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.
News
1.) Movies for the Blind
Movies for the Blind takes public-domain movies and adds audio description to them, making them available for free listening or download.
http://moviesfortheblind.com/
2.) Firewall Comparative Review
A comparative review of many firewall programs, not dealing with their accessibility, is available here:
http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge
3.) Blind Mice Mart Cookbooks
Blind Mice Mart sells an array of cookbooks in electronic format, your choice of floppy disk, CD, or e-mail. Proceeds from sales benefit a scholarship fund for blind students.
http://www.blindmicemart.com/default.asp?dept_id=7251&nopopup=1
4.) Assistive Technology Center Online Trainings in May
Assistive Technology Center offers more $50 online trainings during May. All are on Thursdays for two hours starting at 21:00 GMT. 8 May: Internet BootCamp 2; 15 May: No HTML Website Development; 22 May: Introduction to System Access & Satogo.com; 29 May: Using Audible.com. Preregistration is required, and seems only to be accepted by phone: (916) 381-5011 Ext 3. Information about previous trainings, available for sale on CD, is here:
http://www.atechcenter.net/
5.) VIP Conduit Launches a Talking Book Service
VIP Conduite is launching a talking book service. Audio books will be played over the web site at predetermined times, and anybody with a free membership to the service can listen.
http://www.vipconduit.com/
6.) Trade a HumanWare Notetaker for a Pac Mate Omni
Owners of HumanWare notetakers living in the US or Canada can, until 31 October, trade their device for the chance to buy a Pac Mate Omni from Freedom Scientific at roughly half price.
http://www.freedomscientific.com/news/pressroom/2008/PACMate-Open-Plan-Trade-in.asp
7.) Websites for Family Reading Time
Here’s a posting from Fred’s Head Companion giving some web sites for family reading time:
http://www.fredshead.info/2008/05/websites-for-family-reading-time.html
8.) Here’s one offering a couple web sites concerning food safety
http://www.fredshead.info/2008/05/food-safety-websites.html
9.) Here’s one with information and a unique resource for BitTorrent downloads
http://www.fredshead.info/2006/09/what-is-bittorrent-and-how-does-it.html
10.) This one lists web sites of potential interest to senior citizens
http://www.fredshead.info/2008/05/websites-of-interest-to-seniors.html
11.) Finally, this is a compilation of accessible online libraries
http://www.fredshead.info/2005/11/accessible-online-libraries-and.html
12.) NFB Blog on Data Plans for Smart Phones
This posting from the NFB Access Technology blog discusses the difficulties encountered when trying to gain information about data plans for PDA’s and Smart Phones:
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=321&SnID=1332588961
13.) Tek Talk: Choosing and Using an MP3 Player
“Choosing and Using An MP3 Player” will be the topic for the Tek Talk free audio training on GMT Tuesday, 20 May at 00:00.
http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2
14.) San Francisco Lighthouse Seminar on Affordable Technology Solutions
The San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind will present another of its free technology seminars, in which people can participate either in person, via conference call or over the Internet. This one is called Affordable Technology Solutions and will take place on Friday, 6 June starting at 20:00 GMT. You need to RSVP to take part on the phone or on the net; e-mail:
info@lighthouse-sf.org
15.) Podcast on Installing Ubuntu with Orca
A podcast demonstrating the accessible installation of Ubuntu Linux with the Orca screen reader, and further demonstrating the operating system, can be had here:
http://www.digitaldarragh.com/linux/installing-ubuntu-8-04-with-orca.mp3
This and other Linux-based recordings are available on this page:
http://www.digitaldarragh.com/linuxat.asp
16.) GMA Games Accessible MUD Client
GMA Games has produced a fully-accessible MUD client, allowing for the playing of many multi-player games.
http://wwww.GMAGames.com/vipmud100.exe
17.) Save as DAISY Plug-In Released
The first official release of the Microsoft Save as DAISY plug-in for Microsoft Word has been released:
http://www.daisy.org/projects/save-as-daisy-microsoft/
18.) Vision Loss Resources Updated Site
Fred’s Head Companion informs us of the newly-updated site for the organization Vision Loss Resources:
http://www.visionlossresources.org/
19.) AudioPoint Email and Web by Phone
They also tell us about AudioPoint, a new service intended to make e-mail and web-based information available over the phone:
http://www.audiopoint.net/
20.) Audio/Video to EXE Turns Media into Programs
Yet another gleaning from that blog is the program Audio/Video to EXE, which lets you turn sound and video files into self-executing programs for easy transfer to other users, and also lets you convert files from one format to another:
http://www.f2ko.de/English/a2e/index.php
21.) Finally from there, two sites which claim to be music search engines
http://www.ssmunch.com/
http://www.dorble.com/
22.) AVG Antivirus Less Accessible with Screen Readers
A good deal of recent mailing list traffic has discussed the fact that the new edition of the popular free antivirus program AVG appears to be less accessible with screen readers, so it is timely that an accessibility review of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition version 8.0.1 build 100 has been added to the AccessWatch database.
http://www.accesswatch.info
23.) Stephen Jolley’s Live Sport Streams
Stephen Jolley does his best to keep track of available audio streams of live sport, particularly cricket, tennis and athletics.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/stephenjolley/livestreams
Subscription Information
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 |