DesktopZoom 3.5

DesktopZoom is a zoom/magnify program with lots of options: * Completely portable and doesn't need admin privilege * Zoom an area around the mouse, zoom a fixed window or zoom the entire desktop * Use the mouse inside the zoomed window * Use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to adjust the magnification strength * Translation to Dutch, French, German and Czech * View the entire screen as a thumbnail in the right-bottom corner * Follow the caret & menu items * Change the colors to grey or invers the colors * Show the original screen with a transparency value between 0 en 100% * Show a bigger mouse and/or a crosshair * Use Alt-keys to change the zoomvalue and to enable/disable tracking and the crosshair * Save all the settings to a file for automatic loading * Basic speech support.

Click on the link below:

DesktopZoom 3.5

FREE Portable Applications for USB

Click here to download free portable applications. Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.

Video iPods In Special Education

This video is about the use of video iPods in a special education classroom which caters for children with intellectual disabilities and language or hearing difficulties such that sign language (ASL) is their primary mode of communication. We hear from the teacher, the classroom’s primary interpreter, and parents and siblings about how useful the iPods have been. At first the teacher was understandably skeptical about how helpful iPods could be for a bunch of non-verbal children, but the range of novel uses for the iPods is fantastic to see.

Some of the things the video iPods were used for:

Sending verbal or video messages between teachers and parents instead of written messages.
Recording the kids’ accomplishments in class to show the teachers.
Recording stories read to the class, showing the book pages and sign interpreter and hearing the audio of the book being read.
Making videos of sign language vocabulary appropriate to the current curriculum so families could learn to talk to the students about what they had done at school.
Making video tutorials for specific signs requested by the family.
I’ve probably forgotten a few in there. I was awed by the special education teacher and interpreter and their willingness to try new things and to make the greatest possible use of technology. Good on you!

Who else is using the audio or video abilities of the iPods in classrooms? I’d love to post more stories about this topic.

Video Link: Introducing iPods into Special Education

- Ricky Buchanan, ATMac

Circus Ponies Notebook 3.0 for Mac users

Circus Ponies NoteBook 3.0 for Mac users helps you organize your information naturally, using a familiar notebook interface, complete with pages and tabs, sections and subsections. Add notes and
Drag in files and folders. Even "clip" web research, mail messages and other content into your Notebooks without leaving the application you're working in.
Try the free 30-day Trial

Notebook 3.0 comes with the following features:
Take control of your notes
Are you drowning in sticky notes? Boxes of note cards? Do you remember where to find that important web clipping?

Circus Ponies NoteBook is the application that helps Mac users manage all those bits of information that lack a good home

Track your Tasks
Actions Items. Tasks, To dos. Whatever you call them, you probably have quite a few. The challenge is staying on top of them all. NoteBook's built-in tools make managing your to dos a snap.

Manage Your Clips
Use NoteBook "Clipping Services" to copy web pages, e-mails, and other content directly into your Notebooks, without ever leaving the application you're working in.

Organize your personal and professional projects
More than just an outliner or text processor, NoteBook is a management software that supports Mac users at every stage of a project. In addtion, you can export your Notebooks to PDF for easy sharing, or use NoteBook's instant web publishing to convert them to websites for anywhere access.

Click on this link to Play a Video Tutorial

Circus Ponies Website: www.circusponies.com

Speel Check for Ipodtouch and iPhone

Achoom from iTunes
No internet Connection Required. Loads quickly and answers your query. Just enter a word into the text field and Spell Check will tell you if the word is correct or supply you with a list of possible spellings (see screenshot). The application can be downloaded directly from iTunes or from your iPodTouch

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 2.0 and iPod Touch
Language: English
Screenshot:

Google Gears: Use Web Applications offline

Google Gear is a technology that lets Gears-enabled Web sites store information on your hard drive. In that way, you can use the services even when your Internet link has gone down. Currently, Gears works with with Google Docs but not Spreadsheets or Presentations. You can view your Google Reader feeds offline, WordPress blogging system, ZohoWriter word processor, and Remember the Milk info manager.

The first time you visit Google Docs after you install Gears, you see a link labeled Offline in the top-right corner of the screen. Click it to open the Gears warning. After you allow the service to store information on your PC, the sync begins.

NaturalReader

Text-to-speech

software has never sounded so good or been so affordable.

NaturalReader is a Text to Speech software with natural sounding voices. This easy to use software can convert any written text such as MS Word, Webpage, PDF files, and Emails into spoken words. NaturalReader can also convert any written text into audio files such as MP3 or WAV for your CD player or iPod.
•	NaturalReader saves eye strain – relax, sit back and listen
•	NaturalReader saves time - listen while driving, exercising or enjoying nature
•	NaturalReader helps writers – improve by listening to your work
•	NaturalReader teaches second language students – expand your experience and understanding by listening to any text at any speed Click on the link below: www.naturalreaders.com

Knetwit: Share and earn

Knetwit is a new, exciting social networking and knowledge collaboration site that is available to students and teachers at colleges around the world. Knetwit creates an online academic environment where the college community can share notes, ideas, issues, and content from their educational journey. Knetwit enables the community to share its resources and be more successful in their studying. Students can share notes and gain other perspectives on their classes; teachers can post supplemental study materials.

Knetwit also allows users to profit from their posted content. Any users uploaded content earns the user Koin every time it is viewed or downloaded. Koin can be redeemed for cash via PayPal. All you need to begin is a note you would like to upload and be signed in to Knetwit.

Knetwit is free to use; free to upload, free to search and free to download.

Click on the link below:

knetwit.com

Zamzar - Free online file conversion

Have you ever wanted to convert files without the need
to download software, well now you can! Just select the file you want to convert and Zamzar converts online and emails you the converted file.

Here is a list of what it can convert Conversion Types


Click on the link below:

www.zamzar.com

Mac OS X Accessibility For Beginners

You can start to educate yourself about these free accessibility functions by reading the Mac OS X Accessibility for Beginners series.

Speech-to-Text: Dictation software for OS X

This article is a significantly updated version of the article “Speech-to-Text: Dictation software for OS X“, originally published in November 2007.

Speech-to-text software, sometimes known as dictation software, is something that lets you talk to the computer in some form and have the computer react appropriately to what you are saying. This is totally different to text-to-speech software that can read out text already in the computer, although the two are often confused.

There are two types of speech-to-text software available. One type is called “command and control” and it lets you speak commands to your computer to control it - for example a command that it understands might be, “go to the Apple website” or, “tell me the time”, but you can only speak things the computer is already set up to understand; you can’t use this software to write an email or use iChat.

Command and control software for the Mac - known as “Speakable Items” (or sometimes, confusingly, “spoken commands”) - is already built into every OS X computer, although most people don’t know about it. So you don’t need to download, buy, or install anything to get this software to work. You would probably need a good USB microphone though, and if you don’t have American-accented English then the computer probably won’t understand you very well. Some resources for getting you up and running with Speakable Items include:

• MacWorld Article about Speakable Safari Bookmarks and other aspects of OS X Speakable Items
• Apple Support Articles about Speakable Items

The other type of speech-to-text software is usually called “dictation” software. This is the type that lets you write an article like this one, type stuff to your friends in iChat, or type an email. There used to be a version of IBM’s ViaVoice for OS X but it hasn’t been updated for several years and is no longer available. There is only one dictation-capable speech-to-text software available for OS X which is being updated and developed and it’s MacSpeech Dictate. Dictate is the successor to a program named iListen which MacSpeech used to produce.

Like all dictation-capable text-to-speech products, MacSpeech Dictate works very well for some people and very badly for others. Whether it will work for you depends on many things including: how much effort you’re willing to put into learning it, how good your microphone is, your age (text to speech usually works less well for children), how much your accent matches what the program expects, and whether your voice changes a lot through the day. MacSpeech Dictate is also very new software - it was only released on the 15th of February, 2008 - and like most new software it’s missing some major features. Ones which will be of significance to users with a disability include:

• No way to control the mouse by voice
• Can’t be taught new words, such as names or jargon specific to your profession
• Correction it doesn’t yet learn from being corrected

MacSpeech have announced that correction and spelling features are currently in private beta testing and will be released in a free upgrade as version 1.2 as soon as possible.

I tried using the old iListen a few years ago and could not get results that were useful, an on-screen keyboard was the best solution at the time. Although MacSpeech Dictate is in its infancy as a program, its recognition of my particular voice is hugely better than iListen’s was. This is not surprising though, as MacSpeech Dictate’s speech recognition engine is based on the same engine used by Windows’ Dragon NaturallySpeaking - widely recognised as the best consumer speech recognition available.

MacSpeech Dictate requires the Tiger or Leopard operating system and a compter with an Intel chipset. It’s currently available for English dialects only - US English, US Teen English, UK English, Australian English, Indian English (as in India, not Native American), South-East Asian English.

- Ricky Buchanan

Just released today! The iRex Digital Reader 1000 series

Thanks to the electronic paper display, reading iRex Digital Reader's screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper and nothing like the strain and glare of a computer screen.

The 10.2 inch display is ideal for reading almost any digital document, even A4 or letter-sized documents look great on the iRex Digital Reader.

Click on the link below:

iRex Digital Reader

Searchme Visual Search

Searchme lets you see what you’re searching for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you’ll see pictures of web pages that answer your search. You can review these pages quickly to find just the information you’re looking for, before you click through.



Click on the link below:

Searchme.com

The following external link(s) are provided for supplemental information only and unfortunately are not captioned for the hearing impaired.

Jott makes sure you stay on top of everything. With a simple phone call to 866-JOTT-123, you can capture notes, set reminders and calendar appointments, stay in touch with friends and family, and interact with your favorite web sites and services...all with your voice!

Click on the link below:

Jott.com

Opera Web Browser Accessibility Features

Accessibility in Opera

At Opera we strive to offer a better Internet experience for all, regardless of device, platform, or visual or mobile impairment. As a result, the Opera browser is the most accessible browser on the market today. Please go to the separate documents below to learn how you can adapt Opera to your needs.

Visual impairments

Low vision

• Zoom and full-screen mode
• Change link and text colors, text size, and button size
• Disable animations, video, and audio applications
• Implement your own style sheet

Blind

• Sound alerts
• Screen reader compability

Visual impairments

Mobility impairments

• Keyboard shortcuts
• Mouse gestures
• Auto-completion

Mobile impairments

PDFpen

PDFpen

PDFpen is a PDF editing and form-filling application for Mac OS X. PDFs are important to many people with disabilities because scanned documents are usually converted to PDF format. So for those who can’t handle physical paper, being able to edit or add to a PDF file is important. PDF files are also used frequently for online documents, especially those of a more “official” nature such as bills and bank statements.

PDFpen lets you replace text in original PDF files with editable text blocks. You can move, resize, copy and delete images, overlay text and images onto PDF files, insert and remove pages, reorder them using drag and drop, copy and paste rich text content, select and copy text across multiple columns and more.

Some of these things - copying and deleting sections from a page, and inserting/removing and reordering pages - can now be done by the Preview program in Leopard. The version of Preview included with Tiger did not allow for inserting/removing or reordering pages in a PDF.

There are a helpful screencast tutorials for PDFpen available too. I suggest anybody considering this program watches these to get a clearer idea of what it can do.

Website: PDFpen

- Ricky Buchanan

Plastic Logic Reader

Differentiated by a stunning form factor (the size of 8.5 x 11-inch paper), the Plastic Logic reader features a big readable display. Yet it's thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals, and offers a high-quality reading experience - better than alternatives of paper or other electronic readers on the market today.

The Plastic Logic reader supports a full range of business document formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and Adobe PDFs, as well as newspapers, periodicals and books. It has an easy gesture-based user interface and powerful software tools that will help business users to organize and manage their information. Users can connect to their information either wired or wirelessly and store thousands of documents on the device. The reader incorporates E Ink technology for great readability and features low power consumption and long battery life. The Plastic Logic reader is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2009.

Click on the link below:

Plastic Logic Reader

Alerts.com

Alerts.com is your personal information management destination where you are in control of the information you need.

In today’s hectic world we are all inundated with more information than we can possibly manage. We often have a difficult time sorting out what is relevant, important, or urgent to us. At Alerts.com we believe today’s exciting technologies can be leveraged to be of assistance to you. These technologies can give you the ability to receive just the information you need when you need it. Delivered in the form of alerts, notifications, and/or reminders via email, text message, instant messaging, or even voice, we empower you to better manage your life.

Click on the link below:

Alerts.com

Remember The Milk

Manage tasks quickly and easily.
An intuitive interface makes managing tasks fun. Set due dates easily with next Friday or in 2 weeks. Extensive keyboard shortcuts make task management quicker than ever.

Click on the link below:

Remember The Milk

Docstoc Sync

The Easiest Way to Put Your Documents Online

Docstoc Sync is a simple downloadable application that automatically syncs documents from your computer to Docstoc MyDocs. Effortlessly upload your documents and keep them private for easy access anytime, anywhere. Or publish any document or folder of documents publicly on Docstoc by putting it in your "Docstoc Public Documents" folder from your desktop.

Automatically sync your computers My Documents folder with Docstoc MyDocs

Easiest way to publish with drag and drop desktop folder

Fastest way to publish documents online

Access your documents anytime, anywhere

Mirror any folder on your hard drive to MyDocs

Works for both PC and Mac