Top Tech Tidbits - Volume 173
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) There is a new "community," part of Live Journal, where blind users can ask questions about accessible mobile phones and software.
http://community.livejournal.com/blcellphone

2) While we're on the subject of mobile phone accessibility, the Access Ability blog has a reviewof the TALKS Premium screen reader used with a Nokia N82 mobile phone. Here are the links to the two parts:
http://accessability.blogspot.com/2008/08/review-of-nokia-n82-mobile-phone.html
http://accessability.blogspot.com/2008/08/review-of-talks-premium-31-mobile.html

3) EASI will present a free public webinar, "Understanding the New Look of Office 2007" on Saturday, 23 August, at 17:00 GMT. this will focus on the concerns of adaptive technology users. Pre-registration gives you a place in the room for the session and a subsequent link to the archive when it becomes available for download.
http://easi.cc/clinic.htm

4) The Ranger Station makes it possible for those who want to keep up with Microsoft's plans for the next version of Windows to learn about their new blog on the subject.
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/

5) With more than 900 audio files available, Blind Cool Tech remains a useful source for technology information and training. Not all their posts relate to technology, but some recent ones that do were the third installment of a tutorial on using the Mac with its built-in screen reader, a demo of Mississippi, a trading simulation game, a tutorial on the WebVisum plub-in for Firefox that solves many CAPTCHA barriers, and others.
http://www.blindcooltech.com/

6) From the E-Access Bulletin: those in the UK may want to check out DIP, the Disability Information Portal, being developed by Leonard Cheshire Disability, currently in testing and development phase.
http://www.dip-online.org/

7) From the same source: The International Paralympic Committee has launched a YouTube channel for videos of the Paralympics in Beijing.
http://www.youtube.com/ParalympicSportTV

8) With the first anniversary of the release of the Victor Reader Stream coming, Tek Talk presents "Victor Reader Stream - Tell us Your Story" a discussion forum on the device, on Tuesday 26 August at 00:00 GMT.
http://www.accessibleworld.org

9) A Canadian company will hire somebody to produce JAWS scripts for either QuickBooks Professional 2008 (Canadian) or Simply Accounting Entrepreneur (Canadian.) A license will be provided for the successful candidate to use the program during the time of development. If interested, send information to E.J. Zufelt at:
everett@zufelt.ca

The final four nuggets come from Fred's Head Companion:

10) In the First Person is a free, high quality, professionally published, in-depth index of close to 4,000 collections of personal narratives in English from around the world.
http://www.inthefirstperson.com/firp/index.shtml

11) SSMunch is a music search engine where you can search and download MP3 files, stream and listen to favorite songs online, watch music videos, and get song lyrics.
http://www.ssmunch.com/

12) This could be amusing for adults and instructive for all: Singing Science Records are 6 "albums" produced in the late 50's and early 60's,with science instruction put to popular music, riffs on popular or genre music of the day. You can download all the songs here:
http://www.acme.com/jef/singing_science/

13) The Career Key has been Created by a professor in school counseling and career planning ; it contains what is claimed to be the only free career interest test available online, and much more.
http://www.careerkey.org/

Would you like to receive text-only versions of the Tidbits and Flying Blind, LLC E-Newsletters? If so, find the link at the bottom of every E-News titled "Update Profile/E-Mail Address", and check this newly-available option.

Feel free to forward individual Tidbits, or the entire tidbits issue, to interested people (but make sure they don't already receive it; a lot do!) When doing this, please have the courtesy to cite your source, perhaps directing them to the tidbits website (see below.)

Tidbits is intentionally concise, but I know a lot of people don't understand many of the items because little explanation is given. If a Tidbit brings up a question in your mind, feel free to ask, and I'll answer as time, knowledge and inclination permit.

Visit the Tidbits page at http://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.

People can subscribe to Tidbits via e-mail: tttt-join@topdotenterprises.com (Make sure to get all 4 T's into the address!)

| Flying Blind, LLC | 955 Pembrook Road | Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44121 |