April 3, 2012
Text to speech (and the inverse, in instances like Dragon Naturally Speaking) is a brilliant technology that can be used in a lot of different ways. Ever since Windows' Microsoft Sam, text to speech has been pretty accessible to your desktop commoner. Speech to text is usually the more popular sister to this technology, but can text to speech actually be used for any real benefit?
Keep Reading »
November 23, 2011
Have you been in the middle of reading an article and your brain just shuts off? Sometimes your mind still craves information and knowledge, but the act of reading the words is just too much to handle. I understand; I have been there too. Sometimes I just want to know more, but due to lack of sleep or staring at a computer monitor at work all day, I just can’t seem to focus on whatever I am reading.
Keep Reading »
November 5, 2011
Let your computer do the talking. Install eSpeak and you can make your computer say anything, in a wide variety of languages. Looking for a lightweight text to speech program? Whether you want to listen to your favorite blog while doing the dishes, or just make your computer say naughty words to your friends so you can giggle like schoolchildren, eSpeak is a great tool for the job.
Keep Reading »
March 15, 2011
Text is one of the pillars supporting modern civilization. The ability to write – and now type – text provides a way to encapsulate information and share it with others. There’s just one problem with text, and that’s the fact that it is a purely visual means of communicating. Trying to jog down the street with a [...]
Keep Reading »
January 3, 2011
If you or someone you know has a disability that makes using a Mac computer a challenge, you might not be aware of the many default assistive technology resources and tools available in Mac OS X and Apple mobile devices. Apple has provided standard features such as magnification tools, speech commands, audio assistance cues, and [...]
Keep Reading »
June 30, 2010
The web is huge and there is a lot of content for everyone. Sadly, it is not always formatted or presented appropriately for everyone. Some might need reading glasses to read a news site, others might not be able to read at all. Some might hope for a better more readable style, others might want [...]
Keep Reading »
April 13, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, I took a training class about increased productivity. One of the most effective methods you can use to increase productivity is to reduce waste. While reducing the amount of time that you waste seems like common sense, for a lot of people saving a few mouse clicks just doesn’t seem [...]
Keep Reading »
July 25, 2009
Learning skills to increase our income or just having a moment to read a book for fun is hard to do when you put almost two-thirds of your day toward paying yesterday’s bills. Or am I the only one that feels like that? I’m trying to get through my Instrumentation Technician apprenticeship as fast as [...]
Keep Reading »
January 19, 2009
Clippy The Paper Clip is as much a part of us as Microsoft Office. For the uninitiated, ‘Clippy’ is the animated paper clip which pops-up when we need some help from Windows. These animated characters make the computer a bit friendlier. The brains behind Clippy or for that matter Genie or Bosgrove is called the [...]
Keep Reading »
February 22, 2008
Undeniably RSS is one of the best things that has happened to the web after email. Not only has it made browsing a lot more productive, convenient, fun … you name it, but it has also introduced a number of new ways to interact with content that we could never have imagined before. While you’re [...]
Keep Reading »
