Comprehensive site explains computer access devices for all disability groups.
The popular .PDF document format is no fun in speech. Adobe, originators of PDF, have provided this page of rendering tools to bring the text back alive. If you have the URL of a PDF in mind, try the on-line translator in real time. It uses a form (you type or paste the URL in and the text is extracted). E-mail, plug-ins, and how-to's are here, too.
Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind
AIDB is one of the primary sources for information about adaptive/assistive technology in the state, with nine regional centers offering people a chance to test new technology before they purchase it.
Products for easier living! From canes to phone accessories to Braille watches, Ann Morris has a wide assortment of products that are especially handy for folks with vision loss. Download the catalog for later review or shop by surfing through this highly accessible site.
Audio games for blind--or sighted--players! Download demos and and check out customer testimonials to the addictive power of Grizzly Gulch Western Extravaganza.
Great collection of links to alternative reading formats on line.
Blind Related Links by Ron Marriage
Large, well-organized index to Web resources on blindness. It's terrific--covers everything from ADA to Social Security. Don't overlook the Books & Magazines section for a huge selection of electronic general-interest reading.
New e-zine scans hundreds of sources and serves up the latest mainstream news stories that include blindness, blind people, guide dogs, Braille, and so forth. It's a very speech-friendly amalgam of the good, the bad, the ridiculous, and the incredible.
Blindness-Related E-Mail Lists
Keep up with what's going on! E-mail lists bring the latest news on topics of your choice right to your e-mail box--free! Subscribe to over 65 blindness-related mail lists, as well as other access and pan-disability lists, directly from this comprehensive and constantly updated hypertext index from Oedipus Wrecked.
Canadian National Institute for the Blind
CNIB regularly updates their Web site with links to a huge number of sites on blindness and visual impairment. Also included, of course, is in-depth information about CNIB programs and facilities throughout Canada.
Self paced audio tutorials for those confusing Windows programs speech users really struggle with--Win95, Win 3.1, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. There's an all-in-one set for omnipresent Internet programs like Netscape, Internet Explorer, and Eudora Mail, too.
Resource guide for people who are deaf-blind and their friends and family members. Strong on Monnesota resources, since the site is headquartered there, the site also includes many national links as well.
Online Resource for Americans with disabilities.
We know how computers are supposed to work--you type, they talk. For a variety of reasons, some people need their computers to be the other way around--you talk, they type. If you've ever been curious about this arrangement, this is the place to learn about it.
Aims to be a new on-line community for visually impaired folks. Check out editor Lisa LaNell Mauldin's especially interesting work in refuting the nationally publicized Newsday column in which James P. Pinkerton blames any and all accessibility-to-the-blind requirements for every ill up to and including the collapse of the Republic.
Don't you wish there was a place where you could buy a wide range of computer stuff, much of it off-the-shelf and all of it speech-compatible? There is such a place--it's Ferguson Enterprises. They have the speech and the computer to put it in, too.
Sadly, many computer newbies do not "get" the concept of plain text. They'll send you attachments (so proud! Found the little paper-clip button on the e-mail toolbar!) in formats you can't use without the original program. Alas the original programs produce documents in a speech-hostile format--like .PDF, PowerPoint, or a later version of Word or Excel than you have. (People who don't do text also don't quite "get" the backward-incompatibility version concept, either). "Convert it to text," you plead to no effect. Plead no more. This free on-line utility converts these formats to plain old HTML and sends you the result via e-mail.
Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California, and Boring, Oregon, is celebrating 60 years in the business of providing mobility, protection, and companionship to travelers who are blind. Stop by and check out what it's like to be a trainer and a graduate.
Entertaining and fun kid's multimedia introduction to Helen Keller's life and work from the AFB's BrailleBug site.
Information about Vision Loss and Blindness
Great down-to-earth introduction to eye diseases and the blindness field.
Information Technology and Disabilities
Online journal aimed at people with an interest in information access for people who are disabled. You can sign up for an e-mail notification when new issues are posted. Example: The August, 2000 issue is about new electronic media for RFB&D and the Library of Congress.
Check out Robison Bryan's interesting software such as SayPad, a freeware talking text editor that can also convert textfiles to MP3 files in size. Uses SAPI 5.1 Text To Speech, which is included.
Lynx!!!
It's heartening how many people don't love dancing cartoons and huge lumbering JPEGs in 16 million colors. Lynx has plenty of partisans, offering support, mailing lists, help menus, FAQs, and even fan mail collections.
Have MD or know someone who does? Find out about the latest medical advances, meet up with lists and chat, order large print books and low-vision equipment, find a nearby vision center, and (for sighted visitors) experience simulated MD vision on line.
No, not the whole magazine, which is still in two traditional (and portable!) formats--grade 2 Braille and four-track, half-speed cassette. But you can scan the table of contents for the current month, as well the complete Special Notices section, which is a possible spot to buy or sell access technology equipment, among other things.
From the source--Microsoft's own web site--get a quick reference to keyboard alternatives to mouse commands.
Comprehensive searchable links site on all aspects on eye care, eye diseases, eye surgery, assistive technology--everything visual.
Folklore says computers are a "guy thing". Fortunately folklore can be wrong.
Shell accounts....a disappearing breed, yet with many loyal fans. When many ISPs consolidate, they eliminate shell accounts. Yet shell users tend to be among their most loyal--and skilled--customers. Here's another alternative.
Quick, stable, and user-friendly alternative to the Big Two Internet browsers.
Check out Phil's many interests--Christianity, ham radio, blindness, Midi files, and more--on this highly speech-friendly site. Accessible online product sales, too, for unique items like audio workout tapes and the Parrot VoiceMate.
Another choice for a shell account, this one is specifically targeted at blind users and includes sufficient space to move or establish your own web site here.
Cool online audio magazine based in the UK with a wide range of features for an international audience of blind listeners. Soundaround is 100 minutes long per month and uses the standard Win Media Player and a simple keyboard navigation "map" explained in audio.
Trapped in the Net: The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization by Gene I. Rochlin
Even those of us who love computers have to admit there could be some "unintended consequences". It can't hurt to look, and ironically, you can read it right on line! Besides, the book is riveting.
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
The original standard setters for the Web issued this recommendation in May, 1999 to both define "accessibility" on the Web and explain it to the world, and the entire large and diligent effort is fully documented here. A business-card sized "cheatsheet" version, only ten text lines long and simple to understand and execute, could itself solve most accessibility problems.
Free online tutorials for web developers. Learn as little or as much as you need to start and run your site.
Find country codes, the meaning of file extensions, HTML/ASCII codes, server types and other internet miscellany quickly on this easy-to-understand page.