My name is Jacob Kruger, and to start off, I'm 100% blind/visually impaired from basically a head/brain injury caused by a motorcycle/bike accident in November 2005 where a guy in a car swerved into me on the highway, and I ended up bouncing down the road, getting one or two minor physical injuries, but also because my brain slammed into the inside of my skull, I now just have scar tissue where the optic nerve is supposed to 'enter' the brain.
On another note, I have been using computers for around 29 years, and I started on a Commodore 64 back in the old days before you could even get a PC - 1983. I did study computer science in school, but even then I was teaching myself, and although I had one or two other ideas relating to what I wanted to do for a living, I've basically always wanted to work on technology/computer-related stuff, and I basically ended up doing interactive/dynamic web development/layout using mostly Microsoft technology, and at this stage, I'm basically working on getting back on track doing the job I always really enjoyed, but that includes things like newer, more common technology like PHP, MySQL, as well as some relatively new microsoft technology like WPF (windows presentation foundation), and am also busy writing my own talking software, as well as some music software to let me do things like playing a harmonica on/along with the computer, as well as my latest computer drumming software, which currently lets me play drums on the computer, while it gets the sequence saved in the background so I can get it to play it back to me afterwards.
To have a look at what am/have been working on, look at the work page on this site.
I mostly use some software called 'Jaws' supplied by a company called Freedom Scientific, but I'm also researching, and looking into all sorts of other sets of software/technology which allow me to do various things on computers. This is all stuff which was very new to me, a couple of years ago, and to be honest, even though I 'lived' on the internet before, I had no idea this stuff even existed before.
This includes everything from eBook sources, reading software, a helluva lot of games I can actually play quite nicely on the computer, accessibility software, etc. etc.
Anyway, this website is intended for me to be able to sort of organise/pass-on all the stuff I'm learning from VIP guys I'm 'chatting' to from all over the world via e-mail mailing lists, which is one of the things I've always been involved in since the 'early' days of internet access in South Africa roundabout 1996.
Along those lines, I started the first e-mail mailing list for 'bikers' here in South Africa back around 1997, called BikerZA, and I've now started one for VIP/blind guys, and those sighted people who want to support them, or even just learn about our lifestyle.
The link to the page for that mailing list is:
http://www.freelists.org/list/blindza
Anyway, since I've sort of always used the 'ZA' letter combination as part of my 'internet identity', that's why this site/community is called BlindZA.
One more thing...
I'm still a biker, and that side of me will never change! I've even already ridden my bike (a Suzuki Bandit1200 streetfighter) up and down the main straight of Phakisa here in South Africa, with a radio headset around my neck so that one of my friends could instruct me when to veer left, right, and when to stop!
This was initially in 2006, and did a similar thing again last year November, on the skid pan at Phakisa, and this time I got up to around 70km/h, in 3rd gear.
Once a biker, always a biker!