[TC] Fw: Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, January 6, 2005
Уважаемые участники рассылки!
Пересылаю только что вышедший выпуск еженедельного англоязычного бюллетеня
новостей компьютерных технологий для незрячих и слабовидящих. В нём всегда
масса интересной и полезной информации. Заранее прошу прощение, что
пересылаю англоязычный материал. Делаю это сейчас в виде исключения. Все
желающие получать его могут бесплатно на него подписаться. Информацию о
подписке можно найти в конце бюллетеня.
Олег
Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, January 6, 2005
The flow of news picks up now that the winter holidays in the Northern
hemisphere are passed:
Main Menu is the weekly technology program on ACB Radio. Unfortunately,
the web and ftp archives aren't updated too often lately, but the final
program for 2004 is available. It is a 90-minute recording of a panel
discussion regarding Intetnet accessibility held at the ICAN Conference in
Capetown, South Africa. Download it at
ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/mm20041222.mp3.
All Windows users need to know the methods offered by Windows for selecting
text in a document. But some of us still have fond memories of the old
days, when you could press a key, move unhindered to a second point in the
document, then hit a second key, at which point all the text between those
two points was selected. Thanks to a couple ingenious macros, anybody can
have this capability in any recent version of Word. For step-by-step
instructions for adding this capability to your copy of Word, send a blank
message to sele***@t*****.com.
The first Wednesday of every month, Talkingcommunities.com presents An
Accessible World Symposium, a free online audio event where major players
in the disability field present their solutions to access problems. The
next live event will presumably be held on February 2 starting at 9:00 A.M.
Pacific time, 17:00 GMRT. In the meantime, archives of the last several
seminars, covering a variety of topics, are available at
http://www.talkingcommunities.com/aaw.html.
Project Assist with Windows from the State of Iowa announces the release of
two new tutorials for braille-only users: The Microsoft Windows XP with
Window-Eyes 4.5 and the ALVA Satellite 570, and The Microsoft Windows XP
with JAWS 5.0 and the Braille Lite M40 Tutorial for Beginners. The
tutorials are available in electronic. audio and embossed braille
formats. For information, visit
http://www.blind.state.ia.us/assist/order-info.ht or e-mail
assi***@b*****.us.
Via David Poehlman: An article on audibly playable pc games, and other
interesting material, is found at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4112725.stm.
Just as sighted people take lots of pictures when they're on holiday,
Jonathan Mosen took some audio snapshots using Power Dictaphone on his
Nokia 6600. To hear the results:
http://www.audioblog.com/playweb?player=2&audioid=Pdc1f14b86ce871d78abde28b35403b5eZV56QlREYmF2&buffer=5&autoplay=1&fcolor=CCFF33&bcolor=FFFFFF&size=20.
You can follow his blog, containing both text and audio postings, at
http://www.mosenexplosion.com.
Following up on last week's info about color identifiers, a
screen-reader-independent color identifier, and much more besides, can be
found at http://www.seeingwithsound.com.
Darrell Shandrow has started the Blind Access Blog, where he will write
articles concerning access challenges and others can read them and also
join the discussion. http://nu7i.blogspot.com.
Gw Micro, makers of the screen reader Window-Eyes, has implemented a "lease
to buy" option, and is testing version 5.0 of the product.
Erik Deckers discusses this in an interview on Soundprints,
http://home.mindspring.com/~mbmccarty/soundprints.mp3. The link will
probably work until Monday, and the interview starts about twelve minutes
into the program.
George Bell reminds us that if you ever delete a file in windows xp without
sending it to the recycle bin, and then want to get it back, you may be
able to do so with a free utility.
http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/
For those trying to figure out what adaptive technology to buy, Kelly
Pierce wrote a series of articles to guide them in the decision-making
process. Free registration is required to read them; they're found at
http://www.esight.org/
Spyware Doctor comes highly recommended for removing and protecting against
malware, which can wreak terrible havoc with your computer. the freeware
version, http://www.pctools.com/downloads/sdsetup.exe, just removes, while
the shareware version,
http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor/?action=purchase, $29.95 for one
computer, $49.95 for two, provides real-time protection
Here is a link to download scripts which may improve performance of JFW 6.0
with MSN 6.2.
http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_support/BulletinView.cfm?QC=849
The Jernigan Institute of the National Federation of the Blind seeks
participants in a survey concerning performance of blind and visually
impaired students in science and math. For more information,
http://www.aph.org/edresearch/nfbsurvey.html.
Optelec has reduced the price of its Braille Voyager displays. Now the
40-cell unit costs $3,495, and the 70-cell costs $5,995. For more
information, http://www.optelec.com.
Skype is a very popular program among blind and sighted users for carrying
on conversations over the net. Version 1.1.0.61 is now out, and can be
downloaded from www.skype.com.
JAWS scripts for Skype can be had at
www.panix.com/~ccn/projects/jfw/skype.php.
The American Printing House has sold a speech compressor, which allowed you
to run a cassette at double speed and compress the speech to make the voice
sound more normal. These units formerly sold for over $100, but they're
being closed out, and while they last, you can buy one for $30. You may
need to call to get this price; U.S. and Canada residents can call
toll-free 800-223-1839; others, 502-895-2405, or visit http://www.aph.org.
Kim Komando, http://www.komando.com, reminds us of a great site where you
can get boot disks for all sorts of operating systems:
http://www.bootdisk.com.
Kim also wrote a piece about how to transfer data between two computers,
perhaps your old one and your new one. To read her article, send a blank
message to datatransf***@t*****.com.
Will Pearson wrote a brief coherent note on what is required for Java
programs to work with JAWS. To read it, send a blank message to
javaja***@t*****.com.
We'll end with three items of particular interest in the U.S. I will
happily post items uniquely relevant to residents of other countries if I
receive them:
Users of the Pak Mate Pocket pc device can now download a free Bookshare
unpack utility so that they can open books from the Bookshare service
without a pc. http://www.hj.com/fs_products/PACmate_BookShare_Unpack.asp.
In the course of helping a friend find low-cost dial-up access in the U.S.,
I asked on a mailing list and got several answers. to read them, send a
blank message to dial***@t*****.com.
According to this New York Times article, for which free registration is
required to read, people in California may be eligible for compensation
under the Microsoft settlement:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/technology/05soft.html?th
That's the news for this week.
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If you have a news item, handy web page or piece of software you want to
recommend, concerning adaptive technology, technology as it relates to the
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Having said this, most are accurate and useful.
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Dean Martineau
Top Dot Enterprises
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Everett WA 98201
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