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April
2003 Volume
3 Issue 2
In This Issue
of @Freedom Scientific:
1.
Nebraska teen discovers PAC Mate: "I did everything a sighted Pocket
PC user does"
2. No screen reader can do what JAWS® can do in the Excel and Word
environments
3. MAGic® Screen Magnification with Speech: "The
best and only tool I need and use"
4.
Blind 9-year-old musician performs for Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder at international
conference
Nebraska
teen discovers PAC Mate: "I did everything a sighted Pocket PC user
does"
Adam Gottsch is only 18, but he was recently a part of history. Whether
Adam realized it or not, he became one of the first blind people in the
world to walk into a commercial computer store to purchase accessories
for his Pocket PC handheld computer.
It sounds like such a simple
task because it's something thousands of sighted people do everyday for
their Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), but before the invention of Freedom
Scientific's PAC Mate, that scenario would be unrealistic for those who
are blind.
Adam, a high school senior
in Nebraska who will be heading to the University of Omaha and majoring
in computer science in the fall, works part time for an assistive technology
dealer, Accessibility dot Net. He and Patrick Fischer, who owns the dealership,
purchased a wireless hub and a wireless card for Pocket PC that allowed
them to connect multiple computers to the Internet. Minutes later, they
were online with a PAC Mate TNS and a PAC Mate BNS.
"It was amazing,"
said Adam, who has been blind since third grade. "In just a matter
of seconds, you can be surfing the Internet. I synchronized my PAC Mate
to Patrick's iPAQ and did everything a sighted Pocket PC user does."
PAC Mate, which hit the market
earlier this year, offers users first-time opportunities such as those
Adam experienced.
"It is an extraordinary
piece of technology," said Adam, one of the first to use PAC Mate.
"I truly believe it will enable a lot of people to boost their independence.
I like the fact you are able to pick it up like a PDA and do just about
anything anybody else can do."
Adam, who started using Freedom
Scientific products in seventh grade when he was introduced to the Braille
'n Speak, also has experience with the Braille Lite, Blazer embosser,
M20 and M40 notetakers, a Focus Braille display and JAWS® for Windows.
He said when he first used a PAC Mate, he learned the majority of what
he needed to know in a day by reading PAC Mate's comprehensive help documents
and because he already knew JAWS, which reads the Pocket PC applications.
A version of JAWS developed specifically for PAC Mate is included with
the device.
"It's easy to use,"
he said. "JAWS is pretty much the same as far as functionality, there's
not a whole lot of difference."
If you are looking for something
different about the PAC Mate, it is convenience and independence. Since
many schools are outfitted with Macintosh operating systems, students
like Adam often have to go out of their way to complete in-school assignments.
For instance, while sighted
classmates can simply complete and turn in work or search the Internet
from the classroom via their Macs, blind students often have to be provided
special accommodations to access a Windows PC, many times located in a
different room.
With PAC Mate, students who
are blind can surf the Internet or access Pocket PC applications and beam
files wirelessly right to their teachers, without ever leaving their desks.
Adam also uses PAC Mate as
a tool for his job. He works from home processing Software Maintenance
Agreements and testing products for Patrick at Accessibility dot Net.
"He's a good kid,"
Patrick said. "He's very gifted."
Recreationally, Adam uses PAC
Mate to listen to music and access the Internet from anywhere he happens
to be, whether it's in a car or in a hotel room.
Whether learning, working or
playing, Adam has found the PAC Mate to be invaluable.
"The technology, I have
to believe, will help any adult or student in their personal life,"
Adam said. "I've been fortunate to have even looked at one."
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to Top from First Story
No screen reader can do what JAWS® for Windows can
do in the Excel and Word environments
Students and professionals
who are blind have the same needs as their sighted colleagues with respect
to deriving data from visual mediums such as Microsoft Excel and Word.
They rely on their screen readers to help them keep pace and JAWS for
Windows does it far better than any other screen reading program on the
market. In fact, no competitor comes close.
JAWS allows blind users to
go beyond the visual aspects of documents and work with them in a more
technical way. The world's most popular screen reader defines how documents
are designed and guides you to the information you require.
Whether you are creating or
reading documents, the process is as simple or as complex as you want
because JAWS lets you customize your settings in so many ways. Most of
these preferences can be set in your JAWS verbosity menu (INSERT+V).
Here are some specific advantages
JAWS users can expect when using Excel and Word:
EXCEL:
This popular spreadsheet program
is a staple in the business world and often times proves difficult for
sighted users to fully manipulate. JAWS offers shortcuts not available
to sighted users, making Excel easy to learn and easy to use.
JAWS has a simple user interface,
so identifying spreadsheet settings can be accomplished without scripting.
File specific, user-defined settings can be saved and distributed to others.
For example, you can identify
regions and navigate to those specific parts of the spreadsheet, skipping
over all the empty cells. JAWS announces column and row headings and up
to 10 user-definable Monitor Cells per spreadsheet. This JAWS-specific
feature, which lets you move to these important individual cells, is extremely
useful when you instantly need information from some other part of the
spreadsheet.
On the fly, you can identify
and read comments that spreadsheet authors have given to specific cells.
JAWS also will recognize and describe objects such as charts and graphs.
Because of the JAWS verbosity
settings, JAWS users have access to complex Excel documents without being
left at disadvantages to their sighted associates. JAWS is unmatched by
any other screen reader in the world.
For a more in-depth overview
of using JAWS with Excel, visit this link: Feature
Overview.
It contains a 22-minute MP3 file where we walk you through a sample Excel
spreadsheet.
WORD:
The power of JAWS is evident
in many ways when it comes to obtaining information about Word documents.
Like Excel, users have the ability to know as much or as little detail
about what they are creating or reading as they want.
JAWS will help paint a picture
of the document in your mind as it pertains to everything from a spatial
perspective to how it is formatted. It also affords users the chance to
mark and review other's work for content and technical merit.
Here are some specific examples
of how JAWS guides you through Word documents, based mostly on your specific
verbosity settings:
• Navigate by headings.
In large documents, switch to outline view and JAWS will announce a list
of all the headings.
• Read through columns. Unlike other screen readers that read left
to right, JAWS follows columns up and down.
• Create and fill out forms.
• In Word 2002, navigate or close the new Task Pane feature, which
is arranged vertically on the right third of the screen. The Task Pane
provides access to frequently used commands such as opening a file, creating
a new document, among others.
• In Word XP, utilize the Smart Tags feature. With certain text,
such as dates, cities and famous people hit Control+Alt+S to obtain maps,
biographical information and a variety of other in-depth information.
• Inline spelling and grammar checking. JAWS announces how many errors
there are in each line and if you hit the applications key, you will receive
suggested corrections. These are the same errors for which sighted users
receive visual indicators. JAWS provides access to this information either
by speech or on a Braille display.
• Paragraph Styles and Font Information. Users who are blind sometimes
need to make documents that are attractive to sighted readers. JAWS announces
things such as indents, italics, bolding, underlining and the rest of
the more than 100 styles Microsoft Word offers.
• Tables. You choose the way JAWS delivers tabular information.
• Footnotes, Endnotes and Other Fields. If something is cited in
Word, JAWS will announce it.
• Formatting preferences. Turn off features that sometimes get in
the way such as automatic numbering, bullets and capitalization.
If you would like more information
regarding the tutorials on using JAWS with Word and Excel, please access:
JAWS Tutorials.
You also can visit your local
dealer, or call Freedom Scientific at 1-800-444-4443 or
1-727-803-8000.
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to Top from Second Story
MAGic® Screen Magnification with Speech: "The only tool I need
and use"
John Voet is a low-vision recent
retiree who still has enough vision to see what he likes and doesn't like.
For instance, he likes living on the outskirts of Williamstown, Ontario,
Canada. The claim to fame for the historical town is hosting Canada's
oldest annual fair, 192 years and counting. What he doesn't like is the
maximum Internet dialup speed of 28.8 Kbps that comes along with living
in what he calls a technological black hole.
You have to go inside his house,
situated just across the New York border, and step down to his basement
to find one of his favorite possessions: a storage box. Inside is a compilation
of used assistive technology tools that includes software and other components
that he no longer requires to aid him to access his computer.
John, 55, has found everything
he needs in one product: Freedom Scientific's MAGic Screen Magnification
with Speech.
"For a low-vision person,
it is the best and only access tool I need and use."
John's lifelong computer learning
curve began like most people who can remember when Apple was at the core
of technology and an Echo speech synthesizer was a groundbreaking tool
for the vision-impaired. When he began losing what he calls the "bulk
of his sight," he embraced the Windows world and moved toward various
combinations of synthesized speech, married up with screen magnification
products, such as Large Print DOS.
But, these other solutions
couldn't keep up with his needs and he was looking for a better solution.
The ultimate, all-in-one tool he was searching for was something that
cemented speech and magnification together, a product to talk to him while
magnifying the screen.
With the development of MAGic,
low-vision computer users finally had a product that could make a mouse
pointer speak, so they knew exactly what they were about to click on.
"I was just happy to have
mouse speech and a magnification combination that worked reliably."
John said. "MAGic lets me lever the productivity of speech by letting
me use magnification to navigate the screen, quickly and accurately. After
all, if you have partial vision, why not use it?"
For instance, John has some
use of peripheral color vision, so he can find things on the screen, such
as icons, Web links and lines of text. If he can see what he refers to
as a "blob," then all he has to do is point his mouse at it
and hear exactly what it is.
Being able to use lower levels
of magnification and mouse pointer speech, means that he can navigate
the screen, as well a sighted person, using only the mouse.
"If I can see more screen,
I can do a similar job," he said. "My productivity leaps to
a higher level. The advantage to a low vision person is that I can take
a shortcut and fly across the screen and find the icon in the corner."
MAGic offers various magnification
options, increasing the size of information on the computer screen from
2 times to 16 times. Other popular features are highlighted at the following:
MAGic Features.
John retired 14 months ago
after spending 37 years in the quality assurance industry. He spent the
latter part of his career validating computer systems for a U.S.-based
pharmaceutical company.
In the workplace, John's use
of assistive technology changed dramatically over the years. He went from
having a product work one day, to the next day being totally shut out
when his company converted from a DOS system to a Windows operating system.
He spent nearly six months
searching for a solution and then found MAGic. He said MAGic kept him
from being treated like a disabled employee because MAGic kept pace with
the corporate Information Technology environment, as well as providing
a superior, low-vision tool that let him handle large, complex documents
about as effectively as any sighted person.
Now, John says he uses MAGic
as "the tool by which my social life is organized." He stays
active in local clubs, keeps in contact with friends through email and
manages travel planning on the Web.
MAGic's Say All automated document
reading tool lets him sit back, relax and read an online newspaper, with
his eyes closed. In fact, the voice is so crisp and clean, that he can
use the Say All mode to proof read emails, thus correcting spelling and
grammar on the fly.
MAGic really is as easy as
it sounds.
"The beauty of the product
is its simplicity," John said. "You need to know fewer than
five key strokes to work an entire day with MAGic. Also, there's not a
big learning curve. It's instantly usable because it even talks during
installation. It's really wonderful for productivity."
As a member of the MAGic Beta
testing team, John enjoys the chance to help make the product even better.
Besides, he says, "Where else can you critique something and still
get thanked for it?"
Return
to Top from Third Story
Blind 9-year old
musician performs for Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder at international conference
There's no denying music is
a large part of Rachel Flowers' life. The 9-year-old from San Bernardino,
California is a rhythmic and melodic magnet. Every catchy tune or harmonic
sound she encounters gets absorbed through her ears, processed in her
mind and translated through her fingertips.
Music might even be in her
DNA given that her parents, Jeanie and Daniel, and both sets of grandparents
are musically inclined. From the time when she was 2, Rachel has been
playing the piano and keyboards.
What separates Rachel from
other young inspiring musicians is not that she prefers classical and
jazz versus bubblegum bands and American Idols, but the method in which
she reads, writes and produces music. Blinded by retinopathy of prematurity
as a result of being born 15 weeks early, Rachel relies on assistive technology
called CakeTalking for SONAR.
CakeTalking for SONAR contains
scripts for JAWS® for Windows and is available solely through Freedom
Scientific dealer Dancing
Dots. Those who are familiar with JAWS can learn music through customized
scripts that allow musicians to perform in conjunction with many mainstream
music applications. They can navigate graphical views of musical information
and turn their PCs into music studios.
Rachel has been using the program
for three years.
"She hears a piece, and
her mind is already going," her mother said proudly. "Once she
was introduced to computer sequencing, music was a real explosion. She
jumped in with both feet. It was amazing to see."
While Rachel has performed
in many venues including school talent shows, perhaps her biggest concert
came at the 18th Annual CSUN International Conference on Technology and
Persons with Disabilities this spring in Los Angeles. She demonstrated
SONAR to more than 300 people, sequencing Ray Charles' version of "America
the Beautiful" because the famous singer was in attendance along
with Stevie Wonder.
Rachel also sang as she played
and Jeanie joined in on the microphone for a verse.
"I saw Stevie and thought,
'oh my gosh, I'm singing in front of Stevie Wonder,' " Jeanie said.
"But it was Rachel's night."
Rachel was familiar with Ray
Charles not only because of "America the Beautiful," but also
because of the children's book called "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,"
an alphabet book he read on audio cassette. Rachel talked briefly with
Ray at CSUN. She also got a chance to tell Stevie Wonder she had a version
of his song "As" sequenced, so he sang a verse of it in to her
tape recorder.
Rachel's recent brush with
greatness was nothing new. When she was 4, Jeanie and Daniel performed
at coffee houses and she was usually in the audience. One night, Rachel
sat at the piano and started playing Beethoven's "Fur Elise."
The store owner was so amazed, he contacted one of his television friends
and soon after, Rachel was on the local news - a celebrity in her own
right.
Music always has been a part
of Rachel's life, whether it was listening to her parents play guitar
or hearing a rock 'n' roll song on the radio. She even has an ear for
gamelan music, which is a traditional Indonesian instrumental ensemble
comprising mainly percussion instruments.
Music also figures to be a
part of Rachel's future. Listening to it. Loving it. And thanks to CakeTalking
for SONAR and JAWS, learning it and playing it.
"I think that's her life,"
Jeanie said. "It's what she lives for."
Return
to Top from Fourth Story
Freedom
Scientific's mission is to develop, manufacture and market innovative technology-based
products and services that those with vision impairments and learning disabilities
use to change their world.
@Freedom
Scientific is published by
Freedom Scientific, Blind/Low Vision Group
11800 31st Court North
St. Petersburg, Florida 33716-1805
800-444-4443 or 727-803-8000
www.FreedomScientific.com
Customers
can email their software technical questions to Software Support at FreedomScientific.com.
Those having hardware technical support queries can address them to Hardware Support at FreedomScientific.com
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