The GitHub Games Pt. 2 – Filing Your First Ticket

Before reading on, please read Part 0 and Part 1 of The GitHub Games series.
Assuming you have successfully signed up to GitHub as illustratively instructed in the first part of this blog post series, you are now all armed and equipped to venture into the GitHub ground to do whatever your heart desires. Just a few of the actions you can perform on GitHub include forking a repository, submitting your own code to a project via a pull request, and accepting community code contributions if you are a project maintainer yourself.

The GitHub Games Pt. 1 – Creating A New Account

Before reading on, please read Part 0 of The GitHub Games series.
By convention, to attain full access to any service, organization or other group, an individual or body needs to get officially registered. This norm is no different for an Internet-based community like GitHub. Therefore, as the title implies, this post shall be dealing with the process of account creation on GitHub.

The GitHub Games Pt. 0 – Background, Introduction and Series Overview

Longg long ago (nine and a half years ago, to be precise), three lads by the name of Tom, Chris and PJ launched a web-based source code hosting and management service called GitHub. But three years before they did this, Linus Torvalds, the same guy who created the open source Linux operating system, developed a version control system called Git. What is GitHub, what is Git, how are they interconnected, what is a version control system, what does source code hosting and management mean, etc. – these are probably the questions nagging you as you read this bombastic beginning to a blog post. While the intent of this series of posts is not to individually take up all of these terms and extensively explicate them, I do believe that answering some of them to some extent from the get-go will be of use in bettering our basic understanding of everything else that will be going on shortly.

Top 5 NVDA Tips and Tricks You Need To Know

Frequent visitors of Hiking Across Horizons will tell you that I am a passionate proponent of the free, open source and community-driven NVDA screen reader. My ardour towards this software can be perceived via my past writings on the subject – The Non Visual Desktop Access Movement and Will VFO Acquire NV Access?. Both these have been lengthy discourses and intellectual theories with reference to NVDA’s present and future, but I have never done a user-oriented post sharing some essential but seldom discussed tips and tricks with regards to NVDA. That, my friends, is what this post shall be devoted to.

How I Access Android – The Apps & Accessories Pt. 2

Before reading on, please read Part 1 of the How I Access Android series.
In a century where the Smartphone is taking every aspect of our lives by storm, where Android, a mobile OS, has overtaken Windows, a Desktop OS, in terms of Internet usage, where mobile apps amount to a $50 billion market worldwide, it is inevitable that everyone must eventually catch on to this rapid digital transition. Android has the lion’s share when it comes to the Smartphone user base, and the statistical facts that there exist more than 2 billion devices powered by Android and close to 3 million apps for the platform testifies that. But are visually impaired people just able to make basic phone calls, send and receive SMS, and probably use Whatsapp as well on a rudimentary Smartphone, or can they truly partake in this global shift? More specifically, can Google Talkback users utilize the various kinds of smart devices Android fuels, the millions of diverse apps on the Play Store, and the essentials to the cutting-edge of the mobile world?

Will VFO Acquire NV Access?

If you fail to recognize the gravity of the presented question, or do not know what VFO or NV Access is in the very first place, worry not, as an elucidated background, plus a comprehensive answer to the presented question, along with an illustrative situational example – all are in order.

How I Access Android – The Fundamentals Pt. 1

People find it immensely startling and utterly groundbreaking to learn that blind people use computers – ‘normal’ mainstream Desktops or laptops with a standard physical keyboard with no Braille on the screen or on any keys whatsoever and apparently pretty similar to what the average non-disabled individual is seen using. However, what they refuse to comprehend is the fact that I do not rely on a Nokia 3350 Symbian device, but a ‘normal’ modern Touch Screen Smartphone –Motorola M in my case.

The Non Visual Desktop Access Movement

Technology can create a ripple effect of a phenomenal magnitude, often rendering man with access to realms unexplored. An assistive technology called NVDA, which makes on-screen content accessible for vision-impaired computer users by providing speech or Braille feedback for the same, has significantly improved tens of thousands of lives over the world. To shed light upon the extensive chain of audiences that take part in furthering this non visual access movement, the following would be the most befitting piece: