I have a unique problem and am hoping that some of the brains on this site can come up with some answers.
There is an old folks home near me and some of us weekly visit these people. One old lady in particular is nearly blind and has arthritis. She loves listening to the Bible being read to her so someone bought her the Bible on CD's so that she can listen to them at any time. I copy the CD's before I give them to her as she scratches them and we do not want the originals damaged or lost. There are two problems here. One: as she is almost blind she has trouble reading the titles on the CD's, even if we write big. Second; she has trouble opening the jewel cases.
She does not know braille, but still has the smarts and probably could learn. It would be easy to drill 'dot's' in the plastic covers for identification, but what if the CD's are mixed up? There are a lot of them. Was wondering, there is a very small clear area at the center of every CD. Would it be possible to somehow mark in that area so that the marks could be felt? Or would that cause confusion for the CD reader? I think there are machines to mark braille on tape and stick to objects. If this tape is stuck to a CD, wouldl this cause a problem?
I am thinking about forgetting about the plastic cases and just giving her the CD's in paper envelopes. May cut the flap off to make it easier for her.
Over to the brains. How can we help this lady?

 

Scratch and sniff.

I swear, I'm not being smart. She should have a decent sense of smell, with the loss of vision and all.

 

Nice work Stan...


I cant really help on the braille but do have a storage suggestion - how about a CD wallet? She can put the cds back in the same spot each time and they should always be in order. Plus they wont get scratched by the jewel cases. have a look - lots of choices:

http://www.caselogic.com/search/inde...=4011+20025939

 

Not a bad idea, except there are 48 CD's in this set.

 

Regular 8.5 x 11 inch 3 ring binder with clear sheet protectors. That will be at least 4 times larger than a CD case. You can write on the sheet protectors with letters large enough for her to see. Put a page divider between each sheet protector. Thank you for taking the time to work with those folks. Not enough people do.

 

I have a Case Logic 92 CD holder. Its about 3 inches thickand only 7-8 inches wide. Only 2 CD's per page. It would be really easy to find CD's in it. I've even put my CD's in it in a certain order and have found the one I am looking for without looking in the book.

 

[QUOTE=Dr. Evil;1127475]Nice work Stan...


Thank god there is a Dr. in the house

 

I have some CD cases made by Imation, which are opaque in various colors, and they don't flip open like normal CD cases. They have a trigger kind of thing, that will pop the CD out of the end, into your hand.

Perhaps you could get some big stick on numbers to put on the cases, that are thick enough that she could feel the shape of the numbers.

 

How about copying the cd's in mp3 format. That way you can copy several of the originals onto one cd. However, she'll need a cd player that plays mp3 cds. Most new cd players can play mp3 format. It's rare on the older ones. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

Nice to know someone is thinking...

 

I'm pretty sure the braile tape would cause a balance problem,
they spin pretty fast. Nice work, I'm sure she appreciates it.

 

Putting them all in a CD case in order sounds like the best plan so far.. its very easy to feel if a cd is there or not so itd be easy to keep em in order and put em back where they came out of.

 

I second the mp3 approach. You might still need more then 1 cd tho. maby a small drop of glue or somthing? Just enough to raise a bump down near the center hole

 

See, I knew that some of you brainy types would have some answers. Thanks for the answers so far. I like 'em! As far as I know she does not have a mp3 player and there probably is not one in the home, but will check next Tuesday.
Thanks a lot for the input so far.

 

I think a small 50$ MP3 player would be the best bet- there are some that have bigger buttons and you just have to push next or last, or play and stop.
If you rip the CD's in lower quality (which is actually really good for the spoken word) a lot of CDs will fit on a 2G player.

HTH

AlpineRAM