Re: Protecting Windows
Brian Astill wrote: On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 06:19 am, Romana Branden wrote: Brian Astill wrote: Interesting. The spiel on the Nuance website gave me that impression, too. However the Royal Society for the Blind in Adelaide tried v 7 (current is 8) and were VERY unimpressed. anything they recommend that we could test on crossover or wine? Yes - they use ZoomText 9 and Jaws 7. These aren't the same as DSN but do a somewhat similar job. FWIW, I did some localisation work for a product that supported the Jaws* reader for windows (cant remember the version). The Jaws software loaded in memory and it would get the handle for each object that had focus (a handle in Windows world is like a pointer to the object in the session...or something like that). Jaws would search a particular resource in that object and read it aloud. If that label didnt exist it'd fallback for the text in the object (which wasn't always ideal). Anyway, I'm pretty certain there are text-to-voice software for *BSD and GNU/Linux (avoiding flames from RMS ;) ). Maybe a similar approach could be taken under X? Not sure at all how you'd go about text based software that is not ncurses based (maybe a similar approach to lynx / links ? ). Voice to text is another BEAST altogether, and a lot harder than text to voice. Training of the software to your particular voice is the first part of the process, of course, but I doubt it ends there... (on the side... does Asterix support for voice-based menu selections? The technology for that (not voip itself, but the recognition bit) would be quite similar to what an end user would need, i would say) I'm sure there is a group somewhere doing something about this. anyway, http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Accessibility-HOWTO/index.html is an (old) start, i guess ;) Regards, Beto ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
Brian Astill wrote: program runs on Windows 2000/XP only. Why would anyone in their right mind NOT port a program as sensible as this to a SECURE OS? I should say that Windows XP is not intrinsically insecure. You can secure it, and I don't mean trivially by removing the network connection, but by shutting down unneeded services, replacing iexplorer.exe with firefox where possible, and so on. I have heard that Dragon Naturally Speaking is very good, and that seems like a good reason to run Windows. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
On Thu, 9 Feb 2006 08:10 pm, David Newall wrote: Brian Astill wrote: program runs on Windows 2000/XP only. Why would anyone in their right mind NOT port a program as sensible as this to a SECURE OS? I should say that Windows XP is not intrinsically insecure. You can secure it, and I don't mean trivially by removing the network connection, but by shutting down unneeded services, replacing iexplorer.exe with firefox where possible, and so on. Yes - that does seem to be a useful possibility. I have heard that Dragon Naturally Speaking is very good, and that seems like a good reason to run Windows. Interesting. The spiel on the Nuance website gave me that impression, too. However the Royal Society for the Blind in Adelaide tried v 7 (current is 8) and were VERY unimpressed. -- Regards, Brian ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
On Feb 8, 2006, at 11:02 PM, Brian Astill wrote: Greetings, all. Can anyone help with this issue? Person with deteriorating vision has discovered Dragon Naturally Speaking which not only allows the construction of text from speech but can also speak from received text. ie letter writing and email conversing etc become possible for the visually impaired. All of which is wonderful except - you guessed it - the [EMAIL PROTECTED] program runs on Windows 2000/XP only. Why would anyone in their right mind NOT port a program as sensible as this to a SECURE OS? Not being a wise-ass here, but... 1) discourage saying your passwords out loud? 2) Unix is traditionally a server operating system, not targeted to end users, so applications like Dragon Naturally Speaking isn't top priority? 3) Most applications in Linux/FBSD are created to scratch an itch; the reason people now face usability problems is because most apps are written by and for people who are technically minded and/or programmers. I would guess that there aren't too many visually impaired programmers active in the field, or that the current crop of speech translators have trouble with translating programming language to text. 4) You can't port a program you don't have the source to. Dragon sounds proprietary, and the algorithms they use for transforming sound to text are probably considered proprietary. To make a clone would mean working from scratch. We're lucky sound OUTPUT is getting to a level where it almost works among applications without a ton of fiddling...let alone getting input translated properly to text. Those are just my ideas of why someone in their right mind wouldn't bother with the port off the top of my head. If the visually impaired are a minority and there aren't many programmers in that minority, it may take a long time to scratch that itch unless you are willing to offer some kind of open-source bounty and pay for said program to be developed. Windows programs are more often than not proprietary and profit driven as an incentive to get a product like Dragon to market. Linux/FBSD is driven by whims and itches of programmers and techies... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
Brian Astill writes: Interesting. The spiel on the Nuance website gave me that impression, too. However the Royal Society for the Blind in Adelaide tried v 7 (current is 8) and were VERY unimpressed. While the OP seems stuck with Dragon, I'll point out that I.B.M. has (or had at one point) a Linux-native version of ViaVoice. Robert Huff ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 02:32:44PM +1030, Brian Astill wrote: Person with deteriorating vision has discovered Dragon Naturally Speaking which not only allows the construction of text from speech but can also speak from received text. ie letter writing and email conversing etc become possible for the visually impaired. All of which is wonderful except - you guessed it - the [EMAIL PROTECTED] program runs on Windows 2000/XP only. Why would anyone in their right mind NOT port a program as sensible as this to a SECURE OS? I don't know of any such software for Linux or BSD. Does similar software exist for Mac OS X? It might. There is a bigger market for it. To me, the usual routine of securing Windows seems to be the wisest choice in this instance, eg. not allowing end-users to have Admin rights, and where possible, using open source software (Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Abiword, ...) that's written and updated regularly by security-conscious people, etc. Some simple words of advice (beware of email attachments, etc) may also help. Running a simple standalone FreeBSD/Linux firewall in front of the Windows may also help security somewhat, preventing attackers connecting directly to the Windows machine. Note that many broadband cable/DSL routers perform the same task when working in Internet sharing mode (sometimes known as NAT). Regards Andrew ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Brian Astill wrote: Interesting. The spiel on the Nuance website gave me that impression, too. However the Royal Society for the Blind in Adelaide tried v 7 (current is 8) and were VERY unimpressed. anything they recommend that we could test on crossover or wine? r:) - -- Romana Branden Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. - Kahlil Gibran -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFD65zYdXQlYmpAnCIRAnL2AKCJF8Wu/7u8eqJgwz+ozusK7YpKUwCghHIu 34pHjdkn7hFLhL2BUdcLW/c= =t/ba -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 06:19 am, Romana Branden wrote: Brian Astill wrote: Interesting. The spiel on the Nuance website gave me that impression, too. However the Royal Society for the Blind in Adelaide tried v 7 (current is 8) and were VERY unimpressed. anything they recommend that we could test on crossover or wine? Yes - they use ZoomText 9 and Jaws 7. These aren't the same as DSN but do a somewhat similar job. -- Regards, Brian ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
On 10/02/2006, at 4:44 AM, andrew clarke wrote: On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 02:32:44PM +1030, Brian Astill wrote: Person with deteriorating vision has discovered Dragon Naturally Speaking which not only allows the construction of text from speech but can also speak from received text. ie letter writing and email conversing etc become possible for the visually impaired. All of which is wonderful except - you guessed it - the [EMAIL PROTECTED] program runs on Windows 2000/XP only. Why would anyone in their right mind NOT port a program as sensible as this to a SECURE OS? I don't know of any such software for Linux or BSD. Does similar software exist for Mac OS X? It might. There is a bigger market for it. Yes, iListen does that http://www.macspeech.com/ malcolm ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
On Thu, 2006-02-09 at 14:32 +1030, Brian Astill wrote: Greetings, all. Can anyone help with this issue? Person with deteriorating vision has discovered Dragon Naturally Speaking which not only allows the construction of text from speech but can also speak from received text. ie letter writing and email conversing etc become possible for the visually impaired. AIUI many of these apps actually hook into the video driver, so they can see exactly what is being output to the screen regardless of the API used. Extremely clever but very difficult to port, and I would not be surprised if it won't work with VMWare either. Lee ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
On Thu, 2006-02-09 at 14:32 +1030, Brian Astill wrote: Greetings, all. Can anyone help with this issue? Please don't cc: moderated lists when posting to public lists. You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has been automatically rejected. If you think that your messages are being rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Protecting Windows
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 codeweavers has mixed success:) http://www.codeweavers.com/site/compatibility/browse/name/?cw=2f920008479e84a8f09e53169236c080;app_id=1229 - -- Romana Branden Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. - Kahlil Gibran -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFD6t74dXQlYmpAnCIRAhEPAJ9yybK3OTZKzefpUaADuZn/T8PqVwCfWUmd uz1T0kZteVrC4DfT/nbPnP8= =xuaT -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
