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                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 1142

                           Sunday, April 23, 1995

Today's Topics:


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                       Re: mother with blind daughter
                  SPring is Here - Time to Open the WINDOW
                   Re: Windots software on Novell Network
                                   Windots
                    A reply to John about the LAN Access
                   Forwarding a message from my husband...
                    blind baseball team in ft lauderiale
                           Blind-Infos on the Web


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Subject: Re: mother with blind daughter
From: Tpring@cris.com (Julia Rucker)
Organization: Concentric Research Corporation

Janelle --

I hope you see this -- I have a reply for you but the email address you
have is from another newsgroup and so I can't send a personal reply.
Please post again here with your own email address (or your friend's,
whatever email address you were using.  Thanks - Julia  (tpring@cris.com)




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Subject: SPring is Here - Time to Open the WINDOW
From: KSEVEN@delphi.com (KSEVEN)

Spring is here, and with it comes open WINDOWS everywhere.

I am so impressed with the option Henter-Joyce has chosen for allowing
customers an opportunity to explore JAWS for WINDOWS.  For just $39.95 you
get a full working copy of JFW.  This copy will function completely for 60
days.  If during that time you decide this is the product for you, you can
purchase the "unlock" process and make it a permanent copy applying your
$39.95 to the purchase price.  Henter-Joyce has just taken a quantum leap
forward in my esteem for this most customer-oriented approach.  I suggest
anyone who needs to use WINDOWS give JAWS for WINDOWS a try to see if it
will meet your needs for the applications you use.

For my part, Henter-Joyce is working on a new synthesizer driver for my
internal ARTIC and I am eagerly awaiting its arrival to give it another go.

Meanwhile outSPOKEN for WINDOWS is helping me to explore my birthday gift of
a new CD Rom with ENCARTA-95 and BOOKSHELF-94.  It is taking some getting
used to in order to read the right portion of the screen as these reference
materials were clearly not designed to be clearly used with speech.  But I
am able to have enough success to keep going and to keep enjoying my
discoveries.  I will be glad if and when Berkeley Systems develops their
"Talking Mouse" as I do miss that feature which I have in WinVision 2. But a
lot of making things easier is just getting better at the access, and this
will just take time.

I have heard the complaint several times that the WinVision Demo is too
short to give a good representation of what the program will do.  This is
unfortunate, and I imagine if they hear this often enough they will lengthen
its run time.  The Demo of outSPOKEN runs for 30 minutes according to what I
have been told.  This is probably a better sample.  But the Henter-Joyce
approach is really casting the whole WINDOWS access evaluation matter in a
different light.

It is exciting to see these three potentially very workable solutions for
WINDOWS users and to know that even more are just around the corner.  Let's
hope that with MicroSoft's real involvement with access now that his trend
will continue even when WINDOWS 9X is on the scene.  Don't misunderstand.
For every application I can breeze through with WINDOWS access there are
still probably three in which I become hopelessly lost, or worse yet, stuck.
 But there is improvement and there is hope.  If we could pick the best of
all WINDOWS access programs we would have a really great program.  Now
there's an idea Producers!

 K7 * * Opening doors and Windows for myself and for other blind people * *



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Subject: Re: Windots software on Novell Network
From: da0011@epfl2.epflbalto.org (DAVID ANDREWS)

> From: williamsjnj@cix.compulink.co.uk (John Williams)
>
> One of my colleagues is blind, and has been using the Windots package
> with his Braillex display. Everything works ok when he's in
> standalone mode, but whenever he tries to connect to our Novell
> Netware 3.11 network, the Windots software hangs. Is anyone else
> successfully using this combination ?

I have only used it in stand-alone mode, but
sometimes, at least with TSR speech software, the order
things are loaded in makes a difference.  Try moving things
around in the config.sys and autoexec.bat files.  You might
load the network drivers after WinDots.

David Andrews, director
International Braille and Technology Center
for the Blind
National Federation of the Blind




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Subject: Windots
From: arnhelg@ismennt.is (Arnthor Helgason)

WINDOTS WORKS PERFECTLY WELL ON NOVELL NETWARE

In response to John Williams in issue # 1139 regarding WinDots I would
like to inform that the producer of WinDots sorfware, F. H. Papenmeier
in Germany, has recently released a new version of the program.  It now
works much faster than before and requires less conventional memory.
I myself have tested the new version of winDots in connection with
Novell Netware and the results are surprising.

Please feel free to contact me on this subject.

Arnthor Helgason
arnhelg@ismennt.is
The Icelandic Library for the Blind




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Subject: A reply to John about the LAN Access
From: KSEVEN@delphi.com (KSEVEN)


Nice of you to try to help your friend.  I use access with NOVELL and have
learned more than I wanted to understand about a LAN, but not much.  It
sounds like you are having a problem similar to the one I had.  When you
start your system locally your Autoexec.bat sets a PATH.  When you sign onto
the LAN that path is replaced.  Thus, if the access equipment needs to go
back to its subdirectory to function, that subdirectory is no longer
"there." Mercifully the solution is simple.  When I LOGIN on the LAN I don
it "blind" that is without access running.  Then I go back local and run a
batch file that maps my DOS subdirectories I'll need during the LAN session
and finally runs my access.  Once you've got a SEARCH path for each
subdirectory your access needs it ought to be much happier.

If this doesn't work, the next step I took in the case of Screen Power for
Braille, was to move those files to the working directory right on the LAN
drive where my application was originating.  That set SPB humming.

Much seems to depend on just where the files are and where they can look.
 Because this wasn't a problem so long as they were in the AUTOEXEC.BAT PATH
statement until we started running around on LAN's many company reps and
salesmen don't think of these solutions first.  Give it a go. It shouldn't
hurt and might help...Good luck and let me know what happens.

  K7 * * Opening doors and Windows for myself and for other blind people * *



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Subject: Forwarding a message from my husband...
From: KSEVEN@delphi.com (KSEVEN)

 From:   BOS::JAYWILL      18-APR-1995 22:29:35.20

Jay Williams here...
I am a blind person who worked at the Smith-Kettlewell Institute's Rehab
Engineering Center in San Francisco for 12 years as an electronics
technician.
    First, an observation on talking meters versus meters with an "analog"
output.  These meters emit a pitch that changes in volume or rises and
falls as a voltage or other parameter changes.  The meter's face has a
Braille scale on it and a knob with a pointer affixed to it. The knob
runs a pot that's one half of a voltage divider that feeds a
differential amplifier.  This amp compares the variable voltage with a
reference voltage. Depending on the design, as you move the pointer,
either the pitch changes in folume, or it rises or falls.  When the
correct reading's reached, the volume-changing type hits a null, and the
rising/falling type triggers another oscillator that makes the pitch
pulsate.
    Which would you rather have if you're tuning a transmitter?  By the time
a talking meter's done telling you the voltage, your nose may be telling
you something much more urgent. So, generally, talking meters are great
for static situations where extreme accuracy is wanted or for recording
maxima and minima over a period.  But, for instantaneous comprehension
of a dynamic situation, the audio equivalent of a traditional meter
movement works much better.
    So far as I know, the only firm building any kind of meter for the blind
is Science Products, 215 Lancaster Avenue, Berwyn, Pa 19004, Their phone
number, (215) 296-2111. I'm pretty sure they do a talking one, and they
may yet be modifying something like a Simpson 260 for analog output.
Radio Shack may still be marketing the Micronta 2-18 multimeter that
hooks up to a PC via a serial port. I have one of those, and it's quite
spiffy. And, you can get a compooder to jabber fast enough as to make
dynamic readings less risky.
    If all these fail, I'm willing to build a voltmeter for about $150.
Because these circuits tend to interact, an audible onmmeter and
capacitance bridge would be separate boxes.  I would build all three as
a "project" for $375.  My preference is for the type whose pitch rises
and falls and pulsates when the pointer corresponds to the desired
reading.
    For more current info that I may not have since I moved, write to Bill
Gerrey, SKI, 2232 Webster Street, San Francisco, CA 94115: e-mail,
Bilge@skivs.ski.org.He may know of some manufacturer whose taken such
things on.
    Hope this is useful.

    Jay Williams  JAYWILL@DELPHI.COM




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Subject: blind baseball team in ft lauderiale
From: dardy@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us (Ansel Davis)
Organization: SEFLIN Free-Net - Broward

there are a team of baseball players  that pratice in plantation. every
monday and friday in plantation the name of the team is the ft lauderiale
sand shark.pratice takes place at 1000 sw 70 ave plantation 7:00pm till
9:00pm .they will be traveling to denver calarido in august of this year.
to play in the beep baseball world seares. please come out and show your
suport to this blind team. for more information please contact mr ansel davis
at 305 733 0588 or pager 305 497 5301


                                THANK A MILLION
                                TEAM CORIDENATOR AND PLAYER
                                MR:ANSEL DAVIS

--

Ansel Davis
dardy@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us




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Subject: Blind-Infos on the Web
From: ortega@zaphod.in.tu-clausthal.de (Artur Ortega)
Organization: Rechenzentrum der TU Clausthal


Hello!

I started collecting Information for/about blinds on the InterNet.
I offer them over WWW (world wide web). Read them with your "lynx".

http://www.heim2.tu-clausthal.de/ortega/cgi-bin/starthtml?blind-e

Ciao,
                        oTTi

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IRC   : Missionar                                                   \ A \
URL   : http://www.heim2.tu-clausthal.de/ortega/cgi-bin/starthtml?index-e



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                 End of Issue # 1142 of the Blind News Digest

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