Tip: Flash Player Settings Manager

The world of trouble shooting your computer is very complicated once you move to the realm of web stuff. The Internet is no longer just a series of static pages anymore as now you can run full on 3D games through your browser of choice. Programs like System Access from Serotek are real computer applications that can be delivered to you via the net. Streaming video, like content from Hulu, is becoming more popular with first run television series finding a home there for those people who may have not recorded their favorite shows when they aired on the TV networks. But did you know that the Flash Media Player had settings? I mean real nuts and bolts settings? Well it does and the only way you can access these settings is through the web.

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html

This site will inform you about how much space Flash cookies can take up. It also will allow you to block third party cookies as well as give you some control on how your browser interacts with Flash based content. Now you may be thinking to yourself that you don’t watch YouTube or other web content like that. Where this comes in for general web surfers is in places like your bank or other financial sites. Flash is used by a lot of web sites beyond movies and videos. And more often these days Flash can be used as one level of identifying you as a user of your computer. So having Flash cookies be tracked may not be what you want if you are very security conscious.

The site I list above isn’t very Assistive Technology friendly, however, you should read the accompanying texts on the page in order to know what kinds of controls are available with Flash Media. And remember that Flash will update every so often. So you may need a friend to go back over these settings with you when this happens. Lastly, if you use multiple browsers, these settings aren’t always globally set. Which means you may have to do this for each web browser you use.

Random Goodness: CAPTCHA, Vista Email And $199

Today on my morning tour of the web I found a good story, a tip and a humorous bit of fluff that you can use to make fun of your friends who stood in line for that phone.. you know the one they can’t use on a 3G network because they don’t have a 3G network near them? Yeah that phone.

Computerworld Article On CAPTCHA: This article chronicles the rise and fall of CAPTCHA’s use on the interwebs. I think, as I said to some in the Computer Science Division at the NFB Convention, that multi level user authentication will be the next area of concern for those of us who are in I.T. fields. Especially when companies like Adobe talk about its use in accessing documents and other content that we already have some issues wth now. Anyway, here is the Computerworld link..

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;489635775;fp;;fpid;

Vista Mail Client: This week’s Super Site for Windows tip talks about using a web based email client as a default for Vista. It uses some third party programs, however, for some out there I think this may just be what the Doctor ordered. At least until Windows Live Mesh is official. That will be very interesting indeed.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/07/14/windows-vista-tip-of-the-week-using-gmail-or-yahoo-mail-as-your-default-email-handler.aspx

$199.. Yeah Right: Sometimes the internet gives you something funny to laugh at when you least expect it to do so. This social commentary on the iPhone was just that kind of thing for me. Take a look..

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Get-Broke-by-Buying-an-iPhone-29134947

Dallas NFB: Mid Afternoon With PAC Mate Omni

Yep, I am still combing through notes from last week. And here is my scribbling from the same Lecture Hall, later in the day, with Jonathan and the Omni.

Jonathan said that PAC Mate Omni’s 6.1 update was coming. And it was “immanent”, however, it wouldn’t have a time stamp on it as the update would be released when it was ready for public consumption. The neat thing that was said is that the Omni 6.1 update would use a Data Backup Utility for this update. More on what that is and how it works will come in the release notes for the update and probably in FScasts.

Another new feature coming is something Jonathan called “Contracted Braille Anywhere”. This was said to be super helpful with forms and things like the Contact Lists. The idea is that you will be able to use Contracted Braille in a lot of places you couldn’t previously and this drew a round of applause from the crowd.

Some accessible games are also coming to the Omni as well. Jonathan spoke about playing others Online with these games. And after you are finished playing someone why not use Skype to call them and rub it in about their losses.

6.1 will be a free update to PAC Mate Omni users. Jonathan also mentioned the prices of hardware and software SMAs for those who may not be on the Omni platform yet.

Next, it was announced that Adobe PDF support would be coming in the 6.1 update. Naturally unprotected PDFs will work best with any AT but there may be a solution for reading password protected PDFs in the future via pacmategear.com. Also, you need a PDF reader to use this feature. Jonathan spoke about the option of using the “Orneta Player” for reading the raw feed of PDF files on the Omni.

The Omni will also be able to read E Books via a Palm E Book Reader. I’m a little fuzzy here in my notes but there was a discussion about how some work was done to help the Omni detect where the cursor is and was in places where it didn’t before. I’m sure again that this, like a lot of these features, will be detailed out in the FScasts.

Jonathan then spoke about some tweaks to the unit’s responsiveness and behavior. A highpoint here is that the JAWS settings will remain the same on a warm reset. So if you had the unit’s speech muted and you were using it in a Braille only mode the warm reset would place you back into that profile when you came back up into a normal session.

The Omni will also be using the Unified Braille Format. This would be helpful for those people who are learning a new language or for people who travel internationally. Some time was given to this and it sounded great for bilingual Braille users who are using this format a lot in their work.

The 6.1 update will now come with on board support for the Ambicom Wireless Compact Flash Cards. Previously the unit had native support for the Socket line of cards. But in 6.1 support for both is present.

Questions about the unit began. Overdrive support is coming, Jonathan listed a lot of applications that he has found to work well with the Omni and then a ton of “How do i?”s. I’m skimming through a bit further but it looks like nothing out of this portion caught my ear.

As I have said before the Omni is a great update for those who have an older PAC Mate. And 6.1 looks to be a fantastic free update as well. I also want to point out a comment that was made in May’s Poll Results comment section. Take it away Wayne.

Wayne said...
The big advantage, as I see it, to the Omni is the fact that you don't lose any data when or if the battery goes completely flat. In fact, its safe to tsay that you nearly have to "accidentally" erase the data in order to totally erase it. Also, the Omni doesn't lose any data if the unit experiences a hard reset. Aside from all of the other software and OS advances and improvements that were made, or if the ability to retain data was all that was added to the Omni, I'd still pay for the upgrade. Add to that the competitive pricing structure that FS released when the Omni came out, and you've got quite a combination. To be fair, its pretty nifty to put Office 2007 documents in Word Mobile on my Omni and have them read perfectly well, but if I can't insure that the data will still be there after a 0% battery reading or a hard reset, then those other software and OS improvements won't get me very far if I don't have the Office 2007 documents to work with.

Well put Wayne. By the way, Wayne’s blog got featured in Fred’s Head Companion. He talks about the Omni and other things Blindness related. Here is the link to his blog if you want to check it out.

http://wayneism.blogspot.com/

Feedback: Catching Up With Comments

I've been a bit remiss in responding to some comments. But no more. Today I am taking the time to respond to some of the comments over the last .. um.. few months. Wow that looks worse in print. Okay let's get started.

Computer World Article On  AT: Last month I, and many others, posted an article from Computer World on AT and general web access. Here's one comment from that post.

Ron Graham said...
Thanks for that article Ranger. I noticed it in an email alert last week, but the link Google had in the email would not load the page, no matter what I tried.

I think it touches on several issues we blind computer users regularly face and is a at least a good primer for anybody, such as a webmaster or potential employer, not familiar with screen readers. It describes pretty much what screen readers do, but also what they don’t do, as well as suggesting alternative methods for problem areas such as CAPTCHA and giving a site which employs an accessible alternative.

The Blind Access Journal copied this article into text for easy reading. So you may want to keep it around for better reference.

http://blog.blindaccessjournal.com/2008/04/computerworld-article-blind-users-still.html

Matt Campbell and I had a long discussion on some of the article's points. And my general feelings are that it is still very difficult to explain AT in mainstream terms but this article did better than most at trying to do so. It didn't touch on everything though and that can be a challenge in and of its self. For instance, explaining Screen Magnifiers and Graphic User Interfaces to a Sighted World without screen shots or other visual aids is a fun brand of torture that I don't recommend to AT nOObs. Especially in the current Office Ribbon and Windows Sidebar environments. The pitfalls of the Java Access Bridge, embedded video controls like those used by Hulu and over the page Macromedia ads are also troublesome. However the most ironic part of it all is most of the people the article is trying to reach more than likely have poor eyesight already. That is, take away their contacts and thick glasses.. If I had a nickel for every time I heard an I.T. Director dream about not using their contacts, glasses or remark about some laser surgery..  

The bigger issue is always the comments in these articles. Those well thought out posts from educated individuals scare me more than the rantings and mis-spellings of others. Here is an older article from the Wall Stree Journal that demonstrates it with better effect.

http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/01/11/is-your-web-site-blind-friendly-how-to-avoid-a-lawsuit/

Audio Dramas: Here's a comment from April's Audio Drama post.

Aaron said...
Hey Ranger1138, it was great meeting up with you the other day. Had a good time talking to you and learning more about the industry. These audio dramas seem really cool. Have you come across any of these in a podcast or free download format? Take it easy sir.

Some of the links tagged under the Audio Drama label do indeed offer podcasts or free samples. Big Finish has not only a podcast with snippets of upcoming productions, moreover, they have trailers for just released stories as well. And they just put up a neat thing for their downloads. You can listen to part one of a story for a small price and then if you like it you can buy the whole thing. The earlier cost is applied to the overall cost of the download. Since most of the Doctor Who audios are about 2 hours in length you get a good idea for a small price if you want the whole story after hearing part one. If you focus over to the right, or check your links lists, you will see that I added a Big Finish "Pick of the Month". This month's pick introduces the 6th Doctor's Companion that is exclusive to the audio series. And she plays a big part in the Big Finish extended universe as well.

Also, ZBS tends to post an entire audio play in ten minute intervals. They released "The 4th Tower" that way back in October 07.  

Trekker Breeze: Back in March I posted a bit more on the upcoming Humanware all in one GPS. 

Anonymous said...
I've just read about the trekker breeze in Access IT, a UK based magazine. It said the breeze will be afordable. Afordable is one of those words which should never be used. I've heard it said that a car is afordable at the cost of thousands, or a can of beans for a few uk pence.

Rumor is, and don't quote me on this at all, that the Breeze is between $500 and $850. We should know more on that as we near Convention season. When you look at the prices of accessible cell phones, add ons to existing note taking devices and over the counter brands of GPS a unit that runs around that price range could be argued by some to be "affordable". Remember that most Assistive Technology is not sold to the individual buyer. It is sold to Governments and that business model has its own symbiotic relationships. So "affordable" is mostly going to be used either loosely or in a comparative way here at TRS. Your mileage and size of pocketbook will always vary.   

Zoom Text USB: Going back to February now for this comment.  

Jessica said...
Too bad I read your review after purchasing ZoomText USB. I chose this product due to its portability. However, the admin right requirement really throw the wrench into its usefulness. As a result, I can't use it at the library or internet cafe.

Anything out there that runs the magnifier program directly from the flash drive? Want to avoid leaving a footprint on the guest computer system.

How about Dolphin Pen or Magic USB?

Jessica

Well.. At the time of this post both Freedom Scientific's Magic and the Dolphin Pen require a Video Interceptor be installed. You may or may not run into the exact same thing again as far as Admin rights goes. However, barring a full lock down on the system, you could use System Access To Go as an alternative Screen Magnifier to all three. You don't have the same features such as pointer, focus or cursor enhancements but you do have some darn good speech going if you rely on that for screen navigation. Best part is that you can try it at your local cafe for free to see if this will work for you.

www.satogo.com

October Poll Comment: This came in from a post in November about the October 07 poll results. That poll was on Operating Systems by the way.

Darrell said...
I am actually a bit concerned that, at this time, there is absolutely no support by any screen reader for any of the 64-bit versions of Windows. What happens if one's job for some reason requires the ability to run on that platform?

This recently came up in some of my dealings with an AT company. Costcos placed a system on sale for dirt cheap that came pre-loaded with Windows Vista.. 64 bit edition. In a short period of time they took four calls from people who had purchased this system from around the country. And all, naturally, could not run the software due to the OS being 64 bit instead of 32 bit.

Most of the major players in the industry are aware that this is an issue for some of us in I.T. departments, call centers or big business where high level security is manditory. And many of these players have x64 support on their Roadmaps. At the same time we have a large number of newly Blind, older Blind and wounded Veterans all coming into the world of AT. These populations traditionally don't need this level of support in their product of choice. What bothers me is the rubber bands that the Developers face from Blind Professionals needing more high tech application support falling down the list of those Roadmaps because more product is being sold to the growing non technical audience. Development teams will be stressed and stretched to provide support to all. 

I don't have a witty or humorous remark to make here because I am very worried about this subject seeing how I fall under my own definition of Blind Professional. All I can say is that I urge you to NICELY! provide feedback or feature requests to the product teams that you use or rely on daily for work. I've found that only a polite well laid out request, with bullet point lists, is one of the only ways to convince the management of these companies to move development cycles in another path not projected on the Roadmap. And remember too that these product releases are sometimes in a 18 month cycle. Which means if you are using 1.0 and you request now the request may not come until 3.0 as 2.0 maybe feature complete. Depending on the company's cycle of development added support can come sooner than a feature request or User Interface change. Oh! I've been doing this too long if I can type that out all at once and not have to spell check it.. 

The overall point I am trying to make is that you need to be active in how you use your AT products. Saying that one product *sucks* just doesn't help much. If you say, however, that you need support for the next version of Windows or Office on day one though.. And give some credit where credit is due. We did see support, beta or no, for Vista on day one. And some have even started on IE8 in their latest updates. We as Users have to remain polite and vocal in what we need as the next five years will be the most interesting time we have ever seen in Assistive Technology.

The Crystal Ball: A.T. I.D.

As you can tell I am a big Science Fiction fan. I am also a person who gets to see and play with a lot of technology for a living. And sometimes my day job gives me the time to do some speculation or crazy bouts of thought on "proof of concept" items. A few articles recently got me to thinking on a bus ride home. What if technologies by the new Google/Double Click, Adobe and some unscrupulous individuals used web tools to not only detect your Assistive Technology.. but taylor their content in a manner that could take advantage of your vision loss? Where I am going with this is that detecting AT could be a good and a bad thing.

The good thing of course comes in with better navigation or less dynamic content delivery from a site that is usually nefarious for mouse overs, dynamic pull down menus or plain Flash Video on just about every control imaginable. The site detects your Screen Reader and adjusts the content to become more AT friendly by providing "Skip Navigation" or nothing but links and text for all information. I would rather that good web design provide one site for all, however, I can see some in Web Development opt for this option even if there is a possibility for information discrimination. I mean what if there are two sets of content available and one of these sets isn't updated for the AT users. That example is kind of far fetched I know because auto population should take care of both sets of content. But think of it like a restaurant who doesn't always update the prices on their Braille menus. A "text only" site that doesn't always reflect the "special of the week" flash banner on the main page does still occasionally happen every now and then.

There is naturally a darker side to this technology as well. Perhaps someone who is losing their vision performs a search for Screen Magnification. Someone out their Google Bombs their *free* Screen Magnifier. But along with this *free* software comes a little keylogger or other Malicious tool for ferrying back info to these, for right now, imagined foes. Since the largest growing audience of Assistive Technology users are older beginner level computer users, they ,might not notice a program loaded in the background. Or, as I have seen in some cases, flashback to the days of Gator, they know there is something wrong but they do not have the skills to remove the software in question. Very rarely do these types of users research the software before installing it and like several of us they almost never read a ULA.

Of course Spyware, Malware, Bloatware and Grayware have been around for a long time now. And generally the emphasis has been for these software writers to target the gangs of people looking for free games or productivity tools. However, with more and more free AT programs coming onto the scene I worry that we may one day have to police our own Blind communities in order for us to know who is wearing the white, black and gray hats amongst these alternatives.  

Here is the article that got me thinking about Screen Reader detection.

http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=61

And here is an article that chronicles the history of Grayware from Ars Technica.

http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/detecting-and-fighting-greyware.ars

Quick News: RAM, WHS, Office 07 And Adobe On Adobe Action

In Classic Star Trek's "Trouble With Tribbles" Scotty has a famous Geek quote used often by some of us in our Unit. When Engineer Scott is told that he must remain in his Quarters until further notice by Kirk after a bar brawl with the Klingons his response is "That will give me time to catch up on my technical journals". So it is for me, and a few others, during the Holidays in the biz. Of course the upside is that I get paid to play with the latest in Assistive/Adaptive/Access Technology. And that is a job that is hard to come by easily these days. So the benefits far outweigh the romanticism that comes with being a Government Drone. no wait.. that's not right is it? Change Government to Borg for Star Trek reference sake. Oh well here's some of the interesting stuff I have come across this week.

Laptop Specs And Vista: When I did my talk at NFB Computer Sciences in July of 06 I told the crowd to shoot for 2 GB of RAM for Vista. Roboret SinClaire, who was also on the panel, wasn't too thrilled with me over that and a few musings I had about Office 07. My mindset at the time was that eventually the hardware would have to come up to meet the demands of the software in a very short time as developers took advantage of their new play toys. Below is a Slashdot article that pretty much comes right out and says that Laptop OEMs are leaning to a GB standard configuration for RAM.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/12/22/076211.shtml

Windows Home Server: Earlier this year I stated that I wanted a WHS for the Holidays. The quick move to a new orbit for TRS kinda put the kibosh on that desire. However having my own office at home is a super cool trade off though. And in retrospect it may prove to be all for the best as the post linked to below shows that there may be some big issues with WHS.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2007/12/22/serious-windows-home-server-concerns.aspx

Office 07 SP1 Isn't A Gift: This one goes out to all the non Admins out there who thought I was just whining about the various product Service Pack progress bars and the like earlier in the month. The link below shows that I am not the only guy online perplexed with all the updates, and their eventual testing, showing up at one time during the Winter Break. It also gives a very realistic reason for this wealth of updates.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/business_applications/office_2007_sp1_isnt_a_gift.html

Adobe On Microsoft Watch: It has been one year since Adobe went all crazy in the acquisition department to play catch up with Google and Microsoft. One rumor had it that Adobe realized that ODF threatened PDF and so they needed to be more than the company who just annoys you with constant Adobe Acrobat Updates. Macromedia and other purchases have now allowed Adobe to bug you even more with even bigger lists of updates as a result of this buying spree. Sarcasm aside, here is an interview that Karen McCall would love on where Adobe is going. i mention Karen's name because at the top of the interview they jump right into Macromedia integration possibilities with Acrobat. Love that accessibility! Oh and this runs as an embedded player at the top of the page with direct links further down. Just a warning..

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/podcasts/adobes_acrobat_act.html

Karen's web site: I would be remiss if I also didn't give a shout out to some of Karen's work on Adobe and Office access. Her Main Menu appearance from April 07 is worth a listen as well.

http://www.iprimus.ca/~martha/table.htm