Archive for June, 2006

Excellent Item Concerning Audio Recorders

June 29, 2006

I have just listened to an interview concerning a variety of different high quality audio recorders, available on the Blind Cool Tech web site. The item is produced by Tim Cumings who interviews Michael Lang. I thought people may be interested in this interview.

 

It is very refreshing when you hear an item which is interesting and where a great deal of time has obviously been put into the subject delivery and the technical presentation.

Michael Lang has a great deal of experience in using and commenting upon the merits and flaws of different audio recorders, such as the PTR2 and the Edirol products. But apart from that, Tim asks some very good questions and has paid particular attention to the editing of the interview to ensure you only hear relevant content.

 

The item is concluded with a brief discussion about Rockbox and MP3 players which is also very interesting. Michael has both the PTR1 and the PTR2 recorders and, since I would really like to own a PTR machine, I would love to know the differences between both products. Are there any audio reviews available yet of the PTR2?

 

In Touch discussion on iTunes

June 27, 2006

On 11 October 2005, Anna Dresner from the National Braille Press in the US, who wrote the book The iPod experience, and I, talked on the BBC Radio Four programme In Touch about iPods and iTunes.

 

I did not know this programme had been archived, but I have just found it and here is a link to listen to it. 

 

People Wanted to Test “Buy Track” Script

June 25, 2006

If you have version 2.71 of the iTunes scripts for JAWS installed, and you would like to test a specific script relating to the iTunes Music Store, then please let me know.

 

Previously, the computer screen needed to be set to a specific resolution to take advantage of the ability to purchase tracks and some other functionality.  Today however, I have implemented some alternative code into this script to see if this may be a way forward for development to deal with this and other functions. 

 

If you would like to try the “Buy Track” script, you must be able to place a JAWS script file into your local settings folder, you must be running JAWS 7 or 7.10, and have a fully authorised copy of the iTunes scripts.

 

Please send me an e-mail if you would like to test this function.

Milestone 311 Reviewed Within Infotech Magazine

June 25, 2006

The latest edition of Infotech magazine produced by T&T Consultancy Ltd features an in depth review of the Milestone 311 MP3 player/voice recorder.

 

Unlike many of our other articles, this item has been produced by one of our listeners, Julie Rodaway.  Julie is an excellent recordist and this is demonstrated within the item.

 

If you are not a subscriber to Infotech currently, this may well be the time to take out membership to the magazine.  Our Sight Village special program is about to be recorded which is always very popular.

iTunes Scripts and Anna’s Books mentioned in Access World

June 25, 2006

The iTunes JAWS scripts have been mentioned within the recent edition of Access World from the American Foundation of the Blind, together with Anna Dresner’s Blog which includes, among other things, updates to her book concerning the iPod Shuffle.  You can read the article by activating this link.  Thank you Access World for mentioning these issues in your News section.

 

It is also worth mentioning that the E-Access Bulletin produced in the UK by headstar mentioned the iTunes scripts and the Portable Player Portal site in the June edition.  Again, thank you.  As and when the site is updated to reflect the June edition, this Blog will link to it as will the Portal itself.

iTunes scripts for JAWS 7.1 released

June 24, 2006

Now that Freedom Scientific have released JAWS for Windows version 7.10, I have produced a release of the JAWS scripts for iTunes to support the new JAWS release.  There are no feature changes, so the version number is still 2.71.

 

For convenience, please find below the links to the various iTunes JAWS configurations for version 2.71.

 

JAWS version 5.0

 

JAWS version 6.0

 

JAWS version 6.20

 

JAWS version 7.0

 

JAWS version 7.10

 

 

iTunes Scripts Version 2.71 Released

June 17, 2006

The JAWS scripts for iTunes version 2.71 have now been released and can now be downloaded from our web site at T&T Consultancy.

 

There are two small changes.

 

1. We now have better support when copying material to an iPod, particularly the iPod Nano.

 

2. There is a new tool which we think is much better for training the colours.

 

Enjoy!

 

Welcome to the Portable Player Portal Blog

June 14, 2006

Hi and welcome to the Portable Player Portal Blog.

I have devoted part of my own web site to an area which I call the Portable Player Portal.

Because I am frequently making changes to the site, it is often difficult for people to easily be notified of those changes without having to read all of the text. This Blog aims to put that right. New changes can be posted here together with updates to scripts for iTunes, any useful information which gets posted to the Blind iPod mailing list which I run that may be appropriate for the Blog, and so on.

This Blog is likely to be updated quite often. We have a number of categories which posts can be divided into, and if you have a particular player, you are able to view posts specific to that player by activating the appropriate link.

Enjoy the Blog, and if you have comments, please do let me know. I want the Blog to be as accessible and as easy to use as possible, so please let me know if there are any difficulties and I will try and rectify them.