Re: Freedom Scientific introduces bugs intentionally!
- From: "Zdenek Vopat" <zdenekvopat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 16:48:36 +0200
that's a pretty strong claim to make. In any rate I believe that they are
leaving eloquence instead of focusing on using the realspeak voices that you
can download for free, so perhaps that may explain the issue.
Zdenek
----- Original Message -----
From: "Devona" <djasister@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 4:31 PM
Subject: Re: Freedom Scientific introduces bugs intentionally!
> Did they fix it?
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Armond" <armond1980@xxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 8:19 AM
> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Freedom Scientific introduces bugs intentionally!
>
>> Hi, all,
>> Many of you might find the following email exchange between a friend of
>> mine and Freedom Scientific's Jonathan Mosen shocking or, rather,
>> frustrating. Basically, it describes a Unicode-related bug in newer
>> releases of JAWS 11 which later turned out to be an intentional move on
>> the point of Freedom Scientific to get users to purchase a certain
>> right-to-left language pack from a dealer--at a higher cost--though this
>> is against the spirit of the Unicode feature. Here's my friend's
>> message--note that he himself doesn't have a blog or venue to voice his
>> concerns and isn't interested in pursuing that line of action either for
>> various reasons, so I'm doing that on his behalf and on the behalf of
>> those who have been affected:
>> ------------
>> Hello Jonathan,
>> Please forgive me for sending you this message. The following bug is so
>> serious that I decided to notify you as I don't know to which
>> FreedomScientific employee it should be sent. This affects the latest JAWS
>> 11 update.
>> As you know, each unicode symbol or character has a value in hex. For
>> instance, the Persian or Arabic character "?" ("Alef") has the following
>> value: U+627.
>> Now JAWS 11 interprets hex values in the form of the correct value minus
>> 1. That is, for instance, the letter "Alef" with the value of U+627 is
>> read is "Yaa hamzeh" which has the hex value of U+626. That's quite
>> strange, but the bug indeed affects all unicode symbols modified in
>> Eloq.sbl! This means that I can't use the Eloquence engine to type or read
>> characters in Persian and Arabic because what I type or whatever the
>> cursor points to will be read as something else by JAWS 11.0.1447.
>> Would you please inform JAWS developers about this bug? I don't want to
>> downgrade to the previous JAWS 11 release.
>> All the best,
>> Amir
>> ------------
>> My friend's second message:
>> ------------
>> Just as a follow-up to my previous message, this bug affects the behavior
>> of NumPad5 in a slightly different way. That is, if NumPad5 is pressed
>> once on a Unicode character which has a certain value in Eloq.sbl, JAWS
>> incorrectly reports that character in the form of the actual Unicode value
>> minus 1. However, if NumPad5 is pressed twice on a Unicode character for
>> its phonetic representation, JAWS incorrectly reads it in the form of the
>> actual Unicode value plus 1. Just thought I'd pass this finding, too.
>> Best,
>> Amir
>> ------------
>> Jonathan's reply:
>> ------------
>> Hi Amir, the issue you've advised me of is actually a design change in
>> JAWS. If you could please let me know your serial number, we'll look at
>> your situation further and see if there's anything we can do for you.
>> Jonathan
>> ------------
>> My friend's reply:
>> ------------
>> Hi Jonathan,
>> That's a bit strange because the JAWS online help still indicates that
>> Unicode symbols can be added for engines like Eloquence which support it.
>> Eloq.sbl is mentioned, too. At any rate, am I correct in assuming that in
>> the future it would be impossible to use Eloquence to read and type
>> modified Unicode symbols and get correct feedback? May I ask why this
>> decision has been made?
>> As I live in a country which is now under various sanctions, I can't use
>> credit cards or PayPal to pay for any app including JAWS, so I have to use
>> it in demo mode. The only exception to this is, as you know, use apps I
>> test. On the other hand, I heavily depend on JAWS for reading and writing
>> Persian letter by letter, using my modified Eloq.sbl file in combination
>> with Eloquence, because Persian doesn't have a TTS engine.
>> Would it be possible to kindly make changes to the status quo?
>> Best,
>> Amir
>> ------------
>> Jonathan's reply:
>> ------------
>> Hi Amir, JAWS now requires a language processor to work with Arabic and
>> Hebrew correctly.
>> This can be sourced from our Arabic distributor Medialog -
>> http://www.medialog.ws
>> Hope this helps.
>> Jonathan
>> ------------
>> My friend's final reply:
>> ------------
>> Hi Jonathan,
>> Thanks for the note regarding the Arabic distributor of FreedomScientific
>> products. However, following the URL which you provided results in the
>> display of a webpage with an error message, regardless of the browser
>> used, indicating that the page cannot be displayed. Do you happen to have
>> a download link for that language processor? As I badly need the
>> processor, your help would be greatly appreciated.
>> For your information, I'm pasting the error message which is apparently in
>> both French and English below.
>> Medialog Accessibilities
>> 404 - Fichier ou répertoire introuvable. frame
>> Erreur de serveur
>> 404 - Fichier ou répertoire introuvable.
>> La ressource que vous recherchez a peut-être été supprimée, renommée ou
>> est temporairement indisponible.
>> 404 - Fichier ou répertoire introuvable. frame end
>> The page cannot be found frame
>> The page cannot be found
>> The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name
>> changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Please try the following:
>> . Make sure that the Web site address displayed in the address bar of your
>> browser is spelled and formatted correctly.
>> . If you reached this page by clicking a link, contact the Web site
>> administrator to alert them that the link is incorrectly formatted.
>> . Click the Back button to try another link.
>> HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found.
>> Internet Information Services (IIS)
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Technical Information (for support personnel)
>> . Go to Microsoft Product Support Services and perform a title search for
>> the words HTTP and 404.
>> . Open IIS Help, which is accessible in IIS Manager (inetmgr), and search
>> for topics titled Web Site Setup, Common Administrative Tasks, and About
>> Custom Error Messages.
>> The page cannot be found frame end
>> Best,
>> Amir
>> ------------
>> Now, do you think this intentionally-introduced bug, which affects certain
>> right-to-left languages, shouldn't be addressed in JAWS 12? Interestingly,
>> even the first iterations of JAWS 11 didn't exhibit this bug, but its
>> later releases do. I sincerely hope Freedom Scientific address that more
>> responsibly without thinking about the extra copies it might sell to those
>> who do not even need an Arabic or Hebrew TTS engine to read individual
>> right-to-left languages. This is like getting Windows users in certain
>> countries to purchase localized releases of Windows just to be able to
>> read and write in their own native languages.
>> BTW, if you can remember, my friend Amir has been behind the
>> Symbian-oriented MobileSpace blog and also participates in beta testing
>> certain accessibility-related products for the visually impaired.
>> Best regards,
>> Armond
>> --
>> JFW related links:
>> JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/
>> Scripting mailing list:
>> http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com
>> JFW List instructions:
>> To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to
>> jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.
>> Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw
>> Alternative archives located at:
>> http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.html
>>
>> If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or
>> the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather
>> contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
> --
> JFW related links:
> JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/
> Scripting mailing list:
> http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com
> JFW List instructions:
> To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to
> jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.
> Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw
> Alternative archives located at:
> http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.html
>
> If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the
> way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the
> list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx$U«zVyÙb?K hh?êZ?èm¶?ÿÃ
> ç?¢k ?éí?ø?r?¿IÊâ¦Ø§?f¢?)à?+-?Ûiÿùb²Û-?èÝ?Ê&þX¬¶)ß¡È"þÇ+??h?¶©?+az7ar??bâ²Ø§²Úîrب?Äè¦?-jg¬±¨ ¶?azX¬¶Ç§v+m¢7ð~·??+-²?àN?§²æìr¸?yúè?Øb²f¢?)à?+-±éÝjg¬±¨ ¶?ß·ª¹ë-~·??+-²?àÂ+a¶°¢·n?Ë?±Êâm觶¬¹¸ÞrÙb?à+r¯zÉhq«^u«a¶Úÿ
> 0~·??+-²?àýªÜ?+Þ³øßÀ
> mz¹Ú¶+Þj·!?÷¬??µçZ¶m§ÿçÚv?nW?¢oÉd?¢µ¢?Ú0±ýµã?»öf??ò¢èZ½æ§ÉÊ'qê籦èºÛazX¬¶?,¶·?z+Þuúè?Ø^?+-¢»a{²¶¥?Ëb±·¢?
î?Ú'¢Úh²Ûazkh¶¥?ËQjØ^Ê'µ§-¶¥?ËhÂw«jØßÁ§f?{ ç¥?Ël¢¸
Other related posts:
