I am delighted that there is so much interest in Linux. I am new to Linux myself, and frankly, I just love it.
emacs is not difficult to learn -- it comes with an excellent help system, that allows you to pick up the commands fairly easily. I would not bother with Gnopernicus. It is not a patch on Jaws. Emacspeak is terrific, though, as the quote below points out. A very different approach from Jaws, but no less powerful and ultimately easy to use. I would urge those wishing to join us for the conference 11 am tomorrow, to please read this, so that you have good questions for TV Raman. Yes, the page cited below also has some negative comments, but they may be old: Linux has become amazingly more user friendly in the last couple of years. Here is how to participate in Global Learn Day: http://ben300.com/GLDTEN/?p=52 When would be a convenient time to have this Linux workshop? Can we do this over some weekend in Delhi? How does November 4-5, which is 4 weeks from now, sound? Those who live out of town but wish to take part could use Skype or some suitable online conferencing facility. Look forward to having many of you in the conference tomorrow. Warmly, Arun http://leb.net/blinux/emacspeak_voices.html says: First, I am in control of my computer. Before I start this review, I would like to tell you a bit about me. I am totally blind. I am not a programmer. I am an English teacher, and I tutor part time to help make ends meet here. I have been using computers since 1988 when I got my first computer which ran MS-DOS. I have had no training in Unix except for having a Unix shell account for several years. Note: I did not experiment with Unix, and knew only the most basic commands. Most of my work was done in MS-DOS. In the fall of 1997, I decided to bite the bullet and get a Windows95 system. Everyone was going to Windows, it was required for jobs; it was required to use the Internet properly, and it was what everyone else was using. So, I plunged into it. A note here about training, I have had no formal computer training. I had to learn Windows by myself and alone. I found it extremely difficult to learn. Why? Because Windows is a graphical Interface, it relies on the operator being able to see the menus that are presented to him/her. Windows requires that you visualize how a screen is laid out, where things are positioned. Being a lone learner, this is singularly impossible for someone who is totally blind. Then, I heard about Linux. My local computer guru was fascinated when he heard about Emacspeak 10.0. I sent him the press release. We decided to use the second partition on my hard drive for Linux. We wanted to try this out, and since it was virtually free, and since I had expert help, we decided to do it. Last February, we did the deed. My guru and I installed Linux on the D partition of my hard drive. Then, came the part that I still find fascinating! My sighted guru didn't know much about Emacspeak or how to install it, but I have a young friend in Kansas who was familiar with Emacspeak and its installation. So, my local guru made him an account, and he installed Emacspeak and its accompanying programs, from Kansas! With all that said, I want to tell you what Emacspeak has done for me. It has literally freed me to do my work on the computer. Oh yes, I know that this sounds hoaky, I know it sounds romantic, but it is not. Emacs with its accompanying speech output program has allowed me to be freer in creating and in utilizing the computer. there are several ways in which Emacspeak has done this. Here is a brief description of each one. First, I am in control of my computer. this is really important for anyone who operates equipment of whatever kind, but it is particularly important for computer operations. In Windows, I am never quite sure where I am on the screen. I am never sure that if I move the arrow keys or press the tab key what I am likely to find or hear once I've done it. I have no control. the computer is my master, I am its user. In Linux, using Emacspeak, I am always in control. Even though I may not know programming, if I issue a command, it's either executed or I get an error message that I can understand. When I put the cursor on a place in a document, it stays there until I move it. there *is* a cursor, a "point" of reference. I am in control. Secondly, because Linux is a true multitasking environment, I can do several things at one time. I can read mail, write a document, talk to friends on ICQ, monitor a text based virtual reality, and more. Not only that, I can move material from task to task, I can copy text from an email message to a document or vice versa. In Windows if you mark text to do this, there is no way to tell what's been marked and what hasn't. This brings me to the third reason for Emacspeak being my liberating force, the audio icons. the mainstay of the Windows environment is the visual icon, the little telephone or desk or whatever picture that represents a given task. When using Emacspeak you get audible icons for everything, for marking text, for changing between buffers, for filling in paragraphs, for deleting things, for jumping to the bottom of a document, everything, You get audible feedback too, things like telling you how much a line is indented on a screen. I about jumped out of my skin when I was reading over a document I had typed and I discovered that I had inadvertently indented a line by three spaces. there is audible feedback for changes in text. For example, notice the word in quotation marks above. when my cursor goes over the word "point", I get a difference in the voice of my speech synthesizer! This has *never* happened to me before. I actually *know* that I put that word in quotes and that there are quotes on both sides of the phrase! If I put something in parenthesis, I get the confirming message "matches", from the computer. Writing has become a pleasure, not a task to be done, and that doesn't even touch the advanced features of Emacs that are voicified. Fourth, accessing the Internet has become easier. Because Emacspeak runs in Linux, this allows one to access a PPP or SLIP account without the problem of dialing into a shell, using MS-DOS. Because Linux is virtually free, this allows a blind computer user to do 80% of all that can be done via the Internet. Some things are still not accessible via Linux or Emacspeak, but perhaps in time, they will be accessible. Because Emacs is not only an editor but a means by which a person can access other programs, I have been able to do all kinds of things through this speaking editor. I can read mail with a program called vm. I can access the web with w3, I could write a book on why I love w3. I can use a calendar, diary and an extensive card-file database. Oh, yes, let's not forget real-audio. this aspect of the Net has become open to me as well. Many organizations are producing audible web content and programs. These can be accessed through Emacs, using Emacspeak. Because all these programs are reachable through Emacs and therefore Emacspeak, I can do my work efficiently. I have found a working environment that allows me to access everything my sighted counterparts do, or almost, and yet, it is designed for me, me as a blind person, it is tailored for my needs, my learning style. I can't say enough about this system. I guess my final word is, if this system works so well, why aren't more blind people using it? Why are they struggling to be like the sighted instead of being themselves and working with the sighted to accomplish tasks together? --Ann K. Parsons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ALTERNATE EMAIL: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> MICQ Number: 33006854 WEB SITE: http://home.eznet.net/~akp I use Emacspeak as the only interface on my Linux system. I use Emacspeak as the only interface on my Linux system, which is a laptop computer. Emacspeak, and T. V. Raman's publications describing it, have radically changed my appreciation of how convenient and elegant auditory user interfaces can be, especially when they are not derived, as is the case with a conventional screen reader, from a visual presentation. Prior to using Emacspeak, my access to computers was provided by DOS-based screen readers. I have also had experience with braille interfaces, which I consider to be of great value in their own right--unfortunately they are often treated as of secondary importance in comparison with speech. Most of the future developments which I would find beneficial do not amount to changes in the basic operation of Emacspeak itself. As better software-based synthesizers become available, it may be possible to include support for multi lingual environments. Also, much could be gained from the development, either as a future version of the Emacs/W3 browser or otherwise, of a more sophisticated document processing system, capable of handling some of the newer web-related standards, including XML document formats, multi lingual texts, MathML, and so forth, as well as other significant formats such as TeX, to provide high-quality audio formatting, interactive browsing and navigation. I realize that in order for this to be achieved, the Emacs/W3 browser requires further development, or else another document processing system with which Emacspeak can be connected, must be found; Emacs/W3 is a good starting point however and would naturally be the preferred option. It has been carefully maintained and extended over the years, as most free/open-source software projects are. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Emacspeak community, and T. V. Raman in particular, for their outstanding support and encouragement over the years. Bugs in Emacspeak have been few, and when found, they have been fixed with remarkable speed and diligence. --Jason White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> On 10/5/06, Dipendra Manocha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello Friends > I heard from some sources that Gnopernicus development has been stopped. Two > new initiatives have been started in place of gnopernicus which seemed > unstable and not very relyable. > > Thanks > Dipendra > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kaja, Kiran > Sent: 05 October 2006 08:30 > To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in > Subject: Re: [AI] join us for Global Learn Day, Oct 8, 11 am IST > > EmacSpeak is an interesting product. I got it working without a hardware > synthesizer and my biggest problem at that time was finding a linux driver > for the sound chip I had. This was at least six years ago. > > I believe there have been a lot of improvements in access to Linux after > that. In view of this, I feel that it may be better if students are > introduced to Linux with Gnupernicus (not sure if I spelt it right) or any > other screen reader initially which is more user friendly. > > Learning EmacSpeak is nothing but learning Linux and the Emacs editor > commands. > > Regards, > Kiran. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Arun Mehta > Sent: Tuesday, 03 October 2006 12:00 PM > To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in > Subject: [AI] join us for Global Learn Day, Oct 8, 11 am IST > > Hi, I have been a lurker on this list for some time now. Some of you may > know me from the time I spent as a volunteer at the NAB Delhi, teaching > Visual Basic programming. > > Global Learn Day is an annual 24-hour event on the Internet that seeks to > promote distance learning around the world. October 8, 2006, is the tenth > such occasion. The South Asia portion has a very special keynote speaker, > Dr. TV Raman, who is one of the most brilliant programmers around the world. > He is blind, and the creator of emacspeak, the revolutionary tool that > leverages the versatility of emacs, to make available editing, browsing, > mail, calendar and myriad other facilities to the blind. He best exemplifies > my belief, that the best writers of software for the disabled are persons > with the same disability. Raman is also a great thinker. Example: > > "I have a somewhat contrarian answer when people allege "emacs/emacspeak has > a steep learning curve". The usual expectation is for one to hotly deny that > somewhat bogus assertion. My usual response though is "I like steep learning > curves -- it gets you ahead faster". > " > > His talk begins at 5:30 AM GMT on October 8. This will be followed by a > presentation by Dr. Dipendra Manocha of the National Association for the > Blind. Together with him, and a little help from me, two blind programming > students, Avneesh and Suman, have successfully written software for a soon > to be released cutting-edge Daisy authoring tool, called Obi. We will also > talk about initiatives across the Indo-Pak border to promote the use of ICTs > by the blind. > > Please join us for a discussion of how distance learning and other > Internet-related technologies can be of assistance to persons with > disabilities, and how to take these ideas further. Instructions on how to > participate are at http://ben300.com/GLDTEN/?p=52 . Other details at > http://www.bfranklin.edu/ > > Please feel free to forward this to others who may be interested. > > May I take this opportunity to ask how members of this list feel about Linux > and emacspeak? > > Would there be interest in a workshop at the NAB, where people who are blind > can learn to use Linux and emacspeak? > > Arun Mehta > > To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i > n > > To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject > unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. 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