Top Tech Tidbits - Volume 230
The Week's News in Access Technology

Distributed by Flying Blind, LLC
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Greetings,

1) The Open Learn web site gives free access to hundreds of study units from courses of the Open University in the UK.
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

2) The latest decision from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office concerning Freedom Scientific's suit against Gw Micro appears to favor Gw Micro.
http://blog.blindaccessjournal.com/2009/10/lawsuit-leads-to-reconsideration-of.html

3) In the article titled "A Second Look at Apple's VoiceOver," the October, 2009 issue of the Braille Monitor offers a more balanced perspective on using the Mac than in its previous article on the subject.
http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm09/bm0909/bm090907.htm

4) Learn all about JAWS version 11, with its free DAISY reader add-on, research feature and improved support for web pages using ARIA on Tek Talk on GMT Tuesday, 20 October at 00:00.
http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2

5) Serotek has released the first iPhone app directed to the blind, the free iBlink Radio, which gives easy access to popular blindness-oriented podcasts, Internet radio stations by and for the blind and radio reading services.
http://www.serotek.com/eyeblink

6) In SeroTalk Tech Chat 36 they discuss 20 items of Assistive Technology News as of October 8, 2009
http://serotalk.com/2009/10/08/serotalk-tech-chat-36-latest-assistive-technology-news-as-of-october-8-2009/

7) SeroTalk Podcast 25 covers some of the same news items but in addition, its theme is blind Mechanics and Entrepeneurs
http://serotalk.com/2009/10/13/serotalk-podcast-25-blind-mechanics-and-entrepeneurs/

8) Among articles n the September, 2009 issue of AccessWorld is an evaluation of the iPhone, an interview with Jamal Mazrui, a discussion of netbooks and their pros and cons, accessible office equipment from Lexmark, and a review of Anna Dresner's book Using the Accessible iPod.
http://www.afb.org/accessworld

9) Speaking of Anna, she has produced a podcast demonstrating the third generation iPod Shuffle.
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=nbpupdates.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hartgen.org%2Fshuffle.mp3

10) Upgrading to Windows 7 with Window-Eyes is a new article on the Gw Micro knowledgebase
http://gwmicro.com/kb1111

11) GW Micro is offering two one-hour free online trainings for US residents on Friday, 23 October: Book Sense, 14:00 GMT and Braille Sense Plus QWERTY at 18:00 GMT. to register, send e-mail with your first and last name and e-mail address to
drew@gwmicro.com

12) Tyler Spivey has written what could be a most welcome utility: It takes your caps lock and turns it
into a modifier to run wineyes functions. You can get it from:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1060978/caps_modifier.rar

13) Southern California's Braille Institute of America offers a page of free recorded media for the visually impaired:
http://brailleinstitute.org/recorded_media

14) Fred's Head found Freebook-s, a meta-search tool for finding free e-books.
http://www.freebook-s.com/

15) They also point out that the BBC site contains lots of educational material. The BBC World News for Children podcast is directed toward people from 7 to 14 years of age, and transcripts of each 44-to-5 minute recording are provided.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/wnc

16) The Smithsonian Channel has lots of useful educational videos:
http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/video

17) This Fred's Head post discusses an approach to making online graphics acessible:
http://www.fredshead.info/2009/10/voice-learning-edition-browser-for.html

18) This one is entitled Getting Started with Google Wave
http://www.fredshead.info/2009/10/getting-started-with-google-wave.html

19) The Blind Photographers site consists of a blog and lots of photo examples:
http://blindphotographers.org

20) Here is an article where three free anti-virus tools were compared against paid programs, and the comparison was favorable:
http://tinyurl.com/ycfon7u

21) Here's a New Free Service from Gizmos: Personalized Security Software Suggestions for Your PC. You answer short questions, and you receive recommendations of free security software you may want to install. Haven't tested it for accessibility.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmosbest/~3/p8z_sb-dGi4/secwiz

22) The UltraUniverse team has released new JAWS scripts for Winamp, implementing features popular in the Window-Eyes scripts for the program, including better abilities to navigate by time and some enhanced verbosity choices.
http://www.ultrauniverse.co.cc/JawsScripts.html

23) Progress is being made to make the sound editor ProTools accessible to VoiceOver users on the Mac.
http://www.lioncourt.com/2009/10/05/digidesign-demonstrates-upcoming-protools-accessibility

24) The BBC will phase out RealAudio on its streaming sites and replace it with Windows Media Player and flash players.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2009/10/realmedia_an_update.shtml

25) The Sensory Access Foundation in Northern California is seeking an Access Technology Specialist, and will pay around $50,000 per year. For information, contact Chris Piper
cpiper@sensoryaccess.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.

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