Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, July 6, 2006 1) John Wilson created many guides for using software from the perspective of the blind user. He used to sell them, but now he has released them to the public for free use, not for resale. http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard 2) the next free TechTalk session to take place on gmt 11 July at 00:00 will concern the Trekker, the portable gps device that helps blind folks navigate in both urban and rural areas. http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 3) CodeFactory announces the release of Mobile Magnifier Pocket, a full screen magnifier software for Pocket PC and Pocket PC phones http://www.codefactory.es/ 4) The Oritntation Center for the Blind in California seeks a technology teacher. For information, e-mail mcole@dor.ca.gov 5) Staying in California, Sensory Access Foundation is looking for an Access Technology specialist. E-mail mking@sensoryaccess.com 6) Washington State Department of Services for the Blind seeks an Assistive technology Specialist http://www.dsb.wa.gov/whoWeAre/AssistiveTechnologySpecialistITS4.htm#contentTop 7) the first of several happenings at Gw Micro: Freedom Scientific opted not to provide the ability for users of the braille Sense to use the device as a braille display with JAWS, so Gw Micro has done the work. they have provided a KnowledgeBase article on the subject: Using the Braille Sense as a refreshable Braille display with JAWS http://gwmicro.com/Support/Knowledge_Base/?kbnumber=GWKB1046 8) Gw Micro has raised the price of the Braille Sense (the earlier price was labeled an introductory price) to $5,400, and reduced the price of the Small-talk Ultra by $200, so that the version including window-Eyes costs $2,595 and the version for those already owning a screen reader costs $2,295. http://www.gwmicro.com/ 9) Most every day, Gw Micro offers a Tip of the Day on its web site for the use of one of its products. http://www.gwmicro.com/ 10) The Canadian Conference on Adaptive Technology will take place on 26-27 October in Winnepeg. http://www.dis-it.ca/ 11) Fred's Head Companion http://feeds.feedburner.com/FredsHeadCompanion?m=1790 directs us to this site which maintains accurate lists of up-to-date electronic coupons available for use in online shopping sites: http://www.dealhunting.com/ That site in turn refers us to DealHunting, for finding the best bargains and related message boards: http://www.dealhunting.com/default.php?cc 12) From The Access Technologists' Higher Education Network http://www.athenpro.org/ the New Jersey Higher Education Webmasters' Association has produced a podcast on The Web and The Law http://depts.drew.edu/media/podcast/njhewa/Web%20Law.mp4 13) ACBRadio will offer two streams of activity from the ACB Convention, which begins on July 8. On the Mainstream channel, the convention programs will be broadcast, in a higher bitrate than in previous years. On the Interactive channel, you will hear interviews from the exhibit hall with both exhibitors and attendees. www.acbradio.org 14) If you want to keep track of the hotkeys you have assigned to launch programs on your computer, particularly under windows xp, you can now find a good program and corresponding helpful hint on the Jfwlite site: Hotkey Search Detective. http://www.jfwlite.com/programs.html 15) HumanWare announces Maestro versin 2.0, an accessible pda with e-mail, media player and task manager among other optional features. http://www.humanware.ca/ 16) the Rain Report is a weekly, audio ham radio program service produced with the blind in mind by Hap Holly. It is available as downloadable mp3 files or as podcasts. http://www.therainreport.com/ Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, July 13, 2006 1) The next free online training from TalkingCommunities is called Burning CDs and Other Tips Using Windows Explorer and will take place gmt Tuesday 18 July at 00:00. You can log in to join this event, or listen to archives of trainings after they occur at http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 2) You can read about the new Kurzweil-NFB Reader mentioned here previously at http://www.knfbreader.com/ 3) Michael Curran is writing a free, open-source screen reader for windows. The current version is primitive in the extreme, but Michael wants input and programming assistance, It is being written in the Python language. http://www.kulgan.net/nvda/ 4) Read a tantalizing article on how upcoming iPods and other portable devices may have some speech built-in http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=999772006&format=print 5) Brian Hartgen and T&T Consultancy Ltd. will provide a podcast and blog of Sight Village, the major UK conference on technology for the blind. Visit this main site http://www.tandt-consultancy.com/ and visit the latest news section, or subscribe to the podcasts here http://tandtconsultancy.wordpress.com/feed/ 6) According to Jeff Bishop's informative blog, The Desert Skies http://jeffbishop.net/archive/2006/07/12/850.aspx it is now possible for users of the instant message services windows Messenger and Yahoo Message with Voice to interact, so that you only need to be a user of one service to talk to usrs of both. 7) For students and speakers of Spanish: Tiflolibros is a free service (though donations are encouraged) where members can access thousands of electronic books in Spanish, books not available through the US Bookshare service. Among other materials, their collection includes several dictionaries including the popular one from Real Academia Espaniola. They require physical proof of disability, which can be faxed or sent as an e-mail attachment. Though you'll need Spanish reading knowledge to really benefit from this, Engoish information is here: http://www.tiflolibros.com.ar/Inglés/english.asp 8) reviews of these programs have been added to the AccessWatch database: dvd audio extractor version 3.5.1, Handy Bits Voice Mail version 5.5, Text Monkey Lite version n/a*free*, Premier CD Creater version 2.0, Thunder version Unspecified and Word of the Day version Unspecified. http://www.accesswatch.info/ 9) A new article has been added to the Gw Micro KnowledgeBase: Changing the Display Brightness Level on the Small-Talk Ultra http://gwmicro.com/Support/Knowledge_Base/?kbnumber=GWKB1047 10) EASI presents a Free Clinic: What Are Podcasts and Why Would I Want to Get One? Thursday 27 July at 18:00 gmt. http://easi.cc/clinic.htm You can use the same link to get information about: Free Web Conference: Tablet Technology and People with Disabilities August 15 they also offer a 4-part fee-based series on Learning Disabilities and Adaptive Technology http://easi.cc/forms/ldconf.htm 11) We mentioned chris Judd's four tutorials previously. He's running a special until the end of July where you can buy all four for $20 rather than the usual cost of $34. If interested, e-mail 12) University of Tennessee Chattanooga will be hiring an Assistive Technology coordinator. For nformation 3-mail michelle-rigler@utc.edu 13) Microsoft is looking for a dedicated software design engineer in Test to head up accessibility testing for the Internet Explorer team. Read about it at http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx?JobID=73665C6F-C19E-4F4A-A216-5A1A4740E1AF Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, July 20, 2006 A while back, I established the pattern of creating quarterly compilations of tidbits issues, where a quarter is defined as 13 issues of the newsletter. Q6, consisting of issues 66-78, 30 March-29 June, is now available by sending a blank message to q6@topdotenterprises.com. The file is also on the web site, where you'll also find links to newly-updated text and .zip collections of all issues up to this one. www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm 1) the BlindTechs Network is a company providing sales and training of computer equipment and also some free information about the advantages of the Macintosh for the blind. http://blindtechs.net/ 2) It is often impossible to receive weekly sale flyers from stores in accessible form. As an outgrowth of the National Federation's lawsuit against them, Target has launched an rss feed so that users can easily receive their weekly sales information. Add this link to your rss aggregator: http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/rss/weeklyad.rss 3) From the Langa List http://www.langa.com This technique lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched. http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=187000225 4) the July issue of AccessWorld is now online, featuring articles comparing Kurzweil 1000 and OpenBook programs, the accessibility of insulin pens for diabetes management, the second in a series comparing portable video magnifiers, a review of music download sites, reviews of Virtual Pencil, two programs from Henter Math for independently solving arithmetic and algebra problems, and more. http://www.afb.org/accessworld 5) WGBH announces the free publication, Accessible Digital Media: Design Guidelines for Electronic Publications, Multimedia and the Web. http://ncam.wgbh.org/publications/adm/ 6) A new source for buying audio books and old-time radio programs is Spoken Network. there is no subscription fee; you pay for what you want to read or listen to, and files are mp3, not in a proprietary format. the Url for the U.S. and most of the world is http://www.spoken-network.com/?source=RUSC and in the Uk http://www.spoken-network.co.uk/?source=RUSC 7) Quikscrybe is a long-running braille transcription business run by a blind family. Now they have announced that they can create electronic braille materials for use in braille notetakers as well as paper braille. To inquire about this new service, e-mail quikscrybe@comcast.net 8) During the recent ACB Convention, a representative from Microsoft gave a talk about the accessibility features in windows Vista, the next windows operating system. the file is called microsoft.mp3, and the presentation starts some 18 minutes into the recording. ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/convention2006 9) Wayne Merritt, in his blog, The Ranger Station, http://www.therangerstation.blogspot.com/ gives a summary of his presentation on accessibility of windows Vista and Office 2007 on the July 1 entry, and a summary of his impressions of what he saw in the NFB convention exhibit room in the July 6 entry. 10) three entries to the Blind Cool Tech podcast http://www.blindcooltech.com/ during July provide tips and tutorials for using the popular sound editor Goldwave, presented by tim Cumings. the dates concerned are July 5, 11 and 13. 11) As part of The Mosen Explosion, Jonathan Mosen recorded a 30-minute interview and demonstration of the KNFB Reader on July 7. http://www.mosenexplosion.com/ 12) Read an article about a trend toward more use of the sense of touch in high-tech devices. http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/mg19125606.000 13) An option for learning to type using the computer is Typeability. http://www.yesaccessible.com/ 14) EASI will offer a fee-based series of presentations during September about podcasting. http://easi.cc/clinic.htm 15) From the Web site Wednesday blog http://www.wgnradio.com/weblog/archives/steveandjohnnie/2006/07/woo-weeewebsite.html Now that Microsoft officially does not support windows 98, ME or 2000, those who still use those operating systems may want to read this article on keeping your computers secure. http://www.netsquirrel.com/articles/securing_win9x.html 16) Maybe not high tech, but it's my newsletter: while the supplies last, National Braille Press is giving away a hard-copy braille booklet containing 10 sudoku puzzles, at least partly so they can evaluate how best to present the puzzles and generate interest in them. http://www.braille.com/ 17) Accessibility reviews of Skype Answering Machine version 2.5 and Trucker version Unspecified have been added to the AccessWatch database. http://www.accesswatch.info/ 18) SSB + BART Group in Washington, DC is looking for an Access Technology Consultant. e-mail jobs@ssbtechnologies.com Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top tech tidbits for Thursday, July 27, 2006 1) this week's Accessibleworld free online training, Tuesday 1 August at 00:00 GMT, will be entitled Solving Digital Media Needs with Windows Media Player, presented by Gene Asner. Archives of all previous programs are available at the same site: http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 2) Jamal Mazrui has released version 1.2 of the JAW Script Exchange, a free open-source program intended to assist and promote the sharing of script files among users of JAWS. http://www.empowermentzone.com/jsxsetup.exe 3) Wayne Merritt isn't the author of the Ranger Station blog as reported here last week, despite the appearance of the message from whence i garnered the information. the author of that informative blog is Ranger1138. http://therangerstation.blogspot.com/ 4) Google has released a beta of a search engine that performs the usual Google search as requested, but ranks the results in order of the accessibility of the sites uncovered by the search. One of many articles about this is here: http://www.playfuls.com/news_03533_Google_To_Aid_The_Visually_Impaired_With_Accessible_Search.html Meanwhile, various people on mailing lists pointed out that for a real simple interface, they like this Google page: http://www.google.com/ie 5) From the Desert Skies http://www.squeet.com/redirect.aspx?redir=http%3a%2f%2fjeffbishop.net%2farchive%2f2006%2f07%2f20%2f862.aspx&f=47561&e=11777176 We learn that users of the gizmo Project http://www.gizmoproject.com/learnmore-allcallsfree.html in many countries can call each others' landline phones using the software free. 6) The Thunder screen reader, free for individual use, has been released. It works with windows 2000 and xp. http://www.screenreader.net/ 7) BlindSea is a site containing, among other things, information about third-party programs for use on Series 60 cell phones. the programs, many of which have free demos or are free, have been found to mainly work with the Talks program, and many would presumably work with Mobile Speak. http://www.blindsea.com/ 8) From the Fred's Head Companion http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FredsHeadCompanion/~3/http%3A%2F%2Ffredsheadcompanion.blogspot.com%2F2006%2F07%2Faccessible-news-from-proaxsys.html Accessible News is a subscription-based news reader that makes reading blogs and news sites easy. You can try it free for ten days. Until August 14, a four-month subscription to the service costs $10. http://www.proaxsysreader.com/accessiblenews/ 9) From the same blog, we learn about I Speak It, a program for the Mac that allows you to convert documents into mp3 files using the Mac's built-in synthetic speech. http://www.zapptek.com/ispeak-it/ 10) ILRU of Houston houses the Disability Law Resource Project, which has for some time produced twice-monthly video presentations on various disability law matters. Archives, with transcripts and related handouts, are here: http://www.ilru.org/html/training/webcasts/archive/index.html 11) Read an interesting summary, from Access technologists Higher Education Network, of a discussion among members of the E-text Solutions Group of the Association of Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) about the present and future of book availability for post-secondary students with disabilities. http://athenpro.blogspot.com/2006/07/q-with-e-text-solutions-group.html 12) the Millionaire Game is free and accessible. http://www.audiogames.net/db.php?action=view&id=temp111 another source for accessible games, some of them free, is http://www.tafn.org.uk/games.htm 13) A good source for customized local tv listings, with free registration required to build your own personal "tv guide" is titan tv www.titantv.com. Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. top Tech tidbits fur Thursday, August 3, 2006 1) for convenience, the accessible Google search tool we mentioned last week is located here: http://labs.google.com/accessible/ 2) For readers who are members of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic: It ordinarily costs around $15 to get a key so that you can play RFB&D books on the Book Port, but until December 31, it will be free. Call Member Services at 800-221-4792 and order a book on cd and give promotion code RM106. You'll get the cd necessary to make RFB&D books playable on the Book Port in the mail. 3) Government Computer News (GCN) has implemented a gool that lets readers turn its stories into mp3 files for playback on computer or portable devices. the mailing list report stated that audio quality was good and that Adobe Flash Player was required for it to work. http://www.gcn.com/print/25_22/41508-1.html 4) From Jeff bishop's the Desert Skies blog http://www.squeet.com/redirect.aspx?redir=http%3a%2f%2fjeffbishop.net%2farchive%2f2006%2f07%2f31%2f867.aspx&f=47561&e=12741902 People with a bet for programming can now download the MSDN library from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=373930CB-A3D7-4EA5-B421-DD6818DC7C41&displaylang=en 5) I don't know of anybody who has tested this for accessibility, but Jeff also tells us that holders of a free mail account from Lycos can now have 3 gigs of storage and can send attachments of any size! http://www.lycos.com/ 6) the next free online training from Accessible World is entitled Using Freedom Box and System Access to Interact Comfortably With Those Who Use Main Stream Products Tuesday 8 August at 00:00 GMT, presented by Ann Parsons. http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 7) Access technologist's Higher Education Network http://www.athenpro.org/ tells us about a podcast not routinely devoted to access technology, Fly with Me, narrated by a commercial airline pilot. Episode 11 is an interview with a blind aspiring helicopter pilot and discuss the auditory and tactual aspects of airplane control. Here is the mp3 link: http://media.libsyn.com/media/joepodcaster/fwm-011.mp3 8) Jamal Mazrui continues to enhance and improve TextPal, the free text editor, adding features of interest to blind programmer and to others in version 1.4. http://www.empowermentzone.com/palsetup.exe 9) Kevin Reeves has created a file of JAWS place markers for the social networking site MySpace. this should make navigating the site easier for those users. You can download it here: http://bestmidi.com/~kevinree/Myspace.zip 10) An Assistive Technology site from Northeast Minnesota is http://assistivetechmn.net/ 11) Chris Judd now has ten tutorials, including tutorials on Winamp, Outlook Express, Word, Job Searching, Accessible Games, and more. Tutorials cost $8 each, but if you buy more than three, you get a discount. For information e-mail chrischas0713@charter.net 12) A mailing list recommendation for an accessible program to hear or download podcasts is golden Ear. http://brooklynnorth.com/ 13. Screen Reader Users Forum will be a weekly half-hour Internet radio program full of information on screen readers. It will air Thursdays at 23:00 GMT. http://www.cjoyinternetradio.com/ Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, August 10, 2006 When I get material from blogs, I like to quote the source. Some people have objected to the unnecessary web links this practice provides. Henceforth, I will quote the sources used for a month in the last issue of the month, at the bottom. Typically, these blogs have been referenced before, so you can always find them in the arvhice, or you can do a web search for them. this should make the newsletter easier to read for some. 1) EASI will present a free web conference, Tablet Technology and People with Disabilities, on Tuesday, 15 August at 19:00 GMT http://easi.cc/clinic.htm 2) The Hadley School will present a free seminar entitled "Self-help Support Groups for People Who Are Blind or Have Low Vision," Wednesday, 16 August at 18:00 GMT. Pre-registratin is required. http://www.hadley.edu/seminar/ 3) Apple plans to release the Leopard operatign system for its Macintosh computers in October of 2007, and you can read about its planned accessibility features here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/accessibility.html 4) >Nintendo has developed 7 mini audio games that can be played on every GBA compatible platform, including the GameBoy Advanced, Gameboy Micro and Nintendo DS. Read about these Sound Voyager games here: http://www.audiogames.net/db.php?action=view&id=SoundVoyager 5) This edition of Fred's Head companion lists and describes several sites where students can get help with homework: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FredsHeadCompanion/~3/9184335/homework-helping-sites-on-net.html 6) the same source also discusses Frucall, a site which allows you to go to a store, find a product you like, get the bar code from the product, then call and get prices for the product from the net on your mobile phone. Call 888-363-7822. 7) At the site http://www.xpscreenreader.com/index.php You can read about Thunder, a free screen reader for windows xp, Lightning, a 99-pound ($180) screen magnifier for windows xp, Inform, a news reader for those not familiar with computers, Scan2Text, an OCR program, and WordRead Plus, a screen reader for those who can use the mouse. 8) I don't often include news items of product ideas that are nowhere near fruition, but this one, regarding a low-cost braille-writing device, will be worth following: http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home06/jul06/braille.html 9) IfByPhone, the voice portal that lets you check and send e-mail, get news, play games, and networkis now available toll-free in the U.S. they will soon let you send text spelled on your phone keypad as e-mail messages, and are promising to raise their prices soon. http://www.ifbyphone.com 10) Rusty Perez has created a tutorial on performing some EBay functions with a notetaker. You can download the 30-minute recording from him for $7 or he'll mail a cd to you for $10. E-mail him at Rusty.perez@gmail.com Here are some web sites, gleaned from various publications, which might be interesting. I probably haven't evaluated them, so feel free to do so: 11) U.S. Government search, for searching across government agencies: http://usgov.google.com 12) Check out the airline industry, performance of different carriers, and more http://flightstats.com 13) A site for finding the lowest air fares http://cheapflights.com 14) there is much interesting material to be read on blogs, but how do you find it? Here are some blog search tools: http://www.sphere.com http://blogsearch.google.com http://www.icerocket.com http://www.feedster.com http://www.technorati.com 15) Do you wonder about the many processes that run on your windows xp system, what they do and whether or not you can get rid of any of them and save some system resources? Here are two web sites to help you answer those questions. http://www.processlibrary.com http://startup.networktechs.com/ 16) A twist on the usual book review site, Field-Tested books is based on the hypothesis that "reading a certain book in a certain place uniquely affects a person's experience with both." http://www.coudal.com/ftb/ the full archive of Tidbits issues, available in .zip and .txt formats, has been updated to include all issues through today. Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, August 17, 2006 1) Here is a web site containing games, many free, and some other programs for the Pac Mate, the older notetakers and some for Windows and Linux: www.braillesoft.net 2) the Plextalk PTR2 is an expensive digital recorder with many unique features for the blind. Brian Hartgen has written a review of it. From his Portable Player Portable site, choose the link for Daisy Players and Recorders link to read it: http://www.hartgen.org/portable.html 3) Pro Tools is the leading program used by recording studio engineers, musicians and producers. Its manufacturer has not chosen to implement the accessibility provisions that Apple has built into the latest editions of the Mac. You can sign a petition to urge them to do so. http://www.protoolspetition.org/ 4) Here is a handy site listing over 70 stations owned by CBS that now stream their programming online: http://radiomat.com/ 5) Gw Micro has published a new article to its KnowlegeBase: Small-Talk Ultra Processor Throttling http://gwmicro.com/Support/Knowledge_Base/?kbnumber=GWKB1048 6) Version 10.6 of the braille translation program DBT is available, featuring enhanced support for importing Nemeth documents, new and improved foreign language translation capabilities, and improved data entry both for entry in DBT itself and for typing in Word. http://www.duxburysystems.com/dbtwhst.asp 7) Here's something for JAWS scripters: Tutorial: Extending JAWS using Python http://www.cs.unc.edu/~parente/tech/tr06.shtml 8) One mailing list participant recommends the Data Doctors weekly free newsletter http://www.datadoctors.com/ 9) Another source of information is the Rvers Computer Help newsletter http://www.rverscomputerhelp.com/ These folks have written a lot of help articles over the years, so they suggest looking at their collection of articles http://www.rverscomputerhelp.com/articles.html and their newsletter archive http://www.rverscomputerhelp.com/archives.html 10) Coming up shortly, at 03;00 Friday 18 August, the Computer America radio program will feature an interview with the folks who make the Sepstral software speech engines, with demonstrations of the latest in available software speech. You can listen to the hour-long program by pasting this Url into the ctrl-u dialog in Windows Media Player, or presumably into the ctrl-l dialog in winamp: mms://64.92.199.77/BusinessTalkRadio-IN 11) Speaking of software speech, there's an interesting web site for a program, presently available free, called Model Talker that claims to let you use your own voice. Nobody has reported how well it really works: http://www.asel.udel.edu/speech/ModelTalker.html Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, August 24, 2006 1) Here's an installment of Fred's Head Companion that provides a lot of useful information about using Google. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FredsHeadCompanion/~3/15667038/getting-more-out-of-google_23.html 2) the same source also tells us about mail.com, now testing a web-mail service to allow e-mail in 11 languages to be read aloud. http://www.mail.com/ 3) the next Accessible World free online training will concern SendSpace, a service that allows you to send large files to others via the net. The training starts at 00:00 gmt, Tuesday, 29 August. http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 4) Serotek, makers of the Freedom Box, is seeking sales representatives. Send a current resume to them at employment@freedombox.cc 5)A new article has been posted to the Gw Micro Knowledge Base: How To Enable Bluetooth on the Small-Talk Ultra http://gwmicro.com/Support/Knowledge_Base/?kbnumber=GWKB1049 6) Jamal Mazrui is developing JAWS scripts for Visual Studio 2005. You can download the installer for the work so far here; http://www.empowermentzone.com/msenv2005.exe 7) Andrew Kirkpatrick from Adobe has written a couple accessible versions of the Hangman game using Flash, and he would like people to test them to see which they prefer. You can find more information on this entry in the Adobe Accessibility blog http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/2006/08/two_accessible_flash_games_whi.html 8) the Jernigan Institute's National Center for Blind youth in Science portal is found at http://www.blindscience.org/ 9) You can read an article about Nuance Communication's Scansoft Pdf Converter Professional 4, a $100 package which allows for converting pdf documents to speech and for creating pdf documents that are friendly to screen readers. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6107260.html 10) Jeff Bishop reports in The Desert Skies that Microsoft has released a release candidate for Internet Explorer 7.0, and that his testing is bearing positive results. You can download Internet Explorer 7 from the Microsoft Download Center. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=94e5bf41-2907-4415-8f72-da7c2c2ace09&displaylang=en 11) We talked last week about Model Talker, the software speech synthesizer that lets you use your own voice. Josh can share JAWS scripts for the Invtool program that you use to create the voices, and may be able to explain how to make the program work with screen readers 12) All in Play has created its third online game usable by the blind, Texas Hold'em. You can get a fifteen-day free account to try the service. http://allinplay.com/unsub.php?u= 13) CHS-TV will air an 8-hour old-time radio program marathon starting Friday 25 August stateide and repeating throughout the weekend. Click chs-tv, then chs-radio to listen. http://www.carthageisd.org/ 14) DeWitt & Associates is offering a two-day, $400 workshop in Midland Park, NJ entitled LEARNING MS EXCEL WHILE USING JAWS, 25 and 26 September. Call Maria at 1-877-447-6500. 15) Here is an article by Joe Clark in which he challenges the effectives of the Web Accessibility guidelines version 2: http://alistapart.com/articles/tohellwithwcag2 Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, August 31, 2006 1) We often mention both the free clinics and the fee-based web-conferences offered by EASI. They have membership savailable for both institutions and individuals to take their fee-based conferences for a more affordable cost. You can read about the membership plan here: http://easi.cc/sub.htm and the fall schedule is available here: http://easi.cc/clinic.htm 2) You can download or listen to an interview with the makers of the free Thunder screen reader as part of the Blind Cool Tech podcast. http://www.blindcooltech.com/ 3) Humanware reports that they will continue to provide support for the classic BrailleNote and VoiceNote products, but development of them will cease with the next version of Keysoft to be released. the release of KeySoft version y7.2, whose existence was first intimated during the summer conventions stateside, will be next week. Capabilities of the release will vary depending on just what kind of machine you have, but it cal feature Daisy playback capability, improved file management, statistical calculator functions and more. 4) Mitchell Smith has written a small program called the window-Eyes Mobile helper to facilitate using Window-Eyes on USB flash drives. http://www.bur.st/~mjs/wemobilehelper.zip Gw Micro has released an article to their Knowledge Base, Window-Eyes and Autorun on USB Flash Drives http://gwmicro.com/Support/Knowledge_Base/?kbnumber=GWKB1050 5) A new accessible game called Mississippi is available, to try as a demo or to purchase. http://www.mar-dy.com/ 6) We learn from Fred's Head companion about Pirate, a fun memory audio game. http://www.klangogames.com/en/pmg/ 7) the Math Description Engine is an open-source software library that generates text, sound and visual representations of graphs found in both math and science applications. http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/mde 8) We learn from the Rvers Computer Help Newsletter about the Free Dictinary, a web site featuring a dictionary and other related services. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ 9) the same source tells us about a test you can run from the Pc Pitstop site to see if your computer will run windows Vista successfully when it is released. http://www.pcpitstop.com/ 10) this will presumably be our last reference to The Mosen Explosion, since its author, Jonathan Mosen, has left Humanware to work for Freedom Scientific and simultaneously discontinued his blog. this is an article from the New York Times (free subscription may be necessary to read it)concerning public domain audio books. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/books/25audi.html?ex=1314158400&en=5441d083f6d4aca4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss 11) Here is a good list, courtesy of Fred's Head Companion, of sources for electronic books, both free and paid. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FredsHeadCompanion/~3/18104401/project-gutenberg-and-other-online.html 12) The latest JAWS scripts for Skype are available here: http://www.dlee.org/jfw-skr298.zip 13) According to Web site Wednesday, this is a site where you can see which broadbabd service is available in your area. http://www.broadbandreports.com/ Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, September 7, 2006 I know of nobody among blind Internet users and their friends who better exemplifies the combined virtues of competence, patience and pure generosity than Debbie Scales. Her untimely but peaceful death on September 1 deprives this community of her presence and assistance. The web site she created and conscientiously maintained, www.jfwlite.com which contains links and hints useful to all no matter what screen reader you use, will remain in place but will not be updated. 1) A new mailing list for the discussion of screen magnifiers, screenmagusers, has been formed. To join, send a blank message to screenmagusers-subscribe@googlegroups.com 2) A mailing list user recommends a $29.95 anti-spyware program, Pc Pitstop Exterminate, as being highly accessible. http://www.pcpitstop.com/ 3) Read this blog posting concerning Teseract, an optical character recognition program that Google appears to be opening up for development: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=775 4) this installment of the Fred's Head companion discusses various games where users, primarily sighted ones, compete to see who can write the best caption for an unlabeled graphic on the web. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FredsHeadCompanion/~3/19841832/sighted-people-phetch-descriptions-of.html 5) another installment of the same blog tells of places for finding free sound effects on the web: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FredsHeadCompanion/~3/19850450/free-sound-project.html 6) A Dutch company called AssistiveWare has released two speech products for blind Macintosh users to add more high-quality voice options and to enable creation of mp3 files of the speech output. http://www.assistiveware.com/pr.php 7) Here is an article discussing the rationale for the accessibility features in windows Vista. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003234739_msftaccess30.html 8) the next free training in the Accessible World series will be entitled The Total Recorder Advantage: Who should use Total Recorder, and how > to get going with the program, and will be presented by Dean Martineau. Training will take place at 00:00 GMT on Tuesday, 12 September, and archives will be available not long afterword. http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 9) A new installment of the monthly Gw Micro radio program and podcast, On the Move, is now available for streaming or download. http://www.gwmicro.com/onthemove 10) We learn from Fred's Head Companion that Google now has a page devoted to searching newspaper archives. http://news.google.com/archivesearch 11) On 11 September, EASI offers a free clinic on a program that enables people to easily create narrated Powerpoint for the Web and make the presentation fully accessible. the following day they offer the first of their four-[art fee-based series on podcasts and vodcasts (first time I've seen *that* word used by anybody!) and their accessibility. http://easi.cc/clinic.htm 12) New JAWS scripts for the music creation program Cakewalk Sonar, for versions 5.0 and 4.1, are available, with donations encouraged, from the JSonar group http://www.jsonar.org/ 13)Accessibility reviews of Steve\'s Clock version 2.03 and Mississippi version 1.20 have been added to the AccessWatch database http://www.accesswatch.info/ Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. top Tech tidbits for Thursday, September 14, 2006 1) The free training at Accessible World on Tuesday 19 September at 00:00 GMT will showcase Internet Radio. Go to the Techtalk room at http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 2. the September, 2006 issue of AccessWorld, free online magazine, features up-to-date reviews of accessible mobile phones, accessibility evaluations of satellite radio receivers and their web sites, more reviews of laptop-compatible video magnifiers, an introduction to podcasting, and more. http://www.afb.org/accessworld 3) Dane Trethowan has produced some informal audio tutorials on using the Nokia N70 Smart Phone with the Talks screen reader. If you want them, write to him at 4) the BlinDIA project is a volunteer effort designed to facilitate independent installation of Debian Linux by a blind user. they have released some speech and braille modules for this purpose. http://brlspeak.net/blindia.php 5) From the E-Access Bulletin, we learn that Royal National Institute for the Blind has launched a software Access Center, a resource for software designers and developers, systems integrators, procurement professionals and accessibility policy makers. http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_sachome.hcsp 6) AI Squared announces that their zoomText Large-Print Keyboard is now shipping. this $99 keyboard makes typing easier and gives one-key access to ZoomText 9.0 features. http://www.aisquared.com/Products/Keyboard.cfm 7) IfByPhone has upgraded its service so that users can listen to some e-mail attachments, can have an addressbook, and can have unlimited access to multiple e-mail accounts among other improvements. they also now allow people with no computer to set up phone-based e-mail accounts; those interested can call (877) 295-5100 to sign up. http://www.ifbyphone.com 8) Microsoft has given more information about Zune, it's portable answer to the iPod. No word yet about accessibility. http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Officially_Unveils_Zune/1158251571 9)A 4-part fee-based series on creating Daisy documents will be one of EASI's offerings for October, on the first four Tuesdays at 18:00 GMT. http://easi.cc/clinic.htm 10) the First International Virtual Audio Online Symposium on Diabetes has been scheduled for wednesday 8 November 2006, from 15:00-20:00 GMT, under the auspices of Helping Hands for the Blind and the Accessible World Symposiums. http://www.accessibleworld.org/ 11) Rvers Computer Help Newsletter tells us of a free online distance calculator for determining the distance between two cities. http://www.geobytes.com/CityDistanceTool.htm 12) Accessibility reviews of Norton Internet Security version 2006 and Accessible Battleship SV have been added to the AccessWatch database. http://www.accesswatch.info/ 13) this installment of Fred's Head Companion features various accessible ways to get ring tones for your mobile phone. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FredsHeadCompanion/~3/22278547/accessible-site-for-ring-tones.html Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, September 21, 2006 1) Here, thanks to the Bootlist, is a Microsoft article on troubleshooting problems with computer standby and hibernation under windows Xp: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=907477 2) >Version 1.0.0 of Orca - the free, open source, scripting screen >reader for UNIX systems that provides access to the graphical desktop via user-customizable combinations of speech, braille, and/or magnification - has been officially released. http://live.gnome.org/Orca 3) Here's an article about the LevelStar, the new Lunux-based portable device for the blind: http://geoffandwen.com/blind/newsarticle.asp?u_id=14540 4) Accessibility consultant Alan Cantor is producing a report on the state of accessibility to pdf documents. If you want to contribute, from any standpoint, write comments to him by 22 September. alan@cantoraccess.com. 5) >Freedom Scientific announces the immediate availability of the new Multi-language keyboard driver for PAC mate, allowing you to add the ability to input text in eight different languages on your PAC mate QX. http://www.freedomscientific.com/PACMATE-HQ/PACMate_Multi_lang_Keybd_Driver.asp 6) Speaking of Freedom Scientific, their recent hiring of Jonathan Mosen has generated a lot of talk and now some press. It was the subject of this week's Main Menu program on http://www.acbradio.com and that program will appear in the archives in due course. It is also now the topic of an extra article in the AccessWorld series from American Foundation for the Blind, entitled The Mosen Excursion. http://www.afb.org/aw/main.asp 7) And through the end of this year, owners of any of the Braille Note family of products, old or new, can trade in their unit for any member of the Pac Mate family for very reasonable prices. http://www.freedomscientific.com/ 8) Brent Harbolt offers to install the open-source Rockbox software onto your video iPod, thus making it a talking device, for $60 including shipping. Note that some users choose to successfully perform this task unaided, but Brent is offering to do this for those who would prefer not to do so. Write to him at bharbolt@sbcglobal.net 9) Gw Micro has posted an article to its KnowledgeBase: Internet Explorer 7 RC1 Causes Startup Problems http://gwmicro.com/Support/Knowledge_Base/?kbnumber=GWKB1052 10) We've mentioned the Blindness Auction Gateway, a web site that puts several EBay searches related to blindness-related items in easy reach, and also can make other EBay searches easier. the site now allows you to search for Braille watches. http://www.bestmidi.com/ebay.php 11) A good place to find accessible games, both windows and DOS, is http://www.pcsgames.net/game-co.htm 12) Code Factory announces the release of Mobile Speak SmartPhone, an operating system for Smart Phones running under the windows Mobile operating system. http://www.codefactory.es/mobile_speak_smartphone/mspeak_smartphone.htm 13) And Code Factory has released version 1.0.8 of Mobile Speak Pocket, containing some 150 new features and fixes. http://www.codefactory.es/mobile_speak_pocket/msp_features_v108.htm 14) this installment of Fred's Head Companion describes the Atari Retro, an affordable game machine which would be quite playable for some folks with low vision. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...games-for-people-with-low.html 15) And they also offer an article on voice-activated tv remote controls, an alternative to the often-inaccessible remotes. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...ivated-tv-remote-controls.html 16) The eighth annual Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference will take place at the Millennium Harvest House, adjacent to the campus of the University of Colorado - Boulder, Nov. 7-10. Early registration rates run until 1 october. http://www.colorado.edu/ATconference 17) An accessibility review of UTF-8 TeraTerm Pro version 4.45 has been added to AccessWatch. http://www.accesswatch.info/ Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Top Tech tidbits for Thursday, October 5, 2006 1) Spoonbill Software has released another free game usable by the blind. this one is a version of the word game Boggle. You get this and other games by sending a request to Ian Humphreys at irhumph@omninet.net.au the web site is http://www.omninet.net.au/~irhumph/blindgamers.htm 2) the Accessible World presentation for the GMT day of October 10 features American Printing House for the bind's $49.00 Money Talks package, a self-voicing bank account management program. The live discussion starts at 00:00, with archives available soon thereafter. http://www.accessibleworld.org 3) this month's installment of On the Move, Gw Micro's radio program and podcast, features a sneak peak at window-Eyes version 6.0. >www.gwmicro.com/onthemove 4) Here is a link to a Cnet article discussing the use of mp3 players to play audio books. It contains links to a lesser-known source for audio books and to some reviews of mp3 players that include a bookmarking feature, though of course the reviews do not discuss use of the players from a blindness perspective. http://ct.cnet-ssa.cnet.com/clicks?t=13023041-d1930ee7504db8e18937780415b01280-bf&s=5&fs=0 5) Jamal Mazrui has implemented a number of fixes in his screen-reader-friendly text editor textPal, version 1.5. http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/palsetup.exe 6) A new mailing list has been created for discussion of the use of the various Macromedia web development tools by the blind. to subscribe, send a message to blind-macromedia-request@freelists.org with 'subscribe' in the Subject field. 7) Well-known writer Fred Langa has created a blog to which he adds frequent entries. http://langa.com/blog And this item from a past Langa List explains blogs and rss feeds. http://langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-09-21.htm#6 8) this installment of Fred's Head Companion discusses a program called 1st Read it Aloud, which allows you to have text read back to you n a variety of voices, speeds and languages. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...ad-selected-text-from-any.html 9) Dragon Naturally Speaking version 9.0 has received very positive reviews. Now T&T Consultancy has released version 4.0 of JSay Pro which supports this version and requires JAWS version 7.1. http://ngtvoice.com/products/software/J-Say/ 10) the October 3 installment of The Ranger Station gives a good summary of recent technology happenings. this blog is a good place to read to keep up with developments as windows vista gets closer to being released. http://therangerstation.blogspot.com/ 11) At various times during the coming weekend, you can listen to the state convention of the National Federation of the blind of Colorado. http://www.cocenter.org/stream.m3u 12. the Lions Center for the blind in Oakland California seeks a Computer Services Coordinator. the message from which I gleaned this information did not contain contact information for them, so you'll have to unearth it if you want to apply for the position. Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com.