A braille website creates a breakthrough

A braille website creates a breakthrough

By Lim Tri Santosa

BANDUNG (JP): Should we look for the greatest benefactor of
the visually impaired; the individual who has given them a
perpetual source of delight and profit, the choice would
certainly fall upon Louis Braille. Louis Braille invented the
embossed system which has borne his name ever since, and which
enables the blind to read and write easily with their fingers.
His magic wand was a group of six raised dots in which the
vertical line consists of three dots, and the horizontal of two.
A combination of these dots in various positions produces
characters to each of which we assign a particular meaning, just
as the seeing do to the characters of printed ink.

It is amazing how six dots can be combined in such a way to
represent so many things such as letters, punctuation marks,
signs, numbers, musical notes and accents in foreign languages.
There is no difference between the way the blind and the seeing
read except that the blind use one sense-channel while the seeing
use another.

Many people have learned braille so as to be able to write
letters to their blind friends which they could read by
themselves. A letter always seems to belong more to the recipient
if he/she can read it than it does when someone reads it to
him/her. Imagine if you read your lover's letter by yourself and
if you heard the letter read by someone else.

Louis Braille's invention was revolutionary because for the
first time blind people had the ability to communicate with the
outside world. Braille serves the same function for the blind as
print does for the sighted, and with a little creative thinking
it can be just as versatile. Once you start thinking creatively
about how your braille skills can serve you better, you will be
amazed at how versatile Louis Braille's little invention actually
can be.

Here is a useful site for getting started. Soon you will
wonder how you ever functioned without braille. Your only
boundaries will be imposed by the limits of your imagination.

The site is called HotBraille.com, the only free braille
transcribing service on the Internet. Located in Oakland,
California, HotBraille was founded by a group of Web and braille
enthusiasts with the mission of providing anyone with free
braille. With HotBraille.com you can send letters in braille to
your visually impaired friends.

Once you register as a member, you can use the services as
many times as you want and send to as many people as you want, as
long as you limit each letter to 2 pages, which is equivalent to
approximately 250 words, or 1 print page. HotBraille will print
the message you provide on the screen, convert it to braille, and
send it for free.

All letters bearing a "Free Matter for the Blind" stamp the
U.S. Postal Service will send them as third class postage. It
does not incur any postage costs as they provide the service for
free. When you want to send or receive physical braille you need
look no further than HotBraille.com. Using "Send Braille" feature
you compose an address and a message on their web site.

HotBraille will transcribe your message in braille and send it
to the specified address.

You can use the community search tool to browse for members
and search for a user that fits certain criteria you specify. The
membership directory compiles people's interests, country,
gender, hobbies, likes and dislikes so potential pen pals can
meet from around the globe.

The site helps visitors to understand and learn about the
braille language. Here you can learn about the alphabet, and
communicate with others who have an interest in communicating in
braille. There are some online games that can help teach you this
language. You can even see what your name looks like in braille.

Enjoy your visit to this site. It is an educational and
informative site, and shows how the Internet can help to get a
message across the globe physically. Don't forget to tell your
visually impaired friends, or family members, to use this site as
their own personal transcribing service. Now, the visually
impaired are able not only to read braille in a book, but also
receive braille letters from pen pals.