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Top Tech Tidbits - Volume 251
The Week's News in Access Technology

Distributed by Flying Blind, LLC
http://www.flying-blind.com/

This Issue's Featured Advertisement:
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Greetings,

I'm looking to sell a good working Victor Reader Stream for $250 or best offer.

1) For what it's worth, members of Mensa in the US tell us their favorite web sites:
http://www.us.mensa.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Top_50&Template=/customsource/top50_winners.cfm

2) Users of Symbian phones are on the verge of losing their preferred accessible GPS, Wayfinder Access. A petition is being signed online, and apparently it has generated enough attention on the part of Vodafone, the company who has bought the rights to the software, to lead to productive negotiations about the future of Wayfinder Access. Hence, the promoters of the process hope many people will sign the petition to show Vadafone that this is a matter of concern to the blind.
http://www.talknav.com/protest

3) A company called Blastbay is producing an audio game production engine that is supposed to allow non-programmers to create audio games. The system is in test now, so anybody can try it. Here's a Fred's Head article about it:
http://www.fredshead.info/2010/03/create-your-own-audio-games.html

4) New security tools help protect your PC is a recent article in the Windows Secrets newsletter.
http://www.windowssecrets.com/2010/03/18/01-New-security-tools-help-protect-your-PC

5) Gizmo brings us 10 Free Sites that will Scan Your PC for Viruses
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmosbest/~3/svPQIB7vbIU/virus-10-places-scan-your-pc-online-free.htm

6) I have no idea if any of these are accessible, but Gizmo also brings us Lots of Free PDF Tools
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmosbest/~3/NaqcLJ3ircI/best-free-pdf-tools.htm

7) Freedom Scientific says it will launch what it characterizes as a portable reading solution, the PEARL, during April. It consists of a camera and a new version of OpenBook, version 9. The System can also function as a video magnifier. It needs a pc to operate, and costs $2,195 unless you can upgrade from a previous version of OpenBook.
http://www.freedomscientific.com/News/Pressroom/2010/PEARL-introduced.asp

8) A composer silently conducted his piece of music on video, then played piano to his own conducting, then posted this video and asked singers to record their part. The result is the virtual choir.
http://ericwhitacre.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/the-virtual-choir-how-we-did-it/

9) Being a day late gives me the chance to announce this week's Main Menu program, which will consist of part one of a two-part demonstration of the Book, Port Plus. Subscribe to the podcast for Main Menu here:
http://mainmenu.acbradio.org/rss.php

10) Thanks to BlindBargains, I can tell you that Lucy Greco has partnered with Yahoo Accessibility to feed video from the CSUN conference from a camera mounted on her guide dog's harness. Here is the Flikr feed
http://flickr.com/photos/seeingy
and read her blog here:
http://accessaces.blogspot.com/

11) With NFB Newsline, you can receive news and information over the phone, via e-mail, or through NFB Newsline in Your Pocket, whereby you can easily transfer your reading material to your favorite portable device. Now you can have different lists of favorites for each of these delivery methods and can manage them online.
http://www.nfbnewslineonline.org/

12) Cory Ballard spends a week with the Victor Reader Stream and reviews it.
http://access4.us/2010/03/victorstreamaww/

13) GW Micro is announcing several products at CSUN that we can't really get; no price or delivery date is mentioned, but sooner or later: The Voice Sense QWERTY is a small notetaker with standard keyboard and lots of features
http://www.gwmicro.com/Voice_Sense/QWERTY/
The Book Sense DS is the Book Sense portable reader with a display and some features for the learning disabled
http://www.gwmicro.com/BookSense/DS/
The Desktop SenseView D650 will have many features, but no link for information is provided.

14) One Gw Micro upgrade that is available now is the Book Sense version 2.1, with support for SAMNet and NFB Newsline in Your Pocket and other improvements.
http://www.gwmicro.com/Booksense/

15) In Window-Eyes script news, the Free Space script will give you information about your drives.
http://www.gwmicro.com/sc

16) Scripts for MS Word now read table titles more effectively, and the Office script has some bug fixes.
http://gwmicro.com/scripts/ms_word

17) A new script for MS Access provides some access to Access forms, with more functionality to come.
http://www.gwmicro.com/scripts/ms_access

18) Anybody want to hear a musical composition made up of Windows sounds?
http://www.wimp.com/windowsmusic/

19) Here is a short audio tutorial on using the Talks screen reader with the Google Mobile app.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qdgdi9

20) Sendero Group has stated that it will release a simple navigation app for the iPhone later in the spring, with more iPhone apps to follow. they have also been announcing the new features to be found in version 7 of their GPS programs for the Braille Note family.
http://www.blindbargains.com/bargains.php?m=5114

21) A T Guys offer Mobile Geo for for $599, and a package with Mobile Geo, Mobile Speak and Mobile Magnifier will cost $725, all until 31 July.
http://www.blindbargains.com/link/5115

22) Make it Work, a computer consulting company, will answer computer questions and discuss safe Internet surfing procedures on Tek Talk on GMT Tuesday 30 March at 00:00.
http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2

23) Here is a tutorial for a symbian mobile phone app called Ovi Maps.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2gto3h

For questions and comments regarding Tidbits, please e-mail Dean Martineau at dean@topdotenterprises.com. Dean Martineau provides adaptive technology training by phone, online, and in person, with flexible arrangements, and at affordable prices.

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