Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Coming up on Main Menu and Main Menu Live for the week of May 16

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This week on Main Menu, Rick Harmon from the Blind Geek Zone web site reviews the use of gadgets and Ready Boost on Windows Vista with JAWS for Windows Public Beta 2. Darrell and Karen Shandrow from the Blind Access Journal demonstrate the use of Serotek’s Remote Incident Manager, a potentially revolutionary new technology that allows blind technicians to gain access to and remotely administer Windows computers belonging to end-users even when no screen reader has been installed.

During the second hour of Main Menu Live, we bring on Mike Calvo, CEO of Serotek, to talk with us all about FreedomBox, Remote Access Manager, Remote Incident Manager and System Access. Mike will also be taking your questions about his innovative technology. This is a show you most certainly do not want to miss!

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333. You can email your questions to mainmenu@acbradio.org. You may also interact with the show via MSN Messenger. The MSN Messenger ID to add is mainmenu@acbradio.org.

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com. Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu

Main Menu Live – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

Main Menu and Main Menu Live can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific, and at 1 universal on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream channel. To listen to the show, just click this link: http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8&MMN_position=14:14

Best regards,

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow

The Main Menu Production Team

Wafra Pulls Press Release on Freedom Scientific Acquisition

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Shortly after we posted the initial article pointing to Wafra’s press release on the Freedom Scientific acquisition, it disappeared.  Fortunately, we were able to locate the text of the release, which you may read below.
 
Wafra Partners Announces Acquisition of Freedom Scientific, Inc.
April 25, 2007

Wafra Partners LLC and Wafra Investment Advisory Group, Inc.* are pleased to announce the acquisition of Freedom Scientific, Inc.
Freedom Scientific, Inc., based in St. Petersburg, FL, is the leading worldwide provider of assistive technology products for those who are low vision
or blind. Assistive technology products make information, whether in electronic or print format, and computing accessible to those who are low vision or
blind. The Company’s software products include screen reading software, screen magnification software and scanning and reading software. Hardware products
include handheld computers, Braille displays, scanning and reading machines, video magnifiers and Braille printers.
Wafra Partners LLC is a private equity firm focused on middle market companies based in North America that have enterprise values between $20 and $150
million. We are currently seeking acquisitions of companies in consumer products, outsourced business services, niche manufacturing, and consumer-driven
services.
* Wafra Investment Advisory Group, Inc. serves as investment advisor to the investments referred to herein. Wafra Partners LLC seeks companies within the
parameters and sectors set out above.

Winamp Version 5.35 is now Available

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Winamp version 5.35 is now available and one place where you can
download it from is at www.majorgeeks.com/Winamp_5_Full_d2490.html.

Here
are the changes in this version:

* Improved: Current translation support of core strings and dialogs
* Improved: Correct theming of tabbed dialogs on WinXP+
* Improved: Various misc tweaks/improvements
* Fixed: More tabbing fixes in UI and Preferences
* Fixed: [in_cdda] CDDB crash with non-English characters in user path
* Fixed: [in_cdda] Gapless playback of mix CDs with Sonic Engine
* Fixed: [in_flac] Genre field truncated in Flac Editor
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Incompatibility with musicbrainz tags
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Long stream urls truncated in Alt+3 dialog
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Tracklength not showing for mp3's with large embedded
coverart
* Fixed: [in_mp4] MP4 file parsing buffer overflow vulnerability
* Fixed: [in_vorbis] Cancel button in Vorbis Editor
* Fixed: [in_vorbis] Tabbing in Vorbis Editor
* Fixed: [in_wm] Artist and Title fields reversed in WMA Editor
* Fixed: [in_wm] Crash when attempting to play malformed ASX playlists
* Fixed: [ml_local] NOTHAS and != with empty fields
* Fixed: [ml_wire] (4294967295%) in sc wire downloads
* Fixed: [ml_wire] Podcast downloading bug (uninitialized variable error)
* Fixed: [pmp_p4s] Crash on sync/transfers
* Updated: [gen_jumpex] Jump To File Extra v0.99.1b

Freedom Scientific Acquired

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We have been hearing rumors for quite some time about the impending acquisition of Freedom Scientific. In the past week, we have been hearing that Freedom Scientific would be acquired by Wafra Investment Advisory Group, Inc. It turns out these rumors are true according to this press release directly from Wafra. There is one question that comes to mind right now. How can a company that appears to have no clue about web site accessibility purchase a company that works to make accessibility a reality for the blind and visually impaired? What changes in direction will Freedom Scientific take after this acquisition?

Broadcasting a Skype Voice Chat Over Station Playlist Studio Using Two Sound Cards and No Mixer

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I have figured out how to broadcast a voice chat session using Skype over Station Playlist Studio using two sound cards with no hardware mixer. This configuration was tested for the first time this afternoon during a four hour show on ACB Radio Interactive. Feel free to try this procedure and give us some feedback with your own results.

Sound card settings

Make the following adjustments to the sound card volume control in the Control Panel:

  • Playback: Microphone and wave not muted. Reduce microphone volume to prevent distortion.

  • Recording: What you hear selected with 100 percent volume setting.

Studio Settings

This configuration requires at least Station Playlist version 4.0, as it takes advantage of the software’s built-in mixing capability:

  • Input > Mic Input tab:

    • Recording mixer: “What You Hear”

    • Output mixer: none

  • Output > Mixer tab: Switch device to another sound card or possibly Null output. Switch the screen reader to the sound card selected on Studio’s Output > Mixer tab or a second sound card if null was selected in Studio. Use a second pair of earbuds or headphones to hear broadcast monitoring and speech from the screen reader.

Skype Settings

In Tools > Options > Audio, uncheck “let Skype adjust my audio settings”. This adjustment is necessary to prevent Skype from significantly reducing the volume during the broadcast.

Moving JAWS to the System Tray

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The following tech tip is derived from a message I wrote to a mailing list in response to a request for help to remove JAWS from the order of windows presented when changing tasks using the Alt+Tab command.

You can run JAWS from the System Tray instead of the Taskbar, which will remove it from the alt+tab order of windows.  Follow these steps: 

  1. Press JAWS Key+J to open the JAWS window.

  2. Press alt+o for the Options menu.

  3. Press b for the Basics dialogue.

  4. Tab over to “Run JAWS from the System Tray” and press the space bar to check this box.

  5. Tab to OK and press enter.

  6. The next time JAWS or your computer restarts, JAWS will be in the System Tray.

    7.  

Note: In the vast majority of scenarios, the JAWS Key is the insert key on the lower left-hand corner of the numeric keypad.

Set Message Priority and Request Read Receipt in Outlook Express

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Karen has asked me several times to teach her how to set the priority and request a read receipt for outgoing messages in Outlook Express. Setting the priority tells the recipient that you deem the contents of your message as being of low, normal or high importance. Requesting a “read receipt” is an attempt to determine whether or not the intended recipient has actually opened and read your message. The recipient may choose whether or not to acknowledge receipt of your message. The ability to do this can sometimes be helpful when dealing with advocacy situations where e-mail communications are involved. It seemed like these features might be sufficiently significant to warrant a tech tip here on the journal, so I hope some of you find these instructions helpful. This procedure is not screen reader specific.

Follow these steps to compose a new message, set its priority to “high” and request that the recipient acknowledge receipt:

  1. Run Outlook Express as usual.

  2. Press CTRL+N to compose a new message.

  3. Complete the “To”, “CC”, “BCC” and “Subject” fields as you normally would when sending e-mail.

  4. Write the text of your message.

  5. Press Alt+M to pull down the Message menu.

  6. Press p to open the Set Priority submenu.

  7. Press h to check the “High” option. You may, instead, press l to choose “Low” or n to choose “Normal” priority. Normal is the default.

  8. Press Alt+T to pull down the Tools menu.

  9. Press t to check “Request Read Receipt”.

  10. Press Alt+S or CTRL+Enter to send the message with high urgency and a request that the recipient acknowledge receipt of your communication.