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                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 1097

                          Friday, December 09, 1994

Today's Topics:


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                      Looking for braille holiday cards
                      Questions on screen magnification
               New review book in molecular Ophthalmogenetics
          Re: Internet Bookstore criticizing Disabled Access Gains
          Re: Internet Bookstore criticizing Disabled Access Gains
                              asap for windows


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Subject: Looking for braille holiday cards
From: adf@max.tiac.net (Jim McFall)
Organization: The Internet Access Company

Hi, I am in the Boston Mass Area, and am looking for inexpensive holiday
greeting type cards in Braille. I know about the NAtional Braille Press,
and will call them, but can anyone else give me any advice?

thanks.




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Subject: Questions on screen magnification
From: earlj@anchor.Eng.Sun.COM (Earl Johnson)

Hi All;

We're looking into screen magnification for Unix platforms and are
trying to get a better understanding of the magnification methods users
prefer. The three methods of magnification we would like input on are
stationary glass, in-line, and full screen magnification.

Stationary glass is a non-moving window that magnifies a region around
the mouse pointer. As the mouse pointer moves, the information in the
stationary window changes. The mouse pointer is used in the
non-magnified portion of the screen.

In-line magnification can be thought of as a moving glass magnifier.
Pretend your Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass searching for
clues and you've visualized in-line magnification. In-line puts the
magnified region over and moves with the mouse pointer.

Full screen magnification is basically like in-line except you don't
see any portion of the unmagnified screen. Toggling in and out of
magnification is how you find out where you are in the unmagnified
screen region.

Our questions are:

   - Which method do you use most frequently?

   - Why is it the method you use?
        E.g.- Do you lose your bearings easily in the others?, Are
        there important tasks you need to do which can't be in the
        other methods?

Thank you in advance for your input,

Earl Johnson

earl.johnson@eng.sun.com



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Subject: New review book in molecular Ophthalmogenetics
From: BERGEN@AMC.UVA.NL (Arthur Bergen)

An interesting new review book has just come off the press:

The molecular genetics of Inherited eye disorders;
Edited by A.F.Wright and B.Jay.
Available from Harwood Academic Publishers, Chur, Switzerland

With a background introduction in molecular genetics, and a lot of
information about a variety of disorders, including retinitis pigmentosa,
albinism, aniridia, retinoblastome, retinoschisis, macular disorder, ect.

Arthur Bergen




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Subject: Re: Internet Bookstore criticizing Disabled Access Gains
From: bernie@access1.digex.net (Internet(e)Bookstore)
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, USA


On Tue, 6 Dec 1994, Mike Freeman wrote:
> (2) Have you thought of writing software for the Braille 'N speak which
> would read your books?
>

Actually, Mike, Dean Blazie has suggested it several times, but there are
four obstacles:
1) it would cost about $20,000 for the programming on the Braille 'n
Speak platform (ain't money always first.....)

2) The number of books would have to be increased - (this has been a
wait-and-see for years)

3) A key device port or internal key would have to be present for
commercial books.

4) The memory size or ease of diskette use would have to improve. For
instance, 'USING THE INTERNET' from Que is 1100 pages and in e-dition
form it is a 780K bookfile, one of our largest. Obviously to use it you
need a device that has 256K available RAM and enough to at least store
the bookfile.

Anyway, this is all a big string of dominos - starting with the
Publishers' willingness to allow or do an electronic version. EVERYTHING
else flows from that - and of course that is the area that has been
ignored or screwed up these past MANY years while we could have been
building a national treasure and a new American world commerce.

BTW - HumanWare has a talking Palmtop with a TEXT2000 APH version of the
e-dition software built in. You can get info by calling David Bice at
1-800-722-3393.

It's time for results! Stay alive.

Bernard C. Pobiak, Director
The Internet Bookstore, the ebook Superstore
Copyright-Safe ebooks from Major Publishers delivered in 30-Seconds
Send blank email to: ebooks-info@access.digex.net
More Power to YOU.





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Subject: Re: Internet Bookstore criticizing Disabled Access Gains
From: bernie@access1.digex.net (Internet(e)Bookstore)
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, USA


On Tue, 6 Dec 1994, Mike Freeman wrote:
>
> (1) Do your books contain descriptions of pictures/graphs/charts/etc.?

It depends on who publishes them, Mike. For instance, when APH, the
American Printing House for the Blind publishes a K-12 Textbook in
e-dition form, they do the maximum descriptions of each graphic from the
printed book, just as they do for Braille. Most commercial publishers, on
the other hand are thinking in terms of selling their print copy if the
user wants the illustrations, so they merely note that a graphic is in
this spot in their print edition.

There is no technical barrier to our imbedding a reference to external
graphics files that a user can have present or not for disk conservation
or portability. But many Publishers, although they have the electronic
rights to their own books' text, aren't sure, illustration by
illustration, if they have the same rights for their illustrations. The
way we set it up to start, they don't have to open that can of worms
until the market of buyers develops a little.

Having an inexpensive way into a safe electronic product is a strong
first motivator. If the agencies did the $200 text coding for them in
exchange for free use by certified print-disabled readers, everybody
would win. ($10 million per year to do all 50 thousand new copyrighted
books in USA - yes, it is nothing by agency standards)

BTW - Once the masterfile is coded, broader graphics descriptions, etc.
could always be added by an independant agency.....

Food for Action!

Yours,

Bernard Pobiak, Director
The Internet Bookstore, the ebook Superstore
Copyright-Safe ebooks from Major Publishers in 30-Seconds Worldwide
More Power to YOU!




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Subject: asap for windows
From: scottr@ion.apana.org.au (Scott Rutkowski)


Can anyone please tell me if asap for windows has been released yet? If
so, is there an ftp site I could get it from? I am interested to see how
well this product currently works with windows.
If anyone can give me any info at all, please email to
scottr@ion.apana.org.au
Cheers and bye for now.




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                 End of Issue # 1097 of the Blind News Digest

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