Re: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for a blind student)

  • From: Tyler Littlefield <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 07:43:21 -0600

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I don't think this is true, and there are open sourced apps that will
play mp3s, like mplayer.
you can use Vinux's speech install, or (my soon to come) tutorial on
installing a basic version of debian from grml and getting it up with ssh.
HTH,
On 9/10/2010 7:40 AM, Alex Midence wrote:
> Well, I tried to get it but never managed to get my pc to boot up with
> it.  Tried using it on an old pc.  Heard you can install linux using a
> serial cable and another pc as a terminal.  May try that some day.
> Also, disturbingly, it seems someone has gone and made Vinux
> completely strictly libra open source as in, won't download or install
> anything not libra or open source.  Even edited the script file to
> make it that much harder for you.  People have had a hard time doing
> such mundane things as playing mp3 files with it because the media
> player included only plays ogg files since they are open source and
> mp3 is closed source.  This is making me want to stay away from vinux.
>  I want to be FREE yes, FREE, I said, to pick and choose whatever app
> I want to install on my own machine.  If I want to, I'll install a
> closed source, and if I want to, I'll install an open source.  I don't
> want some system preventing me from exercising that freedom.  Perhaps
> this is hearsay but if it's not, whoever implemented this policy is
> just as bad as any closed source vendor they despise since they are
> also restricting the end user's freedom in some way.
> 
> Sorry, didn't mean to rant that much.  I had to grab a dvd burning
> software to open the iso file only to find out that it's probably not
> all its cracked up to be.  This burning software appears to have
> ruined my cd/dvd burner at home.  Stay away from img burn, btw.
> 
> Alex M
> 
> On 8/30/10, black ares <matematicianu2003@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> you can search for orca accessible applications.
>> There you will find the list.
>> Vinux is very beauty full, but still have the general linux problems,
>> problems that make me to stay away from it.
>> But, Vinux team has made a lot of efort to create a distro that is very
>> suited for blind people.
>> Also it is a repaired one, more problems that I've encountered in the grand
>> distros (fedora, ubuntu) disappeared from Vinux.
>> Mainly, the only problem I have with vinux is that, when I plug my phones on
>> to my laptop, the speakers don't get muted and I found no configuration to
>> do jack sense.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Alex Midence" <alex.midence@xxxxxxxxx>
>> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:35 AM
>> Subject: Re: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for a
>> blind student)
>>
>>
>>> I'd heard of Vinux but hadn't ever looked into it.  I'm enormously
>>> intrigued.  I may create a live cd and try it out on an old pc I've
>>> got in my tool closet just collecting dust.  Does there exist a
>>> comprehensive list or, even a small one, of all the accessible apps
>>> for Linux?  Any of them taht are just absolutely, in no way
>>> accessible?  Any link would be appreciated.  Also, you are welcome to
>>> e-mail me privately so we don't spam the list with off topic stuff.
>>> Thank for the link.
>>>
>>> Alex M
>>>
>>> On 8/30/10, Don Marang <donald.marang@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> If the only reason to install XP is to run SigWin, why not just install
>>>> the
>>>> real thing?  Try Vinux, a blind friendly distribution of Ubuntu.  It
>>>> provides and configures several screen readers, like SpeakUp for it's
>>>> consoles and Orca for the gnome GUI desktop.  It also has two magnifiers.
>>>> The Vinux community is solving many of the Linux accessibility and voice
>>>> stability issues.  It has a fully accessible installer that can either
>>>> use
>>>> the entire internal drive or install side by side with Windows for a dual
>>>> boot configuration.  It can also run from a live disk, a USB pen drive,
>>>> or a
>>>> Virtual Machine.
>>>>
>>>> Check out
>>>> http://vinux.org.uk
>>>>
>>>> I just added a bash script, speedy-ocr, to the Vinux repository which
>>>> uses
>>>> the free tesseract or cuneiform OCR software to provide simplified
>>>> scanning
>>>> and performing OCR on any image file or files.
>>>>
>>>> Don Marang
>>>>
>>>> There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any
>>>> real
>>>> substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am
>>>> working
>>>> on things that matter.
>>>> Dean Kamen
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>> From: "DaShiell, Jude T.  CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26"
>>>> <jude.dashiell@xxxxxxxx>
>>>> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 7:50 AM
>>>> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> Subject: RE: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for
>>>> a
>>>> blind student)
>>>>
>>>>> Thank you very much for these resources, they may be useful at home if I
>>>>> can end up installing Windows XP myself using screen narrator.  None of
>>>>> these resources will be useful at work since we work in a locked down
>>>>> software environment.  Anything not already approved for use costs
>>>>> dollars and takes a year to get approved if everyone does everything
>>>>> right all along the line for the software approval.  That doesn't always
>>>>> happen either.  Screen readers for Linux do exist and the Mac has
>>>>> VoiceOver but Linux has http://www.linuxspeakup.org/ and
>>>>> http://speakupmodified.org/ among others to examine.  Screen readers are
>>>>> like Center Fielders with catching gloves on both hands.  If right field
>>>>> is input and left field is output and center field are peripherals, and
>>>>> interaction in that system is considered the ball, the interaction
>>>>> between keyboard and computer is caught translated and spoken as is the
>>>>> text going from computer to screen.  Sometimes done with sound cards and
>>>>> hardware speech synthesizers any more these days once there was a time
>>>>> when the Screen Rover did it differently.  A camera was set up so it
>>>>> could capture the screen and O.C.R. was done on camera input which was
>>>>> converted to computer ascii and that ascii was then sent to a hardware
>>>>> screen reader.  Unfortunately screen rover went off the market since if
>>>>> it hadn't blind people probably would been lots more effective reading
>>>>> more sites and not having to deal with all of these accessibility
>>>>> issues.  The reason for me to install windows xp on a home computer at
>>>>> all is to perhaps install cygwin and/or mingw and djgpp utilities and
>>>>> see what type of unix-like development I can do successfully on that
>>>>> platform.  Since I can't do this at work, I'm willing to experiment with
>>>>> a computer at home.
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
>>>>> arachna@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 17:45
>>>>> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> Subject: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for a
>>>>> blind student)
>>>>>
>>>>> I ran across the following post in the list archives by accident when
>>>>> searching for something with Google and it piqued my curiousity:
>>>>> "DaShiell, Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26" wrote on 16 March 2010:
>>>>>> As I see it, Microsoft made two mistakes with Windows which until
>>>>> they're corrected the best software for those
>>>>> of us with no memory of vision to program for will be Linux in its
>>>>> varied forms.
>>>>>> First, the command line interface was made into a very poorly equipped
>>>>> environment for software development.
>>>>>> Second, if someone does console-based development of software within
>>>>> Windows to my knowledge to date no xenity equivalents yet exist for any
>>>>> supported software development package now running on Windows; I would
>>>>> love to be
>>>>> corrected on this point if at all possible even if packages under active
>>>>> development are all that can be offered as suggestions.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Would dialog be a decent replacement for zenity on Windows?  I have a
>>>>> how-to on building dialog for OpenWatcom here:
>>>>> http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Dialog_howto
>>>>> It's very similar to build it on mingw and msys.  There are just a few
>>>>> less places to patches.  I can put together the mingw patch if someone
>>>>> needs it.
>>>>>
>>>>> By the way, did a quick search of zenity and win32 to check if someone
>>>>> had ported it yet and ran across this:
>>>>> http://www.placella.com/software/zenity/
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been experimenting with the idea of using dialog with bash or v8cgi
>>>>> to create menus that will work in or out of X Windows on FreeBSD and
>>>>> Linux.  Since I like to program cross-platform, the menus would work on
>>>>> Windows just as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are at least 3 versions of bash I know of for Windows.  Cygwin,
>>>>> djgpp and msys all have one.
>>>>> Here's a stand-alone package based on Cygwin:
>>>>> http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/bash/
>>>>>
>>>>> The other tool I've been looking at for cross-platform scripting that
>>>>> I'm really starting to like is v8cgi:
>>>>> http://code.google.com/p/v8cgi/
>>>>> Syntax will be more familiar to C/C++ programmers than bash is.
>>>>>
>>>>> Since I'm not a blind user, I've been wondering just how the visually
>>>>> impaired use console based tools.  Does the terminal emulator or some
>>>>> such software read the information out loud, because the programs
>>>>> themselves usually don't add speech capability?  Read an example on the
>>>>> INX list where someone used tee and sent the information to espeak as
>>>>> well as the menu.  I was wondering how hard it would be to add an option
>>>>> to dialog that sent the information it drew out to another program like
>>>>> espeak.  However, if a screen reader program already exists and works
>>>>> fine with dialog and other software, that would be a more general
>>>>> purpose solution.
>>>>>
>>>>> The other option I've been checking into is using the browser and
>>>>> Javascript for the programming environment, but the one thing still
>>>>> lacking is being able to shell out to other local programs and use the
>>>>> results.  There are some work-arounds for this specific to browsers, but
>>>>> I'm waiting to find out if a more portable solution becomes available.
>>>>> What I'd really like is a merge of a Javascript server side language
>>>>> like v8cgi with the ability to create an interface like a browser can.
>>>>> Of course, since it could do local file access, the Internet access part
>>>>> should probably be shut off for security reasons.  The other drawback to
>>>>> the browser approach is that relatively few console based or light
>>>>> weight browsers fully support Javascript and css standards.
>>>>>
>>>>> Would be curious to know what's lacking in the Windows console
>>>>> environment for software development that's available in other
>>>>> environments like Linux.  I use mingw and msys all the time for quick
>>>>> console development.  I use the DOS command prompt and have customized
>>>>> it to a way I'm comfortable with, but other options like Console 2 are
>>>>> available and I believe Cygwin has a limited port of rxvt.  There are a
>>>>> number of good compilers that work from console mode, including mingw,
>>>>> djgpp and OpenWatcom.  There are also some decent shell script languages
>>>>> such as bash if batch files aren't enough.  I haven't found any
>>>>> information on ncurses working on Windows, but you do have pdcurses.  I
>>>>> also I read about a Windows port of vifm to Windows, so I would guess
>>>>> that means s-lang is available as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> Couldn't resist discussing this topic even though the original post was
>>>>> from some time ago.  I've been very interested in some of the subjects
>>>>> and would enjoy hearing other programmers viewpoints on them as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>> Laura
>>>>> http://www.distasis.com/cpp
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- -- 
Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
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