One
of the most annoying things about using the BBC listen again service was that
you had to install the resource hungry Real Player. I used to hate this
intrusive program. In contrast Real Alternative does the job and you never
really know it is there. It comes bundled with the excellent Media Player
classic which is a very accessible alternative to windows media Player. One
nice thing about the installation is that it will detect that real Player is
installed and completely remove it for you before installing this less
cluttered version. This is a great program, which is very accessible and free.
Remember also that there is a Quicktime Alternative to replace the Apple
Quicktime application if you need it.
Download
from the Jaws User Programs Page
American Council for the Blind
provides a multi-channel specialist radio service for visually impaired people.
There are 2 music channels including a world music focussed channel. There is
what is called the Treasure Trove which concentrates on what the Americans call
Old Time Radio including old comedy shows and dramas. The main channel has a
variety of speech output programs including Main Menu which focuses on reviews
of assistive and adaptive technology for visually impaired listeners. General
interest programs are also broadcast including Cooking in the Dark, a cooking
program aimed at the visually impaired.
A surprising amount of content is UK relevant and the presenter of the
technology based Main Menu program is based in the UK. On the last program I
listened to he reviewed for example a digital TV box which is only available in
the UK.
Download the ACB Radio tuner from the ACB Tuner Page
CDex is featured in the CD Ripping section of this site. Although its
main focus is to rip CDs there is a little known recording feature in this
program. Using this recording feature
you can record whatever is coming out of your headphones or speakers. This
makes it ideal to record streams of music from the internet for example. There is a little setting up needed. First
of all before you even run CDex go to Control Panel and select sounds and audio
devices. Go to the Audio tab by pressing control and tab. Then tab down through
the output settings to hear what the default recording device is. Make sure that it is your sound card which is
selected as the default recording device. If you have a USB microphone it may
have knocked out the sound card as the default device. You can always change
back to your USB microphone after you have done your recording from the internet.
Now open CDex and go to the Tools menu and select record from analogue
input. Press Tab here until you hear recording device. Make sure that here also
your sound card is selected and not any microphone. I would then suggest you
tab down until you hear encoding options. This is set to wav by default but can
be changed to mp3. Then simply tab down until you hear the record button. In
practice you may want to get your internet stream playing and then alt -tab to
Cdex to start the recording. If you start the recording first Cdex will record
everything your screen reader say as you go back to your internet stream. This
may or may not be a problem for you.
Download
from the Jaws User Programs Page
Webbie
is a limited text browser useful if your screenreader is not coping with a web
page very well. More importantly Webbie comes with a fantastic set of
Accessible Programs. The star of the piece is the Accessible BBC I-Player. This
is much easier to use than the BBC web site.
The player will play programs from all the Listen Again options from all
of the BBC Radio stations. The Player also has an option to send you directly
to TV programs on the I Player. My
family use this, even though they do not have visual impairment, as it is much
better interface than the I-Player.
There
are other useful applications including a live BBC Radio Player, and a general
Internet Radio Player. You will need to
install something to play the real media files used by the BBC. I strongly
recommend that you use Real Alternative rather than the resource hungry Real
Player.
Download
Real Alternative from the Programs page on Jaws User as above.
Also
included in this bundle are other useful application including Accessible
Podcatcher, Accessible Podcast Downloader, Accessible RSS Reader and Accessible
PDF Reader. The PDF reader will open Acrobat PDF files in web based html
format. There is a very useful Clocks
program with which you can set reminders for your computer to read you at
certain times and last but not least an easy interface for the massive Project
Gutenberg library. This application will bring up an easy list of all the books
on Gutenberg and you can download them directly into this program to read.
Click
here to download Webbie and Accessible Programs
Do
not be put off by the awful name of this application. It is freeware,
accessible and very good. It has a huge selection of channels across the world
and pressing control R will start an mp3 recording which will be saved in a
Streams folder in My Documents named after the radio station you have picked.
This application is generally much more powerful than the Radio Player which
comes in the Accessible suite. Screamer
Radio has more channels; you can search by genre and country of origin as well
as station name. It is possible to add stations streams that you come across on
the Internet like the RNIB insight Radio service but this is not
straightforward as it involves editing a system file in the program folder.
There are lots of channels already on the player though.
If
you have ever tried to download a big file and then had a broken connection you
know how frustrating this can be. I first experienced this problem when I was
downloading some very large speech synthesis files. You can spend an hour
downloading and then find you have to start from scratch again. This is when
you need a download manager which has the capacity to resume a link without
losing what has been downloaded. . You may also find yourself on a web page
where there are loads of things you want to download. A download manager will
also have the capacity to download everything off a web page.
The
Free Download Manager is easy and accessible. I altered the settings so that it
did not take automatic control of all downloading. I prefer to call it up in
the Internet Explorer context menu when I need to.
Download
from the Jaws User Programs Page
This
excellent utility will convert You Tube videos to mp3 files for you to play on
your PC or portable MP3 player. This utility removes any accessibility
difficulties you may have in controlling the Adobe Flash Player plug in that
You Tube uses. Simply navigate to the
You Tube Video you want to record. Press F6 to enter the address bar. Press
control and c to copy the link. Start Free You Tube to Mp3 Converter and paste
the link address into the first field by pressing control V. Tab to download
and convert and away you go. By default the program will save the Video as from
internet.mp3 in your C Drive. You can then rename the file and move it
somewhere more sensible.
Download Free You Tube to MP3 Converter here
Below
is the list of Podcasts which I download to my PC. All these can be imported
into your podcast client by importing the David_podcasts.opml file which is linked
below. It would be easier to import all of them and delete the ones you do not
want rather than copying the individual feed URL for each Podcast.
ACB
Radio Main Menu Podcast
Action
for Blind People Podcast
Analysis
BBC Radio 4 Investigation program.
Blind
Cool Tech
Dr
Karl and the Naked Scientist
Freedom
Scientific - FSCast
Friday
Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
Guardian
Daily
In
Our Time with Melvyn Bragg
In
Touch News for Blind People
Law
in Action
LibriVox
Audio books
Marries
Podcast. This is a musician and techie
from the USA who variously releases audio technical tutorials and CDs of music
on her podcasts. These are very good but her recordings of her walking around
locations and rambling I find less riveting.
New
Statesman Podcasts
NEWSWEEK
on Air
NOVA
scienceNOW
Politics
Weekly
Snowmail
Podcast
Sportsweek
Test
Match Special
The
Archers
You
and Yours - Disability
Lick here to download a feed list to import
The
best and most reliable podcast downloader I find is the excellent Juice
Program. It is very reliable on what it does and works quietly in the
background. You have to remember that with Juice you do not actually use it to
play your podcasts. The easiest way to use the program is to load it at start-up
of your PC and just let it sit in the system tray. It normally downloads your
mp3 files to a folder in my documents. You can set the location of the podcasts
in the settings of Juice Preferences. To review and play the Podcasts simply go
to this folder where you will find further folders named after your podcast
subscriptions.
To
play these podcasts, simply open the folder and play the podcasts in your
normal mp3 player.
Download
from the Jaws User Programs Page