instructions how you can install Webvisum

In my latest post, I introduced a add-on for Firefox called "Webvisum". Now, I tell you how you can register your account.

To request an invitation by the webvisum team, go to http://www.webvisum.com click on the link "invitations" and there on "request an invitation." Next, you have to tell something about yourself so that the team of webvisum know that you are not a virtual machine. May be you can write: "I am _..._ years old and live in _..._. My favourite ice-cream is _..._." or what you want. This should only give you an idea of the text you can write. Additional you have to type in your name and your mailadress. The invitation code will be send there. When you fill in the form and click "submit commentar", may it will be take one or two days until you get a mail from webvisum. In this mail, you find more instructions how to register your account.

Another possebility to get an invitation is to send an e-mail to some mailinglists. For example, if you registered in the mailing list of jaws, you can ask the people there to send you an invitation to your mail adress. May This would be faster than a request at the webvisum webpage.

nice add-ons to surf easier with NVDA on the internet

There are a few add-ons in Mozilla Firefox to surf easier on the internet.

First, there's a add-on called "addblock plus." this program blocks all advertisements on a website so you can navigate through it and haven't to look at these anoying things. In my opinion, this is a very useful program for websites with lots of advertisements. Download and try it out at https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/179004/adblock_plus-2.2.1-sm+tb+an+fx.xpi?src=external-abp.o-en-firefox

Another interesting add-on is webvisum. With this add-on you are able to solve captchars and give untitled links on a website a name. The add-on makes a website readable with a screen reader. To use the program, it is necessary to get an invitation from an existing webvisum member or request an invitation from the webvisum team. This is not so difficult as it sounds here. You can get the invitation and register at www.webvisum.com

A detailed describtion how you can get the invitation and more information about webvisum will be in my next blog.

The community and different ways to get help to use NVDA

NVDA has a big community around the world. Many people discus many different things like new ideas, accessability and lots of more in different mailing lists. In these lists, you can ask questions (if you have a problem with the screen reader, new ideas that should be added to the program in the future and lots of more). Please check the support at http://www.nvda-project.org/wiki/Support for more information.

The project has been translated into over 20 languages around the world (Arabic, Czech/Slovak, Hungarian, french, German, italian, Japanese) and lots of more. You can find a list of blogs and mailing lists for the different languages at http://www.nvda-project.org/wiki/Community

A great possibility to suggest neew features or tell problems to the development-team is the roadmap. Everyone who want, can create a ticket here and the development can look at these tickets and (if needed) fix, close or change them. This is very useful if you find a problem (for example a program doesn't work with NVDA), you can write it here. But if you create a ticket, you have to describe the problem as precisely as possible because the developers can only fix it, if they exactly know what's wrong. More information about this you can find at http://www.nvda-project.org/wiki/ReportingIssues

These tickets will be shown at the roadmap. You can find this at http://www.nvda-project.org/roadmap

videos and potcasts

To know the software better, there are some video and audio potcasts available. On the website of the project, http://www.nvda-project.org is a video about the program.

5 audio potcasts of the project you can find here: http://www.nvaccess.org/blog/category/Podcast

More audio material to the project is available at http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~hurrikenny/nvda%20audio%20tutorials.html

More tutorials about the project are at http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~hurrikenny/nvda%20tutorials.html

There are nine potcasts online you can find them at http://www.nvda-kr.org/en

The first potcast there is about NVDA, how to install, update to a new version, how to create a portable version and much more interesting things. In the second part, you can learn something about NVDA modifier key, NVDA menu, keyboard layouts, input help mode and some basic commands. The third part is splited in two parts. Part one is about introduction to objects and examples on using object navigation commands. Part two gives you more examples of object navigation, mouse commands and using flat review.

There is a fourth potcast about touring the web with NVDA, including focus versus browse mode and first letter navigation (part one), in the last part of this, you can known touring the web continued, including elements list, embedded objects and other features.

A describtion about the next potcasts I'll give later here.

At the moment, there are no more potcasts of this project available. But I'll update this page when a new potcast released. If you know a potcast that is not in this list, please tell me because I want to give people a overview of available potcasts as current as possible. Thanks for your help!

Thank you so much to all users, who created allready or wants to create potcasts or blogs like this. You all do a great job! keep going on!

open and look ath a homepage with NVDA

After you installed NVDA, please start it with the shortcut alt+ctrl+n. You will hear a short sound when the program load. After a few seconds, a voice will say "NVDA is loading, please wait" After the load process finished, NVDA read the actually open window on the screen.

Now we are ready to open a web adress. Please start your web browser. When your favourite website is open, the program will start to read the whole webpage from the top till the end. In my opinion this is not a good idea to know a new website and how to use the screen reader in the internet, so please stopp the voice talking with the left control key.

To explore a website, please control the following things: Do you have any headlines on the webpage? you can check this by press the letter "h" (for headline). When NVDA find one, it will say the name and will move directly to it. Are there any forms? to check this, press the letter "f". NVDA will jump directly to the next form on the page. Press the enter-key to open it. No you can type text into it or chose anything if the form is a list. Buttons: Press the letter "b" to search after this. You can also look at the site from the top to the end. Do this with the arrow keys.

how to install NVDA

When you downloaded NVDA from http://www.nvda-project.org/wiki/Download please open the downloaded.exe file. Windows will ask you "do you really want to install this program on this computer?" please click "yes" to continue. In the next step you have to agree to the terms of the program. Please activate the checkbox "i accept" and go on with the tab-key. Now, you have three different possibilities to install the program:

1. "create a portable version", which is very useful if you want to take NVDA everywhere were you go and need it. The setup will create a copy of NVDA on a USB-Drive. That means, you can take the Hard-Drive with you and if you want to use another computer were is not any screen reader installed, put your USB-Drive in the USB- Port. When the drive is recognized by the computer, click on the "NVDA.exe" file and have fun to work with it! Maybe a person, which is able to see, should help you to click on the .exe file.

2. "still running NVDA" chose this, if you want to test the new version before finally installing or taking it on an USB-Drive. The setup assistent will close and the version is running from the downloaded .exe file! That means, you can test the version first, and if you don't like it, just close it and open your older installed version or your favourite screen reader! You can close the program by pressing NVDA key (it's the same like Jaws key) + the letter q. Please confirm the following dialogue with enter. The screen reader will close. You'll know that because when the program ends or starts, you'll hear a special sound.

3. "install on this computer" will install the program on your computer. After you click this, another setup assistant will open. Following its instructions and the installation will not take much time.

If you have NVDA allready installed on your computer, but want to take it with you on an usb drive, please go in the NVDA menu and click "tools." there you'll find a feature called "create a portable version" chose this and a dialogue will open were you can chose the drive were the version should be installed. This is another great possibility to take your screen reader with you and show all your people what a blind or disabled person can do with NVDA!

What is NVDA doing with my computer?

NVDA reads the screen out in speech and makes it so possible for blind users to write documents or surf in the internet. For example, when you have written an Word document, NVDA can tell you what in this document is written. When you open a website, the program will tell you what you'll find on this website. Pictures can not been read by NVDA yet. The most important thing is though, that blind and visually impaired people have access to Microsoft Office-programs, mail clients and web pages like all the other people without any disabilities.

NVDA? what is that?

To use a computer, you need to install NVDA (Noon Visual Desktop Access). It is a free screen reader, which was developed in Australia.

There are many other screen readers like Jaws or Window Eyes, but I'll show you NVDA, because it's free and anyone who wants to try it, can easily download it. The newest version is 2013.1beta1, which is available for windows 8 as well!

This screen reader is still being developed. The developers started this project in 2006. At the moment Jaws, which is another screen reader and not free as well, is in different tasks better to use than NVDA. For example:

If you want to create a diagram in Microsoft Excel or a .dot file in Microsoft Word.

So if you can't afford a software like Jaws and want to read texts, webpages and more, NVDA will be the right choice for you!

introduction

When you ask folks "Is it possible to use a computer and the Internet when you're blind?" The answer you will hear is "no, it isn't." In this Blog, I'll tell you how a blind person can use the computer and the internet as well. If you have some opinions or thoughts about this Blog, please comment my Posts. It would be very nice to read your opinions about it!

Have fun!