sinéad's lifestream

As promised the HTC Legend (thank you Meteor) is now up for auction on ebay. Proceeds from this eBay auction will be donated to the Irish Autism Action charity. The reason I choose this charity is because I wanted to highlight the need for the donation and recycling of used iPhones and iPod Touch, for children with Autism, so they can avail of the incredible Grace App – Picture Exchange for Non-Verbal People

A simple picture exchange system developed by and for non-verbal people allowing the user to communicate their needs by building sentences from relevant images. It can be customised by the individual using their picture and photo vocabulary with the user taking photos and saving pictures to the app.

The application works in real time and allows the user to select their preferences, then rotate the device to present a full sized sentence to the listener – who will read it with them and respond to their request.

The beauty of Grace is that it ensures the interaction of the user with the listener, and mutual understanding of the user’s real needs help to increase communication opportunities and build trust.

Continue Reading

Pat Phelan has been giving away some amazing prizes this week, has raised €1222.00 for the Cancer ward at Crumlins Childrens Hospital and has been busy encouraging the donation of old mobile phones to the Jack & Jill Foundation.

He also made Christmas come early for me yesterday with the delivery of the mystery “nice prize” I won. I had joked on his blog that “This could make the FIRST interesting unboxing video” but I was far too excited to do so. Considering that the mystery turned out to be a lovely little Flip video camera I decided I’d film a quick little video to say thank you. It really *IS* an easy little thing to use, and within 5 minutes of opening it I had the 1 minute .avi file on my computer and ready to upload to youtube (that was the part that took the longest!). You can find my cringe worthy video here (as always with youtube, best viewed in high quality mode).

Following on from Pat’s give-away, Damien Mulley has another competition, in association with a supporter of the foundation. Anyone that donates one or more phones will be entered into a draw to win some more gadgey goodness. Everyone has old mobile phones, so why not put them to some real use? There is even a freepost address you can send them to:

The Jack and Jill Mobile Appeal, Freepost, Ratoath Road, Finglas, Dublin 11.

Just put the phone and charger (if you have it) into a jiffy bag and pop in the post. It couldn’t be simplier. I asked everyone in the house to fish out their old phones (pictured above, along side the Flip camera on it’s tripod) and I’ll be posting them after Christmas.