[nfb-talk] This Matter is Serious:

[Kenneth Chrane]

-----Original Message-----
From: Management Recruiters of Eastern Shore
[mailto:easternshorerecruiters at msn.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 7:26 AM
To: James Carr; Tom Haderman; Dan Woytowitz
Subject: Jaws Information
Importance: High

Here is some information about new upgrades to Jaws.  The most critical
thing is that ie7 will be released soon and jaws does not support it so
it can't be automatically sent out to computers.
Other things are worth noting as well.
The Ranger Station

Blogger
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Quick News: IE7 Hits Today, Vista Licensing and Window Eyes 6 Beta

Internet Explorer 7: Today marks the day where the quiet calm from
Microsoft is broken with a storm of new product releases. IE7 is the
first of several new products to be released over the next 8 months. And
it's going to be out today via download. And then it will be added to
November's Patch Tuesday list. Remember that your Assistive Software of
choice MAY, KINDA, SORTA work with IE7 but the official versions that
officially DO work with AT come over the next few weeks. Just keep that
in mind if you are pondering the upgrade because going back to IE6 can
be a messy process.

Vista Licensing: There's a ton on the web about this issue and I have
hesitated in speaking my mind on it as it's still fluid until Vista's
official release.
But I have been reading the newly revamped Longhornblogs, called
Windows-now.com, for up to the second info on this story that has
sparked a thousand bloggers.
Check out the new site at..

http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/

Window Eyes 6 Beta: G.W. Micro has released the public beta of their new
upcoming version of the popular Screen Reader. I know a gal who has been
in the beta program and she raves about the new functionality in Office.
Plus you can download this version and start playing with IE7 if you so
desire. Shout out to Jeff Bishop as well as Main Menu will feature the
new Window Eyes 6 as this week's topic. To find and download the new
beta go to this link..

http://gwmicro.com/Window-Eyes/Beta/

posted by Ranger1138 at
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
0 comments

Monday, October 16, 2006
Allinplay Gets Ready For IE7

Got this in the old inbox today..

"Dear All inPlay Members,

With the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 7.0 the way All inPlay
games are launched will cause problems. We have addressed this issue and
released a new installer that you *must* download and install. In the
coming weeks we will be upgrading the web site which is incompatible
with older versions of the games.

To get the new installer go to
http://allinplay.com/download/allinplaysetup_3_01.exe

Download and install this file and you're done!

All inPlay Support"

posted by Ranger1138 at
Monday, October 16, 2006
0 comments

Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Quick News: How To Stop The Automatic Update of IE7, Patch Tuesday and
Happy Shinny Anti Virus Companies

* As you might already know IE7 is soon to be on it's way to you via the
Windows Update feature. Currently very few Assistive Technology products
support the new version of the popular browser. And in some cases you
will have to obtain an paid upgrade for better support or compatibility
to IE7. The danger of course is that you or your company may have
Automatic Updates set on your computer or network. Which could be bad
when you come into work and boot up to a whole new browser. Ars Technica
has an article on a tool kit released way back in July that will prevent
you from doing this little surprise. The Microsoft kit doesn't stop or
prevent you from downloading IE7 manually though. so you can still use
the browser once you are up to snuff with your AT product of choice.
Find the article at the link below.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006...

Of course you can also go into Control Panel, Automatic Updates and set
them to "Notify me but do not download updates". It's a bit easier but
you will have to be on the look out for IE7 in the Critical Updates next
time Microsoft issues a patch. For that you must strike IE7 from the
list of available downloads in Windows or Microsoft update.

* Windows Updates: Speaking of Automatic Updates at Microsoft.. You may
have noticed that Patch Tuesday was kind of more like Patch Someday.
There appears to have been some network problems at MS which prevented
the automatic distribution of patches. It's all better now and you may
either manually download or auto update yor copies of Office and Windows
XP. The 10 patches are all under 1.5 MB and you will need to restart
your system after running these updates.
ZDNet has more on a patch that was supposed to come but didn't by the
way.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6124868.html

* Anti Virus Nay Saying: A ton of press has been all over the net from
the leading Anti Virus makers on how Microsoft is hurting them and
ignoring real threats in security. For a very long time I have been a
bit of a conspiricy nut on this subject. Part of me, the I used to work
in high pressure sales part, says that these companies create the
problems that they then magically fix thereby holding you at the throat
to continue to the never ending subscription model that makes up the
very core of their business model. Another part of me can't stand the
bloatware that comes from things like System Works. But many on the web
who are far more technical than I have come right out and accused these
companies of being wrekless in their arguments to exist. ZDNet once
again today has another article on this subject and it's a good read to
see how the bucket doesn't always hold all the water it says it does on
the side of the retail box.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=343

posted by Ranger1138 at
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
0 comments

JAWS 8.0 Featured On Main Menu

Jeff Bishop interviewed Eric from Freedom Scientific on Main Menu and
you can hear some demonstrations of JAWS 8.0 if you go to the link below
and look for the "Replay" for Wednesday.

http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=vi
ew_page&PAGE_id=44&MMN_position=56:14

But if you don't want to listen to the 2 hour presentation, and you
really should give it a listen,  you can find some highlights from my
notes on the broadcast directly below.

* The new "What's New In JAWS will feature both Eric and Jonathan Mozen.
It's going to be released as a MP3 on the FS site and it's about 90
minutes long.
This will also be included on the CD in DAISY format.
* JAWS 8 will be downloadable off the web, however, this version will
not contain the new Realspeak synthesizers. As a result of JAWS now
being able to use Realspeak it will be shipped on CD to all current SMA
holders.
* The version of Realspeak shipped is over 700 MB and it comes on it's
own CD. The JAWS bi fold package will contain the Realspeak CD on one
side and the JFW program disc on the other. Nothing was said about the
ILM disc though.
* Public Beta releases, like those with 7.1, will return after the
release of 8.0.
* JAWS will now use the Automatic Update feature more often. The plan is
to update JAWS every 6 weeks.
* 8.0 no longer supports older versions of Windows. Windows 2000, XP
Home, XP Pro, XP Media Center Edition and Windows Server 2003 are
supported.
* The older versions of JAWS will still be available on the web but not
supported by Freedom Scientific. The archives go all the way back to
version 2.0 by the way.
* Eric has stated that a version of JAWS will be available on the day
and date of Vista's release. His comments seemed to be directed at the
January 30th retail versions rather than the upcoming Enterprise
release.
* 8.0 will work with Office 2007, however, that program is still in Beta
and better support will arrive in future updates.
* Realspeak is being adopted to give JAWS better international language
support.
Bi Fold package with Realspeak CD on one side and JFW program disc on
the other.
* The Realspeak English territory release will contain 3 American, 2
British, 2 Australian, 1 Castilian Spanish and 1 Latin American Spanish
voice.
* Other languages will be sold regionally such as Italian and German.
* The new Realspeak voices can be used with the new Say All feature.
This will allow you to navigate with Eloquence and switch on the fly to
Realspeak for document reading.
* 8.0 will support IE 7.
* Some keystrokes have changed to avoid conflicts with IE 7 but nothing
that as not already been seen with Firefox support
* Virtual Buffer and Document Server loading of dynamic HTML and other
content has been improved from 7.1. You can actually read pages with
tickers in real time .. and this is said to be amazing with a Braille
display.
* Skim Reading will now recognize attributes and colors when searching
through text
* The Startup Wizard will allow you to customize JAWS when you first
launch the program after a new install. This is added from Magic and it
allows you to set your preferences without you having to sort through
many of the menus in the Configuration Manager.
* The JAWS Find Dialog now has a History list of the last 20 items
searched
* Application Management from Magic makes the leap into JAWS. You can go
into this tool and turn off JAWS scripts in say Firefox to see if the
program is the problem or is the application specific scripts are an
issue. Great for trouble shooting your computer.
* Lots of Office 2003 improvements in Excel and Outlook.
* Web Resources has now been added to the Help menu. This will take you
to the JAWS HQ and other places where you can find up to date
information on JAWS.
The search engine now used by Freedom Scientific for web based searches
of their site is now Google based.