Top Tech Tidbits - Volume 206
The Week's News in Access Technology

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

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.

1) US citizens have better access to downloadable electronic books this week than they had before. Beginning today, the National Library Services launches its BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) site as previously mentioned:
https://nlsbard.loc.gov

2) New this week is the ability for members of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic to download DAISY books from their site. Previously, users have been able to download protected Windows Media files which were not handy to use, but now DAISY versions of their books can be downloaded and played on any player equipped to handle RFB&D books:
http://support.rfbd.org/audioplus/

3) In the April edition of FSCast, the Freedom Scientific podcast, learn about the latest update to MAGic, about the Say MAGic package that gives MAGic users access to speech recognition via Naturally Speaking, and about the Skype scripts for versions 3.8 and 4 and the pros and cons of upgrading to version 4.
http://podcast.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/episodes/fscast029-april2009

4) Petro, long-time supporter of Applian Technologies, has created a web site containing interviews with company personnel, tutorials and discount codes for product purchases. these products enable recording of many kinds of streaming audio.
http://www.applian.com/Podcasts/applian-info.html

5) Gw Micro is offering an online free training about how to obtain, use and personalize scripts (not how to write them.) This training will be held on Friday, 22 May at 15:00 GMT. They've already had one session fill up, so if you might want to take this, you should e-mail as soon as possible.
jeremy@gwmicro.com

6) Tek Talk will feature discussion of the Technology Courses taught by hadley School for the Blind on GMT Tuesday, 5 May at 00:00.
http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2

7) Jamal Mazrui has enhanced his accessible interface to Twitter, making it easier and more powerful. It's called McTwit, and you can get version 1.0, as well presumably as future versions here:
http://EmpowermentZone.com/mtsetup.exe

8) System Access and SAMNet Tips and Hotkeys is the topic for SeroTalk Tech chat 13
http://serotalk.com/2009/04/24/serotalk-tech-chat-13-system-access-and-samnet-tips-and-hotkeys/

9) This post from Fred's Head is entitled Improve Your Wireless Network
http://www.fredshead.info/2007/05/improve-your-wireless-network.html

10) Version 1.3 of J-Tools, the product from T&T Consultancy which provides additional functionality for JAWS has now been released. It contains support for Firefox, OutTwit (for use with the Twitter social networking site), and usability enhancements for Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007.
http://www.tandt-consultancy.com/pages/j-tools_information.php

11) The Free YouTube to MP3 Converterlets you turn YouTube videos into sound files.
http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-YouTube-to-MP3-Converter.htm

12) Rigel Technology is offering four of their two-hour $75 online trainings in May. Each starts at 21:00 GMT. They also sell many of these as recordings for the same price: Wednesday, 6 May: Backups; Friday, 13 May: sharing data between devices and with friends; Tuesday, 19 May: Networking 101; Thursday, 28 May: Using Microsoft tools to create web pages.
http://www.rigeltechnology.com

13) Gw Micro has teamed with a company called Tenacity to make office phone systems accessible to blind users.
http://www.accessaphone.com/

14) Until 1 July, Humanware is lowering the price on its SmartView Xtend video magnifier, which they recommend for classroom use. You can save $695, buying the machine for $2,000.
http://www.humanware.com

15) Ai Squared is offering its customers the chance to earn Amazon rewards and their friends to get a discount on ZoomText. To take part, e-mail
rproskin@aisquared.com

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