Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, October 25, 2007

Top Dot Enterprises
Friday, October 26, 2007

Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, October 25, 2007

By Dean Martineau

1) the Accessible World Tek Talk first online open forum will take place on GMT 
Tuesday, October 30 at 00:00 (Monday evening in North America.) You can come in 
to the room and ask your puzzling questions about your computer, your screen 
reader or about some program that is not working the way it should. If you 
e-mail moderator Walt Kramer at wokwest@xxxxxxxxxxx 

http://www.accessibleworld.org

2) Thanks to the Access Technologists Higher Education Network for this blog 
post explaining in human terms why web accessibility is a good idea.

http://www.thepickards.co.uk/index.php/200710/accessibility-making-it-all-worthwhile/

3) Jamal Mazrui's latest project is a programmer's tool called IronCOM, which 
allows those with the skills to greatly extend the capabilities of scripting 
languages such as that which comes with JAWS, among other capabilities.

http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/comsetup.exe

4) OtsAV is a program for making your PC sound just like a radio station. Jim 
Snowbarger has updated his JAWS scripts for the earlier incarnation of the 
program, called Ots DJ to work with the current version, OtsAVPro version 
1.77.0.1 The scripts are free to those who already purchased the scripts for 
OTS DJ, otherwise they cost $30. 

http://personal.adiis.net/snowman/OtsAV.html

5) the Serotek blog contains a thoughtful article on the problems with 
open-source technology as it relates to screen readers

http://blog.serotek.com/2007/10/problem-with-open-source-access.html

6) this Fred's Head Companion article discusses the question: Online Banking, 
is it Right for Me?

http://fredsheadcompanion.blogspot.com/2007/10/online-banking-is-it-right-for-me.html

7) Levelator is a free program that lets you take an audio file which has 
portions with different volume levels and make the whole file be as loud as its 
loudest part. At the encouragement of some blind users, the developers have 
produced an accessible version of the program, which is currently in beta 
testing but which works very well. If you want a copy, e-mail Darrell Shandrow 
at

editor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

8) Jim Grimsby Jr. has released a new version of scripts for the Goldwave sound 
editor, to work with the newest version of the program. You can get it from the 
programs section of

http://www.blind-geek-zone.net

9) An accessible mp3 player is being developed. You can read about it here

http://www.viplayer.co.uk

and download an audio interview about it here

http://media.libsyn.com/media/bct/bct1135ViPlayer.mp3

10) A PC-based computer program called the Nemetex Nemeth Back-Translator, 
costing *S $99, which supports back-translating Nemeth Braille produced on an 
electronic Braille notetaker into print, is available from a company called 
AccessiSoft. Go to

http://www.accessisoft.com/nemetex.htm

11) the newest operating system for the Mac, called OS X Leopard, will be 
released this week. the new system is anticipated to offer many accessibility 
enhancements, including a new voice, improved web accessibility and other 
improvements. This site discusses the new release in general:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/guidedtour/

the site for VoiceOver, the built-in screen reader, will presumably be updated 
not long after the release

http://www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/ 

12) You can hear several new voices available for the Mobile Speak SS screen 
reader here:

http://www.codefactory.es/mobile_speak_smartphone/mss_downloads.htm

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