My first port of call for software is the jaws User programs Page as I know everything listed there is accessible. My second is Nonags. I joined Nonags with a life membership back in 2004. This web site is actually being hosted on the Nonags member’s pages. There are free versions of Nonags which you can find by searching on Google but of course you will not get access to the member’s services. The main function of this site is to act as a repository of software which is either freeware or shareware. The main criteria for inclusion on this site are that the software should not nag you to purchase it. Hence the name No Nags. I am very glad that I joined Nonags when I did. In addition to the software there is an extensive store of USA and BBC based Radio shows which I can access and there is a sections with access to the top 500 Rock songs in Mp3 format. There used to be audio books on this site also but these have disappeared now. There are also member’s forums.
If you decide to join then check carefully what the privileges of membership are. I believe that there was some discussion some time ago that new members would not access all the resources that the older members would.
Click here to enter Nonags member’s pages
Cuil has been causing some interest as an alternative search engine for Google. I am a creature of habit and the Google search results have not been sufficiently annoying for mme to jettison it yet. The sponsored links do tend to irk me. Cuil does not appear to have the sponsored links feature and they claim that they have the biggest web database of any search engine. They claim that they can outperform Google. Certainly cuil is better in the amount of information that it provides in the initial search. I keep on meaning to give this a sustained trial. As I say, I am a creature of habit but you might want to give this a try as my initial impressions is that it might become a serious competitor.
Click to enter the Cuil search Engine
I think the singing DEC Talk files that Patrick Perdue's produced are fantastic. I could not believe it when I first heard a computer singing Bohemian Rhapsody. Patrick is obviously a little bored by all the attention and has moved onto other audio projects now. Some of these are quite interesting but his DEC Talk files remain a classic. I laughed out loud when I heard these. If you go to his page the DEC Talk files are at the bottom of his page.
Click here for a direct link to Bohemian Rhapsody.
I belong to the RNIB, Calibre, and Listening Books libraries so I do not buy that many books. Occasionally I will if these libraries do not have the book I want. I discovered Audible last year and it has been surprisingly straightforward to use despite the copy protection involved in the books they sell. . You have to have a compatible Mp3 player to use the service. I am not sure that Players like the Zen Stone will work with the site. The good news however, is that the Victor Reader Stream is a compatible device. Once the Audible Manager software is installed it is all pretty simple. You need to connect your Stream to your computer bias the USB cable and when the software is installed tell it that it is the Stream that you want to use. Buying the book will allow you to go to your library on the site. Clicking download will copy the book first of all onto your PC and then automatically onto your stream. I think you need version 2 of the Stream operating system installed. Press the info key on your stream to check. If you have version 1 there is a free upgrade available on the Humanware site.
Click here to enter the UK audible site
Click here to enter the Humanware Victor Reader Stream Page
I cannot say these are essential sites for me as I use the RNIB and Calibre Audio Books services. However these are sources of free Audio Books on demand. Open Culture have a podcast service and books can also be downloaded from their web site.
Librivox is a perhaps better known public domain source of Audio Books.
Click here to enter Open culture
Magnatunes is a music site with a difference. You can listen to all the music on the site for free and you can even download free mp3 copies of Albums though there is a Magnatunes announcement between every track. . They say that they guarantee 50% of any fees you pay to the artists. When I was last able to use this site properly, the system was that if you wanted to purchase an album you simply paid what you thought it was worth. Very oddly the site appears to be now generally accessible except I cannot find anywhere where you can actually pay for the music. This is shooting themselves in the foot a bit I think! Still as you can listen to all the albums I present this as a site to visit. It does not have the latest commercial releases but there is still some very nice music here and \I think this kind of site is a very good thing.
Click here to enter Magnatunes
This accessible media player is not essential for me but it is interesting. It is a self voicing application and you can select your own Sapi voice to run on it. Installation can be problematic though. I tried to run it on a Desktop, Laptop and Netbook. Only on the Netbook does it run without problem so there are clearly some rough edges. There is an alternative version which is supposed to help with these problems but this did not work for me on the Desktop or laptop either. Once running though you can use this application to play your media files write a mini blog and participate in an online messaging community. There are options to access Wikipedia and You Tube within the application. There are links to radio stations that will play within the player and public domain audio books and other media. Personally I would prefer the option just to run with Jaws providing the screen feedback. There is a silent sound scheme you can install but I am not sure if this means that Jaws will resume control. At the moment Jaws suspends when the program loads. I suspect that this program is actually aimed at younger computer users than me. Others have found this of value and it is aimed squarely at users with visual impairment and is above all free.
Click here to visit the Klango Site
This page was last updated on Sunday, 10 May 2009