[access-uk] New Accessible RSS newsreader
- From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 20:24:45 +0100
Hope some here find this useful. Its a modified reposting of a news item on
the TAFN list. TAFN is growing and becoming a very useful source of help as
well as a virtual social group for its users. Their radio links page is
particularly good and often updated.
HTH.
Ray
Personal emails: Email me at
mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
Dear listers, for your information. A great new accessible online news reader
program.
"Accessible RSS 1.4" is a blind-friendly RSS Reader program produced by the
same person at Manchester University (Alasdair King) who developed the "Webbie"
alternative web browser.
For the uninitiated, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It's a web based
information format that provides a convenient way of keeping up to date with
the very latest online news via a "feed" of news links. Many mainstream news
sources and online publishers (including many British newspapers) provide free
RSS news feeds, & one can even go to sites such as www. feedster. com which
offers a searchable index of over 6 million feeds. Not only is RSS "not going
away" but it is growing rapidly across the internet, as an up-to-the-minute
news delivery technology, with readers available for almost every operating
system, including portable devices. & at the cutting edge of it is a system
called "podcasting" that allows audio programs to be directly downloaded to MP3
players over the net on an automated basis. It is therefore quite important
that there is an accessible reader program to make RSS directly useful to
blind/v i people.
Which brings me back to Accessible RSS 1.4. This is a convenient and fully
accessible program that is FREE and easy to install, & is a great way to get
started on plugging in to and reading RSS feeds. It comes with a few RSS news
feeds pre-configured, including the BBC and The Guardian. & it's quite easy to
add new feeds of your own choice to get the very latest news from a variety of
sources on a whole range of topics. The program loads quicker than most
browsers, weighing less than 3 megabytes to download and works well with JAWS,
HAL, Windoweyes and Zoomtext.
Once the program is started simply use up/down cursors to browse headlines, and
press ENTER on any headline to open the article. And adding new RSS feeds is
about as easy as adding bookmarks to any popular web browser.
I recommend it!
Leon Gilbert
PS: If anyone does download and try it, why not plug in to the Assistive
Technology RSS Feed at ACB Radio, for the latest assistive tech news? Simply
press ALT W then A, name the bookmark, then copy and paste the following URL
into Accessible RSS to do so:-
http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/xml.php? tablename=news
If anyone wants help with this program, or some more URL's to great RSS news
feeds, please contact me off list, or have a chat with me on Ventrilo about it.
UPDATE
Okay, version 1.4 of this program was proving to be buggy for Windows XP users.
So I contacted the developer Alasdair King, and he's fixed the bugs and updated
it to version 1.5. If anyone has already installed Version 1.4 you can
overinstall it with version 1.5 and it should solve the problem, twhen you
press enter on a headline it should launch the pertaining article.
When it works this program is very good indeed! & the download link for the new
version is below. All the best - Leon
http://www.webbie.org.uk/download/AccessibleRSSInstaller.exe
The Accessible Friends Network website is at http://www.tafn.org.uk
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TAFN is a group of blind/v i friends, helping each other and any other blind/v
i people via the internet with access technology and computer issues. Our
members may also have other disabilities and any sighted members who are
related to them, or have specialist technical skills relating to the purposes
of the group are welcome.
TAFN Helpline (during normal U K office hours): 0845 83 82 369
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