Welcome to the BLIND American Life in The Philippines podcast!

Hello World! For 35 wonderful years, from 1982 to 2017, I was a successful, independent developer in the industries of computers and electronics! And then, tragedy struck! After surviving four years of domestic terrorism beyond my family's control, I have completely lost my vision, abruptly aborting the lifestyle I've enjoyed for most of my life!

In December 2017, I became the only BLIND American citizen in The Philippines! I believe I'm the only BLIND "foreigner" living in The Philippines! The other BLIND persons in The Philippines are citizens of The Philippines.

Three years has now past since I lost my vision... With blackness in both of my eyes, I have accepted & adapted to my new world of blindness, which I still consider to be a "death sentence". Sure enough, I still have the nightmares of being terrorized, however, my loving wife helps me overcome those. My blood relatives have now disavowed me, allowing me to experience the love of my wife, her immediate family and her blood relatives.

My local blind organization is, Resources for the Blind, Inc. I originally met them in November 1993, when I did some volunteer work with them. 20 years later, in 2013, I informed them of my Robotic Tagalog speech synthesizer project, but I did not forecast on going blind, myself in 2017! They sold me my collapsible, white cane, provided me with mobility training, and sold me my Braille slate & stylus. I didn't learn Braille from them.

To compensate for my vision-loss, I am using the following computing devices with associated accessible tools:

Apple iPhone 6S Plus with VoiceOver screenreader in iOS platform.
Cherry Mobile Flare S8 smartphone with Google TalkBack screenreader + Google BrailleBack in Android 9 "Pie" operating system.
Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet with VoiceView screenreader in FireOS platform.

Since I don't prefer typing on a touchscreen without my vision nor use dictation option, I use the following external, Bluetooth input devices:

Logitech K480 Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard.
Orbit Writer Braille keyboard.

My broadband internet speed is 50Mbps, shared with my household members.

Though, prior to my vision-loss, I was a GNU/Linux developer, however, I opted to retire my development life when I became blind, and just be an end user of Android, FireOS & iOS. My wife says, 21 years of GNU/Linux development is enough!

Surprisingly, despite my vision-loss, I'm still programming in the C computer programming language, however, I'm no longer capable of developing masterpieces. I began coding in C on November 8, 1988.

Interestingly, I was an independent speech synthesizer developer from 1986 until I lost my vision. And then, I became dependent on speech synthesis as an end user! At first, I had difficulty in adjusting to speech synthesizers I was not involved in the development, but, to me, my interests of speech synthesis continues on!

As a lifelong scientist since 1977, when I lost my vision 40 years later, one of the skills I miss very much, is the ability to read books with my eyes. I began with & still use Amazon Kindle app on my Amazon Fire tablet, which has text-to-speech capability up to 4x normal speed. Also, since June 2020, I'm reading eBooks with Voice Dream Reader app on my iPhone.

The apps I'm using to compensate my vision-loss are, EnvisionAI, SeeingAI, Voice Dream Scanner and Be My Eyes app. I'm also receiving human assistance from my loving wife, her sister & her nephew.

For my note-taking skill without vision, I'm using Apple Notes and/or Voice Dream Writer on my iPhone and Microsoft OneNote on my Android smartphone.

For my radio scanner listening hobby, my mobile apps are ScannerRadio, LiveATC & Broadcastify. I consulted with the developer of ScannerRadio to make it 100% accessible in Android, FireOS & iOS! I'm a proud ScannerRadio Pro user since 2013, and have been listening to radio scanners since 1993! Due to vision-loss, I'm no longer...