and ENTER on your choice.

Here are the personalisation options:

DESKTOP BACKGROUND

Windows includes a number of colourful pictures, photos and patterns which can fill the screen and form a background to the Desktop icons. If you have difficulty seeing the Desktop icons against these backgrounds, you may prefer a solid background colour. The first button is a drop-down labelled "Picture location". Set this to "Solid Colours", then TAB to a list of colours and use ARROW keys to choose one. At any time you can press WINDOWS key D to move to the Desktop and preview your change, then WINDOWS key D back to the list of colours. Use the "Save Changes" button to confirm any change, or press ESCAPE to cancel it.

WINDOW COLOUR

In Windows 7, the results of a search for "screen colours" will depend on whether or not you are using an Aero theme. With an Aero theme you should choose "change window glass colours", and if you don't have an Aero theme, choose "change window colours and metrics".

In Windows Vista the option you should choose is called "Customize Colours".

In all cases you will be taken to a window with options for changing the colours of various screen elements. With Aero themes there are options for changing the colour of Window borders, the Start Menu and the Taskbar, or of making them more or less transparent. With or without an Aero theme, the "Window Colour and Appearance" dialog gives a list of the items that can appear on the screen. Choose an item and then TAB through a number of related settings. The settings are not the same for all items, for instance, only those items which include text offer a choice of font and size for that text.

SOUNDS

Windows attaches sounds to various program events which confirm that the events have taken place such as when Windows starts or stops. There are a number of sound "schemes" (predefined groups of settings).

You can choose which of the existing sound schemes to use, or you can choose the sounds for particular events. You can then name and save these as a new scheme.

Some programs such as Microsoft Office have additional sound schemes.

SCREEN RESOLUTION

For some partially sighted people, setting the screen resolution is crucial. Stuff can appear on the screen large and somewhat chunky or smaller and near perfect. As with all settings, the user should decide.

SCREEN SAVER

There are a number of screen savers, and each has further options which you get to through the screen saver settings button.

All screen savers have a "Wait" box where you can specify how many minutes of inactivity must pass before a screen saver starts. The default Wait time is 10 minutes.

In Settings, you can also choose not to have a screen saver running at all.

 

The Free Internet Cafe for the Blind & Visually Impaired, the first in the whole of Africa, which opens the World Wide Web, making The Gambia a leading light in Africa, with this technology by allowing free and total access to surf the net send and receive emails and for students to enhace their studies with the aid of this pioneering software. No more do they need to rely on a third party to read to them newspapers, magazines, books, letters and world wide information.