top tech tidbits for Thursday, October 12, 2006
Hopefully, I'll only send one copy this week and it will be the current
week's newsletter. the duplicates you may have received last week weren't
intentional but those from the previous week were.
1) Version 0.30 of the Linux Screen Reader is available.
2) As part of the All About Microsoft blog, read about Internet
Explorer version 7 being officially released later this month.
3) Among many useful technology-related items emanating from Fred's
Head Companion this week, here's a post with a lot of information about caring
for, using and copying cd's and dvd's
4) And Michael McCarty (author of Fred's Head Companion) directs us
to a $10 200-page pdf file
called Audio and video Answers. You can read the extensive table of
contents or buy it here
5) window-Eyes Version 6.0 Beta 1 will be released on 16
October. Version 6 provides support for the Microsoft Outlook Calendar and
for Microsoft Office PowerPoint among other enhancements. Gw Micro is
posting teaser articles to its web site and podcast series describing the new
features.
6) for some time, the various sites related to ACBRadio's Main Menu
technology program weren't being updated too regularly. Now they are, so
you can catch the latest editions of Main Menu by either using your podcatcher
to grab the podcast version of the show,
or use the On demand archive at
7) the latest edition of Main Menu features an in-depth look at the
upcoming JAWS for windows version 8.0 besides using the above means to
listen to the show, you can read a summary of it on the ranger station
8) JAWS version 8 will include support for Internet Explorer 7, support for
shared calendars in Microsoft Outlook, enhanced functionality in many Microsoft
Office programs, and inclusion of high-quality RealSpeak speech synthesizers for
those who want to use them. If you want to hear what they will sound like,
try the sound samples on
9) the free training coming up on Accessible world on gMt tuesday 17
October at 00:00 will feature Matthew bullis discussing A Comprehensive Overview
of DVD Storage Media
10) A couple new mailing lists, pertinent because they use technology to
enhance communication: home-workers is a list for aspiring blind entrepreneurs
and those who already run businesses. to subscribe, send a message
to
listserv@softcon.com
and in the body, write the phrase "subscribe home-workers firstname
lastname" substituting your real name.
11) blindmoviebuffs is for discussing movies and sharing audio
described movies. to join, send a blank message to
blindmoviebuffs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
12) change is in the wind as qualcomm will turn over the venerable e-mail
program eudora to the Mozilla foundation, where it will become free and
open-source.
13) this installment of Fred's Head Companion diswcusses a way to use
the Notepad program for logging and organizing.
14) And another one leads us to the Pc guide web site which is a help
site written in non-technical language.
15) Rvers computer Help Newsletter offers us an article about ways to use
the win Key, the start menu key, in windows xp
16) tunefeed is an australian site that claims to have set up a way
for people to share music legally.
17) Version 1.8 of TextPal improves speech for window-Eyes users and
cuts down on some extraneous chatter in the program.
18) From this issue of the web site Accessibility Blog we learn that
the Google Accessible Search has been enhanced.
19) fred's Head companion informs us about gotvoice, a service Us
residents can use to grab messages from the phone-company-provided voice mail
systems and display them on the web.
20) this edition tells how to prevent your computer from being taken over
by malware and what to do if it is.
21) and we never weary of listings of sites for online books.
22) chris Judd has now produced some 20 low-cost tutorials available
for $8 each with quantity discounts available. Until he gets his online
shopping cart in place, you can e-mail him at
chrischas0713@charter.net
for information. He has also created an announce-only mailing list so
people can learn about new items. to join, send a blank message to
blindsales-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
23) the audio Network has a new free trivia game based on tv theme
songs.
24) An accessibility review of TextAloud version 2.95 has been added
to AccessWatch
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.