Hi all,

thank you for your suggestions.

Talkshoe is a bit confusing and needs Quicktime...well, at least possible to manage that. But the most other participants in this video conference will be pure pc zero knowledge people.

Same for Google+...that means everyone need a registration to Google and Google+. Even if this is free, i think that is not applicable here. Thank you anyway for the hint. Never heard of Hangouts...you always can learn something from Doco. :)

I think i can go Jibz recommended way. As most of these people already use Skype and have installed it already and are familiar with. I think i will "donate" a skype premium account to myself *grin* and then i can initiate the video conference from my account. And yes Jibz, the Skype page says "at least ONE must have a premium account". And that can be me. So the others just can use what they already have without fiddling around.

Again i learned something (as a not every day Skype user) that it is possible to have conferences with Skype (audio only even with free account, for video you must have a premium account though). Nice! Thank you!

Nice and easy way found. Will make a test first, before the real conference takes place of course to see if it works good enough. But i think, Skype is so wide spreaded, there should be a bit of rumour if it wont work at all, shouldn't it? :)

If someone still has a recommendation, slap me with it please :) But at least the way to go with Skype is a very convinient way for the participants of the planned conference.

Just if someone is interested in (and to brag a bit :)))) ):
The conference is about planning our sailing trip in May that we will have on the 2-mast sailing ship "Greif". :)

Here is a picture of this ship:



Greetings
JoTo

Hi techidave,

i'm an affecte person myself. I dont have macula degeneration though but suffering from Rethinopathia pigmentosa, which results in nearly the same needs for computer work (black background with bright foreground, big fonts and such).

My experience with flatscreens are, that they are worse from me because new big flatscreens come with gazillion of pixels in resolution. Even if they are big in inches this high resolution degrades the visibility again by displaying even big fonts very tiny. Also, most LED flats have a native resolution (very big) and if you change it to a lower resolution you end up with a blurry display. So for me i stay with tube screens (17" at the moment). But they are difficult to purchase nowadays and they need a lot more of space on desk of course, but if you can grab one i'd recommend such one. They are up to 21" or so in the normal consumer market.

Bigger is not always the solution though. In my case, i need to go very close to the screen with my eyes to see good enough. And when the screen is too big, i cant see the edges of the screen without moving my head left and right (because of the seeing angle which is constrained for my eyes too). Keep that in mind when deciding for a monitor size.

For the cursor. I dont see the idea behind a BLACK cursor with BLACK background. That is strange. Well the same problem occurs when you have a program that uses bright background and have a white cursor. My solution here is, using a multicolor, color-cycling cursor. That one is big and i can spot it everywhere on the screen, nevertheless which background it is on, because the bright colors (Red, blue, yellow) are moving all the time. So i can find the cursor even if i'm not sure, where on the screen it is located at the moment. If your friend is interested, i'd gladly share my curor with him. Just ring my bell.

If you want to get more of my experiences with other utils for visually impaired or blind or exchange informations about programs that are usable (color customizable) and all the other stuff concerning low vision and computer, just contact me again. Or point your friend to me, he is very welcome.

Just 2ct. of a self affected...HTH
Greetings
JoTo

Hi Ath,

thanks for proofing me NOT being too dumb. :) And thanks for your effort to test.

Greetings
JoTo