Serotek Blog

i would like to point out you forgot to mention th...

2010-07-28T11:43:40.412-07:00

i would like to point out you forgot to mention that Apple's voiceover has plug and play with braille displays as well, via bluetooth or USB.

I agree with Anonymous. Serotek is lucky to have y...

2010-07-19T10:38:25.698-07:00

I agree with Anonymous. Serotek is lucky to have you! I wish you the absolute best. And, of course, Hugs!

Joe, my mentor and the one that really helps me he...

2010-07-12T03:42:30.981-07:00

Joe, my mentor and the one that really helps me help my students! Congratulations on your new position! I look forward with eager anticipation your newest adventure and contributions to access!
Rebecca Cagle UNT

We hope Serotek knows how lucky they are to have y...

2010-07-08T08:28:49.606-07:00

We hope Serotek knows how lucky they are to have you-WJS4

Congrats on the new venue. May your new lead to a...

2010-07-06T15:13:14.788-07:00

Congrats on the new venue. May your new lead to adventures that have you smiling like Han jumping to light speed in an asteroid field in the Millennium Falcon.

Congrats on the new opportunity and best of luck.

2010-07-02T06:13:26.319-07:00

Congrats on the new opportunity and best of luck.

Joe, My sincerest congratulations on your new posi...

2010-07-01T15:01:08.777-07:00

Joe, My sincerest congratulations on your new position. I'm not exactly sure what you'll be doing at Serotek, but whatever it is, I'm sure your skills and expertise will greatly enhance the lives of many Serotek users.

thnk you for sharing travesti

2010-06-20T06:26:45.642-07:00

thnk you for sharing travesti

Wow, great post!!! I'm late to this one, but just ...

2010-06-19T16:30:12.088-07:00

Wow, great post!!!
I'm late to this one, but just wanted to say that it's companies like you, Serotek and GW Micro, that understand what the heck's really going on. I'd rather have stability in my screenreader, not fifty useless features that nobody cares about and repeatedly get gouged in the pocketbook every 11 months for, hoping that they fixed some important bug related to my work/whatever's application. Let's stop feeding the monsters. Notetakers that are $4000+ are obsolete for several reasons. Slow, bulky, most don't have built-in wifi (finally the BN Apex does), and most of all, who can just afford to buy it, or beg some agency who doesn't know what accessibility even is. Just because a product costs the most doesn't mean it's the latest greatest technology. Apple and others are getting it right. Include accessibility and screenreaders in your OS and don't charge an arm and a leg for it. We will NOT be subjected to that crap. Why should I be charged a grand so I can use a computer? Not very equal is it?

I sold my notetaker because I found more and more that it collected dust instead of being worth the $6000 pricetag. I now have an iPod touch and a few laptops/netbooks, using Linux with orca, and NVDA for my Windows needs. That's what I call mainstream. I've also used Abbyy FineReader and it rocks. Much better than other clunky pricy junk that does just as good or falls short. Sure, when I first got my notetaker I thought it was the best thing ever. But as I explored and matured, I realized that it really wasn't that much different than a large, bulky, overpriced, phoneless Windows smartphone. Basically my smartphone does everything this could do for 300 bones instead of 6000! Plus, unlike this legacy device, my phone has wifi and 3G, built-in. A lot of notetakers (not all) like to screw people in the way of Internet - "buy this CF card that costs a hundred dollars for wifi Internet". After spending that massive amount of money, you'd think they could toss a few network adapters into the hardware...
Now, Braille displays. I am all for Braille literacy. I use Braille often and love reading. But, I'm not going to pay severl thousand for a display; the prices need to drop and the technology needs to be better, and they need to be sturdier. Apple should invest some money in Braille displays; I'd buy one. It would do everything and be collapsable and all sorts of cool things.

Mike, I've often debated getting a dog guide and ...

2010-05-21T00:39:50.088-07:00

Mike,

I've often debated getting a dog guide and have come to an interesting revelation: it's not the tool (for lack of better words) you use to travel, but the attitude you take into the travel situation.

Some people really do find that using the services of a guide dog helps them feel more independent. Others find the same independence in using a cane. I do. As a cane user, I have found that I'm able to go where I want, at the speed I want, and with as much or as little assistance as a I want. This wasn't always the case. The change happened for me after I attended the Louisiana Center for the Blind. My cane travel instructor was blind, and he once told me that cane travel (and dog travel for that matter) is ten percent skill and ninety percent attitude. Sure, my instructor taught me cane skills. But more than that, he taught me through example and encouragement that a blind person can really travel and be as competent and confident as a sighted person. That's what they teach you at guide dog school: they teach you that the world is yours if you (the blind person in question) believe it is. Their spin of course, is that the guide dog is a part of that. In my case, the cane became a part of that system of belief. But the bottom line, cane or dog, is that belief. I submit then, that it's not just the fact of having a dog that makes you free, it's the attitude you picked up at the guide dog school and the people you've met as a result that freed you. As for your dog himself, he's a marvelous actor in your journey to freedom. And of course, you found a way to travel and do what you like that meets your specific needs.

Best of luck to the both of you and safe travels.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Hi Jake: Great point but we do have a method to th...

2010-04-15T05:25:14.810-07:00

Hi Jake:
Great point but we do have a method to the madness. Truth is that the native interfaces provided by the manufacturers of TTS engines work better than both SAPI 4 and 5. While SAPI provides flexibility it comes with a price. That price is responsiveness. When developing a screenreader we think it's more important to provide responsiveness, when it comes to TTS, than flexibility to use the voices with SAPI.
HTH

Am I the only one who thinks tying a tts engine to...

2010-04-15T02:22:29.616-07:00

Am I the only one who thinks tying a tts engine to one screen reader is a backward practice? I'm sure there are licensing conditions and the like which force this, but it does seem rather outmoded as compared to the way OS X and Linux work where speech engines are shared by a central API and available to any applications that utilize the system-wide tts API.

Ron, Great point. In answer to your question, on...

2010-03-22T05:42:25.508-07:00

Ron,
Great point. In answer to your question, only K-12 students receive free access to SA Mobile, or more specifically a single license of System Access, which runs on a U3 thumb drive. While System Access Mobile does provide the same functionality for college students or anyone else who has a need to arbitrarily use a computer which isn't preconfigured with assistive technology, it is only free to the K-12 group. Though the technology isn't free to college students, we do want to be sure they're aware of its existence, and with programs such as Build a Bundle and other Software as a Service options, the software should be affordable even on a college student's shoestring budget.

On another note, I'd like to thank you for everything you do to educate both students and teachers about a variety of tools available to make the classroom experience both productive and enjoyable. The fact that you make sure the student is actively involved in choosing what's best for them means they not only learn about technology, but they learn they have the power to make decisions for themselves, and that's the best lesson of all.

After reading this, I'm wondering something, just ...

2010-03-20T21:19:37.876-07:00

After reading this, I'm wondering something, just due to the wording.

You say, "Students in K-12 and college classrooms can use Serotek’s System Access Mobile screen reader simply by plugging the thumb drive in to any computer."

Key word that I'm looking at here is "college". Are you implying that Keys for K-12 will work for college students as well? On the Ultimatum post, there was a suggestion by one commenter that this happen and I'm just trying to understand what I'm reading here. If I'm wondering this, then I'm sure others are, too.

Granted, some high school students are dual credit and take college classes while in high school, and this would certainly apply to them, but that wasn't clear on what you wrote.

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

And, yes, for any readers wondering, I'm a paid user of System Access Mobile. I also train several students in a local school district on using their Keys for K-12 screen reader, also educating the teachers on this innovative program. I'm just wanting the information clarified so I can share it with all of them correctly.

Thanks for the great post. I really like it what i...

2010-03-18T03:44:59.255-07:00

Thanks for the great post. I really like it what i have read so far in your blog

One more thing, how about branching into Internati...

2010-03-16T07:13:59.446-07:00

One more thing, how about branching into International markets such as those in Asia? We do not have government funded adaptive technology so have to pay out of our pockets so a solution like system access would be exceptionally useful.

Hi Mike, I appreciate where you are coming from. D...

2010-03-16T07:11:14.729-07:00

Hi Mike,
I appreciate where you are coming from. Do you have any plans to support MathML and programming environments such as Visual Studio and the VBA editor in Microsoft Office? What about Open Office support? Serotek can plug several gaps in the market and have people switch to System Access automatically. Youmay get better results if you focus your energies in developing a strong product and then work on advocacy.

Thank you so much Mike for that enlightenment of w...

2010-03-15T13:19:23.465-07:00

Thank you so much Mike for that enlightenment of what is going on with the technology wave. We, at Talking Books International, create a very simple and functional Talking Bible for low vision, blind and print disabled people. I belivee it may be in a future podcast of serotalk. I received an invitation from Michael Lauf. We are doing our best to provide a high quality, low cost, functional and simple digital audio player for anyone to use. Thank you for your awesome efforts to make things better and to make folks aware of the true path of technology for their own benefit. Dave Young - for more info I can be reached at TheTalkingBook@yahoo.com or 760-889-5444.

I couldn't agree more with the points made by R.P....

2010-03-15T06:10:37.593-07:00

I couldn't agree more with the points made by R.P. The fact of ownership and the ability to be able to both use and maintain your technology is extremely important- particularly in a work setting. The power of bringing your own technology solutions to the table at a job interview cannot be overstated. Some might say this entails your own copy of JAWS, and certainly it is good to know how to opporate various screen readers, but I say that generally it won't matter to an employer one way of the other which screen reader you use so long as it is effective. I grow tired of the montra that we must use JAWS because it is the screen reader of the work place. Firstly it wouldn't be so if the government useing our tax dollars didn't make it so. Secondly, beign able to bring various solutions to a given AT problem shows self drive and independence, which will be valued by an employer. Sorry to rant, but very good points IMO.

After reading many of the comments concerning Mike...

2010-03-14T16:23:13.113-07:00

After reading many of the comments concerning Mike’s “Serotek Ultimatum,” I would like to focus on one idea, self-sufficiency concerning AT and being blind, and a method to achieving it, i.e., controlling AT by owning it. Let’s see if I can shorten this for clarity. I believe you don’t fuly control your technology unless you own it as opposed to renting it. A simple example here: My employer owns the license for JAWS and in every job I’ve had, that license remained with them when I left them. Serotek’s Software As a Service payment method and even GW Micro’s LTO program let’s me buy the software on-the-go. In particular, SA and its deployment on an S3 drive permits me accessibility anywhere on any PC. In every job I’ve held, I’ve been the expert on site regarding my AT needs, not the folks in the I.T. Dept because AT isn’t part of their daily life and nor should it be.With a low cost but powerful system which I can afford and thus travel with, I’m more employable if I come to the table with my own stuff which I control and the employer doesn’t have to buy over what is spent on other employees. Blind persons stand at the intersection, a crossroad, where AT self-sufficiency is a realistic and obtainable goal. This is one of several reasons why we are going to integrate into the digital society being created today: separate but equal still remains inherently unequal. Until the price barrier is eliminated concerning accessibility, the divide between useability of technology between blind and sighted will continue to exist.
Dollars do count! Since I am paying for all of this stuff and I have it now, not nine months or a year from now, I can adapt rapidly and maneuver where I need to in order to keep up with everybody else. This is why the ultimatum must be joined.

@Trenton: Linux user here, and proud of it. It's m...

2010-03-14T06:31:42.156-07:00

@Trenton:
Linux user here, and proud of it. It's more common than a lot of people think, and getting rather popular in certain circles. I don't use any of the blind-specific distributions, straight Ubuntu for me. I don't see SA coming to the Linux platform for several reasons. First, Orca already has more functionality than SA in the environments it supports and second, there are a number of different GUI toolkits, but at the moment only GTK+ supports accessibility. With Orca being free and open source already, and GTK+/GNOME being the environments it supports (XFCE and LXDE work as well if you hack a little) there's no real need for it. Serotek should concentrate on Windows for now, that's where the changes need to happen. UNIX/Linux, as well as Macintosh, are covered already with completely free of charge accessibility tools. For Samnet users though it would be nice if they revived the Linux version of their browser. Wow, how long ago was that anyway? They wouldn't even need to do their own browser, the way Orca and Firefox work together just make a Firefox plugin for the voice chat and media areas and everything would be covered.

Although its not talked about much, there is also ...

2010-03-12T10:48:24.874-08:00

Although its not talked about much, there is also the linux world, free and open source as well.
The ones specifically made for the blind, Vinux:

http://vinux.org.uk

and Adriane Knoppix:

http://knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html

although, almost every distro got Orca in there.
I know there's Blinux, but i forgot that one's address.

Mike is indeed correct, that GW Micro, although is moving forward in the versital ways of screen reading with scripting and such, its got a awhile to go.
Once NVDA gets the API hooks in place, it certainly will be something that I'll be spreading the joy around!

And now that we got some battle with the big ones that I see has continued,
(see

http://www.blindbargains.com/redirect.php?redirect=5084

for more info,)

Serotek, NVDA, and the linux world I hope in do time, although it could already be happening now, will take over the screen reading market!

Not sure how many places around the world use linux, but certainly it wouldn't be a bad time for folks to start learning it.
It would be interesting one day to see system access run a linux platform, like the old freedombox did, but who knows what could happen this year!
PS If system access does come to the Linux platforms, now that would amaze me greatly!
Yes you can visit

http://samobile.net

with Linux distros, but what could happen if SA To Go go in to the mix there one day?
Hmmm.
Oh, one last thing, you can say in the SA and SamNet Mobile manuals, that NVDA is the only screen reader that truly shuts down before SA To Go/SA Stand-Alone starts.
Now why can't the other ones!

Trenton Matthews

Mike, ok you got me thinking. I want to get on the...

2010-03-12T01:51:31.038-08:00

Mike, ok you got me thinking. I want to get on the phone with you and talk about me switching personally to SA, and than we'll talk about my employees. but give me a call today/tomorrow at the office and lets chat. (623) 565-9357. I would really want to do this before my enthusism wares off. Thanks sir. - Gabe Vega - CEO The BlindTechs Network - A Division of Commtech LLC

Very interesting post, thanks for sharing!

2010-03-11T19:01:43.094-08:00

Very interesting post, thanks for sharing!

Hello Mike and all, I just wanted to add my suppor...

2010-03-10T12:18:38.767-08:00

Hello Mike and all, I just wanted to add my support to Mike's post. I have been a serotek customer since about late 2007/08 and refuse to use any other screen reader with the exception of nvda in some cases. While I can applaud gwmicro for moving in the right direction with there payment plan, I cannot use there software due to the sma and proprietary video chaining technology. Somehow it's still not as bad as JAWS's dcm but still is unacceptable. I am a college student studying IT and sa allows me to use any computer on campus flawlessly. I believe that good things are in store, the nvda devs have begun work and implementation on api hooks for nvda which will make it even better than it is now. Also, I really think that MS will put a screen reader into windows 8 or whatever the next version is called due to the strides made in the magnification area, it's only a matter of time. If only they would extend access to windows mobile out've the box things would be set. thanks and keep it up.