You notice that I always give times in gmt, which is actually called Coordinated Universal Time. this way, readers in New york, Melbourne, Delhi, and Moscow can get the time of an event and I only have to give one time. (We have readers in all those places and more!) If you aren't sure how to convert gmt times to your time, here's a site that can help you:

1) this week's Accessible World training, held on Tuesday, 27 February at 01:00 gmt, features a new simple, $200-250, screen reader, thunder on a Stick or Thunder-RJ,

which runs on USB sound cards or from a cd. visit the site and drop into the tek Talk Online Conference Room at the time of the training, or wait a few days for the show to appear in the well-updated archive.

<http://www.accessibleworld.org>

2) On 16 March at 02:00 gmt, Assistive Tech Center will present a one-hour free seminar using Skype, on the subject of screen reader and magnifier accessibility to windows vista and Office 2007.

3) ZoomText 9.1 is now in public beta. this version of the popular magnifier runs vista.

4) with funding from the National Science Foundation, there will be a four-day workshop from 16-19 August 2007 for visually-impaired students in grades 7-12 who are interested in computing. Registration is free and financial assistance with transportation to the rochester Institute of Technology and lodging there may be available.

5) Microsoft DigiGirlz is a daycamp for girls in grades 9-12 which seeks to expose girls to high-tech careers. There are seven locations around the U.S. for these camps in 2007: Charlotte, Chicago, Fargo, Las Colinas, Redmond, Washington DC and Stony Brook. Disabled participants have had positive experiences there in the past.

6) the monthly e-Access Bulletin from the UK now has a blog for updated news and continuing discussions.

7) the address of the new mailing list for discussions of topics from the Main Menu program has changed slightly. To join the list, send a blank message to

8) Deborah Armstrong is undertaking an initiative to produce a well-crafted, technically-savvy letter to software developers concerning accessibility. She wants input to make the letter as effective as it can be. the letter still has cosmetic errors; she is especially seeking examples and technical assistance.

9) Kim Komando points us towards this site, where you can listen to non-described movies and tv programs free:

10) A new mailing list has been created to discuss the free screen reader Thunder, (as distinct from the one with "thunder" in its name presenting next week in the Accessible World seminar.) To join, put the word subscribe in the subject of a message and send it to

11) We learn via the Access Technologists Higher Education Network that the MIT tech Review contains a lot of fascinating articles, some of which have implications for adaptive technology.

12) Fred's Head Companion unearths 7-128 Software, a company that makes games, some free, many playable by blind and visually-impaired players.

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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.