Sound Forge Version 9.0e Available

Sound Forge Version 9.0E Now Available.

Here are the changes in this version:

Fixed a bug that could cause the Wave Hammer and Acoustic Mirror plug-ins to revert to Demo mode.
Fixed a bug that caused the Cut and Copy toolbar buttons to be unavailable after making a selection.
Fixed a bug that caused the Loop Tuner window to ignore vertical zooming and panning in the data window.

You can go to
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/updates/soundforge
to download it.

Skype Version 3.6.0.248 Now Available

Skype version 3.6.0.248 is now available and one place where you can download it from is at
www.skype.com.

Here are the changes in this version:

feature: Public API access whitelist/blacklist
improvement: Improved connection speed to Skype network from restrictive network environment
bugfix: Skype cross-zone scripting vulnerability
bugfix: Skype crashed sometimes when leaving group chat
bugfix: Skype crashed when current Skypename field was empty
bugfix: Contacts were occasionally lost when synchronisation failed
bugfix: MySpace tab was not reachable via keyboard navigation
bugfix: Editing avatar resulted in "Cannot focus a disabled or invisible window" error
bugfix: It was not possible to answer second incoming call
bugfix: Dynamic Content message overlaying contact list toolbar and group controls on reduced Skype window
bugfix: Check update web link was incorrect
bugfix: Call on hold image was wrongly displayed
bugfix: USB webcam plugged in while on call did not allow to start video
bugfix: It was not possible to open video settings panel while on video call
bugfix: Skype crashed sometimes when expanding chat history
bugfix: Presence were shown wrongly to conference call participants sometimes
bugfix: Incorrect message was shown when sender cancelled file transfer
bugfix: Voice Mail greeting plays again when viewing profile
bugfix: Wrong flag was displayed for Democratic Republic of the Congo
bugfix: File Transfer relayed message was displayed after File Transfer had finished
bugfix: Language name for Belarusian was wrong
change: Language files updated

Montezuma's Return Beta 9 Released

Recently, after USA Games Interactive moved servers, a new version of the side scroller game came out. You can download it by clicking
here

The bug fixes and improvements are below:

Renamed *.xgs files as *.wav.
Replaced Gardian skull sounds with Guardian eagle sounds.
Updated LoadSounds() function.
Fixed bug where the player can walk over the spike pits.
Fixed bug where player invincibility is reset
when loading a saved game.
Updated sound descriptions menu.
Removed external level data files.
Incorperated external level data into Montezuma.exe.
Fixed bug with wrong death sound being played when falling off of a vanishing platform.
Added invincible monsters for levels 7-11.
Recompiled registration tools from 12/4/2007 backup sources.
Added yes/no prompt for saving games with f3.
Added yes/no prompt when loading games with f4.

Sound Forge 9.0d Available Now

Sony has recently posted an update to Sound Forge. Numerous bug fixes and improvements have been made. Here they are below:

Notable fixes/changes in version 9.0d

• The Loop Tuner window has been reimplemented an independent tool window.
• Added support for LPEC files imported from Digital Voice Editor software.
• Added support for WAV files up to 4 GB. Select the Allow Wave renders up to 4 GB check box on the General page of the Preferences dialog to enable support.

• Several Mix/Replace improvements have been implemented:

• Envelopes are now drawn when performing drag-and-drop mixes to indicate mix and fade-in and fade-out levels.
• If a selection exists in your destination data window, the selection is now preserved after mixing sound data.
• Markers are now added at the correct positions when you perform mixes with Options > Paste Events turned on.
• The end of the file is now used as a snap point when performing drag-and-drop mixes.
• A new setting has been added to the Editing tab in the Preferences dialog. Select the Auto-crossfade Mix with selection check box if you want the Fade
In and Fade Out settings for the Mix tool to pay attention to the destination selection and file length when mixing between files.

• You can now hold Ctrl while dragging in a data window to switch to the Magnify tool temporarily (as in Sound Forge 8.0). Select the Allow Ctrl+drag style
zoom in data windows check box on the General tab of the Preferences dialog to enable this behavior.
• Toggling a selection (using the S or \ key) now restores channel selection.
• The Lock Loop/Region Length command is now honored when multiple markers or regions are selected.
• A bug has been fixed that could cause black frames/silence when overwriting an open MPEG file.
• A bug has been fixed that could cause gapping when playing from the Plug-in Chainer and positioning the cursor if Options > Seek Cursor on Playback was
not selected.
• When selecting up to a marker that occurs on the last sample of a file, the last sample is now included in the selection.

You can download it by clicking
here.

Team Talk V3.4 Released

Two days ago, Beare.dk announced that V3.4 of Team Talk was available to download. You can read the change log by clicking
here.
You can directly download it by clicking
here.

My Smartphone

I've recently perchased a smartphone running Window's Mobile 6 using
Mobile Speak Smart
and I find it works really well on the
HTC S720
which is the phone I bought. At first look, it's very tactile with a dot on the five of the number pad and dots on the F and J keys of the QOURTY keyboard. The keys are separated nicely and they are big too. MSS is quite responsive. I may write a more detailed review of it from a blindness perspective when I figure more things out on the phone.

Give Away Of The Day

I have recently found a website called Give Away of the day. What it is, is a site that gives away comercial software for free in a limited time. Every day, a new piece of software is put up and people can get it absolutely free with out any restrictions. The copy that you get is legal. The website is
www.giveawayoftheday.com

Merry Christmas from the Ka's Technology Access Blog.

SoundRTS 1.0 beta 9h Released

Just yesterday, another version of the real time strategy game was released. Here are the changes:

- added 4 multiplayer maps by Christoff Eilers (
details here

- added 1 single player map by Christoff Eilers

You can get it from TBRN by
clicking here.
Note it will take you to the SoundRTS index.

If you want to get it from the SoundRTS website you can
click here
to go to the site.

Announcing Orca v2.21.4

I have recieved an e-mail from the
Orca Mailing List
that tells of a new and improved version of the open source screen reader for Linux using the Gnome Desktop Environment. The e-mail is below:

WOW! THE TEAM HAS BEEN BUSY FOR THIS RELEASE!!! Changes have been made
in the areas of magnification, Firefox, and performance in addition to
keeping up with our aggressive addressing of bugs and quality. Many
thanks to all Orca contributors for their hard work this release.

===============
* What is Orca?
===============

Orca is a free, open source, flexible, and extensible screen reader
that provides access to the graphical desktop via user-customizable
combinations of speech, braille, and/or magnification. Orca
development has been led by the Sun Microsystems, Inc., Accessibility
Program Office via continued engagement with its end users and
generous contributions from wonderful community members.

The Orca v2.21.4 release is targeted for the GNOME v2.21.4 development
release and requires the latest at-spi/pyatspi from GNOME v2.21.4.

You can also read more about Orca at
http://live.gnome.org/Orca.

==================================
* What's changed for Orca v2.21.4?
==================================

2.21.4 - 17-Dec-2007

Magnification:

* Support "live updating" when setting various magnification features

Changes made to the zoomer in the Orca Preferences now update in
real time: it is no longer necessary to press the Apply button to
see if the option you've chosen works for you and then undo it or
adjust it if it doesn't. Note that you must still press the Apply
or the OK button to make your changes permanent.

* Bug #452316 - should have a "fullscreen" checkbox

We've added a Position combo box so that it's easy to select the
position of the zoomer. The options are full screen, left half,
right half, top half, bottom half, and custom. Choosing custom
allows you to specify the location of each edge of the zoomer.
The new default zoomer position is full screen if full screen
magnification is possible. Otherwise, the right half of the
screen will be used by default.

* Bug #463881 - Evaluate other gnome-mag features for inclusion in
Orca prefs

You can now adjust the brightness and contrast levels and use the
colorblind filters from libcolorblind. Basic brightness and
contrast levels can be adjusted through the spin buttons on the
Magnifier pane of the Orca Preferences dialog. If you press the
Advanced Settings button at the bottom of that pane, you'll be
placed in a dialog box where you can customize the red, green, and
blue brightness levels and contrast levels individually. The
Advanced Settings dialog is also where you can choose a color
filter. These options should enable you to create the color
scheme that works best for you. Note that in order for colorblind
filtering to work, you must install libcolorblind and then
re-build gnome-mag.

You can also add a border to your zoomer to help separate it from
the non-magnified area. The border size and color are
customizable. We've also separated the cursor color from the
cross-hair color so you no longer have to find the one color that
works best for both.

* Bug #464705 - Provide option to keep caret in center of magnifier
region of interest

We've added individual tracking and alignment settings for
controls and the text cursor: each can have an alignment of
centered or push (move the magnifier window the least). In
addition, you can now specify an edge margin for the text cursor.
This margin is how close the caret should be allowed to get to the
edge of the screen before it's time to "push." The margin can
range from 0 to 50%, with 50% being the equivalent of choosing
centering. These options should make it easier to keep track of
your location on the screen and ensure that you can always see the
area around your point of focus.

* Bug #501414 - Orca should have (unbound) keybindings for quickly
changing magnification settings

We've added the following new commands:

- Toggle color enhancements
- Toggle mouse enhancements
- Increase magnification level
- Decrease magnification level
- Cycle to the next magnifier position
- Toggle magnifier on/off

These should help you quickly change the zoomer to best access
what you're working on. These commands are "unbound," meaning
they do not have a keystroke assigned to them. You can define the
keystrokes you would like to use on the Key Bindings pane of the
Orca Preferences dialog: locate each command you wish to define a
keystroke for, move to the Key Binding column, and press Return.
You'll be prompted for the new key. Press it (rather than type it
out) and then press Return. Note that these commands do not
permanently change the settings; they merely alter them "on the
fly."

* Bug #503965 - Orca should provide support for the pointer
following focus and the zoomer

If you're using the keyboard to perform a task and then move the
mouse pointer, the zoomer would move away from your task and to
the location of the mouse pointer. We've added two options for
dealing with this:

- Pointer follows zoomer (enabled by default): If the mouse
pointer is not on the screen when you initially move the mouse,
it will be moved into the zoomer so that you can continue to see
what you were working on. If your preferred mouse tracking mode
is centered, the pointer will be moved to the center; otherwise
it will be moved to the item with focus.

- Pointer follows focus (disabled by default): If this option is
enabled, the mouse pointer will follow you as you arrow through
menu items and move among controls in dialog boxes.

We also know we have more work to do and are tracking the work with
these bugs:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=464734
Provide some kind of visual feedback for the item with focus

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504075
Orca should provide support for smooth/linear panning of the zoomer

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504077
Orca should support mouse bindings

Please also check
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/Magnification

and
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/ConfigurationGui
for more information in the
coming days. We're planning updates to them soon to match the work above.

Firefox:

* Fix for bug #451988 - Firefox: navigation by landmark

The XHTML role attribute module defines the following roles: banner,
contentinfo, definition, main, navigation, note, search, secondary,
seealso. New functionality in Orca allows you to navigate to the
next and previous landmark on a page via the unbound keybindings:

- Goes to previous landmark
- Goes to next landmark

These commands are "unbound," meaning they do not have a keystroke
assigned to them. You can define the keystrokes you would like to
use on the Key Bindings pane of the Orca Preferences dialog: locate
each command you wish to define a keystroke for, move to the Key
Binding column, and press Return. You'll be prompted for the new
key. Press it (rather than type it out) and then press Return.

* Fix for bug #466251 - Support ARIA live regions in Firefox/Gecko.
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/AJAX:WAI_ARIA_Live_Regions

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) has recently received a great
amount of attention, and the number of websites using or planning to
use the technique is increasing. AJAX enables web developers to
easily create sites that change areas of their content in response
to user actions (such as in webmail applications) or real world
changes (such as updates of stock prices).

http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-state
is designed to address these
issues. Live region markup allows web page authors to specify when
and how live changes to specific areas of a web page should be
spoken or shown on a Braille display by a screen reader.

The support for live regions in Orca is exposed via these
keybindings:

r and Shift+r: go to the next and previous live region relative to
the current caret position

y: go to the last (or current) live region that spoke

\: cycle through the different levels of politeness

Shift+\: turn monitoring of live regions on and off

Orca+F1, Orca+F2, ..., Orca+F9: review the last nth live region
announcement, where n is the number of the function key (i.e., the
last announcement is obtained via Orca+F1, the 9th last announcement
is obtained via Orca+F9).

* Fix for bug #473009 - Cannot arrow to the end of an HTML entry if
Orca is controlling the caret

* Fix for bug #501447 - Orca sometimes fails to speak our location
when entering FF3 entries

Performance and Quality:

* Much work on performance (bug #491756). If you have specific areas
that you think are slow, please let us know the exact details. These
performance fixes also rely upon fixes being made in other modules
(pyorbit, pyatspi) for the GNOME 2.21.4 release.

* Completed major pylinting work (bug #486726). This helped us
greatly and found a few latent bugs.

General:

* Fix for bug #486970 - Where Am I should let you know you are in a
toolbar

* Fix for bug #496846 - When tabbing to an editable combobox, text
selection should be displayed in braille

* Fix for bug #503527 - Mnemonics are not supported well

New and updated translations (THANKS EVERYONE!!!):

es Spanish Francisco Javier Dorado Martinez and
Jorge Gonzalez
ko Korean Changwoo Ryu
nb Norwegian Bokmã¥L Espes Stefansen and Kjartan Maraas
sl Slovenian Matej Urbančič

======================
* Where can I get it ?
======================

You can obtain Orca v2.21.4 in source code form at the following:

http://download.gnome.org/sources/orca/2.21/orca-2.21.4.tar.gz
http://download.gnome.org/sources/orca/2.21/orca-2.21.4.tar.bz2

Enjoy!

The Orca Team

Bop It Ultimate Review

About the Game:

A couple of weeks ago, Light Tech Interactive released another new, and free game called Bop It Ultimate. You can find out about this computer version of the Bop It game by going to the
Light Tech Interactive
website.

The controls:

The controls of this game are very simple and I think they've done a good job of simulating the handheld version by making the controls face each other so for example, bop it would face push it. Now I would just like to mention here that in the handheld version, there is no such control as push it. One feature I would like to see included in the next version is the ability to map the keys. This is because I heard people were having trouble with hitting the push it key since it was far but I haven't had any problems with finding it and then taping quickly.

Music and Sound Effects:

The sound effects are high quality and I have no complaints about it. The music also quit good but I found as I was playing that as the beat progressed and more elements were added on to the groove, one of them were a little bit choppy.

Game Play:

I really enjoy the different modes and the three different voices. the trick bop was fun because there was a higher possibility that I would mess up. The regular bop was fun too especially the bonus game. If you would like some hints on how to access it, you can check out the
Audyssey Gamer archives
and the
audiogames.net Forum.
The multy player aspect of it was fun too but my only grudge about it is that you can only play with one person. I would like it if they made it so three or four people can play.

Closing Comments:

Overall, I think this is a great game with great features and the best thing about it is that Bop It Ultimate is free. It certainly has a lot of replay value because I play it almost every day.

SoundRTS 1.0 Beta 9G Released

Yesterday, another version of the real time strategy game has come out. Here are the changes:

- fixed a bug where the single player menu was not updated after a victory unlocking a new mission
- removed space between letters when spelling a word
- 16 sound channels by default (instead of 8)
- added num_channels to SoundRTS.ini (number of sound channels)
- better build order for the AI (knights earlier)
- bug fixed: now the AI attacks with knights too
- maps: added
#random_choice
preprocessor directive
- units turn better when trying to avoid each other (slightly increased CPU cost, probably; I'll wait for your feedback)
- fixed a bug where the menus of the units or buildings were not updated
- fixed a bug where when an AI completes a farm some peasants sometimes stay idle instead of mining gold

The direct link for the Windows version of it is
here

You can also download it from TBRN by clicking
here.
Note that if you download it from TBRN, the speed is faster.

You can check out the Sound RTS development blog by going to
soundrts.blogspot.com.

Winamp version 5.51.1741 beta Now Available

Winamp version 5.51.1741 beta is now available and you can get it by

clicking here

Here are the changes in this version and there are quite a lot of them this time:

* New: Autoplay Handlers for Audio, MP3 and Video CD's on WinXP & Vista
* New: Default Programs registration for installations on Windows Vista
* New: Optional Constant-Q Equalizer and optional ISO Standard frequency
bands
* New: [in_flv] Flash Video decoder (vp6 only, not h.263)
* New: [ml_local] BPM column
* Improved: Browser download manager now uses CD Ripping destination
folder
* Improved: Deletion of embedded album art via Artwork tab in File Info
* Improved: More accurately translated Language Packs
* Improved: More miscellaneous UI/dialog tweaks & improvements
* Improved: Option to set the number of pixels to scroll for modern
songticker
* Improved: [Gracenote/MusicID] Better error checking & memory cache
optimizations
* Improved: [gen_ff] More miscellaneous freeform skinning engine
optimizations
* Improved: [gen_hotkeys] Added optional WM_APPCOMMAND support for media
keys
* Improved: [gen_hotkeys] Added increase + decrease rating on current
track
* Improved: [in_dshow] Reading of length and bitrate for non-default video
formats
* Improved: [in_flac] Optimized disk caching for increased performance
* Improved: [in_mp3] Better optimization for older Pentium Pro/2/3 cpu's
* Improved: [in_mp3] Support for reading ALBUM ARTIST field if TPE2 not
present
* Improved: [in_mp4] Better Unicode support and metadata read
optimizations
* Improved: [in_mp4] Optimized disk caching/reading
* Improved: [in_vorbis] Support for reading YEAR field if DATE not present
* Improved: [ml_disc/in_cdda] Disc reading tweaks and other general
optimizations
* Improved: [ml_history] New tracking control options
* Improved: [ml_local] Album column sorting order logic
* Improved: [ml_local] Better playlist handling
* Improved: [ml_local] Bumped track# metadata guessing limit from 130 to
999
* Improved: [ml_local] Database query and memory optimizations
* Improved: [ml_pmp] Support for drag&drop from Explorer into portable
device view
* Improved: [ml_transcode] Prompt to delete aborted transcodes
* Fixed: Artwork not found if .nfo filename contains a period
* Fixed: ASX Parser converting all stream links in .asx playlists to upper
case
* Fixed: Classic songticker wraparound glitchiness
* Fixed: Global Hotkeys list destroyed when changing language packs
* Fixed: Gracenote/MusicID not using Winamp's proxy setting
* Fixed: Parsing of ansi ASX playlists containing non-standard characters
* Fixed: Restore from System Tray if previously closed in a minimized
state> * Fixed: Setup resetting desktop icons :-o
* Fixed: Spectrum vis incompatibility crash with some 3rd-party input
plugins
* Fixed: Truetype replacement font alignment in Winamp Modern winshade
songticker
* Fixed: Various miscellaneous keyboard shortcut issues
* Fixed: Winamp Agent registry entry typo (wianmpa.exe)
* Fixed: [Bento] Collapse/Expand Playlist not respecting 'Show Album Art'
setting
* Fixed: [gen_ff] Potential high CPU usage of songticker object
* Fixed: [gen_hotkeys] Restore from minimized state whilst About dialog is
open
* Fixed: [gen_ml] Blank ML when restarting Winamp from a minimized state
* Fixed: [gen_ml] Cancelling Online Media password prompt clears password
& filters
* Fixed: [in_dshow] Miscalculation of some mpeg video lengths
* Fixed: [in_flac] Divide-by-zero crash on corrupt files
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Deleting Lyrics3 tag in Alt+3 Editor also deletes ID3v1
tag
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Handling of ID3v2 with bad version/revision #'s
* Fixed: [in_mp3] ID3v2 parsing crash with some mp3's
* Fixed: [in_mp3] ID3v2 tag not showing when ID3v1 tag reading is disabled
in config
* Fixed: [in_mp3] MPEG Info not showing in Alt+3 for files with large
ID3v2 tags
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Now only reads first ID3v2 tag if more than one is
present
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Winamp UI freezes when loading certain corrupt mp3's
* Fixed: [in_mp4] Playback of mp3 in mp4 container
* Fixed: [in_mp4] Seeking when paused
* Fixed: [in_mp4/jpeg.w5s] Crash when Art field is in metadata with no
embedded art
* Fixed: [in_vorbis] UTF8->UTF16 optimized (fixes File Info delay bug)
* Fixed: [libmp4v2] Corrupt m4a's not playing, better handling of ones
beyond repair
* Fixed: [ml_autotag] Stops processing when switching to another ml view
* Fixed: [ml_disc] CD view/titles not refreshing when ejecting
old/inserting new CD
* Fixed: [ml_disc] Crash when using invalid strings in playlist filename
generation
* Fixed: [ml_disc] No Burn button under some system configurations
* Fixed: [ml_disc/ml_pmp/ml_transcode] Processing of # in Destination
Folder path
* Fixed: [ml_local] Artist column in descending order when sorting by Year
* Fixed: [ml_local] Down key in Search field not focusing the Simple View
list
* Fixed: [ml_local] Last Updated, Album Gain & Podcast column sorting
orders
* Fixed: [ml_playlists] Shift+Enter hotkey to Enqueue playlist
* Fixed: [ml_plg] Crash when stopping Playlist Generator scan or resetting
database
* Fixed: [ml_pmp] Column sorting orders
* Fixed: [ml_rg] Restore from minimized state whilst rg results dialog is
open
* Fixed: [ml_transcode] Restore from minimized state whilst config dialog
is open
* Fixed: [ml_wire] Podcasts not being downloaded if