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Tutorials

Welcome to the tutorials page. This contains recordings for various tutorials I've been asked to produce over the years. Simply activate a link to play the file or use the "save target as" option in your browser via the link context menu to save the file to your computer.

Audacity basic tutorial

This is a short demo explaining how to do a few basic recording tasks in Audacity using a screen reader. I'm by no means an expert, so this isn't comprehensive.

Creating TTS Skits

This describes how I make text-to-speech skits. If you wish to download voices such as Microsoft Sam, please consult the downloads page.

VoiceView demonstration on touch screen Echo devices

This is a short demonstration of using the VoiceView screen reader on Amazon Echo devices such as the Echo Show that have touch screens. This isn't comprehensive, but may be of interest to some.

Making a siren sound with the Mac Alex voice

This is a simple tutorial describing how to make a siren sound using the Apple Alex text-to-speech voice. If you prefer brief text instructions and since the quality of this file is poor, simply type awww over and over into a file. Slow the voice down to its minimum rate or speed it up to maximum, depending on how you want it to sound, and increase the pitch to maximum as well. I hope you find this as amusing as I do.

Open Broadcaster Software Tutorial

This is a simple tutorial discussing how to configure OBS for basic recording and/or live streaming to YouTube. As far as I know, there isn't a way for a blind person to independently configure video sources, so this focuses on audio only content.

Using Account Linking in Open Broadcaster

This explains how to link a YouTube account to the program.

Uploading Audio Files to YouTube

This tutorial describes how to use an online service to convert an MP3 file to an MP4 file that YouTube will accept.

Purchasing content on Itch.io

This short tutorial describes how to purchase content from Itch.io using a screen reader.

Purchasing Voices from Harposoftware

This tutorial describes how to purchase voices from the Harpo website.

NVDA Remote tutorial

This tutorial describes how to use the free NVDA Remote NVDA add-onto control other computers running the NVDA screen reader.

Using VMware Fusion Player on Intel Macs

This demonstrates how to create a virtual machine using VMware Fusion Player for Intel-based Macs. The process should be similar for the new Apple Silicon ARM Macs, except you'll want to run ARM compatible operating systems instead.

Installing Windows in VMware Workstation

This discusses how to create a bootable Windows 11 installation drive, and then install Windows in the new freeware version of VMware Workstation for Windows. You can easily adapt these instructions to a real computer as well.

BSC Games and Windows Defender tutorial

This demonstrates how to run the BSC games on modern versions of Windows as well as how to configure excluded folders so Windows Defender won't bother you with false positives for applications such as games coded in the BGT programming language.

Windows Defender text tutorial

For those who might want a simple textual guide for creating excluded locations in Windows Defender, follow these steps:

1. Create a folder that you wish to be excluded from Defender scans
2. Open Windows Security by entering that phrase into the start menu search box.
3. Select virus & threat protection from the list of categories.
4. Select Manage settings.
5. Select add or remove exclusions, then confirm the User Account Control prompt.
6. Select add an exclusion, then select folder.
7. Finally, browse to the folder in the file system you'd like to exclude and choose the select option. It should now appear in the list of excluded locations.

Purchasing Steam Games from a Blindness Perspective

This is a demo that demonstrates how to purchase and install games from the Steam platform.

VBCABLE Tutorial

This demonstrates how to install and use the VBCABLE virtual audio device to capture system audio or audio from a specific program and send it somewhere else, such as a Zoom call. Please be careful when using this, as it's possible to lose all sound, including screen reader audio if you configure it incorrectly.

Scheduling YouTube Videos

This demonstrates how to schedule videos on YouTube using a desktop browser and screen reader.

Steve's Clock Tutorial

This is a quick demonstration of the Steve's Clock program for Windows. It can automatically announce the time at specified intervals, it supports customizing the voice, and you can create hotkeys to quickly check the time, change voices, etc.

Discord Tutorial

This discusses how to use the Discord chat program from a blindness perspective on Windows.

Linux Mint Tutorial

This series discusses how to install and use the Linux Mint operating system from a blindness perspective. I recommend using the version with the MATE desktop for the best accessible experience, so make sure to grab that one if you're a screen reader user.

Creating Interactive Fiction games with Inform 7

This tutorial describes how to use the Inform 7 programming language to create Interactive Fiction Games. These are text-based games where you type simple commands such as open door, pull lever, take key, etc. The computer responds by telling you what happened. Inform 7 is designed to be read and written in a more natural language manner, but it's still a programming language, which can make things a little tricky. Two phrases which would both sound perfectly reasonable to a human may or may not work when writing your game, so be careful!