« e-Access '06 - Technology For All | Main | Secretary Spellings Announces New Special Education Regulations »
August 04, 2006
Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, August 3, 2006
- The accessible Google search tool we mentioned last week is located here: http://labs.google.com/accessible/
- For readers who are members of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic: It ordinarily costs around $15 to get a key so that you can play RFB&D books on the Book Port, but until December 31, it will be free. Call Member Services at 800-221-4792 and order a book on cd and give promotion code RM106. You'll get the cd necessary to make RFB&D books playable on the Book Port in the mail.
- Government Computer News (GCN) has implemented a gool that lets readers turn its stories into mp3 files for playback on computer or portable devices. The mailing list report stated that audio quality was good and that Adobe Flash Player was required for it to work. http://www.gcn.com/print/25_22/41508-1.html
- From Jeff Bishop's the Desert Skies blog: People with a bet for programming can now download the MSDN library from Microsoft.
- I don't know of anybody who has tested this for accessibility, but Jeff also tells us that holders of a free mail account from Lycos can now have 3 gigs of storage and can send attachments of any size! http://www.lycos.com/
- The next free online training from Accessible World is entitled Using Freedom Box and System Access to Interact Comfortably With Those Who Use Main Stream Products Tuesday 8 August at 00:00 GMT, presented by Ann Parsons. http://www.accessibleworld.org/
- Access technologist's Higher Education Network http://www.athenpro.org/ tells us about a podcast not routinely devoted to access technology, Fly with Me, narrated by a commercial airline pilot. Episode 11 is an interview with a blind aspiring helicopter pilot and discuss the auditory and tactual aspects of airplane control. Here is the mp3 link: http://media.libsyn.com/media/joepodcaster/fwm-011.mp3
- Jamal Mazrui continues to enhance and improve TextPal, the free text editor, adding features of interest to blind programmer and to others in version 1.4. http://www.empowermentzone.com/palsetup.exe
- Kevin Reeves has created a file of JAWS place markers for the social networking site MySpace. this should make navigating the site easier for those users. You can download it here: http://bestmidi.com/~kevinree/Myspace.zip
- An Assistive Technology site from Northeast Minnesota is http://assistivetechmn.net/
- Chris Judd now has ten tutorials, including tutorials on Winamp, Outlook Express, Word, Job Searching, Accessible Games, and more. Tutorials cost $8 each, but if you buy more than three, you get a discount. For information e-mail chrischas0713@charter.net
- A mailing list recommendation for an accessible program to hear or download podcasts is golden Ear. http://brooklynnorth.com/
- Screen Reader Users Forum will be a weekly half-hour Internet radio program full of information on screen readers. It will air Thursdays at 23:00 GMT. http://www.cjoyinternetradio.com/
Visit the Tidbits page at www.topdotenterprises.com/tidbits.htm where you can subscribe to the rss feed and grab back issues. All that welcome information for future issues can come to me at dean@topdotenterprises.com.
That's the news for this week.
To subscribe, send a blank message to tttt-join@topdotenterprises.com and reply to the confirmatory message. Aspiring subscribers can also go to http://topdotenterprises.com/mailman/listinfo/tttt_topdotenterprises.com
To leave the list, send a blank message to tttt-leave@topdotenterprises.com and reply to the confirmatory message.
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 blind, or Internet audio, send it to me for inclusion next time.
List archives are available to members at http://topdotenterprises.com/mailman/private/tttt_topdotenterprises.com/
Inclusion of information in tttt does not imply any endorsement of products or services mentioned, or even that the content of the announcement is accurate. (Often, I do not verify the accuracy of the announcements.) Having said this, most are accurate and useful.
TTTT is a free service of Top Dot Enterprises, Copyright (c) 2004, 2005, Top Dot Enterprises.
Dean Martineau Top Dot Enterprises 2219 Rucker Ave #204 Everett WA 98201 (425) 876-4406 dean@topdotenterprises.com
Posted by Nancy at August 4, 2006 07:23 PM