Ok, summer is here so that means at the Daubenmire home me and Judy will be hanging out with our kids having tons of fun, sun, swimming, eating, and playing! I’m gunna need to chill out from blogging for a while, I know I know a total bummer for the masses, but hopefully I will start blogging again down the road as time permits. I’ll try to finish the last 2 podcasts on the making of Troopanum once things slow down some.

For now though, don’t forget that you can score a 20% discount off of classic troop and troop 2 for only a few more days. You’ll want to take advantage of that yummy savings right now! The sale ends on Monday, June 13, 2011.

Oh and make sure your computer collects lots and lots of dust this summer. Here is a really really crazy thought. Are you ready? Maybe go outside and have fun in the sun with family and friends? I know, totally unreasonable but…

Have a safe and fun summer, ok?

Talk soon,
Justin

If you’re looking for a good laugh this week, you are really really going to enjoy me and Dan’s second podcast in this series. Oh if you missed the first podcast, make sure to check it out, ok? In this session, Dan and I continue to talk about Classic Troopanum and reveal some funny behind the scenes facts with you. I guarantee you will laugh at least one time! Go ahead and pull up a comfy chair and lets dive right into it. Here is what we kicked around in this episode…

• The boss on level 4 used to be invincible!
• DirectX and Direct Input… can you please speak English?
• Boss’s get more difficult in version 1.5
• Clones of Troopanum hit the scene
• Simple game play… hit the control key and take names later!
• There’s a picture on the main Troopanum screen?
• Meet Dan’s dog sparky
• Don’t play Troopanum in school or else!
• Let’s go retro… fire up your modem and post your score
• Only one score board in classic Troopanum… you’re kidding me!

Be sure to listen to the entire podcast, and of course, post a comment, ok?

And, just a reminder, during this podcast series, I’ll be offering a 20% discount off the regular price of both Classic Troopanum and Troopanum 2.0. You’ll want to take advantage of that yummy savings!

Click this link to listen to the second podcast…

See you next week for part 3!
Justin

Since this Thursday – May 19 – is my birthday, I wanted to do something really really fun on the blog. This is going to be tons of fun, are you ready? I am going to release a 4 part pod cast series on the making of Troopanum – a fast action space shooter game for the blind. I’m going to take you behind the scenes and let you hear me and Dan Zingaro discuss a lot of raw facts of what went on into making this game for the blind. In this podcast, Dan and I hung out and discussed the very first version of Troopanum – Troopanum 1.0. Here is some yummy stuff that we discussed:

• How me and Dan met
• Troopanum was originally called Paratroopers… oh my!
• Our arcade gaming backgrounds
• Dan cheats on his programming test!
• Justin’s programming background
• What releasing the first version was like… mistakes and all!
• Dan blows off programming tasks to play Troopanum… really?
• Judy, Justin’s wife, recorded the first voice overs using a high quality microphone from Radio Shack… not!
• What was up with unpacking game files?
• The system requirements for Troopanum 1.0

Be sure to listen to the entire podcast, and of course, post a comment, ok?

And, during this podcast series, I’ll be offering a 20% discount off the regular price of both Classic Troopanum and Troopanum 2.0. Make sure to take advantage of it!

Note: the BlindSoftware.com site shows the regular prices of the games but when you go to the secure order form you will see the 20% discount taken off of the regular price.

Click this link to listen to the podcast…

See you next week for part 2!
Justin

We just returned from a family vacation at Walt Disney World and wow! What a blast! The boys loved seeing Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, Goofy, Donald Duck, and all the rest of the characters. Oh and of course Olivia loved seeing Cinderella since she already is our princess! I got one really really cool thing from Animal Kingdom. I asked Judy to get me a huge, and I mean huge, coffee cup with a cute picture of Mickey Mouse on it. What did I get instead? Well, Judy found a huge coffee mug but with one slight difference. It had a picture of Grumpy on it! She felt that Grumpy fit my morning mood better than the cute Mickey mouse. Go figure. Well vacation is over for me, but hopefully this spring or summer you take a safe and fun vacation too! Let’s get back to software and accessibility now.

In last week’s post I talked about the Solona Captcha Service and how it can help you solve visual captchas as a blind or low vision person. In this post I am going to show you another software tool that can help you solve visual captchas. It’s called WebVisum.

Unlike the Solona Captcha Service which requires a human to help you solve the captcha, WebVisum is automated and uses the internet and optical character recognition (OCR) technology to try to automatically figure out the captcha for you. What does all that OCR mumbo jumbo actually mean? Simply put, it’s automatic and doesn’t require a human to figure out the visual captcha for you. WebVisum is an add on that you install into Firefox. Firefox is a free web browser that for the most part, is pretty accessible. Be aware though, how useable Firefox is for you is based on your brand and version of screen reader. So how does this actually work under the hood?

While you are on a page with a visual captcha, you press control+alt+6 and then the WebVisum add on looks for a captcha on the web page. If it finds one, it submits the captcha on the web page to the WebVisum OCR service. The OCR service then uses OCR technology to try to figure out the captcha for you. It then returns the final result to you. The WebVisum add on puts the solved captcha text onto the clipboard for you to paste into the captcha box. All of those steps take around 30 seconds.

As of the writing of this post, according to the WebVisum website, it’s recommended to use Firefox version 3.5 together with the latest version of the WebVisum add on. However, I installed Firefox version 4.0, the latest version of Firefox, and it worked fine. Ok, enough with me rambling on about it, let’s give it a whirl! Follow these steps.

• Install Firefox onto your computer.
• Request an invitation code to sign up for the WebVisum service… this is a way to prevent spammers from abusing the service. It took 1 day to get my invitation code emailed to me from the company. This part of the sign up process is not automated and an actual human must read your request and send out the invitation code via email to you so please be patient!
• When you get the invitation email, click the link in the email, or copy it to the clipboard and paste it into the run prompt (windows key+r) and press enter. This will jump you to the registration form. You should complete it by filling in all required fields.
• You’ll get an activation email with a link in it to confirm your account. We are almost done so hang in there! If you do not see the email, check your spam or junk folder. Click the link or copy it to the clipboard and paste it into the run prompt (windows key+r) and press enter. Your now active… sweet!
• Open up Firefox and navigate to www.WebVisum.com and download and install the WebVisum add on.
• You’ll be prompted to restart Firefox so go ahead and restart it.
• When Firefox restarts, you will be prompted for your WebVisum user name and password so type them in and tab to ok and press enter. Note: the automatically log into WebVisum option is checked by default so just leave it at that so you do not need to log into the WebVisum service each time you open up Firefox.

Now that you’re totally freaking out from the 900 steps that you had to complete to get WebVisum started, let’s try it out. Go to my blog and choose any post. In fact, feel free to test with this post you are reading. I use a visual captcha on the leave a comment form. You can get an audio challenge instead of a visual challenge but for testing purposes, let’s leave it at the visual captcha option. Press control+alt+6 and WebVisum will find the visual captcha and submit it to the OCR service. IN around 30 seconds, you will hear a result message and the solved captcha code will be on the clipboard. Paste it into the visual captcha box and Walla! There you have it. Oh and leave me an actual comment, ok?

WebVisum cannot solve every visual captcha out there so that is one thing to keep in mind. For a list of frequently asked questions about WebVisum, see this page.

Do you use WebVisum? If yes, please let us know what web site and visual captcha it successfully solved for you or which web site/visual captcha it could not solve for you. Leave us all a yummy comment on it, ok?

Thanks and talk soon!

Justin

So the other morning I fixed myself a yummy cup of hot coffee. As I headed up my steps to my bedroom with my coffee, I didn’t know that our dog Sadie, a black lab/boxer mix, was hanging out at the top of the steps. As I approached the top step, Sadie decided to lick   me right in the mouth! My reaction? I screamed in fright at the top of my lungs and yes, my coffee spilt on me and Sadie… lovely! Luckily though, Sadie likes coffee too so it worked out for both of us. Well it kinda did.

This little run in situation between me and Sadie got me thinking though. As blind or low vision people, we often run into situations that we cannot see or are not accessible for us. One of those annoying situations is the visual captchas out there. You know the graphical letters and numbers we gotta type in to submit a form to sign up for some service or website.

The other day I went through a lot of steps on a website to sign up for a service and at the very end – step 9000 – it asked me to key in the graphical captcha and there was no audio challenge option to use… ugh! This got me thinking about a service that is pretty sweet so I wanted to share it with you.

In case you did not know this, there is a free service out there for blind or low vision individuals to help you fill in the visual captcha. The company is called Solona. Solona is headquartered in Texas in the United States. Solona’s Captcha Solution Service is a real-time service. Whenever a blind or low vision user submits a Captcha to be solved, a sighted volunteer operator receives that image, and returns the text to the user within one minute. Solona’s Captcha Service is compatible with all Operating systems, all browsers, and all web pages. Windows, Apple, IE, Fire Fox etc.

Because the Solona captcha service is ran by volunteers, you may experience the captcha service not being available all the time. In other words, the more volunteers they have on staff, the more available the captcha service is for everyone. So the opposite is true too, if there are very little volunteers, the captcha service will be unavailable. Solona has a link on their site for volunteers to sign up. If you know of any sighted person that may enjoy helping out, maybe consider passing on this blog post to him or her to read.

For more info on Solona, head over to www.solona.net and register for a free account. Once you register, just log in, choose captcha in the drop down and click the continue button. If there is no volunteer available to help with the captcha service, the captcha option in the drop down will be unavailable. Once you have chose captcha in the drop down and you have clicked continue, on the next page there are instructions on how to use the service.

Do you use Solona’s Captcha service? If you have used it, post a comment and let us all know what you think of it, ok?

Thanks and talk soon,

Justin

Shhhhh…. it’s super early in the Daubenmire home this morning and Judy and the kids are still sleeping. If the kids were all up though, I’d be fixing bowls of captain crunch cereal and trying to convince the kids they need to go to school to learn a lot of cool stuff. For some reason, they just don’t ever buy it though and would rather stay home and play the WII or their DSI’s. Go figure.

So why am I up so early anyhow? I’m up super early this morning to record a quick podcast on how to use Backblaze to restore your files, minus the kids screaming in the background. In this podcast I show you hands on how to restore your files from the Backblaze server/website and back onto your own computer.

If you kinda have no clue what Backblaze is, you will want to check out my prior post on backup software for the blind – Backblaze. I explain what Backblaze is and how it is used to backup your files on your computer.

Ok, here is the podcast…

Oh let me know what you thought of it and leave me a comment, ok?

Talk soon,

Justin

The other day I was chillin’ on my laptop and I was writing down some pretty sweet ideas for software for the blind that I could create. I went to refill my coffee and when I came back to my laptop, my 3-year-old son Cason was on Daddy’s laptop pressing keys. I asked Cason, “What are you doing big boy?” The little rascal replied “nothing daddy” with a rascally grin on his face.” That grin was really saying to me “I did something that is going to freak you out!”

When I got back on my laptop, I noticed that Cason had somehow deleted several of my word documents, mp3 files, and some of my programming source code! How you might ask? I don’t have a clue nor can I figure out how he crawled up to the top of our entertainment center the other day but the little rascal did it!

However, I didn’t freak out because I have all of my files on my computer backed up offsite… phew man! I use the Backblaze service. For 50 bucks a year, or for 5 bucks a month, you can back up all the files on your Mac or Windows pc that are important to you… documents, pictures, music, and pretty much anything else. You might be wondering, how does Backblaze actually work?

You download a tiny application that installs onto your Windows PC or Mac in three clicks and doesn’t require a credit card or any information to start using it. This internet backup application automatically finds all your photos, music, documents, and other irreplaceable files—no matter where they are on your hard drive—and compresses and securely encrypts them. When you’re not using your computer, it sends them over the Internet to the remote Backblaze datacenters.

So you go to the Backblaze website and download the free 14-day-trial backup program. When you install it, it will ask for an email address and a password. The email needs to be your real email address but the password doesn’t have to be your real email password. This information will be used to log into the Backblaze website so you can restore any of your files. I’ll cover how to restore your files in my next post so stay tuned.

After you supply your email address and a password, the Backblaze program will instantly start backing up everything on your computer to their secure offsite server… it’s that easy! They use your email address and password to encrypt your personal data as it streams in the background over a secure connection to their offsite servers so it’s totally safe. They give you unlimited storage. In addition to your regular computer, you can even backup an external USB drive plugged into your USB port. Oh and Backblaze works both on Windows and Mac… sweet!

The guys at back blaze are pretty cool. I worked with their programmers to make the back blaze program accessible for blind or low vision users. I’ve used back blaze for over 2 years now and I have never had a problem with it. The other day I had to format my computer and had no stress over it. Once my computer was back up and running I just simply restored all of my files from Backblaze onto my computer. 

I’m an affiliate for the guys at Backblaze so if you decide to sign up for it, please come back to this blog post and click a back blaze link on this page prior to paying for the service. It will toss a cookie on your computer so when you order Backblaze, the guys can say “sweet! Justin sent us an affiliate so let’s give him a few pennies for helping us out.” What will I do with those few pennies? Simple, I’ll purchase a kid proof safe to keep my laptop in so Cason cannot get to it anymore!

In my next post, I’ll show you how to restore files from the  Backblaze server. For now though, get backing up! Oh and if you try out Backblaze let us all know what you think of it. Leave a comment and share your thoughts with us all, ok?

Talk soon,

Justin

I have a money reader device especially made for the blind sitting on my nightstand. The device uses OCR technology to scan and then read aloud US and Canadian currency to a blind individual. How much did this device cost? It cost me $300.

Recently a company named Ipplex released a program called LookTel. It is for the Apple iPhone 3G S or later, the iPod touch fourth generation, and the iPad 2. LookTel performs the exact same operation as the adaptive device I have sitting on my nightstand. So what’s the difference? LookTel costs $1.99 and the adaptive device cost $300. That’s almost unbelievable, but it’s true!

The LookTel software uses the iPhone, iPod or iPad’s built in camera to take a picture of the bill and then speaks it aloud. It can recognize all United States currency. It can identify and read $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. You just wave your iPhone, iPod or iPad over the bill, with no need to flatten or straighten it out, and a voice quickly tells you the denomination. You can watch a youtube video of this product. While you cannot see what the person is doing, the person is waving an iPhone over bills. The voice then speaks what bill it is. 

If you are using this software, let us all know what you think of it. Post us a comment below and share your experiences with us all, ok?

Thanks!

Talk soon,

Justin

In part 1 of this series we talked about CCleaner and how it can help you get rid of junk files and invalid registry entries and in turn, help speed up your computer. In part 2 we discussed Defraggler and how it can help speed up file access on your hard drive through using its defrag operation. In this third and final post, we are going to look at another speed boosting utility built right into Windows itself. It’s called the System Configuration Utility.

The System Configuration Utility is a tool built into windows that allows you to tweak various options of windows to try to increase performance. To start the System Configuration Utility follow these steps:

1. Press windows key+r to pull up the run prompt
2. Type msconfig and press enter (msconfig stands for Microsoft Configuration)
3. The system configuration tool appears

 

By default, you are placed on the general tab. We  are  not going to cover all the tabs in this dialog since it is out of scope of this article; however, the only tab we are interested in is the startup tab. All other tabs you should not adjust so resist the temptation to play, ok?

To get to the startup tab, Press control+tab multiple times until you hear your screen reader state startup. The startup tab tells windows what programs to automatically start as soon as you turn on your computer. Each program that you install on your computer potentially can put an entry on this tab to have itself startup automatically. The problem with this is that Windows can auto-start many programs and those programs are loaded into your computer’s memory. The programs then use up your system resources even though you did not start them. Ultimately this slows your pc down significantly.

Tab to the startup list box showing you what programs are slated to automatically load as soon as you turn on your computer. You may have many items or just a few items in this list box. You can use your down and up arrow keys to review the items in the list. The list gives the name of the program to start and the path to the executable file. You use this information to try to identify what the program is and if you want it to automatically start when you turn on your computer. For example, here are two entries in my startup list:

• TotRecSched C:\Program Files\HighCriteria\TotalRecorder\TotRecSched.exe
• GoogleToolbarNotifier C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe

 

Those two items, along with other items in my list, are slated to automatically load when I turn on my computer. I do not want the total recorder scheduler or the google toolbar to automatically load. I will load those programs when I need to use them. I’ll do that either by using the desktop icons or their icons located in the all programs list. To disable them from automatically starting, I will press my spacebar while focused on the item. This will uncheck the item from starting automatically.

You should review your list of startup applications and uncheck ones that you do not need to automatically start. You might even see the BSC Talking Clock or Day by Day Professional in the list if you opted to have them start automatically. Just press your space bar while focused on any item in the list to uncheck it from automatically starting.

Caution!! Do not uncheck any adaptive software such as your screen reader, screen magnification software, etc. since that will remove speech and magnification support from automatically starting when you turn on your computer. The only other one you should be careful to never uncheck is any antivirus entries. If you uncheck any antivirus software from automatically starting when you turn on your computer, you are potentially opening yourself up for getting a virus!

Some applications you may see in the list that are ok to uncheck may include adobe acrobat, Groove monitor, itunes, Winamp, napster, winzip, quicktime task, yahoo messenger, google talk, skype, msn registered toolbar, and java tm updater.

The other items you can tab through on the startup screen include an enable all button, disable all button, ok button, and cancel button. If you press enter on the enable all button, all items in the startup list will become checked. If you press enter on the disable all button, all items in the startup list will be unchecked. Tab to the ok button and press enter on it to save your changes. You will be prompted with a message stating “You must restart your computer for some of the changes made by System Configuration to take effect.”  Press enter on the restart button to restart your computer and try to pay attention to any speed increase.

Based on how many programs you unchecked in your startup list, you should notice a speed increase. Specifically, you should notice that getting to your log on screen or your desktop is quicker. Obviously the more programs you uncheck from automatically starting up, the more of a speed increase you will notice.

When you arrive back at your desktop, you will be given a prompt by the System Configuration Utility saying The System Configuration Utility is currently in Diagnostic or Selective Startup mode. It’s ok, this doesn’t mean the end of the world is here! Tab to the checkbox that states “Don’t show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when Windows starts” and check it. Next, tab to the ok button and press enter. You then will arrive at your desktop.

Next week we are going to be starting a new series and you do not want to miss it! Tell others about the blog here so they can follow along with the new series. People can subscribe to the blog via rss or email.

Oh and before I forget, please leave me a comment below and let me know your thoughts on this post, ok?

Thanks for reading!

Talk soon,

Justin

 

In part 1 of this series we talked about CCleaner and how it can help you speed up your computer. In part 2 of this 3 part series we are going to look at another speed boosting program called Defraggler.

Defraggler is a free utility for computers running Microsoft Windows that lets you defrag hard drives on your system. While Windows comes with a defragmenting utility, Defraggler has several unique features that Windows Defragmenter and third-party defragmenting software can’t beat.

Defraggler is a quick, safe way to speed up your PC. Defraggler speeds up your computer by placing all the parts of a file on the same section of the hard drive. When Windows goes to access that file, it only has to look in one area of the drive, which speeds things up. Defraggler also attempts to move all of your files to the start of the hard drive, which makes them faster to access. Ok, let’s get started!

1. Download Defraggler and install it onto your computer
2. At the end of the installation, it will have a check box to run Defraggler. Leave it checked, tab to the finish button and press enter.
3. The Defraggler main screen appears.

 

Analyze Your Drive

The first thing you should do is let Defraggler analyze your drive to calculate the defragmentation. The analyze button is used to calculate how bad your drive is defragmented, meaning, how bad files are scattered all over your hard drive. You can think of defragmented files  like a library with books thrown all over the place or books placed in the wrong sections in  the library. This is a defragmented library and takes a long time to find a book you are looking for in the  library. When the  librarian comes and puts all the  books back in the proper place on the  shelves, this helps people find the books more quickly. For example, perhaps she puts the book on lions back in the animal section in the library and removes it from the  sports section.  The librarian is the  defrag operation that runs on your hard drive and  places your  books back in the  proper place so Windows can more quickly locate them!   

Ok, back to Defraggler… tab to the analyze button and press enter on it to let it calculate your defragmentation. As it runs, you will be on a stop button. When it is done, you will arrive back on the analyze button. This is how you will know that the analyze operation has completed.

Now press shift+tab twice to get to a list box. In it is the percentage that your drive is defragmented. The defragmentation percent is the last percent item read to you by your screen reader just before the words analysis complete. For example, my list view reads like this:

Local Disk C NTFS 74.5 GB 49.8 GB (67%) 24.7 GB (33%) 24% Analysis Complete

The statement that reads 24% analysis complete is how defragmented my drive is. Currently my drive is 24% fragmented. So I have quite a few books thrown all over my library! It is recommended to only perform a defrag on your drive if it is 20% fragmented or higher. If it is under 20% fragmented, there is no real need to run the tool since you will not notice any real gain in speed.

Running the Defrag Operation

Assuming your drive is 20% fragmented or higher, now tab to the defrag button and press enter to perform a standard defrag operation. A standard defrag operation can take several hours so please be patient. The librarian is slow but extremely effective! If your recycle bin has deleted files in it, you will get a message asking if you want to empty your recycle bin prior to the defrag operation starting. By clearing your recycle bin prior to Defraggler starting, it will remove files that otherwise Defraggler would  have to work with. In turn, this will lesson the time it takes to defrag your hard drive. If you decide to answer no and not clear your recycle bin, this is fine, it will not hurt anything to say no and leave your recycle bin full of files. It will just take longer to defrag the drive. If your recycle bin is empty, the defrag process will automatically start and you will not be prompted with this recycle bin message.

Viewing Progress or Stopping the Defrag Operation

Once the defrag operation starts, you will be placed on a stop button. If you want to stop the defrag operation, press enter on it. If you want to pause the defrag operation, press shift+tab one time to the pause button and press enter. To resume defragging, press enter on the resume button.

If you want to see how far along Defraggler is with defragging your drive, while focused on the stop button, press shift+tab three times to arrive back at the drive list view and read it. The last item read to you tells you how far along Defraggler is in defragging your drive. My list view reads like this…

Local Disk C NTFS 74.5 GB 49.9 GB (67%) 24.6 GB (33%) 24% Defragmenting (0%)

The part that reads Defragmenting (0%) Is telling me that so far, Defraggler has fixed 0% of my fragmented files so I have a while to wait for Defraggler to finish. Maybe my librarian needs a new set of glasses? Likewise, if it read Defragmenting (80%) this would mean Defraggler is very close to completing the defrag operation.

Final Defrag Steps

The defrag operation completes when it reaches 100% and finalizes the operation. This finalization can take 5 minutes even though it says 100% complete. So, please be patient as you wait for the final operation to complete when 100% has been  reached.

Testing Your Speed Gain

When Defraggler has completed, you should notice a speed gain on your computer. Specifically, when you open up a program on your computer… it should seem to open up faster. I will caution you though, the first few times you open up a program it will seem much faster, however, you get used to the speed so after a while it will seem like it really is not faster. However, it is, you just get used to the speed boost!

How Often To Defrag

It is recommended to analyze your drive once a month to see if it needs defragged. Again, if it is 20% defragmented or higher then run a defrag.  Otherwise, there is no real need to run it since the speed boost will not be noticeable.

Running a Quick Defrag

A standard defrag operation can take several hours. If you want to perform a quick defrag, access the  Action menu on the menu bar and down arrow to quick defrag drive and press enter. This will run much more quickly, however, it will not have as optimal a result as the standard defrag. Think of it this way, the librarian only arranges some of the  books, not all of them.

Scheduleing a Defrag Operation

Since a standard defrag takes a while, you can schedule a defrag when you are in bed. To do this, access the settings menu on the menu bar and down arrow to the schedule… option and press enter. When the new screen appears tab to the “Schedule defragmentation for chosen volume” checkbox and check it. Set how often you want the defrag operation to happen. For example, once, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Then set the date and time the defrag operation should start. Finally tab to ok and press enter. Leave your computer on and when the date and time strikes, Defraggler will automatically start defragging your drive.

Checking for Updates

On the main screen, there is a check for updates button that you can press enter on. This will check for a new version of Defraggler and if available, the program will download it for you and install it.

Check back next week for part 3 of the  series… your going to love it!

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Happy boosting!

Justin