Computing and Disability Options

For me a small but configurable magnifier tied to the mouse at the press of a hotkey on the mouse that can be used anywhere on the screen and if used on the desktop doesn't affect icon placement. The current windows magnifier is just a variable height bar across the screen that if you use it on the desktop, it displaces all of your icons.

The keyboard I use is a Logitech MX 5500 bluetooth deskset (with revolution mouse) on a KVM to switch between my two workstations. If it was illuminated that would be a bonus but I can get by without it. My mouse has several buttons that can be configured and I have changed one to zoom the display in and zoom it out but if it was just a small magnifier as above then I could reassign the buttons and then could operate just the magnifier (as opposed to zoom) from the mouse only. To illustrate why this would be handy, say I only want to read the caption on a cartoon or diagram then I can just magnify the caption instead of the whole screen.

Another good thing would be clearer fonts as I sometimes have problems when reading, with B and 8 and F and P then O and 0 and the old favourite of I and 1. Depending on the zoom factor I'm using on my screen, sometimes the capital letter O looks more oval than round. I already use Microsoft Cleartype tuning for better font clarity and although it improves readability, I think it still needs some more work. I realise it must be hard to accommodate all types of graphics cards but I would buy a compatible graphics card if there was a significant improvement. Gee, I remember in the early 1990s when you had to buy really expensive Matrox Graphics Adapters as well as Maths Coprocessors in order to use the high end CAD packages and you just took a deep breath and spent the money so you could do the work. So IMHO if you need this extra display functionality then it is a small price to pay to get a compatible graphics card.

I often use a digital camera on a small tripod that's plugged into my PC for reading things I can't see such as:- Micro$oft product activation numbers on the sticker or for any document with a font smaller than 10pt. Utility software for adjusting the keystone effect that is not projector software and is really easy to use with any camera input would be handy as the tripod with camera sometimes can't be placed perpendicular to the document. The camera I use (Canon Powershot Pro) has a macro and zoom lens which I also use to read the numbers of ICs and components on PCBs.
I realise I could use my scanner for reading but it is only A4 and often the documents I want to read are A2 mylar film or A1 semitransparent drafting paper and also with the scanner, if I want to read components on a PCB, I have no control over the depth of field.

Just a few things to start the ball rolling and thanks David for the opportunity to have some input :cool