15 September 2010
A good day. My electric UpEasy cushion is working; my laptop has been returned and after two visits from Duncan, sorting out one or two minor problems the laptop seems to be working reasonably well except for my voice activation programme, Dragon, which has slowed to a snail pace, in what it describes as a Compatibility Mode. There is no such thing listed in the Help section so I resorted to the technical arm of AbilityNet for assistance. (AbilityNet were most helpful. They pointed out that the Compatibility Mode had nothing to do with Dragon but was a Word problem. Apparently the document I was attempting to the dictate to was a’97 version whereas I am now on Windows 7. The other problem was the length of the document I was adding to — already over 220 pages. We both agreed that the solution was to dictate new material to my Dragon Pad and then cut and paste it into the long document. The help from AbilityNet was given by them taking control of my computer using Remote Assist, or a similar programme)
‘My lovely’ won £100 pounds in the local church lottery, her first win ever after several years of contributing .The best news, however, came from our wonderful OT, Sarah Moss, who has managed to locate a horizontal hoist that we will have erected in the bathroom, both for the loo and the shower, thus ensuring our independence for little while longer.
My secretary, Doreen, came in today and we got through a lot of fiddly jobs including tidying up my (short!) speech for the forthcoming 20th anniversary dinner of the Arbitration Club.