ACCESSING THE INTERNET FROM THE KEYBOARD BY JOHN WILSON Volume 1 Copyright 2006 ******** TABLE OF CONTENTS (To find a particular section or heading, use your word- processor's or editor's search facility, e.g. type ">section 6" to find that section. Include the greater than sign (>( immediately prior to the words Section 6, so that you will only stop on that main heading instead of any earlier reference to that section. The > sign is found on the capitalised full stop. Type the string "internet service provider details" or type the specific paragraph number of "12.3." to find that subheading. Additionally, all main sections are separated by a centred row of eight asterisks.) Foreword and Restrictions Available Manual Formats Target Group Conventions Suggested Approaches for Effective Reading of this Tutorial Section 1: Introduction 1.1. What is the Internet and How do Visually Impaired People Access it? 1.2. General and Specific Talking Screenreaders for Web Browsing 1.2.1. JAWS for Browsing the Internet 1.2.2. Window-Eyes for Browsing the Internet 1.2.3. HAL for Browsing the Internet 1.2.4. PWwebspeak for Browsing the Internet 1.2.5. Wemedia for Browsing the Internet 1.2.6. Home Page Reader for Browsing the Internet 1.2.7. Webbie for Browsing the Internet 1.3. JAWS, HAL, Supernova and Window-Eyes Special Web Page Navigation Hot Keys 1.3.1. JAWS 4.0, 4.5, 5 and 6 1.3.2. HAL 5, 6 and 6.5 1.3.3. Window-Eyes 4.2, 4.5 and 5 1.3.4. Windows Operating System Shortcuts 1.4. More Advanced Surfing 1.5. Free Virus-Checkers, Firewalls, Spyware and Spam removers 1.5.1. AVG Free Edition Versions 6 and 7 1.5.2. Sygate, Zone Alarm and Windows XP Free Firewalls 1.5.3. Ad-Aware Free Spyware Remover Version 6 1.5.4. Mail Washer Free Spam Remover 1.5.5. Spybot Search&Destroy Section 2: Helpful Tips and Customisation for Visually Impaired Users 2.1. Eighteen Configuration, Customisation and other Helpful Tips Section 3: Using the Internet via an Internet Service Provider (ISP) 3.1. Types of ISPs 3.2. What you need to Get connected with a Standard or BroadBand MODEM 3.3. Getting Your Windows PC Set Up for a PPP Connection 3.4. Connecting to Your ISP 3.5. Making Changes to or creating a new Internet Connection 3.6. Solid Step-by-Step Example of Subscribing to a Pay-As-You-Go ISP Service and Creating a Desktop Shortcut to it--The UK2 ISP Service 3.7. List of UK Dial-Up Services (non-broadband) 3.8. List of UK Broadband Providers 3.9. Broadband Over the Mains Provider 3.10. Changing Your Broadband Provider Section 4: Internet Explorer Versions 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0 4.1. Internet Protocols, Server Names and File Paths 4.2. Launching Internet Explorer 4.2.1. Launching Internet Explorer from its Executable File on Your Hard Disk 4.2.2. Creating a Shortcut and Launching Internet Explorer from It 4.2.3. Other Methods of Launching Internet Explorer 4.2.4. Starting Internet Explorer with a Blank Page or Starting it with a Specific Home Page Automatically Loading 4.3. Internet Explorer Temp File Cache Size 4.4. What are Web Pages and How are They Read 4.5. Reading Web Pages Offline 4.6. E-Mail Links on a Web Page 4.7. The Internet Explorer Favourites Folder 4.7.1. Using the Favourites Folder and Adding More Favourites to It 4.7.2. Viewing the Contents of Your Favourites Folder 4.7.3. Creating Folders and Sub-Folders within Favourites 4.7.4. Organising, Deleting, renaming, Printing Out and making other Modifications to favourites 4.7.5. Saving and Exporting a copy of Your Favourites Folder and of Your Cookies for Safe Keeping or for Use on Another Computer 4.8. Saving a Page or Opened file in Internet Explorer 4.9. Downloading a File from the Net or Opening it Online 4.10. Doing Two Things at Once in Internet Explorer 4.11. Sending a Copy of a Web Page or Link to Someone Else 4.12. Setting Privacy Levels and Obtaining a Report of a Website's Privacy Policy 4.12.1. Setting Privacy Levels 4.12.2. Obtaining a Privacy Report of the Current Site 4.13. Manually Completing Forms 4.14. Roboform Automatic Forms Completion Software 4.15. Quick and Easy Web Access with Microsoft Powertoys 4.16. VIPS Accessability Gateway 4.17. Testing the Accessability of a Website 4.18. Quick Commands Context Menu for a Link 4.19. Turning On or Off Automatic Disconnection to Your ISP 4.20. Ensuring that Your Online Transaction Details are Not Automatically Saved to Disk 4.21. Viewing the History List of Already Visited Web Pages and their Contents 4.22. The Internet Explorer Help System Section 5: Taster Sites to Find Files and Programs 5.1. Website Walk-Through Example Section 6: Web Search Engines 6.1. Starting a Search Engine 6.2. Standard search Engines 6.2.1. Yahoo! 6.2.2. Altavista 6.2.3. Raging 6.2.4. Ask Jeeves 6.2.5. MSN Search 6.2.6. CD Wizard 6.2.7. UK-Based Specific Search Facilities 6.2.8. Accessible Result Specialist Search Engine 6.2.9. UK Traders and Shops Search Engine 6.3. Meta-Search Engines 6.3.1. Google and its Family of Utilities 6.3.1.1. Using Google with a Screenreader and Availability of Scripts 6.3.1.2. Narrowing Searches Down in Google 6.3.1.3. Using the Google Advanced Search facility 6.3.1.4. The Google Image Search Feature 6.3.1.5. Google's Goods Catalogue Searching Feature 6.3.1.6. Google's International News Search feature 6.3.1.7. Google's Print Book Search Facility 6.3.1.8. Google's E-Mail and Website Service 6.3.1.9. Google Desktop Search 6.3.1.10. Google Scholar Scientific and Academic Specialist Research Searching Feature 6.3.2. Alltheweb 6.3.3. Seti-Search 6.3.4. Dogpile 6.3.5. Astalavista 6.3.6. YouSearched 6.3.7. Vivisimo 6.4. Finding Companies 6.5. Finding People 6.6. Finding News and Public Records 6.7. The Outlook Express Quick People Search Facility Section 7: E-Mailing Overview 7.1. E-Mail Address Components 7.2. Web-Based E-Mail Providers 7.3. 1-Step--Voice E-Mail Section 8: E-Mailing with Microsoft Outlook Express Versions 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0 8.1. Pen-Picture of the Outlook Express Screen 8.2. Outlook Express E-Mailing Options and Customisation for Visually Impaired People 8.3. Composing and Sending E-Mail 8.4. Sending or Forwarding Multiple E-Mails Simultaneously 8.5. Undelivered E-Mail 8.6. Receiving and Reading E-Mail 8.7. Finding an E-Mail Message 8.8. Deleting E-Mail Messages 8.8.1. Deleting Single Messages or Whole Folders of Messages 8.8.2. Deleting Groups of Messages by Conversation/Subject 8.9. Viewing Only Specific Mail and News Messages 8.10. Replying to E-Mail 8.10.1. Replying to the E-mail Sender Only 8.10.2. Replying to all Recipients of an E-Mail 8.11. Forwarding E-Mail to Other People 8.12. The Outlook Express Address Book 8.12.1. What is the Address Book and what can you do with it? 8.12.2. Quickly Inserting a Contact's E-Mail Address into the "To" Header if you Cannot Remember It 8.12.3. Manually Adding Someone to your Address Book/Contacts List 8.12.4. Moving to the Address Book and Finding an Entry 8.12.5. Using the Address Book Find People Feature 8.13. E-Mail Address Groups (Distribution Lists) 8.14. Saving and Moving E-Mail 8.15. Importing and Exporting 8.15.1. Importing Messages, Address Books and Account Settings 8.15.2. Exporting Messages, Address Book Details, Account Settings and Other Files 8.15.3. Where Outlook Express Keeps its Data Files and How to Save them and Move them Elsewhere 8.16. Dealing with File Attachments 8.16.1. Attaching a File 8.16.2. Opening and Saving an Attachment 8.17. Inserting Text into an E-Mail Message 8.18. Jump to Links in E-mail 8.18.1. Jumping from E-Mail to a Website 8.18.2. Inserting Jump to Links into your E-Mail 8.19. Sender's E-Mail Address Identification 8.20. Obtaining a Received Message Verification Receipt 8.21. Blocking and Unblocking Specific E-Mail Messages 8.22. Using Message Rules to Sort and Reply to Messages 8.22.1. Step-by-Step Example 1: Filtering Specific Messages into a Newly Created E-mail Folder 8.22.2. Step-by-Step Example 2: Automatically Replying to E-mail Messages when Away From Home or the Office 8.23. Obtaining Website Content by E-Mail 8.24. Using shorthand Emoticons in Your E-mails 8.25. Shortcut Menus 8.26. Sending Coloured Business-Type HTML Formatted E-Mails with Pictures or Sounds 8.27. Accessing your E-mail Whilst Away from Home 8.27.1. Accessing E-Mail whilst Abroad 8.27.2. Accessing E-Mail whilst elsewhere in Your Own Country 8.28. Breaking Large Messages into Smaller blocks for E-Mailing 8.29. Setting up an Hotmail or other Account 8.30. Using Imap to Manipulate Your E-Mail Section 9: Joining Mail Lists and News Lists 9.1. The Listserv Server Section 10: Usenet Newsgroups 10.1. What are Usenet Newsgroups? 10.2. component Parts of Newsgroup Names and What They Mean Section 11: Reading Newsgroups with Outlook Express Versions 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0 11.1. Launching Outlook Express as a News Reader 11.2. Subscribing to Newsgroups 11.3. Deleting a Newsgroup 11.4. Pen-picture of the Outlook express Screen 11.5. Basic Online News Reading 11.6. Filtering News Messages 11.7. Deleting Messages and Headers 11.8. Responding to an Article with Outlook Express 11.9. Introducing a New Topic Section 12: Reading Newsgroups with Forte Agent and Free Agent Versions 1.92 12.1. Downloading Agent and Free Agent 12.2. Installing Agent or Free Agent and downloading Newsgroups 12.3. Internet Service Provider Details 12.4. Launching Agent and Free Agent 12.5.Pen-Picture of the Free Agent Screen 12.6. Online versus Offline News Reading 12.7. Subscribing to Newsgroups 12.8. Navigation in Free Agent 12.9. Changing Preferences 12.10. Keeping News Messages 12.11. Deleting News Messages 12.12. Responding to an Article with Free Agent 12.13. Sorting News Messages 12.14. Getting More Help 12.15. Some More Free Agent Keyboard Shortcuts Section 13: Downloading Files and Programs from the Net 13.1. FTP File Downloads 13.2. HTTP File Downloads 13.3. File Download Steps 13.4. X:Drive Free Web Disk Space 13.5. FTP by E-Mail Section 14: How to Find People and Places on the Internet 14.1. Search Engines 14.2. Contacting the Domain Postmaster 14.3. Searching through Usenet Newsgroups 14.4. Searching Online Directories Section 15: Different Ways of Connecting to Accounts 15.1. PPP/SLIP Programs 15.2. E-Mail Programs 15.3. Newsgroup Readers 15.4. FTP Up- and Download Programs 15.4.1. General Overview 15.4.2. Step by Step Example of how to use FTP Explorer 15.4.2.1. General 15.4.2.2. Set-Up and Protocols 15.4.2.3. Uploading and Downloading Files 15.4.2.4. Configuration Tips 15.5. Chat Programs Appendix 1: Where to Find More Internet Information 16.1. From the Internet Itself 16.2. In Braille 16.3. On Cassette 16.4. By E-Mail Appendix 2: List of E-Mail Lists Dealing with Particular Topics of Visual Impairment 17.1. List of VI-Related Lists and Examples of How to Subscribe to Them Appendix 3: List of Hundreds of General Websites of Interest 18.1. Recommended Sites to Visit 18.2. Website Resources Accessible by E-Mail Appendix 4: Keyboard Shortcuts in Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and Free Agent 19.1. Internet Explorer 5, 5.5 and 6 19.2. Outlook express 5, 5.5 and 6 19.3. Free Agent 1.92 Appendix 5: Glossary of Terms 20.1. Glossary Appendix 6: Other Tutorials Available from this Author. 21.1. List of and Brief Description of Other Tutorials Complimentary Close ******** Foreword and Restrictions I have written this manual and tutorial for the use of blind and otherwise visually impaired computer users and/or their trainers. It is free of charge and only available from its author's Website and from no other distributer. No individual or organisation is permitted to sell copies of this tutorial either as a stand-alone tutorial or as an integral part of any other literary, software or training package. ******** AVAILABLE MANUAL FORMATS The manual is only available in ASCII text format, as a free download from the author's Website at: http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard This tutorial and guide has been created with a minimum of formatting, in plain text, so that any word-processor or text editor can read it. In this format it should also be suitable for any one to run it through an embosser but, with some embossing software, you may still wish to make some line spacing and heading format changes to suit yourself and your software. A simple construction such as this should also make reading by arrowing up and down in your word-processor less labour intensive than would be the case with columns, shorter lines, and the like. Colloquialisms, such as don't, haven't, doesn't, etc, have been avoided in this guide in order to make it easier to follow and understand via a speech package. Hopefully, any loss of conversationality and warmth will be compensated for by increased clarity. ******** TARGET GROUP Visually impaired computer users are the target group for this manual. Keyboard access methods and descriptions, using screenreaders and no mouse or monitor, are the basis of this work. The manual is more likely to be useful to the Internet starter who already knows something about Windows keystroke methods and is already connected to the Internet, rather than the complete novice. It should take the user from little or no knowledge about the Internet to a position well into intermediate stage usage, but it is not envisaged that it will be of much use to the seasoned Net user who already comfortably uses up-to-date Microsoft Internet Windows software, other than as a reference resource. Nor does it attempt to teach basic Windows operating system competencies. ******** CONVENTIONS In the writing of this manual, terms have the following meanings: ALT F, A Means hold down the left ALT key and whilst still holding it down press the letter f, then release both and press the letter A. CONTROL S Means hold down the control key and whilst keeping it held down press the letter S and then release both. SHIFT END Means hold down the SHIFT key and whilst keeping it held down press the END key. ALT E, C, and press ENTER Means hold down the left ALT key and whilst keeping it held down press the letter E key, then release both and then press the letter C key followed by the enter key. When a key combination such as ALT T (for Tools), O (for Options) is suggested to go into the "Tools" menu and run the "Options" menu option, the user may follow this method of operation or may prefer to ARROW up and down a menu and press ENTER. In this latter case, the keystrokes would be: press the ALT key, right ARROW to the "Tools" menu heading, then ARROW down (or up) until the "Options" line is spoken, then press ENTER. All individual and conbinations of keys you actually have to press during a procedure which have been referred to have been put in capital letters so that they stand out to anyone reading this tutorial visually, e.g. to bring up the Open dialogue box press CONTROL O. ******** Suggested Approaches for Effective Reading of this Tutorial It is, of course, entirely up to the individual as to how they glean information and work through this tutorial, but a few suggestions might assist the learner who is relatively new to computers. I would propose that you read through the whole of a section before attempting to practise it to obtain an overview of what is being done. There are a number of approaches which might be taken to make reading the tutorial as a text file and simultaneously carrying out the instructions more fluid and easier to follow. Try one of the below methods. Ideally, if you have two computers, you can load the tutorial into your text editor or word-processor on one PC and have the software program running on the other. You can then listen to the directions on one computer whilst practising them on the other. Alternatively, as is likely to be the case, if you only have the one computer, you could launch your word-processor and load the tutorial into it for reading. You could then launch the program you wish to learn how to use in order to practise the lessons. You would have to keep cycling between each running program by pressing ALT TAB in this case. Yet another approach might be to take a tape recorder or dictaphone and get your screenreader to read the contents of a given section or sub-section onto the tape. You could then play the tape back and follow the instructions through on your PC without having to keep moving from one running program to another. Other options would be for you to print out a copy of the tutorial in large print if you can use this and work from this hard copy, or you could get your local library or resource centre to produce a Braille version for you to work from if you have one in your area and you are a Braillist. ******** >Section 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. What is the Internet and how do Visually Impaired People Access it? The Internet is a worldwide, interconnected network of computers. It is also known as the "Information Superhighway" and "surfing the Web" is the process of jumping from one Web page to another anywhere in the world. The World Wide Web is not another name for the Internet. The World Wide Web lives on the Internet and is a system of interlinked information pages on the Net. I have written this manual chiefly in respect of Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0 and other Microsoft programs running on IBM-clone computers. Where other programs are described in detail, it is because they are accessible and may do the job better than their Microsoft equivalent from a screenreader and keyboard point of view. Additionally, screenreaders are more likely to have set files or script files written for well-known programs than for more obscure ones, so they should be easier to use. Internet Explorer Version 4.0 was not very user-friendly to visually impaired "Web Surfers" but the advent of Version 5 with its accompanying utilities and the work of screenreader makers has overcome most of these problems. Some Websites are more user-friendly to screenreader and keyboard users than others. The problem is the extensive use of images and graphics (pictures) on Web pages, some of which do not have text titles attached to them. It is essential that the visually impaired surfer gets to know his/her own screenreader Internet commands and special shortcut keys thoroughly to minimise time loss and frustration when on the Net. Studying the screenreader's own manual to master any of its special Internet commands prior to connecting will more than pay dividends and could make the difference between using the Internet being viewed as a tedious thing and feeling that it is, in fact, a valuable and enjoyable tool for blind people. This publication does not instruct the user in how to use any particular screenreader (although some screenreader special shortcuts are occasionally exemplified in the step by step instructions) but instead concentrates on the general keystrokes provided by MS Windows to get things done. In this way the visually impaired computer user should be able to reasonably function on the Net irrespective of the screenreader which is on the computer they are currently using--something which would not be possible if you only learned the special keystrokes which come with a given screenreader package to achieve your goals. The most common screenreader specific keyboard shortcuts, however, are given in a sub-section below for JAWS, Window-Eyes and HAL to refresh your memory. One thing you must keep in mind is that the Internet is continually in flux, growing and changing. Some Internet sites and pages you accessed and viewed last week will no longer exist this week, others will have come into existence within the last few hours and yet others will still be there but will have been altered in their construction and general appearance. Therefore, whilst at the time of writing the keystrokes given herein were the ones to use to acheive a given end result, This tutorial aims not so much to get you to follow precise keystrokes on particular sites only but rather to give you a general grasp of what the changing Internet is like and the confidence to use it even if some sites and web pages have changed since both I and you last frequented them. The reader may wish to work through this manual section by section or jump to a particular section which interests them first. Whichever way you approach this, I would recommend that you quickly read through it to get an overview of its contents and decide which approach is best for you in respect of how the manual is written and layed out. Some readers will find, after reading Sections 1 and 2, that they might like to jump to Sections 7 and 8 about e-mailing to get a quick flavour of what going on line is like and to do something positive on the Net sooner rather than later. E-mailing, once your PC is set up for this, is one of the most useful and easier things to do on the Internet. 1.2. General and Specific Talking Screenreaders for Web Browsing Some general screenreaders which deal well with Windows and the Internet plus a number of specific talking Web browsers are mentioned below. 1.2.1. JAWS for Browsing the Internet You can obtain a demo or purchase a copy of the general screenreader JAWS for Windows from Freedom Scientific at: www.freedomscientific.com and they also sell a cheaper, cut-down version for specific use on the Net. JAWS automatically renders Web pages into a word- processor-style document type of layout to make navigating them easier and more familiar. Tips on how to use this screenreader will be regularly demonstrated in forthcoming sections and the next section features a list of JAWS most useful hot keys for use on the Net. 1.2.2. Window-Eyes for Browsing the Internet You can buy or get a demo of the general Window-Eyes screenreader by GW Micro at: www.gwmicro.com Window-Eyes automatically renders Web pages into a word- processor-style document type of layout to make navigating them easier and more familiar. Tips on how to use this screenreader will be regularly demonstrated in forthcoming sections and the next section features a list of Window-Eyes most useful hot keys for use on the Net. 1.2.3. HAL for Browsing the Internet Dolphin's HAL general screenreader can navigate Web pages and a copy can be purchased from or a demo downloaded from: www.dolphinuk.co.uk HAl is able to navigate Web pages as they appear natively and you can use HALs "Links List" to render links and frames on Web pages into easier to find and sift through lists. Tips on how to use this screenreader will be regularly demonstrated in forthcoming sections and the next section features a list of HALs most useful hot keys for use on the Net. 1.2.4. PWwebspeak for Browsing the Internet There is also a Windows 95 Internet specialist World Wide Web browser available called PWWebspeak by the Productivity Works in America at: www.prodworks.com This specialist browser comes with its own speech engine which will work through a synthesiser or via a standard 16-bit sound card and basic computer speakers. However, it cannot deal with JAVA-based sites. PWwebspeak was withdrawn from sale in 2002 but has now been made avalable as a free download. It may be optainable from several sites but one which has the 6.3 Mb program for download is: www.soundlinks.com/pwgen.htm 1.2.5. Wemedia for Browsing the Internet Another specialist Web browser, which came out in the first quarter of 2001, is from WeMedia and can be downloaded as freeware directly from: www.webtalkster.com/wemediatb.exe This free browser is said to be operable with only six keystrokes, after you have experience with it. It has its own text-to-speech engine and interactive help system. In addition to keyboard command operation, the browser can be operated with spoken commands via a microphone. Users of this browser also have easy access to a chat room which it provides and it will soon be fitted with its own VI-friendly e-mail capability. This program may be a little too verbose for experienced Web surfers but this will probably be an advantage to learners. It works with all current Microsoft operating systems from Windows 95 to Windows 2000 and ME. 1.2.6. Home Page Reader for Browsing the Internet A further specialist Web browser, again with its own speech in- built, which is the IBM Viavoice speech engine, is called Home Page Reader. A demo copy for evaluation can be downloaded from: www-3.ibm.com/able/hpr.html From Version 3.0 (but not with earlier versions) this browser is able to deal with sites which adopt Java content. 1.2.7. Webbie for Browsing the Internet More recently a freely downlodable Web page rendering program called Webbie has become available, which you would use along side a less advanced or older screenreader. It is available from: www.webbie.org or www.screenreader.co.uk The executable file which downloads will be called something like "webbie263installer.exe" and you should find and press ENTER on this to perform a Windows-type standard, straightforward program installation. It will have downloaded to your Desktop by default or anywhere else you have specified such downloads from the Net to go. After installing Webbie, you load it to use it before going onto the Internet from: Press Windows key, then P (for Programs) and then W several times (for Webbie) and press ENTER once or twice on the "Webbie" option to launch it. Alternatively, place a shortcut on your Desktop from which to quickly launch Webbie. Webbie is only around 3 Mb in size and works by presenting Web pages just like word-processors present information. You can then easily navigate such as forms and bring up links lists to work on. for Webbie to work optimally, you will have to have Internet Explorer 6 installed on your PC. Whilst users of more advanced, up-to-date screenreaders such as JAWS 4.5, HAL 6 and Window-Eyes 4.21 would not require such an add-on Web page converter, users of such as HAL 4X and earlier and Lookout screenreaders could benefit greatly from such a specialist Web page browsing add-on. Webbie has four main areas on screen: a Menu Bar, a Toolbar, an Address Bar and the main screen where the Web pages display, which is the display area. You move from the display area to the Address Bar by pressing ALT D and from the Address Bar back to the display area by pressing ALT T. It also has a standard Windows-type menu structure which you get into by pressing the ALT key as usual. 1.3. JAWS, HAL, Supernova and Window-Eyes Special Web Page Navigation Hot Keys Here I list, as a memory jogger, the main JAWS, HAL, Supernova and Window-Eyes Web page hot keys when using Internet Explorer 5 and later as of March 2005. 1.3.1. JAWS 4.0, 4.5, 5 and 6 Most of the below JAWS hot keys work with versions of JAWS from 4.0 onwards but a few will only work if you have upgraded to later versions which have included extra hot keys. If you press one of these single hot keys and nothing happens, it is likely that this hot key does not exist in your copy of JAWS, otherwise you would get some kind of feedback as JAWS would at least report, for example, "no more divisions found" if you press Z and your version of JAWS does not feature this particular recent addition to its range of single hot keys. Please note that the large INSERT key at the bottom left-hand side of the number pad is also frequently referred to as the JAWS key. I will only call it the INSERT key throughout this tutorial, as this is its most common name when the number pad is turned off. It is often used in conjunction with other number pad and main keyboard keys to invoke special combined hot key actions and so is used in a similar way to the SHIFT key when capitalising letters. Press A: To jump to the next anchor on a page. Press B: To move to the next button on a page. Press C: To get the current column read out in a table on a Web page. From JAWS 6 this key's function changes and moves you between comboboxes. Press D: to skip to the next different element on a page, e.g. from a link to an editfield and then, perhaps, to another link or combobox. Press E: to skip past the next element on a Web page. This changes to skipping to the next editfield on a page from JAWS 6. Press F: to skip to the next form (editfield) control on a Web page. Press G: To jump to the next graphic on a page. Press H: to jump to the next heading on a Web page. Press I: To skip to the next list item in a list on a Web page. Press J: To jump to any line in the JAWS virtual buffer after entering the line's number. You use SHIFT J to return to the starting point before the jump. Press K: To jump to the next place marker on a Web page if you have previously inserted markers on that page. Press L: to go directly to the next list on a Web page. Press M: to move to the next frame on a Web page. Press N: To skip past links on a Web page. Press O: To go to the next object tag on a page. Press P: To move to the next paragraph on a page. Press Q: To move to the next block quote on a page. Press R: To get the current row read out in a table on a Web page. From JAWS 6 this key's function changes and moves you between radio buttons. Press S: to jump to the next same element on a Web page, e.g. from edit field to editfield. Press T: To jump to the next Table on a page. Press U: To go to the next unvisited link on a Web page. Press V: To go to the next already visited link on a Web page. Press X: To go to the next checkbox on a page. Press Z: To jump to the next division on a page. Press >: To step past the next element on a Web page. Press <: To step to the element before the prior element on a page. Note 1: Hold down the SHIFT key with any of the above single letter hot keys to obtain the reverse action, i.e. jump backwards through lists, tables, editfields, etc. Note 2: From JAWS 6 you can hold down the CONTROL key and the INSERT key together and then press any of the above single letter keys to obtain a list of that particular element, e.g. CONTROL INSERT Z will bring up a list of the divisions on the current Web page. Press ENTER: to turn MSAA mode off when on a form editing field to be able to type text in. Pressing Numpad + (the PC cursor) turns MSAA mode back on. INSERT F1: Obtains screen sensitive help. INSERT F1 twice: Obtains JAWS help for a specific application. INSERT A: Reads the contents of the Address Bar. INSERT W: Provides tips on general Windows shortcut keystrokes. CONTROL UP or DOWN ARROW: Moves you from one text paragraph to another on a Web page. INSERT F6: Places the headings on a Web page into a structured hierarchical order to quickly ARROW through and press ENTER on any one to jump there (but only if the page has been written using HTML structured heading tags, e.g. H1, H2, etc). Before JAWS 4.01 this command simply took you to the Desktop minimised. CONTROL INSERT HOME: Takes you to the first form field on a page, if JAWS has not automatically placed you there already. You will have to press ENTER to turn MSAA mode off and forms mode on before you can complete editfields on a Web page or in a form. CONTROL INSERT TAB: Moves you to the next form field. CONTROL INSERT SHIFT TAB: Moves you to the previous form field. CONTROL INSERT END: Takes you to the last form field on a page. INSERT ENTER: Jumps you to the next instance of text with no associated link to read that text. INSERT F7: Invokes a links list so that you can ARROW up or down the links on a page or jump straight to a link by pressing the first letter of its name. You can also select between A-Z or Z-A order, have them in the original page TAB order, have only unvisited links displayed, only visited links displayed, etc. Pressing ENTER on one of these links will activate it. INSERT F9: Provides you with a frames list of the same type as the above links list. INSERT F5: From Version 5 onwards, displays a listbox with all of the controls and forms on the current Web page similar to the above two list features. INSERT Z: Toggles the virtual PC cursor on and off. CONTROL INSERT F: goes into the JAWS Find dialogue to type text in to jump to this. CONTROL INSERT TAB: Moves you from the current form field to the next form field. CONTROL INSERT SHIFT TAB: Same as the above but backwards through form fields. Press INSERT DELETE: To route the virtual cursor to the location of the PC cursor. Press SPACEBAR: To toggle checkboxes, select radio buttons and activate buttons without entering forms mode from Version 4.51 onwards. Press ALT DELETE: To obtain information about how much of an online document you have already read as a percentage of the whole text. ALT CONTROL NumPad 5: Reads the cell in a table which has focus. ALT CONTROL left or right ARROW: Moves you left or right through table columns and cells on a Web page. ALT CONTROL up or down ARROW: Moves you up or down a cell in a table. ALT CONTROL HOME OR END: Moves you to the first or last cell in a table respectively. WINDOWS KEY down ARROW: Moves to the next row in a table. WINDOWS KEY up ARROW: Moves to the previous row in a table. WINDOWS KEY .: Reads the current collum in a table. WINDOWS KEY ,: Reads the current row in a table. CONTROL J: Is the jump to cell in a table hot key. Pressing the main keyboard numbers 1 to 6: Jumps you from one heading to another heading on a Web page, e.g. pressing 1 repeatedly keeps moving you through heading 1 level headings, pressing 2 repeatedly keeps moving you through level 2 headings, etc. In this way you can quickly move between headings at the same level and between different levels of headings. A new concept introduced from JAWS 5.0 is the place marker insertion, jump to and list dialogue box. You can insert up to 10 place markers on any Web page and give them individual names. You can cycle through these place markers by pressing the K key and you can open up the place marker dialogue and view the list of your markers, add new markers, name them, move them in the list, remove them and jump to any one you like. You can do this whilst on a Web page online on the Net or on a Web page held on your hard disk without being online. There are only three essential hot key commands involved, as listed below. Press CONTROL SHIFT K: To open the place marker dialogue box when on a Web page to insert a permanent marker or make a temporary marker permanent. Press K: to jump forward through markers. Press SHIFT K: to jump backwards through markers. In practice, what you do with place markers is: 1. Whilst on a Web page with your cursor at the desired place you want a marker to be inserted, press CONTROL SHIFT K to open the place markers dialogue box to permanently add, name, move, remove, change the name of or jump to any place marker. 2. Now TAB to "Add" and press ENTER. 3. Next type a meaning full name into the editfield you are in such as "phone number for Webmaster" and press ENTER, and you have now finished inserting and naming your marker. 4. You can now jump to these markers with the above-mentioned K and SHIFT K commands or you can again press CONTROL SHIFT K to open the place markers' dialogue and then ARROW to any marker by its meaningful name and press ENTER on it to jump to it. The place marker feature has a few other non-essential hot keys which you may also wish to try, as follows: Press CONTROL k: to insert a single temporary marker at the cursor position on a page. Press CONTROL SHIFT 1 through 0: To get the name of any of the 10 markers on a page spoken to you (this hot key failed to work for me but perhaps it will work for you). Press CONTROL SHIFT 1 to 0 quickly twice: To move straight to the marker associated with that marker number, e.g. CONTROL SHIFT 5 twice to jump to marker number 5. 1.3.2. HAL 5, 6 and 6.5 Please note that, with HAL 6 onwards, the CAPSLOCK key at the left-hand side of the keyboard is also frequently referred to as the Dolphin key. I will only call it the CAPSLOCK key throughout this tutorial, as this is its most common name. It is often used in conjunction with other keys to invoke special combined hot key actions and so is used in a similar way to the SHIFT key when capitalising letters. Please also note that, when either the CONTROL or SHIFT keys are mentioned in the below list of hot keys, it is the left key which should be pressed. Pressing the right CONTROL or SHIFT key may not work or may achieve a different result. The following hot keys are available in HAL: F1: Provides context-sensitive help for the control or other element which focus is currently on. F3: Activates HALs find feature to jump to a given word or words on a Web page. You type the word(s) in and press ENTER to get the first occurrence of the word found. F4: This is the find next occurrence of a word hot key, after firstly invoking the find with F3 as above. F2: Is the find previous occurrence of a word key, after firstly invoking the find with F3 as above. SPACEBAR: Activates (left clicks on) a link, rather than pressing ENTER as with earlier versions of HAL. ENTER (return or carriage return key): Puts you into forms mode whilst on an editfield on a Web page. You can then type information into an editfield. You may have to press ENTER each time you encounter such an editfield to type text in. From HAL Version 6.03 you enter forms mode by pressing CAPSLOCK ENTER and HAL should then automatically change from forms editing mode to reading mode and back again without you having to do anything more. NumPad +: Starts and stops continuous document read. INSERT: Is the left click simulation key. To left click and change to live focus press the A key and to left double click press the U key. DELETE: Is the right click simulation key. To right click and change to live focus press the D key and to right double click press the E key. Left CONTROL PAGE UP or DOWN: Moves you upwards or downwards through any elements of a page which are not links, e.g. buttons, checkboxes, editfields, etc. Left CONTROL SHIFT PAGE DOWN or PAGE UP: Moves you from frame to frame on a page. Left CONTROL SHIFT HOME: Jumps you to the first form editfield on a page. Left CONTROL shift right ARROW: Moves you to the next occurrence of text which is not associated with a link. Left CONTROL SHIFT right ARROW: Opposite of above. Left CONTROL SHIFT DOWN ARROW: Skips you downwards through links on a page. Left CONTROL SHIFT UP ARROW: Opposite of above. Left SHIFT Numpad 0: Gives you the URL of a link which is not entitled or which has a meaningless title, such as "Click Here". ALT T (for Tools) then ARROW down to "Dolphin Links Navigator" and press ENTER: Loads the Links Navigator to format the links on a page in a row to ARROW through in A-Z, Z-A or Tab order or jump straight to a link by pressing the first letter of its name. Pressing ENTER will activate the link. With the introduction of HAL 5.20 and later versions, the Links Navigator is replaced by what is known as the Dolphin List Utility, to do the same links listing and selecting job but more efficiently and it also lists frames and HTML headings. You can use it for complex Web pages and for finding your way around HTML help files. With HAL 6, you also have hot keys of CAPSLOCK 1 to list links on a Web page, CAPSLOCK 2 to list headings, CAPSLOCK 3 to list frames and capslock 4 to list what is in the System Tray. CAPSLOCK ENTER: From HAL 6.03 only, invokes HALs new forms mode to make such as online shopping sites easier to work on. After pressing CAPSLOCK ENTER, As you move through a Web page, HAL intuitively automatically switches out of auto-virtual focus mode into live mode every time it comes across an editfield or other similar control to which live mode is appropriate. It will also automatically return to auto-virtual focus mode when required to do so in order to allow you to continue reading the Web page to be able to do things such as activate links. CAPSLOCK Numpad 7: In HAL 6.03 onwards, speaks the name of a form label to the left of an editfield if this is not automatically spoken by HAL in its forms mode because it is out of HAL's normal zone of detection. CAPSLOCK Numpad 8: In HAL 6.03 only, speaks the name of a form label above an editfield if this is not automatically spoken by HAL in its forms mode because it is out of HAL's normal zone of detection. Note: With HAL 5X the general Windows commands of ALT left and right ARROWS to take you to your last visited Web page backwards or forwards respectively do not work. 1.3.3. Window-Eyes 4.2, 4.5 and 5 Most of the below hot keys apply to all versions of Window-Eyes from Version 4.0 on Web pages but the hot keys for using Window- Eyes in MSAA mode to navigate Web pages immediately below apply before version 4.5. for those which apply from Version 4.5, see the new list beneath this first one. CONTROL SHIFT F1: Brings up WE help but this is not context sensitive. CONTROL SHIFT F: Enables the WE find feature. Pressing INSERT F will continue the search in the same direction. ALT U: Reads the URL for the current page. CONTROL INSERT S: Reads the status line, which may have useful Web page download details. CONTROL SHIFT A: Toggles MSAA mode on and off whilst MSAA mode is in automatic loading mode. INSERT A: Toggles automatic loading of MSAA mode on or off. CONTROL SHIFT R: Will read a Web page from the cursor to its end. CONTROL SHIFT S: Provides information about how many lines are in the current page and what line the cursor is presently on, plus advice about whether the page has frames. ALT SHIFT DOWN ARROW: Moves you through links only on a page, missing out any other elements or controls, such as editfields, buttons, checkboxes, etc. ALT SHIFT UP ARROW: Opposite of the above. ALT DOWN ARROW: Moves you to the next element on a page, e.g. a link, an editfield, a button, etc, but it takes you to another type of control which is not the same as the one you left, e.g. if you were in a textbox you would not go to another textbox but to something else such as a button, a link, etc. ALT UP ARROW: Opposite of above. INSERT ALT DOWN ARROW: Moves you to the next text-only block skipping all other controls. ALT CONTROL SHIFT DOWN ARROW: Takes you to a previously visited link on a page skipping all other elements and unvisited links. ALT CONTROL DOWN ARROW: Moves you straight to the first control on a page which is not a link or text line, typically a form field such as a search box, but you must do this from the top of the page. Another press takes you to the next control on the page. You will have to press ENTER to turn MSAA mode off before you can complete editfields on a Web page or in a form. ALT CONTROL UP ARROW: Jumps you to the last control on a page from the bottom of the page. ALT CONTROL HOME: Takes you to your last position on a page or to the place you were before you moved to a subsequent page if moving back to the first page does not land you there automatically. INSERT TAB: Invokes the Window-Eyes vertical controls list from where you can choose to view and ARROW through lists of frames, tables or links in A-Z, Z-A or to view links in their original Web page TAB order, etc. Pressing ENTER on a link will activate it. F6: Takes you to the attachments list in an e-mail. ALT CONTROL TAB: Takes you to the first table on a page, when you then use CONTROL + to enter table mode. CONTROL - leaves table mode. Pressing ALT CONTROL TAB again will take you to the next instance of a table on the Web page if there is one. ALT CONTROL SHIFT TAB: Moves you backwards through tables on a page. CONTROL SHIFT H: Lets you cycle through several ways WE will give you table information, e.g. announce top headings as well as cell co-ordinates and contents, side headings as well as cell co- ordinates, etc. INSERT right, left, up and down ARROWS: Move you one cell at a time through a table on a Web page right, left, up and down respectively. CONTROL INSERT right or left ARROW: Moves you to the end or start of a row in a table. CONTROL INSERT up or down ARROW: Moves you to the top or bottom of a column in a table. With the advent of Window-Eyes 4.5 and later versions, the hot keys for working with Web pages in MSAA mode have changed to those shown below but, of course, many of the above hot keys of general use on Web pages still work: Press A: to skip to the next anchor on a Web page. Press C: To jump to the next control on a Web page. Press E: to jump to the next fieldset. Press F: To skip to the next form on a page. Press H: to move to the next heading on a page. Press I: to jump to the next list item in a list on a Web page. Press L: To jump to the next link on a Web page. Press P: To jump to the next paragraph on a page. Press Q: To move to the next block quote on a page. Press S: to skip to the next list on a Web page. Press T: To jump to the next table on a page. Press V: To jump to the next already visited link. Press X: to jump to the next instance of a text field on a Web page. Press left BRACKET F: To go to the beginning of the current form. Press right BRACKET F: To go to the end of the current form. Note 1: Hold down the SHIFT key with most of the above single letter hot keys to obtain the reverse action, i.e. jump backwards through lists, tables, editfields, etc. Note 2: Your screenreader may have fewer, more or even none of the above single key shortcuts, depending on its version. However, slightly earlier versions than those mentioned here should have most of them and slightly later versions should have them plus a few more. You should consult the hot keys section of the online help which comes with your screenreader version. Press INSERT V: To bring up the MSAA verbosity settings list, where you can control how much information WE provides you with on Web pages in respect of listboxes, forms, tables, lists and other Web page elements. Press CONTROL Numpad +: To enter table mode. Press CONTROL Numpad -: to leave table mode. 1.3.4. Windows Operating System Shortcuts. To view these, see Section 4 below, "What are Web Pages and How are They Read". 1.4. More Advanced Surfing This tutorial (Volume 1 of Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard the Windows Way) takes the Internet learner through the more commonly used programs and features pertaining to the Internet. Once you have mastered these, you may wish to venture into more advanced surfing waters by freely downloading Volume 2 of this Internet tutorial from my Webssite. Volume 2 contains sections including: * The "Helpful Tips and Customisation" section. * "Internet Shopping". * "Online Auctions". * "REALAUDIO RADIO, NEWS AND VIDEO". * "DOWNLOAD MANAGERS, ADVERTISEMENT BANNER REMOVERS AND COOKIE CRUNCHERS". * "INTERNET BANKING". * "INTERNET CHAT ROOMS". * All seven of the appendices which you also get in Volume 1. 1.5. Free Virus-Checkers, Firewalls and Spyware Removers These days, especially if you are on the Internet, you must deploy at least a good virus-checker and a good spyware remover. You will probably also want to regularly run a good firewall, particularly if you are on an online all of the time broadband connection to the Net. 1.5.1. AVG Free Edition Versions 6 and 7 It is advisable to obtain a virus-checker as soon as practicably possible to ensure that you do not contract any viruses from the Internet in general or as downloads with your e-mail. A virus is simply a malicious piece of computer code written by someone to do anything from be annoying on your PC or play a joke on you to being outright destructive and rendering your computer unusable. A virus-checker should detect such viruses before they can do any damage and get rid of them for you. There are many commercially available virus-checkers, such as Dr Solomon's, Mcafee, Fprot, Norton Antivirus, etc, and prices can vary considerably. However, there are also some free ones which are quite good and you can obtain such a freeware virus-checker if you live in the US or UK from: www.grisoft.com but you will have to navigate through several pages and many links until you get to a "Download AVG Free Edition" button. Basically, the links you are looking for to press ENTER on in order are: "Go to Free Download Page", "Download AVG Free Edition", "Download AVG Free Edition" button, "Yes, I Agree" (at the bottom of the licence agreement page, then complete the registration form and press ENTER on the "Continue" button. The last two steps are where you have to press ENTER on "Please click Here to Start the Download Process" followed by pressing ENTER on the "Start Download" button. You will be left on a "Cancel" button whilst the download is taking place and if you decide to stop the download, just press ENTER. Alternatively, for as long as nothing changes, you may find it easier to download AVG from: http://free.grisoft.com This is Version six of AVG which can scan CD-ROM and floppy disks, your hard disks, your incoming e-mail and will automatically take you online and download and install updates to your virus database every week or whenever you like. It is not free for the rest of Europe! You will, of course, want to go further into this manual and learn more about the Internet and downloading and installing programs before you tackle this particular download and installation but this software is very usable with a screenreader. I only mention virus-checkers at this early stage because the sooner you can get one working on your system the better. From September 2003, AVG 7 became available but you will have to pay for this. It is more advanced than the free version 6 and probably worth the money for the extra features and esspecially the extra automation and ease of use. You can obtain a 30-day trial copy from the first-mentioned above Grisoft site. It is important that you also download updates to what is known as the "data" or "signature" files for your virus-checker. These keep its ability to detect new viruses up to date so that it does not become obsolete. You can download these via the "Service" menu of AVG and these are updated around every three days. Note: from 31 December 2004 AVG 6 free edition is no longer available or updatable with data files but by then AVG 7 free edition will be downloadable from the above Websites. In fact, AVG 7 free edition became available from November 2004. 1.5.2. Sygate, Zone Alarm and Windows XP Free Firewalls In addition to a virus-checker, if you are to invest in a broadband Internet connection instead of using a standard 56K MODEM, you will need to deploy a good "firewall". You may even wish to use a firewall with a 56K modem connection as well if you use the Net frequently. A firewall is an additional piece of software which is running all of the time you are connected to the Internet--which will be all of the time you have your Pc switched on with a broadband connection. Whereas a virus-checker detects and repairs or disables software or intercepts e-mails with viruses, a firewall monitors what is coming into your computer from the Net whilst you are connected to it and will alert you if any unauthorised person, such as a hacker, tries to gain access to your computer, plus a number of other safeguards. Some firewalls are more screenreader-friendly than others and one which has been found to be usable and is free for download is called Sygate Personal Firewall from: www.sygate.com or www.whitestick.co.uk/download.html Another free firewall which you may wish to try is called Zone Alarm from: www.zonealarms.com Windows XP also has its own in-built firewall but this is limited in how it works, because it only monitors what comes into your PC from the Internet, not what may be able to get onto your hard disk via such as a dodgy CD. In other words, it only does half of a job, because if some undesirable small program is transferred to your computer from a CD which can then send messages from your PC whilst you are online to unauthorised people, Windows XP will not stop this or warn you about it. I would therefore recommend that you use one of the above two firewalls instead of the Windows XP offering. If you want a really top class and very screenreader-friendly firewall and do not mind paying for it, try Look'N'Stop from: www.looknstop.com/en/faq.htm 1.5.3. Ad-Aware Free Spyware Remover Version 6 Spyware is software which some Internet sites and disks you may access puts onto your computer hard disk without your knowledge so that it can then do such as track and record your movements on the Net and possibly even record your every keystroke on your PC and relay this information back to a Website or e-mail address maintained by unscrupulous persons. This could lead to others finding out your purchasing preferences and targeting you with e-mail ads or, much worse, finding out the passwords and credit card numbers which you use when paying for goods on the net. You can download the Ad-Aware spyware remover from: www.lavasoftusa.com Again, as previously advised, find out more about downloading and using this type of software in the forthcoming sections before you tackle this download and configuration. Note that many people use at least two different spyware removal programs side by side on their PCs because they are not all capable of detecting all spyware files and what one misses the other should deal with, e.g. a combination of use of Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy is a common pair of programs to use. If you have the appropriate sub-version of Ad-Aware 6 and JAWS, you can download some Ad-Aware Jaws scripts from: www.jfwlite.com and, after installing them as usual into the jaws\settings\enu folder, you can automate the running of Ad-Aware with the following Jaws hot keys: 1. Start Ad-Aware. 2. Press CONTROL S to initialise the "Scan Now" button. 3. Now press CONTROL N to activate the "Next" button. 4. Wait for the scan to finish and, if you hear the system noise which alerts you to the fact that you have some spyware on your PC, press CONTROL M to mark all of the spyware detected. 5. Press CONTROL N for "Next" and you will be asked whether or not you wish to delete the files. Press ENTER on the "OK" button to finish and delete them. From the summer of 2005 another sub-version of Ad-Aware became available, which is Ad-Aware 6.06. You can obtain this from the above Lavasoft Website or you can download it and also obtain some updated JAWS 4.51 to JAWS 6 script files for it from: www.accessibleprograms.com These scripts have their own help file with usage instructions (press CONTROL H) to hear these and work basically the same as with the above earlier version as far as the steps and hot keys are concerned. The basic steps and hot keys are: 1. Start Ad-Aware. 2. Press CONTROL S to initialise the "Scan Now" button. 3. ARROW down to the scan mode you want, e.g. smart scan or complete scan. 4. Now press CONTROL N to activate the "Next" button. 5. Wait for the scan to finish and, if you hear the system noise which alerts you to the fact that you have some spyware on your PC, press CONTROL N to move to the next screen and then ARROW right on to the "Critical Objects" tab. 6. Now press CONTROL M to mark all of the found objects in the critical objects list for deletion. 7. Lastly, press CONTROL N for "Next" and you will be asked whether or not you wish to delete the files. Press ENTER on the "OK" button to finish and delete them. Alternatively, if you do not have the correct version of Ad-Aware 6 installed or are using a screenreader other than Jaws, you can achieve all of the above using your screenreader's mouse simulation hot keys to navigate and effect left and right clicks, as follows: 1. Launch Ad-Aware. 2. Using JAWS/mouse/navigation mode all of the time, come up from the bottom of the screen to the "Start" button and left click on it. 3. Again, in mouse mode, now locate the "Next" button and left click on it if you are not already on it, which you should be. 4. Wait for the scan to finish and, if you hear the system noise which alerts you to the fact that you have some spyware on your PC, locate another "Next" button, which you should already be on, and left click it. 5. You now, again using mouse mode, on the "Results" page you will currently be on, ARROW to and locate the virtical list of objects (such as unwanted registry entries and/or tracker cookie files) found and right click on any of them to open up a Context menu. In this menu you should ARROW down to the "Select All" command and press ENTER. 6. Again you have to locate and left click on another "Next" button followed by finding the "OK" button to left click on to complete the whole procedure. Warning: Whilst Ad-Aware is a good spyware remover from the perspective of its ability to find and destroy unwanted spyware, it is not particularly friendly from a screenreader point of view. Having said this, nor are most of the other spyware removers. What you must remember is that, at step 5 above, when your spyware files have been detected and are in the vertical list ready for selecting and removal, you must take this first opportunity to remove them. If you allow this list of spyware files to close or do not delete them immediately but go back later and try to do this, then it is unlikely that the vertical list of unwanted files will become available again for selection, so you will not be able to get rid of them. You will only be able to remove them in future if you later contract other new spyware files to add to the list of unwanted files, when it will then display again for you to select all unwanted files and get rid of both the new and old spyware together. Tip: You can find instructions for manually removing many of the more common spyware programs at: www.pchell.com/support/spyware.shtml and you can read reviews of several anti-spyware programs at: www.firewallguide.com/spyware.htm 1.5.4. Mail Washer Free Spam Remover As will be apparent, spam filters remove or highlight spam e- mails for you, so that you can automatically or individually remove them. With the free version of Mail Washer you can also view the contents of your mailbox on your ISP's server and delete any suspicious messages so that they never get onto your computer if you like. You can download Mail Washer from: www.mailwasher.com 1.5.5. Spybot Search&Destroy Spybot Search&Destroy can find and remove tracker cookies, trojans and other kinds of malicious spyware code. It is downloadable from: www.safer-networking.org or www.spybot.com and is around a 5 Mb download. ******** >SECTION 2 HELPFUL TIPS AND CUSTOMISATION FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS You may wish to make some of these refinements to your programs immediately or wait until later when you are more familiar with the programs mentioned in this guide. Whichever way you approach this, it is nonetheless a good idea to glance through this section before you move on. 2.1. Eighteen Configuration, Customisation and other Helpful Tips 1. You may, if your phone line provider is BT and provided that they do not start to deny people the option of doing this, wish to opt for the BT Friends and Relatives service in order to register your Internet Service Provider's phone number as your best friend number to obtain a 20 per cent discount; otherwise, register it for a 10 per cent discount. 2. World Wide Web addresses have the suffix "http://" but you do not need to type this in, as Web browsers fill this part of the address in for you automatically. Thus, this suffix has not been given when any website addresses have been indicated in this manual unless it is needed. 3. To print a Web page, with the page on screen, press CONTROL P. Pressing CONTROL S will save the page to disk. 4. A "link" on a Web page is a place where you can press the ENTER key to jump from one part of the page to another to obtain more information, or from one page to another on the same site or from one computer site on the Web to another computer anywhere else in the world. Web page links should be announced by your screenreader saying something like "link" but if this does not happen with your screenreader you should turn attributes (such as colour change and/or style change) on so that these changes will be announced to alert you to their whereabouts. Links are normally underlined and in blue text. Some of these links may be embedded in the middle of other text and form an integral part of the textual information. You have to navigate to links with the TAB key, the ARROW keys or your screenreader's special links list facility and then press ENTER. For example, to invoke the special links list feature, use INSERT F7 with JAWS, INSERT TAB with Window-Eyes or ALT T (for Tools) and then ARROW down to "Dolphin Links Navigator" and press ENTER with HAL 5. 5. You can copy links from a Web page to the Clipboard and then paste them into the address field in Internet Explorer rather than retyping them but be aware that this will not work if the link has been split onto more than one line. 6. If a Web page comes down scrambled, you can press CONTROL R to reload it or F5 to refresh the screen. 7. To obtain more screen space and not cause your screenreader to be distracted, in many Windows programs it is worth turning off the Toolbar by pressing ALT V, T, and unchecking any of the Toolbars which are checked but this is not essential, e.g. in Internet Explorer and Word. So, in Internet Explorer, you may wish to uncheck (by pressing ENTER on them) the "Standard Buttons" and "Radio" options but ensure that "Links" is checked on. However, if you are likely to want to use a toolbar to effect a command, do not do this, or turn Toolbars on and off as required. Ensure that "Status Bar" is also checked on in the View Menu. 8. In Internet Explorer, to speed up page downloading (if you do not use a monitor), press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options), CONTROL TAB to the "Advanced" property sheet and in the "Accessibility" list ARROW down this long list of options and uncheck (turn off by pressing SPACEBAR when on them) "Play Animations", "Play Videos", "Show Pictures" and "Smart Image Dithering". Ensure that the following are checked on: "Always Expand ALT Text for Images", "Notify When Downloads Complete" and "Play Sounds". It might also assist some screenreaders if you then CONTROL SHIFT TAB back to the "General" sheet, TAB to "Accessibility" and press ENTER, then ensure that "Ignore Colours Specified on Web Pages", "Ignore Font Sizes Specified on Web Pages" and "Ignore Font Sizes Specified on Web Pages" are all checked on; but "Format Documents Using My style Sheet" should be checked off. 9. In order to facilitate faster initial page loading and avoid the introductory advertisements which present themselves when you first load Internet Explorer, you can have it load with a blank page. To do this, with Internet Explorer running, press ALT T for Tools, O for Options, and in the "general" property sheet TAB forward to "Use Blank" and press ENTER. Then TAB on to OK and press ENTER. In future, when you start Internet Explorer, it will open with a blank page and your screenreader may announce the word "About". You just continue as normal (see Section 4 for how to launch Internet Explorer). 10. Some screenreaders may read what is on the screen better if you surf in "full screen" mode. All you have to do to obtain full screen mode is press the F11 key or press ALT V and arrow up to "Full Screen"and press ENTER. Pressing F11 again returns you to normal mode. Experiment to discover which view is best for you but be aware that full screen mode makes a program completely fill the screen, so title bars, menu bars, status lines, etc, will disappear. 11. To speed up connection to your ISP and make site connections and downloads quicker, go To "My Computer" on your Desktop and press ENTER. Then ARROW down (or right) to "Dialup Networking" and press ENTER. ARROW to and place the focus on your Internet provider, e.g. Onetel, Freeserve, BT Internet, etc, and then open up its context menu by pressing SHIFT F10. Now ARROW up to "Properties", press ENTER followed by pressing CONTROL TAB to the "Server Types" property sheet. Now TAB to "Advanced Options" and in here ARROW DOWN AND ensure that all of the following are unchecked: "Log Onto Network", "Enable Software Compression", "Require Encrypted Password", "Require Data Encryption" and "Record a Log File for this Connection". Then TAB to OK" and press ENTER to finish. 12. With Outlook Express 5.01 and later, upload and download time (especially with a slow PC/MODEM/ISP server) can be saved by turning off "Request a Read Receipt for all Sent Messages" and ensuring that "Never Send a Read Receipt" is selected in Tools, Options, Receipts (see Section 8, sub-heading "Obtaining a received Message Verification Receipt"). 13. If your MODEM is inexplicably disconnected from the Internet frequently it could be that your MODEM is too sensitive to signal lapses. To increase the time that your MODEM stays connected during lapses you may find that the following helps: A. Press Windows Logo key and then S (for Settings), followed by C (for Control Panel). B. Press M until MODEMS has focus and then press ENTER. C. TAB to "Properties" and press ENTER. D. CONTROL TAB to "Connections" and then TAB to "Advanced" and press ENTER. E. TAB to "Extra Settings" and type the following string in: s10=50 This is all you type if there is nothing else in this editfield. If some other information is already in there, you just leave a space at the end of the other details and type the s10=50 at the end of it. This will now mean that your signal can lapse for up to five seconds without your MODEM cutting off. F. To finish, now TAB to "OK", then to another "OK", followe by TABBING to "Cancel" and press ENTER on each of those buttons. G. Close the Control Panel by pressing ALT F4. 14. Whilst some screenreaders automatically make use of Microsoft's Active Accessibility facility (MSAA), others can only use it if it is specifically enabled. JFW and Window-Eyes automatically use MSAA but some versions of HAL require that you manually install MSAA. To enable MSAA for Windows 95 and 98, so that ALT tags and other special screenreader friendly features can be used with HAL: A. Press the Windows Logo key followed by F to open the Find facility, then press ENTER and type in the editfield which you will fall in "msaardk.exe". B. TAB to "Look In" and ensure that C: has focus--you may have to ARROW up and down to achieve this--then press ENTER. C. The msaa.exe file will be found, so just press CONTROL A to highlight this file followed by pressing ENTRE. D. You will then be told that MSAA will be installed, so press ENTER on the "Yes" button. After about 30 seconds you will be informed that installation is finished, so press ENTER on the "OK" button. E. When asked to restart the PC, TAB to "NO" and press ENTER. u return to the Find dialogue box, so press ALT F4 to close this down. F. You now have to enable MSAA in Hal's control panel by pressing CONTROL SPACEBAR, followed by CONTROL TAB to the "General Settings" property sheet. Then press ENTER. G. Now Press TAB until you reach "MSAA Detection" and select it by pressing the SPACEBAR. H. You finish by pressing ESC twice, when MSAA will be loaded and usable by Hal. All you now have to do is reboot the computer before going onto the Internet. 15. If, when using Outlook Express, you experience the system intermittently trying to take you back on line when you do not want this to happen, it may be that you are set up to check the existence of new messages periodically. If you wish to stop this: A. Press ALT T (for Tools), then O (for Options. B. You drop into the "General" property sheet, so TAB down to "Check for New Messages Every" and press SPACEBAR to unselect this. Otherwise, if you still want periodically taking on line to check for new messages but less frequently, just TAB once more to the next line and alter the figure in their to a larger one, e.g. type in 60 if you only want the system to check for new messages every 60 minutes. C. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. 16. When running Outlook Express, the program may from time to time, without you requesting this, attempt to take you online. If this is an annoyance to you, you can stop it by: A. With Outlook Express running, press ALT T (for Tools), then O (for options. B. CONTROL TAB to "Connections" and then TAB down to "Change" and press ENTER. C. Next TAB six times to "Always Dial My Default Connection" and ARROW down once to "Never Dial a Connection" and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. D. Now just TAB once more to another "OK" button and press ENTER to finish. 17. If you can make use of a monitor with Internet Explorer provided that the text on it is large enough, you can change the "Medium" size text on screen, which is the default (standard) way it is set up, by: A. Press ALT V (for View). B. Then press X (for Text). C. ARROW to "Large" or "Largest" and press ENTER. Conversely, if you do not use a monitor and this will not adversely affect anyone else using the same PC, you could select "Small " or "Smallest" to ensure that you get as much text onto the screen as possible. 18. If you are using JAWS 5.0 or later and you are having problems with Websites which employ Macromedia Flash, you can tell JAWS to ignore this and therefore view pages without such as unwanted frequent page refreshing, screenreader stammer, etc. You have to do this in the JAWS Configuration Manager by: A. Press INSERT F2 and then ENTER on "Configuration Manager". B. Press ALT S (for Set Options". C. ARROW down to "HTML Options" and press ENTER. D. Now hold down the CONTROL key and press the TAB key until you reach "Misc". E. On the "Misc" property sheet TAB down to "Ignore Flash on Web Pages" and press the SPACEBAR to check this off. F. Now TAB to "OK" and press ENTRE. G. Lastly, leave the Configuration Manager and save your new settings by pressing CONTROL S and then ALT F4 if necessary. ******** >SECTION 3 USING THE INTERNET VIA AN INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER (ISP) 3.1. Types of ISPs You can connect to the Net by either signing up with an online service such as Compuserve, who charge a fee for their service; or by signing up with a provider for an Internet "Account", in which case you usually receive a PPP account, many of which are free, except for the cost of the phone calls. The rest of this section concentrates on PPP accounts. PPP stands for Point-to-Point Protocol and allows your PC to link up and fully integrate with the internet. All PPP accounts are in fact versions of IP (Internet Protocol) which is the underlying part of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), which is the way that all computers on the Net communicate with each other. Note: One of the main alternatives to a PPP account is a DOS "shell" connection but this is fast becoming obsolete and is less flexible than a PPP account, e.g. it cannot access online audio and it is unable to filter Web page content. To use a PPP account you need two types of programs: 1. a TCP/IP Stack (also known as an Internet dialler program) to get you connected to the account, e.g. DialUp Networking in Windows 95 and later Microsoft operating systems. 2. Client programs,such as e-mail programs and Newsgroup readers. Some well-known PPP/SLIP programs for Windows 95 and later operating systems which work with the standard Windows winsock.dll driver are: Netscape Navigator/Communicator and Internet Explorer--Web browsers. Realaudio and Shockwave--for sounds via the Net. Eudora, Pegasus and Outlook Express--for e-mail. Free Agent and Outlook Express--to read newsgroups. MIRC and Microsoft Chat--for Internet chatting. N.B.: Winsocs are programs which interface between (act like drivers) TCP/IP programs running in Windows and the Internet itself. 3.2. What You Need to Get Connected with a standard or BroadBand MODEM What you require to get connected is: 1. A fast MODEM, preferably 33.6 KBPS or faster, to connect your PC to the Internet via the phone socket. For slower computers such as 486-based machines, you will be better off using an external MODEM or internal "hardware" MODEM; whereas faster Pentium-based machines will not only work with both of the foregoing types of MODEMs but also with the more economical "software" internal MODEMs. It is also recommended that you obtain a V90 or higher standard MODEM to avoid compatibility problems with some ISPs. You can also rent a very much faster broadband permanent connection to the Nett via a cable provider, such as Onetel, NTL or Telewest in the UK. Other broadband options are provided via ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber link), such as that provided by BT, which uses the existing coper wire phone lines, but will require a more expensive ADSL modem, although BT have recently started to give these away if you sign up for their packages online. More recent broadband connection methods are via wireless and satellite, the former using microwaves received by an antenna on your roof, whereas the latter uses TV channels to transmit data like cable does but you still need a standard phone line to communicate with the satellite via your ISP. These four broadband options usually permit you a download speed of between 512 and 2048 KB per second, although some areas can achieve speeds of upto around 8,000 Kb per second. If you wish to run more than one computer via your phone line, you can employ a router instead of an ADSL modem. In either case, you will also require a micro filter for your phone wall sockets. In the UK, since the second half of 2003, you can, in some areas, even rent a fifth type of broadband connection. This is known as "BroadBand over the mains" and is a Symmetric DSL connection (SDSL), having both upload and download speeds currently at 1 megabit per second. Speeds of two or three times this are planned for next year. You need a special MODEM to run this, which simply plugs into your standard 3-pin mains socket. To clarify, broadband is defined by the official UK regulator (OFCOM) as an Internet connection which is always on and is at a minimum speed of 128 kilobits per second. 2. A cable from your computer into a standard phone socket on the wall. This usually comes with your MODEM. Warning 1: It is not advisable to use standard quality reel-type multi-strand phone extension wire to extend a MODEM cable to a far-off phone socket. It may work OK but is likely to cause your line to the Internet to be dropped more than would otherwise be the case. The wiring inside this type of extension, whilst fine for robust telephone communications, is not of good enough quality to transfer the delicate signals of many MODEMS. You should extend any cabling with single strand, copper cabling, which can be purchased from BT shops. Warning 2: What is known as the "gain" on a phone line is basically the speed at which or sensitivity with which a phone line carries messages. The standard gain on a BT phone line is set to zero. This is fine for robust telephone voice communications but often not good enough for sensitive MODEM signal transfer, particularly if the line to your nearest phone exchange is at a considerable distance. If you are experiencing frequent failed connections to your ISP or regular line cut-offs, you may be able to remedy or at least mitigate this problem by ringing BT and asking them to increase the gain on the line. I am advised by BT that the highest level that they can increase the gain to is 4, as a gain above level 4 is likely to cause echo on the line and thus result in the line getting worse rather than better. 3. A computer fast enough to run Windows 95 or a higher operating system. Fast computers will also permit you to multitask, e.g. listen to realaudio music at the same time as waiting for a large file to download from the Net. 4. A micro filter or splitter for each wall phone socket you intend to use for connecting to the Internet. These micro filters will allow you to use such a wall socket both for your Internet connection and also as a voice phone line connection simultaneously. 3.3. Getting your Windows PC set up for a PPP connection You should: 1. Arrange for a PPP account from a provider who only charges for calls at the local phone call rate. 2. Obtain a software disk from an ISP (Internet Service Provider) which contains the TCP/IP software and possibly a full browser such as Internet Explorer, e.g from NTL, Onetel, Dixon's/Pc World's Freeserve (comes with Internet Explorer), Waterstone's (comes with Internet Explorer), etc. All of these incur local phone call charges. One package which has no charges, not even for your online time, is Screaming Net run by the Tempo electrical and electronics retailers, but you have to sign up to have all of your regular phone calls routed via them at their call rates. One of their London branches is on 020 79375166. Their website is at: www.screaming.net but note that this company now seems to have been taken over by another, so their services and terms may have changed. 3. During the installation of the software, type in any passwords and other provider details that are requested. (This can be confusing and difficult for the beginner, so you may need to phone the newuser help line or, even better, recruit a friend with knowledge of such things.) You can get TCP/IP software by either buying it from a vendor, or phoning an ISP such as Freeserve and asking for a free disk or by persuading a friend already on the Internet to download a program from the Net. Note: Things move so fast in this industry that, since I wrote the first version of this manual in April 2000, Cable and Wireless has been bought out by NTL. To discuss NTLs offerings in respect of the Internet, which currently include free internet phone calls provided that you spend at least œ10 a month on standard voice phone calls with them, ring their Customer Services on 0800 0929001. 3.4. Connecting to Your ISP Windows 95/98, Me and XP comes with all the software you require to connect to a PPP account using "Dial-Up Networking". When you finish you can place a shortcut to Dial-Up Networking on your Start Menu or Desktop, or you can create a shortcut key conbination to launch it. This can be useful to use if you want to come offline from the Net at times when your client software has failed to take you off. Otherwise, if you have an always online broadband connection, you will already be online and will not need to use a dial-up facility. To call your account (using a dial-up connection rather than a broadband connection) you run the Dial-Up Network program an press ENTER on the "Connect" button. Do this by: 1. pressing ENTER on your Desktop shortcut (if you have one) or by navigating to Dial-Up Networking by pressing your Windows LOGO key (either side of the ALT keys), then pressing P for Program Files, then pressing A until you get to accessories (press ENTER), then C for Communications (press ENTER), followed by one or two presses of D to get to "Dial-Up Networking" and press ENTER. 2. Dial-Up Networking will run and you will be on the button to "Make New Connection", so ARROW down or right to the name of your current Internet service provider and press ENTER. 3. You will be presented with a list of editfields to complete, which should already be completed, so TAB to "Connect" and press ENTER. If you do not want to have to remember or input your password every time you go online, check (press SPACEBAR on) the "Save Password" option. 4. You will go online to your server within a few seconds (if it is not too busy). 5. You can then run Internet browsing client programs such as Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, PWWebspeak, Home Page Reader or what ever you choose to browse the Web with. Of course, if you elect to run these Net surfing programs first, they will automatically connect you to your ISP by grabbing Dial-Up Networking for you and connecting you. This, to some extent, makes the above explanation unnecessary, except for that it is worth knowing what is actually taking place when you go on line and you may also have to go into Dial-Up Networking from time to time to make configuration changes. Note: It is possible to have more than one e-mail account. If you set up more than one account, you can switch between accounts as and when you like. Similarly, you can have several internet service providers and use whichever you like at any time. You can simultaneously download e-mail from several e-mail account inboxes. 3.5. Making Changes to or creating a new Internet Connection If you need to change some of your Dialup Networking details, such as your password, username (log-in name), the phone number used to ring your current ISP, etc, or if you want to set up a completely new ISP connection, you should: 1. Go into Dial-Up Networking as described in 1 above. 2. You will land in a list of your current ISPs, on the "Make New Connection" option. You would press ENTER on this if you wanted to subscribe to a new ISP (see the next sub-section for a solid, real-live, step-by-step new ISP sign up) . On the other hand, if you wanted to make minor changes to your current ISP details, you would ARROW up or down or right or left until the name of it has focus, e.g. BT Internet, Onetel, etc, and then press ENTER. 3. You will now have several titles with editfields which you can complete or change the details in after BACKSPACING out what might already be in their first, e.g. Your ISPs phone number, Username (this is your log-in name), your password (which will be replaced with asterisks so no one can see it), etc. 4. If you press ENTER on "Dial Properties" you can view (and change, if necessary) such things as the number Dialup Networking rings to access your ISP, your own town's area code, the country you are living in, select between "Tone Dialling" and "Pulse Dialling", whichever your home phone uses, then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 5. You will return to the first dialogue you were in, so either TAB to "Connect" and press ENTER to go on line with your new ISP or your old one but with the changed details, e.g. a new phone number for them if they have changed it, or just press ALT F4 to leave the Dialup Networking program altogether. If at 4 above you had been trying to set up a new ISP connection, rather than just adjusting the settings or phone number, etc, for your current ISP, you would have had to type in a name for your new ISP, go to the "Next" button, complete each set of information editfields as they come up until all the information is provided. There is also a "Configure" button if you need to enter this multi-page set of property sheets to make adjustments to your MODEM's internal speed, bit rate, etc, but this should not normally be necessary. 3.6. Solid Step-by-Step Example of Subscribing to a Pay-As-You-Go ISP Service and Creating a Desktop Shortcut to it--The UK2 ISP Service If you are a UK resident and f you currently have all the components you need to get online via an ISP but are not yet connected and only want a basic connection or you want to set up a second ISP connection as an alternative to your current one, try the following UK2 ISP service. Set it up simply as follows: 1. Go to Dial-Up Networking by pressing Windows key, then P (for Programs), then press ENTER on "Accessories", followed by C (for Communications) and ENTER and, lastly, press D (for Dial-Up Networking). 2. You will fall on the "Make New Connection" button, so press SPACEBAR and then ENTER on this to open up the new connection dialogue. 3. In the editfield you come into, type over what is in their with the name of the new ISP you wish to set up or any other name you want to have this known by, e.g. since this is to be set up with the UK2 provider, why not just type in here "UK2". 4. Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 5. You now come into the "Area Code" editfield and, since the whole phone number for the UK2 connection is 0845 6091370, you just type the area code of 0845 in here. 6. Next TAB once to the "Telephone Number" field and type the remaining main phone number of 6091370 in here. 7. TAB once again to the Country or Region Code" editfield and, if it is not already on United Kingdom , press the first letter of the country you want until it is highlighted, e.g. press U to eventually get to United Kingdom. 8. Then again TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 9. You should now be told that you have successfully created a new dial up connection called UK2 (or whatever you called it) and you should now TAB to the "Finish" button and press ENTER to complete the procedure. 10. You can, of course, access this new ISP service the long way round via Program Files, Accessories, etc, as mentioned above and get onto the Internet in this way or you can create a Desktop shortcut to it for quick and easy connection and disconnection to the UK2 ISP. To create a Desktop shortcut what you would do is: A. If you have left the Dial-Up Networking dialogue box, Go back to it by pressing Windows key, then P (for Programs), then pressing ENTER on "Accessories", followed by C (for Communications) and, lastly, press D (for Dial-Up Networking). However, if you did not leave the Dial-Up Networking dialogue after step 10 above, you will be able to simply continue as below. B. Move from the "Make New Connection" button you will now be on to the name of the provider you gave above, such as UK2, by ARROWING up, down, left or right to it. C. Now open up a Context Menu by pressing SHIFT F10 and ARROW up to the "Create Shortcut" option and press ENTER. D. You will receive a message saying that you cannot create a shortcut here but offering you to create one on the Desktop instead, so just press Y (for yes) to achieve this. E. Now press ALT F4 to close the Dial-Up Networking dialogue box. F. Now press Windows key M or D to get to the Desktop and then press S until the "shortcut to UK2 shortcut icon is reached. To change this shortcut name to something a little more sensible, just press the F2 key to open up the renaming editfield and then type the name you want the shortcut to be known as in here and press ENTER, e.g. "UK2 Dial-Up". 11. To go on line either: A. In future, to go online to the Internet via this new UK2 Internet service provider, all you have to do is go to this UK2 Dial-Up shortcut on your Desktop and press ENTER on it, when the UK2 0845 6091370 phone number will be dialled and you will be taken online to surf the Net. However, before you get onto the Internet, you will be in the connection dialogue box and will be asked for a username and a password, which are both completed with the word "UK2" before pressing ENTER to go online. Once online, just open your Web browser, such as Internet Explorer, as usual (see the next section for how to do this). or B. Alternatively, you can go onto the Net by launching Internet Explorer first then type into the Address Bar the URL (Web address) you want to go to and then press ENTER. You will be taken to the dial-up dialogue box to select which ISP you want to use to go online with, e.g. if your main ISP is Onetel, this will be selected as the ISP to be used by default (as standard) but if you want to use your newly created UK2 ISP connection, just ARROW down the list of ISPs to "UK2" and then TAB on to "Connect" and press ENTER. 12. To come offline and therefore disconnect from your Internet service all you have to do is launch the dial-up ISP connection again, whether it be UK2 or any other ISP, e.g. via your Desktop shortcut, and then TAB once to the "Disconnect" button and press ENTER. Note that with some ISPs going to the shortcut to Dial-UP Networking on your Desktop is not necessary, as the ISP itself, after you close down your browser, will offer you the options of staying on line or closing your phone line connection. The latter usually happens with the UK2 ISP. Note 1: At the time I added the above sub-section (December 2004), the cost of using the UK2 ISP service was 4p per minute during the day and 1p after 6 p.m. and at weekends, with a minimum of 5p charged for the first 1 to 5 minutes of surfing, which is the same as or very similar to usual 0845 numbers. If you are wondering how you pay for this type of service, what happens is that the cost of online surfing time is added to your BT bill. The UK2 ISP company receives a cut of your online spending for providing the ISP service and BT also receives a cut of expenditure for providing the phone line and the means of billing. Note 2: As an alternative to getting to the Dial-Up Networking utility via your Desktop shortcut or the Windows key and Program Files path, you can also access it by pressing Windows key and E to open Windows Explorer and then press TAB once to a list view before ARROWING down a list of drives/icons/shortcuts to your several drives and a number of useful utilities including Dial-UP Networking, printers, Control Panel, etc. Just press ENTER on any of them to access it. 3.7. List of UK Dial-Up Services (non-broadband) The below Providers supply varying services such as a free ISP with 1p a minute pay-as-you-go for online telephone time. Others will charge the standard local charge for phone calls, the amount you pay depending on whether you go online at peak or off-peak times. Yet other suppliers will provide a package at a monthly charge with either free call charges all of the time or perhaps just after certain times of day and at weekends. Some provide Website space of varying amounts and others may also give you e- mail addresses to use. Technical support call charges can vary greatly from being free (e.g. Global.Net) to up to œ1 per minute (e.g. Virgin.net). Others charge for support at local or national rates. Beeb.net: Tel 0808 1004950. Global.Net: Tel 0870 9098000. BT Internet: Tel 0800 800001. Clarinet: Tel 0845 355100. Freeserve: Tel 0990 500049. MSN Network: Tel 0870 6011000. Onetel: Tel 0800 9570700. Telewest: Tel 0800 9535383. UK Online: Tel 0800 0534500. Virgin.net: Tel 0500 558800. 3.8. List of UK Broadband Providers The below are all either broadband or cable providers. Their download speeds vary from 128 to 2048 Kbit/s (kilobits-per- second) and some work even faster. The most common download speed is 2048 Kbit/s. UPload speeds may vary from 128 to 3072 Kbit/s (an eighth of a Gb to 3 Gb) but this will improve year on year. Connection fees can range from nothing to over œ200. Some of them provide no Website space for you to create your own Website in, whilst others include up to 500 Mb of Web space. Some provide no e-mail addresses and others provide several addresses. BT Openworld: Tel 0800 800001. Clarinet: Tel 0845 3551000. Freeserve: Tel 0870 0102462. Nildram: Tel 0800 0260950. NTL: Tel 0800 831234. Onetel: Tel 0845 2720052. Pipex: Tel 0870 6004454. Plusnet: Tel 0845 1400200. Telewest: Tel 0800 9530454. Tiscali: Tel 0800 5421717. Zen Internet: Tel 0870 6000971. Lixxus: Website www.lixxus.co.uk. This provider has both monthly payment and pay-as-you go broadband offerings. Note: If you want to make a preliminary check as to whether your phone line/exchange are able to provide you with a broadband ADSL connection, you can do this by phoning the BT check line service. Just ring 17070 and then choose options 3, then 1 and lastly 2 and replace the receiver. In a few seconds you will be phoned back to tell you if your line is or is not suitable. 3.9. Broadband Over the Mains Provider Since the second half of 2003, you have been able, in some areas, to obtain a broadband over the mains Internet connection which works by plugging a special MODEM into your 3-pin mains electric supply. This currently runs both uploads and downloads at 1 megabit per second (mbit/s) and is expected to increase to 2 or 3 mbit/s next year. For more information surf to: www.southern-electric.co.uk or www.hydro.co.uk 3.10. Changing Your Broadband Provider Should you be discontent with your current broadband provider, you can change them to another provider. However, you would be advised to check certain facts before doing this if these are important to you, e.g. that the new broadband ISP is able to support your current e-mail address and that they can take over any Website you may have. For example, The procedure to change an ADSL broadband ISP in the UK is to contact the ISP you wish to move to and they will then contact the BT Wholesale section to request that your current broadband service be migrated to them from your old ISP. BT Wholesale will then inform your old ISP that you wish to migrate and will allow 10 working days for it to agree to the transfer. On agreement, your account will be transferred and your new ISP will be charged œ35 by BT, which your new ISP may absorb itself or pass onto you. If the old ISP refuses to let you migrate your current account, you should phone them to try to persuade them to do so and if they still refuse, you can always simply close the old account without migration and then start again by opening a new account with your new ISP (but your e-mail address, Website details,etc, will, of course, become invalid in this case). ******** >SECTION 4 INTERNET EXPLORER VERSIONS 5.0, 5.5 AND 6.0 Whether you use Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5 or 6.0, there are few differences in their contents or how they work. Of note is that versions of IE later than Version 5.0 feature a "Receipts" property sheet which can be found within Tools, Options. Similarly, IE6 provides a feature not in earlier versions, called "Privacy Report", which is on the View menu and has an associated "Privacy" property sheet in Tools, Options. Both of these additions will be covered in this section as well as the other main features pertinent to all three versions of Internet Explorer. However, note that IE6 requires at least Windows 98 to run. 4.1. Internet Protocols, Server Names and File Paths When you go onto the Internet with a browser such as Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, etc, you will be using certain protocols and server names, and you can also designate a directory or folder or particular document path if you know this. There are therefore three elements to such a URL. Firstly, the protocol is the HTTP:, FTP:, USENET, GOFER, etc, element of an Internet address (URL). Secondly, there is the server name, which may comprise the server computer name or the domain name and possibly some other identification details. Thirdly, the path contains directory/folder names and eventually a filename (document or program). For example: http://www.microsoft.com/enable/wordtips.htm where the protocol is the "HTTP:" part, the server name is "www.microsoft.com" and the path is the "enable/wordtips.htm" part. For more information on protocols and download procedures, see "FTP File Downloads" in Section 13. When you are on a particular Web page in Internet Explorer, having activated one or more links since being on the home page, you can observe (and make a note of if you wish) the path to that particular page by moving to the line underneath the Menu bar and observing the "Address Bar". You will probably have to do this in your screenreader's mouse or navigation mode. For instance: www.hj.com/tutorials/wordtutor.html but you have to ensure that the "Address Bar" is turned on in the "View" menu by pressing ALT V, T and then ARROWING to "Address Bar" and pressing ENTER to check it on if it is not already checked. In future, if you wish to go straight to that particular wordtutor.html file or page, you could just type the path to it straight into the Address Bar when you start Internet Explorer (see the steps to follow below for more details). Note: The different levels of directory leading to the program or document you wish to reach are separated by forward slashes, not back slashes. 4.2. Launching Internet Explorer There are several ways you can start Internet Explorer running. See which of the below methods you prefer. 4.2.1. Launching Internet Explorer from its Executable File on Your Hard Disk You can start Internet Explorer from its place of residence on your hard dis by: 1. Press Windows key and release it. 2. Then press P (for Programs). 3. Either ARROW down the list of programs in here to "Internet Explorer and then press ENTER or press I (for Internet Explorer) to open it without having to ARROW to it. 4. Internet Explorer will loadin and start for you to either go onto the Internet with to view Web pages or to view any Web pages you may already have on your computer's hard disk. 5. If you want to go straight onto the World Wide Web, you can do so by typing a site's address in by either: A. Pressing ALT D to go to the address bar (if you have this showing), or B. Pressing CONTROL O to activate the Open dialogue, Then type the site URL in, e.g.: www.tesco.com or web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard and press ENTER, when the required site's home page will then load for you to browse through. Or, alternatively and more conveniently, you can create a shortcut on your Desktop or Start Menu from which to launch Internet Explorer, as directed below. 4.2.2. Creating a Shortcut and Launching Internet Explorer from It I Would recommend that you put a shortcut on your Desktop or Start Menu (if one is not already there) from which to quickly launch Internet Explorer. You can then run it by simply pressing Windows Logo key D, press I until "Internet Explorer" is highlighted and then ENTER on the shortcut label. This will not only be helpful to you but to any sighted members of your family. Alternatively, you could create a unique shortcut key combination, such as ALT CONTROL I to launch Internet Explorer with but this would, of course, not be very helpful to others who do not know your shortcut. Internet Explorer will then launch and you can go onto the Web by typing a site's address in by either: A. Pressing ALT D to go to the address bar (if you have this showing), or B. Pressing CONTROL O to activate the Open dialogue, Then type the site URL in, e.g.: www.tesco.com or web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard and press ENTER, when the required site's home page will then load for you to browse through. To create a Desktop shortcut for Internet Explorer, or any other program or folder for that matter, you would: 1. With Windows 98 and some versions of Windows 95: A. place focus on Internet Explorer by pressing Windows Logo key, then P (for Program Files) and then ARROW down to Internet Explorer. B. Now press SHIFT F10 to bring up a Context Menu and ARROW to "Send To" and press ENTER. C. Lastly, ARROW down to "Desktop" and press ENTER. 2. If the above is not possible with your operating system, the longer way to achieve this is: A. Press Windows LOGO key followed by the letter S, then press T. B. Then press CONTROL TAB to the "Start Menu Programs Property Sheet". C. You will and on the "Add" button, so press ENTER. Then tab to the "Browse" button and press ENTER. D. You will be asked for the executable filename, so type in "iexplore.exe" and then TAB to the list of folders on your c: drive under the "Look In" line. Press right ARROW on C for your c:\ hard disk drive and then Press TAB to a list of the folders on the C drive. Then press P until "Program Files" is spoken and then press ENTER. E. Now press I until "Internet Explorer" is spoken and press ENTER. F. Press I until "Iexplore.exe" is highlighted and then press ENTER. G. Press the TAB key to the "Open" option and then press ENTER. H. Then TAB to the "Next" button and press ENTER. You are asked where you want to place the shortcut, so ARROW up to "Desktop" and then press TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. Note that you pass "Start Menu" on your way to "Desktop", so you could stop there if you wanted to put this shortcut on your Start Menu instead of your Desktop (but remember that your Start Menu can become full so that no more can fit onto it). I. You are asked to select a name for the shortcut and given "Iexplore.exe" as an option. If you want to change this, just type over it, e.g. with "Internet Explorer", and then press TAB to the "Finish" button and press ENTER. J. Now press TAB to the "OK" button and press ENTER to complete the procedure. K. You can now, in the normal way, go to this shortcut on your Desktop by pressing Windows Logo key M followed by I until "Internet Explorer" is spoken and then press ENTER to load it. Note: You can also create shortcuts in the above way for any other file, folder or disk drive on your computer and to Web pages. 4.2.3. Other Methods of Launching Internet Explorer If you do not wish to place a shortcut on your Desktop or Start Menu, Internet Explorer, by default (as standard), is contained within the Program Files folder. You can therefore also run it by navigating to it with My computer or Windows Explorer or by using the "Run" option on your Start Menu. To do this via the "Run" facility you would hold down the Windows key and press the letter R, then type the full path to the executable file in the editfield which comes up. This would be: c:\progra~1\intern~1\iexplore.exe or "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe" (ensure that you include the double quotes in the above line) and press ENTER. You should come up onto the start screen for Internet Explorer, but if you are taken to the "Connect" button immediately, press ENTER to go online or just press the ESCAPE key to go to the start screen without going online. Alternatively (and even more conveniently and easily), you can use the above same Run dialogue to type in the appropriate Web page address, Website filename or Website audio file to either open a given Web page, download a specific file or start the playing of a particular audio file by streaming (playing it directly) from the Net. For example, if you wanted to open the Talking computers audio magazine for visually impaired people main home Web page and hear the Talking Computer's Editor's introductory audio file welcoming you to their site, you could do the following: 1. Press Windows Key R. 2. Type into the editfield which you are now presented with the address of this site, which is: http://tc.pressakey.net and press ENTER. 3. Internet Explorer (or whichever other Web browser is your default (usual) browser will launch and (if you are not already online) you will be taken online, the Talking Computers home Web page will display and its introductory audio announcement will be heard. Note: You can do this even if, at the same time, you have another program running such as MS Word, Excel, etc, and if you then wish to return to that first running program, you can simply close your Web browser or press ALT TAB to cycle to it without closing the browser. 4.2.4. Starting Internet Explorer with a Blank Page or Starting it with a Specific Home Page Automatically Loading If you like, you can make Internet Explorer launch with a blank page rather than waiting for a specified page on the Net to load in every time you go online. Conversely, you can take the opposite approach and have a given page you like to go to and have regularly loaded in when you go online. Do this as follows: To start with a blank page and therefore not have to wait for an unwanted page to load before you can continue: 1. With Outlook Express running, press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options). 2. You will be in the "General" property sheet, so TAB to "Use Blank" and press ENTER. 3. Now SHIFT TAB back to "OK" and press ENTRE to finish. To specify a given home page to open each time you go online: 1. With Outlook Express running, press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options). 2. You will be in the "General" property sheet and should be on the "Home Page Address" editfield, so just type in here the Website home page address (URL) you want to have opened every time you go online, e.g.: web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard for my own Website home page. 3. Now SHIFT TAB back to "OK" and press ENTRE to finish. 4.3. Internet Explorer Temp File Cache Size Once you have opened a Web Page it is automatically saved to a temporary folder in your \Windows folder. If you then want to go back and look at this same page again, Internet Explorer will access this on- disk page, rather than taking time to open it again from the Net. This speeds the process up. You can speed things up even further by increasing the size of your cache (amount of disk space devoted to this), if you have plenty of free hard disk space. To do this: Press ALT T, O, and in the "General" property sheet TAB to the "Temporary Internet Files Settings" button and press ENTER. Then TAB to the "Amount of Disk Space to Use" box and left ARROW to increase this or right ARROW to reduce it. Increasing from 1 or 2 per cent to 10 per cent should make a fair degree of difference. Then press ENTER on OK twice. In the two last dialogue boxes you can view the contents of your temporary Internet folder and empty it if you wish to reclaim some disk space. If you know that you have recently been on a particular Web page which is updated regularly, the quick reload method which Internet Explorer uses to speed page loading up may not suit your needs. In this case, after the on-disk page has been loaded, you can press F5 to "refresh" the page, which means that the browser will be told to go back to the Website and reload the most up-to- date version of the page you want. 4.4. What are Web Pages and How are They Read A Website is a collection of interlinked Web pages on a particular computer on the Nett. The first page is the home or index page. Web pages can contain text, pictures, animations and audio and video clips. Pressing ENTER on a "link" on a Web page may take you to another link on that same page, to another page on the same Website or to a page on another computer altogether anywhere else in the world. When you have loaded a Web page of text and pictures and the text on that screen has all been automatically read to you (24 lines per screen), you press the PAGE DOWN key to hear the next screen of information. Pressing PAGE UP takes you back a screen of information and reads it. Pressing CONTROL PAGE down moves you to the next page and CONTROL PAGE up takes you back a page. Up and down ARROW keys should permit you to read the page a line at a time, otherwise do this in your screenreader's navigation or mouse mode. Pressing the TAB key moves you forward to the next element on the current page, e.g. link, button, editfield, etc, whereas pressing SHIFT TAB takes you back an element. If you want to go back to the link you were last at (previous page, previous site, etc), you press ALT LEFT ARROW key. If you want to go forward a link, you press ALT RIGHT ARROW key. (Remember, these two latter commands do not work if you are using HAL 5X.) To return directly to where you first started out, i.e. your opening page when first launching your browser, press ALT HOME. Internet Explorer also has a Go to visited page history feature, so that you can view and go back to any page you have already been to in the current surfing session. You get to this history by pressing ALT V (for View( and then O (for Goto) and ARROWING up and down the already visited page names and pressing ENTER on any of them. You are likely to find that every time you open a new page within a site, you are presented at the top of the page with the same list of pictures, advertisements, logos, navigational bars with image buttons on them, list of links to go to, etc. The relevant section of the new page you have loaded may only appear halfway down the new page. You will have to ARROW or TAB quickly past all of this time and again to find what you want, which is tedious but necessary, unless your screenreader has a special jump past header links shortcut or links only links list facility which allows you to go easily to a specific link, put links in alphabetical order, display only unvisited links, etc, such as is available with the JFW 3.7 INSERT F7 and INSERT F9 commands, The Window-Eyes 4.0 INSERT TAB and CONTROL TAB commands or by downloading MS Powertoys and using its SHIFT F10 and "Links List" option. Another way to quickly get past these repeated header links is to press PAGE down once or twice until you jump past them or, if the page has frames, press CONTROL TAB once or twice to jump past the header frames. As you move around a Web page, in addition to encountering readable text, you will come across icons and images (pictures) which are meaningful to a sighted person but may be meaningless to a screenreader. Your screen reader may only be able to announce such as "image" or "bitmap" (or just say nothing) when it falls on these pictures. However, if the Webmaster (the person who wrote the Web page) has done his job thoroughly, he should have placed text titles at the side of these icons which your screanreader can read out to you to clarify what the picture is or what will happen if you press ENTER on an iconised link. These text titles are known as "ALT tags". Some Websites employ what are known as "frames". A good screenreader should be able to allow you to negotiate frames but some cannot cope with them very well. A frame is an area on a Web page where similar types of information is stored but there are likely to be several frames on screen at once and, depending upon what you do in one frame, the layout and content of another frame may change. this usually makes browsing such sites more difficult, although not necessarily impossible. The more up-to- date and better quality screenreaders can now deal quite well with frames and have special keystrokes to do this. The standard Windows keystroke to move from one frame on a page to another is to press CONTROL TAB until you get to the frame you wish to look at and then you can ARROW down the information in the frame you are currently on. CONTROL SHIFT TAB moves you backwards through frames. 4.5. Reading Web Pages Offline Remember, provided that you have a reasonable sized cache on your hard disk to hold already visited Web pages, you can always go to these already visited pages again without being online and incurring phone costs. You may wish to do this if a particular page is very big, with hundreds of links and considerable amounts of text. You achieve this in the normal way by pressing CONTROL O, typing in the Web page address and pressing ENTER. Internet Explorer will attempt to take you online but you just TAB to the "Work Offline" option and press ENTER. The on-cache page )providing it exists on your hard disk) will immediately be loaded for viewing in the usual way. If you decide that you want to visit a specific link on the page, just press ENTER on it, when you will be taken to the "Connect" button to go online and find it if it also is not already on your hard disk cache. If this too is in your cache, then it will be opened immediately without you being taken online. You can, in fact, save much time by quickly going through all of the links on a Website which interest you, starting with the home page, opening them all one by one to get the related pages dumped onto your hard disk. You can then, in the normal way, view the pages and use the links on them to open other on-cache pages without being on line. You can do this no matter how deep the layers of sub-pages and sub-links go. However, you will not be able to complete and then later submit things like order forms with purchase basket details, credit card details, etc, without first going online, normally via a Secure information server. If, once you have come offline to examine the several pages you have downloaded to cache, you press ENTER on a link which does not have a corresponding page in your hard disk cache, you will be taken online to that page. One other thing you should keep in mind in respect of revisiting Web pages on-cache is that, if the page has been in your cache for a long time, it may be out of date, i.e. the site it came from may have been updated since you originally visited it. In this case, you will need to go back on line to obtain an up-to- date cache copy of the relevant page or pages, which will overwrite your original page or pages. 4.6. E-Mail Links on a Web Page Many Web pages, particularly the home page, will contain an e- mail link, so that you can press ENTER on this and then type in a comment, request, etc. This link is often labelled "Send Mail". What actually happens when you press ENTER on such a link is that your default e-mail software will launch, e.g. Outlook Express, and you can then complete the e-mail details in broadly the usual way (see from step 4 in "Sending E-Mail" in Section 8 below for step-by-step instructions). The "To:" line of the e-mail header will have automatically been completed for you with the recipient's e-mail address. After sending your e-mail message to your e-mail Outbox, you will be returned to the Web page from where you opened the e-mail client to continue surfing. Later you will need to activate the send facility on your e-mail program to finish the e-mail message sending process. It is worth noting, however, that if you have a lengthy message to send, you do not have to type it at the above online stage. You can, instead, after pressing ENTER on the "Send Mail" link, simply press ALT S to save the uncompleted message to your Outbox, when only the e-mail "To:" address details will be saved. Then, later, go into your Outlook Express Outbox, press ENTER on the message and then complete the "Subject":" line and the whole message body whilst offline. Finish by sending the message as normal with ALT S followed by CONTROL M. 4.7. The Internet Explorer Favourites Folder The favourites facility permits you to record and save the whereabouts of given Websites, Web pages and links on pages you visit and would like to quickly return to in future. The favourites folder already has a number of already set-up favourite places to be taken back to in it and you add others yourself. The favourites folder is quite flexible, as demonstrated below. You can export and send favourites elsewhere, move them around, rename them, create sub-folders for them, print them out, sort them by name within their current folder, view their properties, and so forth. 4.7.1. Using the Favourites Folder and Adding More Favourites to It You can place your favourite URLs (Internet addresses) in the Internet Explorer favourites folder and organise the subfolders in this folder but you must remember that Windows 95 uses this same favourites folder in which to save favourites from other programs. To bookmark or add the current page (on the Web site you are presently at) to the favourites folder, press ALT a, and press ENTER on "Add to Favourites". You will be offered a filename for the page, so if this is acceptable just press ENTER. If not, type a different filename into the editfield you will be in and press ENTER. To go to one of your favourite Web pages, as bookmarked above, press ALT A (for Favourites) and ARROW down through the favourites folders, press ENTER on the one you want and ENTER on the page name that you want. 4.7.2. Viewing the Contents of Your Favourites Folder To view the contents of your favourites folder, press ALT A and ARROW down the list and press ENTER on any of the menu options (but you may have to go into your screenreader's mouse navigation mode to view the contents). An alternative way of displaying the contents of your Favorites folder is by using the Run dialogue of Windows, e.g. press ALT R, type favorites (American spelling) into the editfield and press ENTER.You can then ARROW up and down and left and right and press ENTER on any of the favourites to be taken online or to be taken into a sub-menu of favourites if one exists. To leave this favourites list, press ALT F4 once or twice. Note that you enter favourites in this way without having Internet Explorer running at the time and that you must use the American way of spelling favorites. 4.7.3. Creating Folders and Sub-Folders within Favourites To create folders or subfolders within favourites, when on an existing favourites folder or sub-folder, press ALT A, O, and press ENTER on the "Create New Folders" button. You can also delete favourites from this dialogue and move files from one folder to another. When you create a new favourites folder, it appears on the favourites menu. For example, to delete a favourite, press ALT A, O, and then ARROW up to the "Favourites" button and press ENTER. The favourites list will open and you can ARROW down these to the one you want to delete and press the DEL key followed by Y to confirm the operation. 4.7.4. Organising, Deleting, renaming, Printing Out and making other Modifications to favourites To alphabetise the contents of your Favorites folder, in order to be able to find given listings in a long list more easily, press ALT A (for Favorites) and then ARROW down to any favourite listing and press SHIFT F10. Now from this context menu ARROW to "Sort by Name" and press ENTER, so that your Favorites list will now be sorted by page title. If you have sub-folders of favourites running off from your main list, you will have to open each folder and use SHIFT F10 to be able to alphabetise each sub- folder. Note that there are numerous other actions which you can effect from the above Context menu, such as deleting a favourite, renaming a favourite, etc. Similarly, to get the favourite you are currently on in the favourites folder/list, press SHIFT F10 and then ARROW down through the list of possible actions you can carry out on that favourite listing and press ENTER on it to achieve that action, e.g. to print its details out, to rename it, to delete it, etc. 4.7.5. Saving and Exporting a copy of Your Favourites Folder and of Your Cookies for Safe Keeping or for Use on Another Computer For example, to export and save a copy of your favourites folder: 1. Press ALT A to open the folder. 2. Press ALT F (for File) and then I (for Import and Export) and then press ENTER on "Next". 3. You will now be in a list containing four choices, namely to import or export favourites or to import and export cookies. ARROW to "Export Favourites" and press ENTER. 4. To highlight all favourites for exporting, press CONTROL A and then ENTER on "Next". 5. You now export to a file by TABBING to a filename editfield which, by default, is usually set to save to C:\My documents\bookmarks.htm, so if this suits you, accept this path and filename by TABBING to "Next" and pressing ENTER. If you would like to save elsewhere, provide the path to this location but ensure that you give the file an .htm extension, because it is saved in HTML format, e.g.: a:\bookmarks.htm 6. Lastly, press ENTER on "finish" and then on "OK". 7. You can now deal with this favourites file in two ways, either: A. On your current or another computer, go through the same procedure as above but at step 3 select "Import Favourites" to overwrite the favourites folder on that other machine with the saved favourites folder. B. Alternatively, if you do not wish to overwrite the favourites folder on another computer, you could also carry this favourites file around on your floppy disk or copy it to another computer so that when you wish to go online to any of your favourite Websites, you can just launch Internet Explorer, press CONTROL O to open the Open dialogue and then type the favourite filename in to open a list of your favourites links, e.g. type in A:\bookmarks.htm. Now ARROW or TAB to the site link you want and press ENTER on it to be taken online to that location. Note 1: At step 3 above, if you had of chosen "Export Cookies", you would have been able to save copies of your valuable cookies for reinstallation if you ever lost them or for copying onto another PC elsewhere, such as your laptop. By default, the cookies text file saves to My documents and is called "cookies.txt". This is covered in detail in Volume 2 of the Internet tutorial. Note 2: Saving your cookies and favourites bookmarks files can be a worthwhile exercise to perform from time to time in its own right as a means of backing up these valuable data files which it may have taken you weeks or months to create and build up. 4.8. Saving a Page or Opened File in Internet Explorer To save a Web page or such as an opened text file, with the page or file on screen, press ALT F, A, type in the path and filename to save to, such as a:\bbcpage or c:\my documents\bbcpage, TAB to "Files of Type" and select the format to save in,e.g. press T for a plain text format, TAB to the "Save" button and press ENTER. You can also TAB to and ARROW through other folders in the above "Save As" dialogue box to save to if you prefer, in the standard Windows way. If you want to read your Web page or text file in a given program, such as a Web browser or Microsoft Notepad, make sure that you save the page in the appropriate format and give the file a suitable filename extension, e.g. nero.htm or nero.html to save a Web page from the Nero Burning-ROM Website in HTML format or tutorial.txt to save an opened text file on screen respectively. Of course, if you wanted to have your file automatically open in Microsoft Word, then you could save it as a rich text (rtf) or text (txt) file but specify that it has a .doc extension. When, after saving the above page, you want to read it in such as Microsoft Word or MS Wordpad, press CONTROL O and type: c:\my documents\bbcpage.txt or whatever you called it, in the editfield. Press ENTER and Word or Wordpad (or most other editors and word-processors) will open the file for you. You can, of course, also use Microsoft Notepad to do this when Internet Explorer has been shut down by using Notepad in the normal way via the Open option on the File menu. Note: By default, Internet Explorer automatically saves copies of the Web pages you have already been on and the cookies you have downloaded in the Windows folder at: C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\ under a filename such as Index.HTM or Index.html or whatever other name the HTML file originally had. So, if you want to look through these and possibly open one of them for reading offline, you should use CONTROL O and type the path in in Internet Explorer; or use the Run dialogue (ALT R) to do this; or, if you do not know the exact filename of the HTML file, navigate to it using Windows Explorer as usual. 4.9. Downloading a File from the Net or Opening it Online When you are on a link on a Website which permits the downloading of a file and you activate this link by pressing ENTER or SPACEBAR on it, for example, a file with such as a .zip extension, you will normally be placed in a dialogue box which you can TAB through and which offers you two options. The default option is "Save this Program to Disk" for you to download the file and save it to your hard disk. The second option, which you would need to ARROW to, is "Run this Program from its Current Location", which permits you to open the file and run it from its Website location before deciding whether or not to download and save it. In the vast majority of cases, you should elect to save the file to disk, so that you can then later run your virus-checker on it to ensure that you have not downloaded a virus with the file, particularly if the file is an executable file with such as a .com, .exe or .dll extension, or a word-processor file. After choosing to save the file to disk, you will be given the file's current filename to save it to or you can type over this filename with a filename of your own choice. The second option, to open and run a file or document from its current location, is not normally recommended. Having said this, if the file you may wish to run from its current Website is not an executable or word-processor file and you want to have a glance at it before downloading it or you want to listen to a sound file before downloading it, you can do so. This should be safe to do with such as plain text (.txt) files and sound files as these are not virus carrying executable or macro carrying word-processor files. The file will open in its associated program for you to view or listen to, e.g. Notepad with .txt files or Windows Media Player with such as .wav files. 4.10. Doing Two Things at Once in Internet Explorer You can continue to browse the Net whilst a file/program is downloading. Whilst the download is going on, press ALT F, N, and hit ENTER on "Window". You can now use the standard keystrokes of CONTROL O (or ALT D), type in the page address and press ENTER, to open a new Web page. Similarly, you can open to windows as above but this time to load in two Web sites with similar information on them to compare each. You just view what is on Website/page one and then press ALT TAB to move to the second Website/page to view that and use ALT TAB again to move back to the first page. You can close any of the windows by pressing ALT F4 on them. 4.11. Sending a Copy of a Web Page or Link to Someone Else When you have a Web page on screen and would like to send a copy of it to someone else, you can do this by: 1. Press ALT F (for file), E (for send). 2. You will now have three choices which you can ARROW through: send "Page by E-Mail", send "Link by E-Mail" or send "Shortcut to Desktop". The first of these will ensure that your Web page is appended to an e-mail message and sent where you want it to go; the second will send a link (URL) by e-mail, so that the recipient can press ENTER on this and be taken to the Web page you have on screen right now; and the third option will place a shortcut on your Desktop to the page you are currently on, so that you can press ENTER on this in future to have Internet Explorer loaded and take you straight there. For this example, I will deal with the "Page by E-Mail" feature. 3. With focus on the "Page by E-Mail" line, press ENTER, when Outlook Express will be launched and you will find yourself in the "To:" editfield to type in the e-mail address of the recipient. Then TAB to "CC:" and "Subject:" and complete these as normal. 4. Finally, you TAB to the message body, where your Web page will be displayed. you can type above this a note to the recipient if you wish. 5. With the process completed, just send the e-mail as usual, with ALT S, ENTER and then CONTROL M. Then exit Outlook Express to go back to Internet Explorer by pressing ESCAPE and N for no. (See Section 8 for detailed instructions about how to use Outlook Express.) Note: If you only want to copy a link from a Web page to your Clipboard for pasting elsewhere, you can do this, with focus on the link in question, by pressing ALT D, then CONTROL C. Then move to wherever you want to paste the link and press CONTROL P. 4.12. Setting Privacy Levels and Obtaining a Report of a Website's Privacy Policy 4.12.1. Setting Privacy Levels In Internet Explorer 6.0 (but not earlier versions) you can set six different levels of security so that cookies can either not be placed on your hard disk by Websites or so that all cookies can be accepted or there can be various levels of cookie acceptance between these two extremes. A "cookie" is a small file placed on your hard disk by some sites in order to keep your details so that that site does not have to keep asking you for them when you go onto it. However, some sites use cookies to track your Internet movements without notifying you of this. You may therefore wish to specify the type of site you will accept cookies from and block cookies from sites you do not want them from. To do this: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options). 2. CONTROL TAB to the "Privacy" property sheet. 3. You will fall on a slider which you can ARROW up or down on. ARROWING up increases the level of cookie security from 40 per cent through 60 per cent, 80 per cent to 100 per cent. The 100 per cent setting permits no cookies from anywhere but if you ARROW downwards to 0 per cent you will be permitting all kookies of all types. After ARROWING to a particular level, you can view its security level details by going into mouse mode and reading them. 4. If you now TAB on to "Advanced" and press ENTER, you can then override the above automatic cookie handling by pressing SPACEBAR on "OverRide Automatic Cookie Handling". Then TABBING forward will reveal three options which you can ARROW up and down and leave focus on, i.e. to accept cookies, to block (reject all) cookies or to prompt you when a site attempts to place a cookie on your computer so that you can either say yes or no to that cookie from that particular site. Another TAB forward will permit you to check on or off the acceptance of "Session" cookies, which are only temporary cookies placed on your hard disk which would in any case be removed when you finish interacting with the Website in question. After making any entries in here, press ENTER on "OK" to return to the first dialogue box. 5. TABBING on once more to "Websites" and pressing ENTER will open a dialogue which permits you to type in the URLs of any Websites you wish to actively manage. You can at any given time "Block" or "Allow" cookies from the sites you have in your managed sites list in this dialogue box. 6. After making any changes in these two dialogues, tAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. 4.12.2. Obtaining a Privacy Report of the Current Site In Internet Explorer 6, to view a site's/company's P3P privacy policy information or to see if Internet Explorer restricted any cookies from that site, you should: 1. Launch Internet Explorer and go on line to a particular site, e.g. www.microsoft.com. 2. Press ALT V (for View) and then V (for Privacy Policy). 3. TAB through the various controls and note that if you press ENTER on the "Settings" button, you in fact bring up one of the dialogues mentioned in the above sub-section. 4. Other controls you may wish to activate are the "Show" and "Summary" buttons. You can then TAB on to a list of privacy, complaints procedure and similar types of information links found on the site you are on. You can then press ENTER on any of those links to find out what the site guarantees by way of privacy if you have dealings with them. Its really only a quick way of getting to this type of information rather than having to find it on a large site by other means. If no such privicy or similar details links can be found, you will be advised of this. 4.13. Manually Completing Forms You will frequently come across sites on the Net which require you to fill in a form, for instance, to place an order for goods, to search for something or to register yourself for a regular monthly e-mail news letter. You will be asked to provide information, such as your first name, last name, e-mail address, home address, phone number, etc. Often, if any of these boxes is left uncompleted, the form will be rejected and you will have to start again. If you make a mistake on a form, there is usually a "Reset" or "Back" button to clear the form and start again. To experience completing a form on the Web and submitting it try the Freedom Scientific site to download a demonstration copy of the latest offering of the JFW screenreader, which is currently Version 4.02 ( but you might want first to try a more straightforward download to get a feel for things first by downloading Free Agent, seeSection 12 below): 1. Run Internet Explorer, press CONTROL O and type the following address in: www.freedomscientific.com and press ENTER to get onto the Freedom Scientific Website. 2. When the Freedom Scientific home page comes up, TAB down several times to the "Software Downloads" link and press ENTER. 3. The current software downloads page will be loaded, so you press TAB several times to the "Jaws for Windows 3.5 Demo Available" link and press ENTER. 4. Yet another page will open known as the JAWS for Windows demonstration options page. TAB two or three times to the "JFW 3.5 Free Demo" link and press ENTER. 5. The JAWS for Windows 3.5 demo page comes up with many links you can go to to learn out to use JFW and how to install it. However, for now just TAB forward to the "JFW Demo Download" link and press ENTER. 6. You are then presented with the demos users information form for completion. TAB once to a button asking if you want a free helpful information cassette to get started with the demo. It is unchecked by default, so press the ENTER key on this line if you want one. 7. The rest of the form is for user information as follows: a. TAB forward one and type in your full name. b. TAB once and type your company name in (type "None" if you are not a company, as some forms are rejected if any editfields are left blank). c. TAB once to the first address line and enter your street number and street name. d. TAB once and if you have another address enter this; otherwise, leave it blank. e. TAB once more to the city field and enter "London" if that is where you come from. f. TAB again and you reach a list of countries, so press the "U" key several times until "United Kingdom" is spoken. g. TAB once more to the telephone editfield and type your phone number in. h. TAB once and enter your e-mail address (again, if you do not have one you may have to make one up so that the form is not rejected). i. TAB to the demo selection list and ARROW up and down to highlight why you want the demo, e.g. home evaluation, considering an upgrade, etc. j. TAB again to a list you ARROW up and down to indicate which, if any, Henter-Joice or Freedom Scientific software you are already using. k. TAB once and ARROW to highlight which version of JFW you are currently using with Windows, e.g. 3.2, 2x, etc. This option should not appear if you have indicated that you are not presently using JFW in J above. l. TAB once and ARROW again to highlight the version of Windows you are running, e.g. Windows NT, Windows 98, etc. m. TAB once to a list to ARROW through to show where you intend to use the screenreader, eg. work, home, etc. n. TAB again to an editbox asking which applications you most frequently use and just type this information in as normal, e.g. "I use Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and Word 8". o. TAB once to the same type of editbox as the one above and type in the names of any access programs you are using, e.g. Window- Eyes, PWWebspeak, etc. p. You now TAB once more to the "Submit" button and press the SPACEBAR to finish and send the form. 8. The free demo download page then loads in and you should TAB forward once to the "JAWS for Windows Free 3.5 Demo Download" link (which tells you the file is 15.6 Mb in size) and press ENTER. 9. A message will then appear giving you two options: "Save to Disk" or "Run the Program from its Current Location". If you are not already on the save to disk option, ARROW to this and then TAB to OK and press ENTER. 10. You will be told the default name of the file to be downloaded, e.g. jfw35demo.exe. If this is OK, press ENTER; otherwise, type in another file name and press ENTER. The file, by default, will be saved on your Desktop but you can change this by typing in the path to a different folder if you wish, e.g.: c:\downloads\jfw35demo.exe Assuming that you have already created a folder from your root (C:) directory called "downloads". Thereafter, Internet Explorer will remember this download folder and save all further downloads to it. 11. The file download will commence and you will be given a regular countdown of how many kilobytes have been downloaded to the end of the download. The status line will indicate this. 12. Within a few minutes of completing the download, you will automatically be sent an e-mail by the Freedom Scientific computer thanking you for downloading their program. 13. To stop a download part way through, press the ESC key. You may want to do this if the server is performing slowly due to overload and taking too long. Note: If your worst nightmare occurs and the form is rejected for any reason, a screen will appear telling you why, e.g. if you omitted to complete one of the editfields in A to O above. You can go back to the form by pressing ENTER on the "back" button at the end of the form. If you do actually want the full JFW 3.5 demo to evaluate, I would suggest you download it at off-peak phone charge periods as it takes in the region of 45 to 90 minutes to download, with a 33.6 Kb or faster MODEM. 14. Finally, you will have to run the jfw35demo.exe file to install the program by pressing the Windows LOGO key and the letter M together to get to the Desktop and then pressing the letter J until you hear the filename spoken. You then press the ENTER key to commence the uninstall shield wizard and follow the on-screen prompts. If you have saved the jfw35demo.exe file elsewhere, run it as normal via Windows Explorer or by using the Start Menu "Run" facility and typing in the path to it. In this example you have experienced five distinct Internet operations: firstly, you have gone onto the Web to a specific website (step 1); secondly, you have surfed from one Web page to others, albeit on the same site (steps 2 to 5); thirdly, you have completed and submitted a Web form (steps 6 and 7); fourthly, you have downloaded a compressed program file (steps 8 to 13); and, fifthly, you have installed the program to your hard disk ready for immediate use (step 14). Note: Whilst some Websites will be found to be relatively easy to use initially , most will require a degree of practise and experience before the learner is comfortable in this type of environment and other sites will be found to be completely impenetrable by the most skilful visually impaired surfer because they have been constructed so badly. For instance, some forms will ask you to place a tick or cross in a particular box somewhere on the screen to obtain something but you have no way of knowing where this box is. Others may throw a rejected form back to you asking you to try to complete particular editfields again which have been marked with an asterisk but your screenreader may not be able to "see" these asterisks. Only time, much practise and even more patience will help you in the long run. 4.14. Roboform Automatic Forms Completion Software A company called Syber Systems Inc has created a free forms completion program called AI Roboform. This software is designed for you to enter all of your personal details into so that these can then be automatically lifted and copied into a Website form for you, for example, when completing a form to register for online auctions or shopping. The program integrates itself into Internet Explorer and resides on the Tools Menu as a "AI Roboform Fill Forms" option. You can have several identities, so you can have one with your exact, correct form completion details and others with pseudonyms for gaining access to shopping sites to have a look around, which would not let you in without form completion in advance. This should make form filling a quick and easy business, rather than often being time-consuming and frustrating for blind users. You can download this utility from the Syber Systems Website at: www.roboform.com After running the "roboform.exe" installation file, the software sets itself up in the following folder: C:\Program Files\Syber Systems\AI Roboform\ where you can find eight or so files and programs to run, e.g. identities.exe, uninstall.exe, readme.txt. etc. You can also find the "AI Roboform identities" menu option on the Internet Explorer Tools Menu and this is where you set things up with your personal details. Whilst the identities property sheets are just about accessible with some screenreaders, when first setting up this software, you may need a sighted friend with a mouse to help you put your original personal details into the program before you can use this utility. The "Credit Card" Tab in particular is difficult to complete as it contains dropdown lists and editfields which are not easy to manoeuvre. However, once you have set up one accurate and one fictitious "identity", you should be able to work with this program without any problems. It is said to be over 95 per cent successful in completing forms. Note: If you have no experience of navigating Websites and downloading files and programs, skip the AI Roboform download for now, until you have followed some of the stage by stage examples which come later in this tutorial, then return to this section. 4.15. Quick and Easy Web Access with Microsoft Powertoys Microsoft have provided a plug-in suite of accessibility utilities called "Powertoys" which some screenreaders may benefit from if they do not have their own built-in quick access shortcut key equivalents. For instance, JFW 3.7 and Window-Eyes 4.0 do not need Powertoys for providing a quick Web page links list but HAL up to Version 4.04 can benefit from this plug-in. HAL 4.5 comes with the Dolphin Link Navigator, so Powertoys are not required. HAL Version 5 is even more Internet-friendly than earlier versions and makes better use of MSAA. You can download Powertoys from: www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/Webaccess/ie5wa.exe If you are using HAL. ensure that you read the installation and operational instructions found at: C:\Program Files\HAL95\Docs\webaccessories.doc Otherwise, read any readme or other information files which may come with the download. In combination with a press of the SHIFT and F10 keys, the Powertoys make it quicker and/or easier to achieve certain operations, such as: 1. If part of a frame is being restricted by other frames, button bars, etc, just press SHIFT F10 when you are in the frame and then ARROW to "Open New Frame" and press ENTER. 2. You can quickly reach the search engine of your choice, e.g. if you type into the address box "av Rolls Royce" and press ENTER, the Altavista search engine will be automatically launched and a search on the words "Rolls Royce" will be made. Similarly, ex will start an Excite search, as and Infoseek search, wc a WebCrawler search, Yahoo! search, etc. 3. To ensure that pages are downloaded quickly (if you have not permanently turned pictures off as suggested in Section 6), press ENTER on "toggle Images" in the Favourites Menu. Repeating this procedure will turn image/picture loading back on. 4. If you would like all of the links on a Web page to be placed in a list so that you can easily and quickly TAB through them, just Press SHIFT F10 and ARROW up to "Links List" and press ENTER. 5. After pressing SHIFT F10 you will find many more quick options which you may wish to use instead of standard procedures, for instance, to print out a Web page, add a URL to your Favourites Menu, create a shortcut to the current Web page, etc. 4.16. VIPs Web Access Gateway This free access gateway can perform many accessibbility enhancements on Web pages, some of which you specifically ask it to do and others which it will carry out automatically. For instance, if you tell it to change the font size, type, background colour, foreground colour, etc, to your particular preferences, it will do this. It also supports many language conversion abilities. The gateway is a website in its own right which intercepts other Web pages you are wanting to access. So, if you are wanting to go onto the Amazon Website, you first type in the address of the gateway, advise it of your colour, font preferences, etc, and them type in the Amazon Web address to go to. The Amazon Web page will be adjusted by the gateway and then passed to your PC for easy reading and navigation. Once activated, any other links on the page which the gateway has rendered for you and which you press ENTER on will be found automatically via the gateway and you can even save favourites using the Favourites Menu, so that when you invoke them again from the favourites list, they will be found again via the gateway with your preferences already known. Therefore, you can carry out your surfing via the gateway in future without ever leaving it if you wish. Some of the Web page changes and conversions which the gateway will do for you automatically are: * Remove JJavascript. * Remove Java aplets. * Expand frames into a single document. * Render tables and columns into a single column. * Remove the attributes from frames and tables. * Replace images and bitmaps with their current ALT tag or guess what an ALT tag should be from its link URL. * Remove images from buttons. * Remove style sheets. * Remove fonts and colours or replace them with your preferences. * Change italic, blinking and underlined text to bold. * Remove double spacing between letters on headings. * Replace ASCII art with words, e.g. smileys. * Make consecutive links distinguishable from one another by placing square brackets around them. * Add an "end of Web Page" tag at the end of a page. * Change automatic refreshes into links. * Strip "no ling Breaks" and hight and spacer directives. * Expand HTML 4 "acronym" tags. * Promote headings which are below a certain level. * Search tables and links for a query. * Show a document's date stamp. * Add status line text to links. * Manage cookies. * Make all text areas word-wrap. * Make "Reset" buttons say reset. * Show hidden form fields. It will also attempt to: * Extract URLs from Javascript. * Display the parameters of Java aplets. * Remove the banner of links to the bottom of a page. Silas Brown of Cambridge University is the author of the gateway, which can be found at: www.flatline.org.uk/~silas After loading the home page in, you should TAB to the "Web Access Gateway" link and view the links and explanatory text provided there. 4.17. Testing the Accessibility of a Website The Bobby accessibility Web checker can be found at: http://bobby.watchfire.com You specify the URL of the site you want to have checked and you will be given an idea of what needs to be done on that Website to make it accessible to screenreader users. This will give the visually impaired surfer an idea of the site's usability and you can provide Webmasters with the URL of Bobby when asking them to make their Websites more screenreader-friendly. The Aprompt accessibility Web checker can be found at: www.aprompt.ca It provides a place to download a Web page accessibility repair tool called A-Prompt to find problems with Website accessibility and take the Web Master through how to fix them step by step. 4.18. Quick Commands Context Menu for a Link When you have focus on a Web page link, you can invoke a Context Menu to quickly effect several of the most common commands you may wish to carry out on a link, by: 1. With your cursor on the link in question, press SHIFT F10. 2. ARROW down the several commands you could press ENTER on to have it carried out. For instance, you could copy the link to the Clipboard, you could create a shortcut to it on your Desktop, you could print it out, you could view its properties, you could have it added to your Favourites folder and many more commands as well as these, but the list changes depending upon which version of Windows you have installed. 3. If you wish to save a file or program associated with a link you currently have focus on to your hard disk, you should press ENTER on the "Save" or "Save Target As" option, when it will save to your default saving folder. 4.19. Turning On or Off Automatic Disconnection to Your ISP By default, Internet Explorer is set up to disconnect itself automatically from the Internet after a given period of time if there has been no activity on your phone line for that amount of time or if the system thinks you have forgotten to disconnect. this is a good idea for those with ISP connections which they have to pay for by the minute but those who pay for their surfing monthly and/or have a broadband connection may not wish to be cut off like this. To enable, alter the timing of or disable this automatic disconnection you should: 1. With Internet Explorer running, press ALT T (for Tools then O (for Internet Options). 2. CONTROL TAB to the "Connections" property sheet and then TAB to the "Settings" button and press ENTER. 3. Now TAB to the "Advanced" button and press ENTER. 4. TAB to the editfield just below "Disconnect if Idle For" item and if, say, the number of minutes you are set up to disconnect is less or more than you want, BACKSPACE this figure out and enter your preferred figure. Otherwise, leave it blank if you do not wish to be automatically disconnected after a specified period of inactivity. 5. Now TAB once to "Disconnect When Connection May No Longer Be Needed" and, if you do not wish Internet Explorer to anticipate a disconnection for you, press SPACEBAR to uncheck this. 6. Lastly, TAB to each "OK" button and press ENTER on them as you back out of these several dialogue boxes. Note: If you have a broadband ADSL Internet connection, you are always online, as soon as you turn your computer on. When you carry out an Internet-based action, such as sending an e-mail, receiving an e-mail, uploading a file to your ISP Website, etc, you therefore do not have to go online, so these things happen automatically for you, e.g. an e-mail will land in your Inbox without you having to request it. 4.20. Ensuring that Your Online Transaction Details are Not Automatically Saved to Disk If you share a computer with someone else or if you are online for long periods and do not have a firewall to prevent hackers, others may be able to get access to your online transaction details, such as your bank account or credit card information. You can stop details of such transactions from being save to your hard disk by Internet Explorer in the temporary internet files folder (which would normally automatically happen) by: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Internet Options). 2. Then CONTROL TAB to the "Advanced" property sheet. 3. Now ARROW down the long list of checkable options you will be in to "Do Not Save Encrypted Pages to Disk" and press SPACEBAR to check this on. 4. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. Henceforth any secure (HTTPS) Website you have visited and possibly provided personal and/or financial details on will not be saved to your hard disk. 4.21. Viewing the History List of Already Visited Web Pages and their Contents In addition to viewing the history of already visited Web pages in the current session whilst online, as described earlier in this section, you can, whilst offline, view the past history of Websites and pages you have previously been on, going back several weeks. How far you can go back will depend on how many days of past surfing you have selected to keep on your hard disk in the General property sheet of Tools, Options. Typically this will be 20 or 30 days of retained history. Using the history feature will allow you to view pages without having your phone line open and it may be a good way of reminding yourself of the Websites and pages you visited some time ago if you have forgotten the URL of any of them. There are two quick ways you can do this: 1. With Internet Explorer running and being offline: A. Press CONTROL H. B. You will come into a list of past surfing periods and are likely to be on "Today". If you ARROW up you will encounter "Last Week", "Two Weeks Ago", etc, depending how long you have been accessing Web pages and your number of days to keep Web pages on disk settings. C. Press ENTER or right ARROW on any of these and you will be taken into an expanded list of all the Websites you visited in that particular week. If you now press right ARROW again you will access the individual pages you previously read on the site in question. D. Pressing ENTER or SPACEBAR on one of these pages will open it up for reading again. Internet Explorer will probably try to take you online to this particular Web page, so press the ESCAPE key to prevent this and you will then get the on-disk copy of this page loaded for reading as it appeared when you last went onto that site/page. E. Just TAB and ARROW around this page in the normal way. If you decide you want to go back online via one of the links on this page, just press ENTER or SPACEBAR on that link and you will be taken online to whatever the link points to. F. To close the history list and Internet Explorer, press ALT F4. 2. With Windows 95 and 98, you can also access this history list (but this time in a Windows Explorer environment) via the Windows Run feature. In this case, you would not have Internet Explorer running when you did this: A. Without Internet Explorer running, press Windows key and R. B. In the editfield you will now be in, type "history" and then press ENTER. C. You will now be in the same list of options mentioned in B above, e.g. "Today", "Last Week", etc, so ARROW to your choice and press ENTER or right ARROW. D. You will find that things work much the same as described in the previous sub-section, although you should find you have a little more flexibility with this method of viewing your surfing history, namely you can move around in the same way as you would in Windows Explorer, e.g. if you want to move back a folder level in the page/links structure, you would press the BACKSPACE key. You can view the Website/pages you visited in the past period, the sub-pages/links and the contents of specific pages in this way whilst offline. Pressing ENTER on a page to read it will open up Internet Explorer to read it in. If there is an attempt to take you online, just press ESCAPE to stop this. E. This view of your Web surfing history has its own menu structure, so press the ALT key and ARROW left and right and up and down to see what is possible. You press ALT F, C, to close the history feature. 4.22. The Internet Explorer Help System Internet Explorer and Outlook Express both have a typical Windows-type help system interface. The two main features of this help are the Contents and Index facilities. To enter the help system, press ALT H and then ENTER on "contents and Index". You will normally fall into the "Contents" sheet, where you can ARROW down various chapters until you reach the one you want to read. You then press ENTER on it and may either then obtain further sub-headings to ARROW through or just be presented with the text to read. You may have to press F6 to commence the reading of text and then PAGE DOWN to get the next page of information, if there is one. Pressing F6 again should take you back to the list of subjects and topics to choose another to read. You may wish to go to the "Accessibility" chapter at the end of the contents list and have a good look through its sub- headings to see some of the features provided by Microsoft for people with various disabilities. To move from the "Contents" sheet to the "Index" sheet, press CONTROL TAB. You can then type in any word or phrase you want to have found and then TAB to a list of one or several possible hits on this word. ARROW up and down this list and when on the word/phrase that seems appropriate, TAB to "Display" and press ENTER followed by F6 to get the text read to you. To move back from the "Index" to the "Contents" page, press CONTROL SHIFT TAB. To move back from the Contents or Index text field of topics and sub-topics to select another topic, press F6 again. To leave either type of help altogether, press ALT F4. Additionally, when in a dialogue box, in an editfield, on a control, etc, if you want a quick explanation of what this does, just press F1. Then press ESC to leave this context sensitive help. Note 1: Internet Explorer 5.5 is almost identical to version 5.0 in its general operation, property sheets, folders, shortcut keystrokes, etc, but if you have Internet Explorer 5.5 and want to view the additional features in that version over version 5.0, plus some no longer supported options, see the "Readme.txt" file in the c:\Program Files\Outlook Express subfolder. The main improvements/changes in IE 5.5 over IE 5.0 are in improved running speeds and enhanced encryption abilities. You may, however, get better results from an up-to-date screenreader over one which was created before IE 5.5 was released, so check with your screenreader manufacturer before upgrading to IE5.5. Note 2: To see a full list of Internet Explorer shortcut keystrokes, go to Appendix 4. ******** >SECTION 5 Taster SITES TO FIND FILES AND PROGRAMS A Website (or "site") is merely a computer that has an address on the Internet. 5.1. Website Walk-Through Example A US site which contains many blind-friendly games and programs of interest for free downloading is: www.henrichsen.org It holds files and programs such as pkz204g.exe PKZIP compression program for DOS, blist.txt containing a list of visually impaired mailing lists, fp-305.zip FPROT virus checker, htmst708.zip HTML file to plain text file converter, accs405.exe Adobe Acrobat 4.05 access plug-in for Windows 95/98, poxchat.zip program to let you talk to others over the Internet, alarm95s.exe speech-friendly scheduler for Windows 95, powertoy.exe Microsoft add-ons for Windows 95, sshtml10.zip HTML tutorial, audibl03.exe paper money identification program for windows 95, scten204.zip which cleans up and formats scanned ASCII documents, nfbtr754.zip NFB Braille translation program (American Braille), syscap.zip to capture boot-up information to a file, regcln41.exe to clean up your Windows 95 registry, and many, many more. I will walk you through this site as another example of how to get around Websites. for other practical examples of navigating Websites, completing forms and downloading software, see Section 4, under "Completing forms" and Section 12 under "Downloading Free Agent". However, remember that the Web is a living entity and by the time you go onto the Henrichsen site things may have changed a little or substantially. Steps to follow: 1. Start Internet explorer as normal (see Section 4, under "Launching Internet Explorer"). 2. Press CONTROL O and in the address box which opens type: www.henrichsen.org and press ENTER. 3. If you are not already online, the Dial-Up Network connection program will come up and you should press ENTER on the "Connect" button. 4. Your MODEM may or may not make dialling out sounds but you should go online within a minute or so. 5. The Henrichsen home page will load in and your screenreader should start talking, reading the page title and the text on the page. 6. Go to the top of the page by pressing CONTROL HOME and then come down the links by pressing the TAB key (SHIFT TAB moves you back a link). 7. You can listen to any text on the screen as it is spoken or ARROW up and down it to listen line by line. Pressing PAGE down takes you to the next page of text and PAGE up goes back a page. 8. Moving down the page will eventually take you to some of Paul Henrichsen's favourite sites,so to have a look at one of these when you reach the "Resources on the Internet" link, press ENTER and the Resources on the Internet home page will load in with hundreds of links of its own. You can TAB and ARROW through this site to see what it offers, which is a rich resource of Internet information and contact points. 9. After you have finished browsing the Resources on the Internet page and links, if you want to go back to where you came from, press ALT left ARROW and you will return to the Paul Henrichsen home page at the place you left it. 10. If you wanted to skip straight back to the Resources on the Internet home page, you would press ALT right ARROW. 11. From the Henrichsen home page, if you are interested in looking at what files and programs there are to download to your computer, TAB to the "Great Files to Download on my FTP Site" link and press ENTER to open up the FTP downloads page. You can speed this process up by searching for the link by pressing CONTROL HOME to go to the top of the page and then CONTROL F, typing in "download" and pressing enter. You may stop at several references to download before you get to the actual link. When you are at this link, press ENTER. 12. The FTP download page will load in and is headed "Index of Files". You can then ARROW down, listening to the text as you go, to "Please choose from the following". Under this there are many links which allow you to download files and programs to your hard disk. 13. TAB to (or search for) the link with the FPROT virus checker on it and press ENTER. 14. The "Save to Disk" option will be spoken, so press ENTER to accept this and either accept the filename it provides and press ENTER on the "Save" button, when it will be saved to your Desktop by default, or type a new name in with the path you want to save it to, e.g. c:\download\fprot.zip, TAB forward to "Save" and press ENTER. (This, of course, assumes you have already created a folder from your c:\ root directory called "Download".) 15. Keep a check on the Title Bar and Status Line to observe the state of download progress. This program will not take long to download and when it is finished you will be told "Download Complete". This may take ten or fifteen minutes, depending on the speed of your computer and MODEM. 16. You will now have the FPROT free virus scanner to protect your computer from viruses if you do not already possess a virus checker. You will have to decompress the .zip file with a program such as PKZIP for DOS or WINZIP for Windows. This same Henrichsen Website contains PKZIP for download. To view the products of GW Micro, download a copy of the Window- Eyes screenreader, view newsletters, etc, browse to: www.gwmicro.com and PAGE and ARROW around, press enter on some of the links, use the ALT left and right ARROW keys to move back and forth between pages, etc. To view a similar site to GW Micro in the UK, with newsletters, downloads and product advertisements go to: www.dolphinuk.co.uk To obtain lists of computer books with free excerpts and other books for sale, how to create your own Website, etc, browse to: net.dummies.net Another site similar to the above Henrichsen site of interest but this time in the UK which is owned by a blind Web author is maintained by Tom Lorimer. You can download several useful free and shareware programs, e.g. download managers, MP3 players, Web search engines, etc. Tom has also created and made available a HTML Web page creation tutorial which can be downloaded. This site is at: www.whitestick.co.uk. To view a list of many more useful websites, after getting experience with those mentioned above, skip to Appendix 3. ******** >SECTION 6 WEB SEARCH ENGINES A Web search engine is a means of finding where such things as information on particular topics can be found on the World Wide Web, or the whereabouts of someone's website or a company's Web home page. When using the Web and searching for things on it, it is likely to be in your interest to ensure that your screenreader's read punctuation is turned on so that it will echo all punctuation marks to you. There are two main types of search engines: Directory-based and index-based. These can be found on and run from the Web itself, although there are many search engines which can be run from your hard disk, such as Cowpernic and Ferret, the former being downloadable free from: www.Cowpernic.com and the latter from: www.ferretsoft.com The Ferret suite of programs can also find FTP and Telnet sites for you. There is even a IRC Ferret search engine to find chat rooms covering specific topics for you. The search engines examined below are all of the type which run directly from the Web instead of being resident on your hard disk. 6.1. Starting a Search Engine The search engines mentioned below either have a "com" or "co.uk" suffix but in many cases you can use either. However, you must remember that if you go onto a Website with the suffix "com", you are more than likely to have entered an American search engine or general site, whereas using a "co.uk" suffix will load the same site but with a UK emphasis. You start up a search engine by going to its site on the Web. For example, to run the Google search engine, start up Internet Explorer (orany other Web browser) and press CONTROL O to get onto the address box. Then type the Google Web address in, which is: www.google.co/uk (If in the UK) or www.google.com (If in the US) and press ENTER. Google will load up after a few seconds and you can TAB a few times to its search string editfield/form and type in the word(s) you want found, TAB down to the "Google Search" button, and press ENTER. Google will search on as many websites as Google can access. You can then PAGE or ARROW down several times to the "Google Results" heading and observe the sites which were found below this. Press ENTER on any one of these to go to it. (For more about Google, see the "Google" sub-topic below.) Note: Google has now become so popular that frequently, when you go to many more specialist e-mail information addresses, what will actually open up is one of the facilities of Google, as Google has absorbed many of them. 6.2. Standard Search Engines Standard search engines are stand-alone searchers using their own search capacity only, whereas meta-search engines combine the search abilities and findings of several engines to obtain more hits on a given search word or string. 6.2.1. Yahoo! This started out as a stand-alone search engine and is a directory search tool at: www.yahoo.com It then allied itself with Google and used Google as its search engine, only to devorce itself from Google and return to its own search engine at the beginning of 2004. When using Yahooª! you can either enter key search words in the search editfield or move down the directories, pressing ENTER on the topic/category links you are interested in, until you get down the hierarchy of directories to the pages you want to browse. However, you can get to where you need to be more easily and quickly by using Yahoo!'s own search box, near the top of the Yahoo! home page. For example, if you wanted to find a book called "Computers for Beginners", you would type this into the search editfield and press ENTER on the "Submit" button. By choosing the "Options" button next to the submit button you can change some of Yahoo!'s search defaults, such as the default 3 year backward search. Yahoo! also has other search databases available, such as Yellow Pages, to find companies; People Search, to find people, addresses and phone numbers; City Map, where you can type in a street name to bring up a street map of the area; and Today's News, for news, shares and sport results. However, these searches will be US-based so you will have to use www.yahoo.co.uk to get this type of information in respect of the UK. For the four years up to the beginning of 2004, Yahoo had been using the Google search engine in the background to achieve its search results. Since then it has started to use its own Web crawlers and search engine, called search.yahoo.com, and it claims that it has several billion Web pages indexed for searching through. 6.2.2. Altavista This is an index-based search engine at: www.altavista.co/uk For UK users or www.altavista.com For US users Altavista is an index searcher which is likely to bring up too many page hits, so you can refine your search string to thin this out. Altavista will find the best matches it can from your search string but not necessarily exact matches. Do not use linking words in your search string such as and, of, the; just put the key words in, e.g. sun moon, not the sun and the moon. Other ways of refining a search are to use capitals for proper nouns, putting quotes around linking words such as "Cliff Richard" or by using plus (+) or minus (-) signs to include or exclude words such as +Cliff +Thorburn -Richard to get hits on Cliff Thorburn and none on Cliff Richard. You can also use wild cards when searching, e.g. If you search for John Williams* Altavista will also bring up results for such as John Williamson, John Williamside, etc. You will observe a "Translate" link on the Altavista engine which you can activate if the current Web page is not in English to get a broad translation into English. This free translation feature is called Babel Fish and can translate several languages into other languages and can also be accessed via: http://world.altavista.com To search Usenet newsgroups choose the "Search the Web" box and then move to "Search Usenet". Note 1: Near the bottom of the Altavista home page there is a "Text only" button you can select to get rid of most of the annoying graphics on this site. Note 2: At the bottom of the Yahoo! page you will find a link to Altavista and vis versa to be able to search on the other company's engine if you have not found anything on the first engine's search. The same key search words will be accepted. 6.2.3. Raging This is at: www.raging.com Raging.com is a search engine which is very accessible as it is a basic text search engine with no advertisements, etc, to distract you. You can also configure this engine, e.g. use the "Family Filter" to exclude sexual or expletive pages, you can search the Web in as many as 25 different languages at the same time, the "Translate" option lets you see the result of a Web search in the language of your choice, etc. 6.2.4. Ask Jeeves This is at: www.askjeeves.com AskJeeves is a search engine which works by you typing a question into its search box. It then interprets this question by looking at the key words in it and giving you several of its own interpreted questions from your original query for you to search on. You just choose one of these and AskJeeves will go onto the Net and find what it can for you. More recently, Ask Jeeves has added a "Smart Search" feature to its search engine to find answers on definitive questions like "Who is Abraham Lincoln", when you will receive answers in Encyclopedia format with pictures and links to more Web-based details from the Ask Jeeves database. This Smart Search feature is expected to be done on a worldwide Internet basis and not just from the Ask Jeeves data base by the summer of 2005. 6.2.5. Microsoft's MSN Search The MSN Search engine from Microsoft which came out in January 2005 can be found at: http://search.msn.co.uk or http://search.msn.com and it incorporates several features as well as the usual Web page/site searching ability. You can also type standard questions into the editfields and receive answers like with Ask Geeves and you can access local maps and routes to follow. It is able to access over 5 billion pages. 6.2.6. Cd Wizard You can download this screenreader-friendly shareware program to play, catalogue and search for information on your Cd collection. Whilst you are playing a CD, the software permits you to go onto the Internet and it will find details about the artists on that CD. Other information on the current CD which will be found will be such as the titles of each track on the CD and advise about where to buy more CDs by this/these artistes. The CD Wizard also lets you keep a database catalogue of your cd collection, together with any information it previously retrieved from the Net about the CD and artists. It can be found at: www.bfmsoft.com/ 6.2.7. UK-Based Specific Search facilities Some other UK-based search engines which find only UK-related information are: UK Plus at: www.ukplus.co.uk The UK Index at: www.ukindex.co.uk/uksearch.html UK Yellow Pages at: www.yellow.co.uk G.O.D. at: www.god.co.uk Infoseek UK at: www.infoseek.co.uk Lycos UK at: www.lycos.co.uk 6.2.8. Accessible Result Specialist Search Engine The Accessible Result serch engine is designed only to search for and find Websites which are certified as being screenreader accessible. It can find over 1,000 of these worldwide and more are sure to be indexed as time goes by. It is at: www.net-guide.co.uk 6.2.9. UK Traders and Shops Search Engine To search and find only UK traders/shops to find goods you can use: www.froogle.co.uk 6.3. Meta-search Engines Some more recently introduced meta-search engines, since the year 2000, which grab several of the traditional search engines and run them simultaneously to obtain more hits or which use multiple search engines of their own, are: 6.3.1. Google and its Family of Utilities This very popular and easy to use with a screenreader meta-search engine is at: www.google.co.uk (for the UK) or www.google.com (for the US) or www.google.ca (for Canada) Google attempts to categorise Web pages and headings on pages in order of importance by checking how many references other Web pages have to each page it finds. The pages which are referred to and linked to the most will be shown at the top of Google's results list. By default, on the Google UK engine, Google will search for all instances of what you want to find worldwide but there is, shortly after the "Search" button, a box labelled "Pages from the UK" you can ARROW down to and check on by pressing the spacebar on it in order to have searches don on UK resources only. In January 2004 Google boasted an ability to search on over 4.2 billion Web pages and Google have said that by the end of 2004 they will have increased this to 8 billion pages. To learn more about Google, go to the "All About Google" link on the home page. To narrow a search down, Google contains a "Google Web Directory" where you can search the Web by specific topics. Many well-known Websites offering their own search engine facilities actually use Google in the background to do their searching with, e.g. even Yahoo, for the four years up to the beginning of 2004, used Google for its search results, although it no longer does so. 6.3.1.1. Using Google with a Screenreader and Availability of Scripts To be able to type a search word or string of words into the Google search editfield, with most screenreaders, you firstly need to press ENTER to enter forms or editingmode. This editfield is near the top of the page, about five TAB presses from the top. You can download JAWS scripts to make Google even more accessible with JFW from: www.accessibleprograms.com 6.3.1.2. Narrowing Searches Down in Google When using the straightforward Google editfield near the top of the page to enter your search words for searching the Web on, if you find that you are getting too many pages of information by searching on a given number of words, you can narrow the search down by placing your search words within quotes. For example: If you search on: guide dog food You will get Google finding and displaying all Web information it finds on all three words independently, i.e. any Web page with the word "guide", any page with the word "dog" and any page with the word "food". You will certainly get many pages selling "dog food". This could amount to many thousands of pages. However, if you place these three words in quotes as follows: "guide dog food" You will dramatically reduce the number of pages found, because Google will only return pages to you which have that string or phrase of all three words on them. Most of them will not be specific to guide dogs for the blind but they willl be to do with guides to different dog foods, etc. Further refinements and narrowing-down operators which you can use to fine-tune and target Google's searches are: If you want Google to find Web pages which contain the words dog and food, you would type into the search box: dog OR food (Note that the operator "OR" above should be in capital letters.) If you wish to exclude pages which contain a word, you would precede the word by the - (minus sign). So to search for dog but not food, you would use: dog -food In common with many other search engines, Google drops certain common words such as where, what, how, I, the, and the like when it searches. If you need to make sure that one of these common words is retained and used in your search, if it is important to the search, you can achieve this by preceding it with a + (plus sign), e.g.: +What PC to find information about the What PC computer magazine. In Google you can combine phrases with the use of operators including "AND", "OR" and "NOT" (note that these operators should be capitalised). For instance, if you want to find Web pages with the exact phrase "what PC" which also contain the words "Access" and "database", you would use: "What PC" AND Access "database" If you use the tilde operator, you can locate pages with a given word on them plus this word's common synonyms, e.g.: "Guide ~ dog" Google will search for pages containing "guide" with "dog" plus such as "canine", "mongrel", "coyote", etc, but the references to these synonyms may be well down many thousands of hits which Google will find on "guide dog" first. You can also restrict your search by specifying the domain to search. For example, to find pages containing "guide dog training" but only those on UK academic Websites, you would use: "guide dog training" site:ac.uk And to search one particular site only, use such as: "white stick" site:www.rnib.org.uk 6.3.1.3. Using the Google Advanced Search facility Google also offers an "Advanced Search" link and, if you press ENTER on this, you can refine your searches to tailor them to even tighter search criteria. What you get is a form which you complete with your search details. 6.3.1.4. The Google Image Search Feature You can access Google's image search feature to find individual or lists of pictures at: http://images.google.com This works in a similar way to the standard Google word searcher but is not quite as customisable or accurate in its findings. It can find hundreds of thousands of images throughout the world and you can narrow down searches with its usual "Advanced" facility. You can also limit searches to given file types and to searching in specific countries and even on given Web domains. For example, to do a basic search for a picture of Elvis Presley you could find them all with the following syntax typed into Google images normal search box: "Elvish Presley" Google will find all pictures of Elvish with extensions/formats of .jpg, .gif or .png. You can use most of the usual search narrowing down syntax and modifiers in Google search as in the basic Google word search facility. 6.3.1.5. Google's Goods Catalogue Searching Feature In late 2002 Google created a specific catalogue search ability after it scanned over 1,500 hard copy mail order catalogues. You can search these catalogues looking for brands of items or for a specific product. It then displays the product pages with matches from all of its scanned catalogues. The URL to this catalogue search is: http://catalogs.google.com 6.3.1.6. Google's International News Search feature Google also features an international news locator with news from multiple sources with the date on which the news flash was current. It is at: www.news.google.com/news/gmworldleftnav.html You can use all of Google's search operators to find news pages on this news facility. 6.3.1.7. Google's Print Book Search Facility In late 2003, Google added yet another facility. This is the "Google Print Beta or "Google Print". It lets you request to view the contents of books online on specific topics, with a view to seeing if they are suitable and then letting you go to other sites to purchase them online. Google does not sell them, it just provides the facility to find and view them. What you do is type in the normal search editfield the book search URL followed by the topic you want to find books on and view some pages on. for example, to view pages on home brewing of beer, wine, etc, you would type in the search box: print.google.com home brewing You will find several hits on Websites for home brewing and below these texts of pages from books on that subject. To view the text, press ENTER on links entitled "book-beta" to view extracts of up to 20 per cent of the contents of each book. There will also be links to online book sellers stocking each book, e.g. to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. Note: Since mid-2004, The above beta book viewing service has been fully adopted by Google and is getting many more books scanned into it daily. Therefore, the word "Beta" is no longer featured in its links andd literature. 6.3.1.8. Google's E-Mail and Website Service In April 2004, Google moved into the business of offering Web- based e-mail facilities and a good amount of free Web space for customers' to upload their own Web pages to. The Google e-mail service is called Gmail. This is at: http://gmail.google.com As implied, though, this has to be accessed on the Google site to read your e-mail and is not yet something which permits you to download messages to such as Outlook Express. However, this may change in the future. Tip: On the Gmail Web site there is a basic HTML view which can be clicked on within your account on the screen which will allow some screenreaders to better interact with many of the settings and functions of Gmail. In this way, any links and message conversation views will be available. The icon to click to turn this on is near the bottom of the window. However, to be able to change certain settings you may have to go back into the normal mode. 6.3.1.9. Google Desktop Search Yet another addition to the Google arsenal of utilities, which came out around the end of Summer 2004, is the Google Desktop Search feature. The executable file is less than a 500 Kb download and is at: http://desktop.google.com but you will need a minimum of 500 Mb of free disk space to install and configure it. After installation, the Google Desktop Search looks the same as the standard Google interface. You will have to let the program perform an index of your system files and you must have MS Outlook or Outlook Express open at this time so that e-mails will also be indexed, permitting e-mail files to also become part of any search you do. This indexing process may be an overnight task for many users. You start a Google Desktop Search by double clicking on an icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to open its search page in Internet Explorer. Google's Desktop Searcher is much more thorough in its searching and much faster than other hard disk searching tools, such as the Windows Find feature. It can search most files and you can tell it to look for given words or strings of words within files such as MS Word, Powerpoint and Excel files. It can also search within e-mails you have in MS Outlook or Outlook Express, Web pages you have been on with Internet Explorer and amongst any instant messaging discussions you have entered into with AOL Instant Messenger. You can even get the Google Desktop Search facility to simultaneously search both the Internet for information and your computer's hard disk. A current weakness of the infant Google Desktop search (but which is likely to be improved in future) is that it cannot search for or in files such as non-AOL chat files, non-Microsoft e-mail clients such as Eudora and it also cannot search on the Net in such as Firefox, Mozilla and Thunderbird browsers. It also cannot index the contents of files such as RTF files and PDF files. Note 1: This first version of the Google Desktop Searcher is only usable on Windows XP and 2000. Note 2: If you find that the Google Desktop program is constantly trying to go online, it could be that you need to ensure that "Send Non-Personal Usage Data and Crash Reports to Google" is checked off. It is found by going to your Sys Tray (e.g. INSERT S or Windows key B with Window-Eyes, left SHIFT Numpad / with HAL and INSERT F11 with Jaws) and then by ARROWING to "Preferences" and press ENTER and go to the bottom of the screen to turn the above option off if it is on. 6.3.1.10. Google Scholar Scientific and Academic Specialist Research Searching Feature In November 2004 Google started to offer what is known as Google Scholar. It is designed to specifically assist scientists and other academics to easily find specialist information on the Web for research purposes. It can be accessed at: scholar.google.com Google Scholar was created in collaboration with several scientific and academic publishers from peer-reviewed papers, books, abstracts and technical reports. 6.3.2. AllTheWeb This is at: www.alltheweb.com It is run by Dell and usually finds many thousands of pages. 6.3.3. Seti-Search This is at: www.seti-search.com Seti-Search is a customised search engine for the visually impaired. It attempts to be easier to use for blind people and has search boxes both at the top and bottom of the page for ease of location. 6.3.4. Dogpile This one is at: dogpile.com Completes multi-search engine searches. 6.3.5. Astalavista This is at: astalavista.box.sk/banner3/index.html This is yet another multi-search engine searcher. 6.3.6. YouSearched You can access this UK-based engine provider at: www.yousearched.com Here is a specialist search engine which only came into existence in 2004 and which is specifically designed for use by disabled people, including visually impaired people, people with colour blindness, those with hand and other dexterity disabilities, and so on. Since it is designed for disabled people and meets many widely accepted international standards for accessibility, you should have little or no trouble when using this engine. 6.3.7. Vivisimo This is another good meta-search engine for VI people which can be found at: http://vivisimo.com Note: If you have an idea of what a Web page index page (home page) may have in its title bar, you may be able to find it by typing such as 'title:"leeds rugby"' into the search engine. 6.4. Finding Companies To search for a company first type the company name into the standard search box at the top of a search engine. If this does not find what you want, try the "Whois" specialist search engine at: www.internic.net/wp/whois.html This finds listed Internet domain owners and contacts. You receive a list of appropriate Internet connection addresses, such as www.microsoft.com if you asked for Microsoft or Bill Gates. Similarly, www.hoover.com can obtain company information, share values for a requested company, etc. www.companies.online.com obtains information on lists of companies. 6.5. Finding People There are two types of people searches: those to find e-mail and Website addresses and those to find their phone numbers and street addresses. Phone books and newsgroups are used to compile this information, so it can be hit and miss. The Yahoo! people search is on: www.yahoo.com/search/people Another people and addresses search engine is: www.four11.com Where you can find out not only phone numbers, home addresses and e-mail addresses but also details about people on their database, such as public records on them, their criminal record, etc. There is also www.bigfoot.com, which provides a way to search for people but also gives permanent free e-mail addresses and sends e-mail from your Bigfoot address to your e-mail account. 6.6. Finding News and Public records To search for online news postings go to www.deja.com. Altavista and Yahoo! also let you search for news articles from the last few months. Interesting FAQs are also posted at: "News.Answers", "Comp.Answers" and "ALT.Answers" on newsgroups. You could also search for these using a Web search engine such as Google. To use a multiple public records search engine to find US public records with thousands of databases, try: www.searchsystems.net For more search avenues, read a FAQ at: For more search avenues, read a FAQ at: www.cs.queensu.ca 6.7. The Outlook Express Quick People Search Facility Outlook Express has a quick people search facility which you can invoke by pressing CONTROL E. The dialogue which comes up contains fields for typing in either of someone's (or a group's) name, e-mail address, home address, phone number or "other" for any other known key words which might help. to use this, with Outlook Express running: 1. Press CONTROL E and TAB through the various elements to have a look around. 2. Note the "Look In" list, which starts with your Outlook Express Address book to find anyone there. After typing a contact's name or e-mail address, etc, you TAB to "Find Now" and press ENTER or just press ALT F. When found, you can then observe any details you have on this contact by pressing ENTER on the name. 3. If you change the search area from the Address Book by ARROWING down to one of the Web people search options, such as the Yahoo! People Search, Bigfoot Internet Directory Service, the Infospace Business Directory Service, etc, The "Address" and "Phone" fields disappear and a "Website" field is created, so that if you press ENTER on this you will be taken onto this service's Website. 4. Highlighting one of the people search facilities underneath the Address Book in "Look In", e.g. WhoWhere Internet Directory Service, and then pressing ALT F will take you onto the Internet and try to find this person or group using the details you have provided. For instance, in the "Address" field you can type in any home or business whereabouts, including address, street, city, state, zip code or country. Note that this is primarily US orientated. Similarly, in the "Phone" field you could enter the landline phone number of someone, their Fax number or mobile phone number to try to obtain more information on a person or group. Tip: You can use a search engine to find out how many Websites on the Net have links to a particular site. To achieve this, type the word"link:" in front of the URL you are looking for into the search field of a search engine such as Google or Altavista. For example: link:http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard or link:http://whitestick.co.ukg ******** >SECTION 7 E-MAILING OVERVIEW E-mailing is the process of sending letters/messages, text or voice files, video clips or computer programs electronically via a MODEM and phone line. 7.1. E-Mail Address Components E-mail is the short form of saying electronic mail. An e-mail address (the Internet's equivalent of a house address) has two parts separated by an at sign (@). The first part is personal and can sometimes be chosen by yourself or may have to be comprised of all or part of your name, e.g. johnw, and the second part is usually the name of your Internet provider, e.g. onetel.com, cwcom.net or aol.com. So an e-mail address would look something like: johnw@cwcom.net or john.wilson11@onetel.com The personal part of the address is your mailbox name and the onetel.com or cwcom.net part is your domain provider's name which holds that mailbox. Domain names tend to end in a suffix which has a meaning, such as: .fr for France .uk for United Kingdom .com for company .gov for Government .mil for military .int for international .net for network organisation .edu for educational organisation .org for non-profit-making organisation .co.uk for United Kingdom company .ws For world site .biz For Business sites .pro For sites for professionals .info For information sites .name For personal domain users .au for European Union companies, organisations and private individuals So, for example, if you see an e-mail address such as: john.wilson@rnib.org.uk you can determine from this that the person who will receive the message is called "John wilson" (if I worked there), the domain name is "RNIB" (this particular domain name is the RNIBs own personal domain rather than them using someone else's such as Freeserve), the "org" element depicts a non-profit-making organisation and, lastly, the "uk" suffix indicates that the message receiver is based in the United Kingdom. If you forget your e-mail address you can send yourself an e-mail using your login name or number and then examine the returned e- mail. The e-mail process works by you sending an e-mail to a central computer "server" which holds the mail and then passes it onto the recipient's PC when he runs his e-mail program. When someone sends you an e-mail the server holds the mail in your mailbox until you go online and either automatically or manually issue a command to download the mail to your PC. There are maximum amounts of space you are allotted on your provider's server for such as e-mail, e.g. my old ISP, which was Cable and Wireless (now taken over by NTL), allowed me to have up to five e-mail addresses, up to 20 Mb of space to create my own Website in and up to 10 Mb of their server's disk space to store my received e-mails in (my mailbox) before it is full and can take no more mail until I download some. If your mailbox becomes full, you should receive a message from your ISP informing you of this when you next go on line. Similarly, if someone elses's mail box is full and you have sent them an e- mail, you should receive a message advising you of this so that you can try to send your message again later when there may be room in the recipient's mailbox to accept it. Examples of free computer-based Windows e-mail programs you may wish to use are: Pegasus--Which is a standalone e-mail program. Outlook Express--which comes with Internet Explorer. Netscape Communicator--with its e-mail capabilities. Eudora--Another stand-alone e-mail client. 7.2. Web-Based E-Mail Providers There are alternatives to e-mail software on your PC for e- mailing. These reside on the Net and examples are Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Lycos Mail and Google Mail. You can download from such a Web-based e-mail provider into some on-Pc e-mail clients, such as MS Outlook. You can also access your messages on these Web-based e-mail clients whilst you are out of the country, which might not be so easy if you use your on-PC e-mail client, because of unconntactable 0845, etc, phone numbers which are frequently used with ISP-based and on-PC e-mail servers and clients. For example, to sign up for the Microsoft Hotmail e-mail service with Outlook Express: 1. With Outlook express running, press ALT T (for Tools) and then E (for New Account Signup) with Windows 95 or A (for Accounts) with Windows 98. 2. In Windows 95 The "Hotmail" option will appear, so press ENTER. In Windows 98 and later the process is different, so see the earlier section entitled "Setting up an Hotmail or other Account" above. 3. In Windows 95, if you are not already online, you will be taken on line with your Web browser to the Hotmail sign-up page where you provide and are supplied with all of the necessary details to create the new account. 7.3. 1-Step--Voice E-Mail "1-Step" is a blind-friendly program which permits you to send your e-mail messages audibly instead of in text. You will require a sound card and microphone and the recipient will also need a copy of the 1-step software. Your message is e-mailed in yore own voice for the receiver to hear. You can also use the 1-Step program to insert audio into a Website, perhaps to provide a description of a picture on a site. You can download a demo copy of the 1-Step software from: www.audio-tips.com ******** >SECTION 8 E-MAILING WITH OUTLOOK EXPRESS VERSIONS 5.0, 5.5 AND 6.0 This free e-mail facility comes with Internet Explorer, part of Windows 95 and Windows 98. It can be used as your e-mail reader and also as your Usenet newsgroups reader. If your version of Windows 95 still has the older e-mail program called "Internet Mail", you can update this by downloading an up-to-date version of Internet Explorer and Outlook Express from the Microsoft website at: www.microsoft.com Whilst this section does not attempt to cover every possible feature in Outlook Express, it will give enough guidance and instruction to permit users to confidently perform the majority of e-mailing requirements competently and efficiently. Whether you use Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5 or 6.0, there are few differences in their contents or how they work. Of note is that Oe6 features extra encryption and security features and these have been mentioned in part 6 of the sub-section entitled "Outlook Express E-Mailing Options and Customisation for Visually Impaired People" below. 8.1. Pen-Picture of the Outlook Express Screen Outlook Express uses the same default screen set-up for both e- mail reading and for newsgroups reading. It opens with four windows. The window at the left uppermost (taking up about a quarter of the width of the screen and extending to your contacts Address Book Window at the very bottom) contains the Folders Window with a list of such items as the Local Folders, Inbox, Sent Items, etc, plus at the bottom your newsgroups. The second window (at the bottom left) is the Contacts Window which holds the Contacts Address Book where you can place and retrieve regularly used e-mail addresses. The third pane is the largest and is the Message (or Main) Window which is at the top of the screen, under the Toolbar, and covers the whole of the rest of the right-hand side of the screen to about two-thirds of the way down. It holds the list of message headers in the current newsgroup or the list of e-mail subject lines. The fourth window is the Preview Window (or View Message Window) covering the rest of the screen underneath the Message Window and is where the textual contents of any e-mail or newsgroup article is displayed. Pressing the TAB key circulates you through these four windows and, after stopping on any of them, pressing the ARROW up and down keys reads the individual newsgroups, folders or article titles/headers. You then press ENTER to open up the full text of the e-mail or newsgroup article and the ESC key to close it and go back to the Message Window. When you are on a folder, such as the "Sent Items" folder, you can move to the list of messages in that folder by pressing TAB and then you can ARROW through them. To return to the list of folders, press SHIFT TAB. Alternatively, to go directly to your "Local Folders" list, press CONTROL Y, press ENTER and ARROW up and down. After pressing CONTROL Y you are also able to create a new subfolder in the Local Folders folder by pressing TAB to the "New Folder" button, pressing ENTER and typing in the editfield the foldername you would like, e.g. "Saved Items", then TAB once and press ENTER on OK. If, when you first press CONTROL Y, you do not press ENTER but rather immediately start ARROWING down, you will hear your list of subfolders in your Local Folders list and then move onto your list of newsgroup server main folders. To open a list of the subscribed newsgroups on any news server folder, press ENTER and the newsgroups will open up to ARROW through. An alternative way to open up the "New Folders" dialogue box from that mentioned in the above paragraph is by pressing CONTROL SHIFT E. When looking at the subject lines in e-mail and newsgroup headers, you may find most of them to be truncated. If you want to hear more of the subjects or headers, you should maximise the window in the normal way by pressing ALT SPACEBAR followed by the letter X. However, if this does not permanently maximise Outlook Express for you, you can get things maximised permanently by: 1. Press Windows Key, then P (for Programs) and then O until you get to "Outlook Express". 2. Then press SHIFT F10 to open a Context Menu and then R (for Properties). 3. You should now be in the "Shortcut" property sheet (press CONTROL TAB to get there if you are not already there). In this Shortcut sheet press TAB several times to move through the various lists and editfields you can now make changes in to how Outlook Express behaves. In the "Run" list ARROW from whatever you are currently on to "Maximised". 4. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. Note: In the above Shortcut property sheet you can also define a shortcut key combination which you can thereafter press to launch Outlook Express instead of opening it in any other way, e.g. in the "Hot Key" field you could hold down such as the ALT and CONTROL keys and then press the O key to make ALT CONTROL O the quick hot key shortcut for running Outlook Express in future. You may also wish to reduce the number of windows which display on the Outlook Express screen by closing one or both of the Contacts Address Book or Preview Windows. You will then only have to TAB through two or three windows rather than four, if you prefer this. To close these windows, press ALT V, L, and uncheck "contacts" and/or "Use the Preview Pane to quickly View a Message without Opening a Separate Window". In this same dialogue box you can turn off other menus and toolbars if you wish to obtain more screen space and less clutter. Experiment to find out what configuration suits you. To have a good look around Outlook Express without being online and running up a phone bill, you should TAB from the "connect" button, which you will normally land on when you start Outlook Express, to the "Work offline" button and press ENTER. You may then have to press the ESCAPE key once or twice. Additionally, any time you are online and want to disconnect your phone line, you can press ALT F, and arrow up to "Work Offline" and press ENTER. 8.2. Outlook Express E-Mailing Options and Customisation for Visually Impaired People To work optimally with speech and assist others who receive your e-mails, the following option settings are recommended: Tools, Options Configurations 1. Launch Outlook Express from the icon on your Desktop by pressing Windows Logo Key M (or Windows Logo key D) and then O until Outlook Express is found and then press ENTER. Now enter the Tools, Options set of Property Sheets by pressing ALT T, O and you will be in a multi-page dialogue box. You can move from one property sheet to the next by pressing CONTROL TAB and pressing SHIFT CONTROL TAB moves you backwards. 2. The "General" property sheet--Some users may prefer the more predictable "Go Directly to My Inbox Folder" option to be checked to start all sessions from this point. However, if you check this, it will bypass the initial links which you have available to TAB through when this is not checked. The "play Sounds" option should be checked if you would like an audible beep when e-mails have successfully finished downloading, but note that if there are no messages to download, you will get no finished downloading beep. You may also want the "Send and Receive Messages at Start Up" option checking so that you do not have to manually do this-- this does not mean that you are compelled to go straight online as soon as you load Outlook Express, although you can if you wish to. Then hold down CONTROL and press TAB until you reach the "Send" sheet. 3. The "Send" Property Sheet--Ensure that "Save Copy of Sent Messages in the Saved Items Folder" is checked. The "Send Messages Immediately" option should be unchecked, so that you can determine yourself when to send a message or block of messages. Then TAB down to "Automatically Complete E-Mail Addresses" and uncheck this to avoid the potentially confusing situation where Outlook Express does things you may not expect or want (but some users like this facility, so experiment with both checked and unchecked). Then Tab to "Reply to Messages using the Format in which they were Send" and uncheck this. Tab on to The "Plain Text" button and check this. Tab forward again to the next "Plain Text" button and also check this. Now TAB to "Plain Text Settings" and press ENTER, when you can then TAB down to "Automatically Wrap Text At" and type in a figure such as 60 to replace the current figure, as this will help anyone receiving your e-mail be able to read it in their word-processor because the lines will not be too long and will therefore not be uneven. Then press ENTER on "OK" and press CONTROL TAB to the "Signatures" Property Sheet. 4. In the "Signatures" property sheet--If you invariably use the same complimentary close and want to avoid having to type this at the end of all of your messages, Tab to the "New" button and press ENTER. In the editfield which appears, you just type the close and signature you want for all your messages, e.g. type "Yours truly," (press ENTER) "John Wilson", and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. Then TAB to "Add Signatures to All Outgoing Messages" and check this. You can also elect to have this signature appended to your replies and forwarded messages, if you like. Then press CONTROL TAB to the "connection" sheet. 5. In the "Connections" sheet--If you do not want to go offline automatically after sending and receiving mail, uncheck the "Hang Up After Sending and Receiving" line. You may want to do some general Net surfing before cutting off. You can always go offline manually, if you prefer, with ALT F, W, press ENTER and then Y. It is cheaper to have this checked if you only want to upload and download email using a pay-as-you-go ISP connection but if you immediately want to do some Web surfing it will be more economical not to have to reconnect again--make your own mind up on this, depending upon how you intend to plan your e-mailing/Net surfing escapades and the costs of your ISP/phone providers connection charges, if any. If you have a broadband connection which you leave open all of the time because you pay for continuous connection monthly, you will not wish to be disconnected every time you complete an e-mail downloading session. Then press CONTROL TAB until you reach the "Security" sheet. 6. In the "Security" sheet--In Internet Explorer 6, you will find two options which may be of interest to you. If you have the "Warn Me when Other Applications Try to Send Mail as Me" checked on, then if you have contracted an e-mail virus which then tries to spread itself to others via the contacts in your Address Book, you will be warned so that you can prevent this and be advised that you have this type of virus. You can then take action to remove it with your virus-checker. The "Do Not Allow Attachments to be Saved or Opened that Could Potentially be a Virus" option does just what it says, it prevents attachments from being opened or saved. This is something you may wish to do to feel save from e-mail viruses but will, obviously, deprive you of those attachments, thus a better alternative to checking this option on would be to ensure that you have a good, up-to-date virus- checker which has its ability to check incoming e-mail for viruses and clean them for you switched on. 7. There are many more configurable options in these sheets, so CONTROL TAB through them all and TAB through each sheet and experiment with the many on/off and checked/unchecked alternatives when you become more confident with what you are doing. Most people have their own ideas of what is an optimal set up and there is no one best configuration for all. 8. To save all of the above changes simultaneously, TAB to "OK" in any of the property sheets and press ENTER. You can also press ENTER on any of the "Apply" buttons if you want to save changes property sheet by property sheet. View, Columns Configurations Because the subject lines in some of your e-mails may be too long to get all of it on screen, you may wish to increase the available subject line space. You can do this by: 1. With Outlook Express running, press ALT V (for View) and then C (for Columns). 2. ARROW down to "Subject". 3. TAB to "The Selected Column Should Be" (or it may just read "Pixels Wide") and BACKSPACE the figure out which is in there and replace it with a larger figure, such as 350. 5. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. Note: If your screenreader reads out not only the subject of an e-mail as you ARROW down your Inbox but also the word "received" followed by the date a given message was received and you would like to exclude the received date to be able to hear the subject with less interference rom other unnecessary information, in the above View, Columns dialogue, you can ARROW to the "Received" option and then TAB to and press ENTER on "Hide" followed by ENTER on Reset" to finish. 8.3. Composing and Sending E-Mail To write and send e-mail: 1. Go to the Outlook Express icon on your Desktop and press ENTER, or run it by pressing the Windows LOGO key, P for programs, O for outlook Express and when you reach it (you may have to press O several times, press ENTER. The program will start up and you should land in a list of messages in the current folder, e.g. your Inbox. If you instead land in such as your Contacts list, just TAB two or so times until you reach your Inbox if you like but this is not essential. 2. To create a message press CONTROL n, when the new message window will open and you will fall on the first of four text entry boxes. The first is labelled "To:" and this is where you enter the recipient's e-mail address, e.g argos@freeserve.co.uk. You can press ENTER and type in more recipients' addresses separated by semi-colons if you want to send several copies to different people. You then press the TAB key to the next editbox. All recipients will be able to view the list of people you sent this same message to. 3. The next editbox is entitled "CC:" and is where you would type other people's e-mail addresses if you wanted them to receive the equivalent of carbon copies of the message. You then press TAB again. 4. You should now be at the "Subject" editbox, so type in an appropriate message title or subject and press TAB again. 5. You will now have moved from the e-mail header area to the fourth editbox, which is the main editfield where you type in the body of your letter or message in the normal way. 6. After completing the typing you can spell-check it by pressing F7 but this only works if you have a copy of Microsoft Word or Works on your computer as Outlook Express shares the Word/Works spell-checker. If you do not have a copy of Word, you can download spell-checkers from the Web for this purpose from sites such as www.tucows.com. 7. to send the message press ALT S, when it will either: A. Be sent straightaway if you are already online; or B. If you are working offline, just press ENTER, when the message will be placed in your "Outbox" folder ready to be sent when you are ready to go online. 8. If you were offline as in B above, to complete the sending process, press CONTROL M and your message or several messages will be on their way and any e-mails in your server's mailbox will simultaneously be pulled down to your e-mail client's inbox. If you were not already connected to the Internet, you may get a message asking if you want to connect and go online, so press ENTER on yes. 9. If you have finished with your Internet connection and want to go offline and close Outlook Express down, you should press ALT F (for File) and then X (for Exit) or use the shortcut of ALT F4. If you still have any unsent messages in your Outbox, you will be prompted to either send them immediately or go offline without sending them. You should press "Y" to send them first or "N" to go offline without sending them. Note that your screenreader may sometimes loose focus on this latter Yes or No dialogue box, so you may have to press ALT TAB to get focus back before pressing "Y" or "N". 10. If, on the other hand, you decide that you want to keep using Outlook Express but do not want to remain online incurring phone charges, you can do this by simply pressing ALT F (for File) and then W (for Work Offline", when your phone line will be disconnected for you. Note 1: You can invoke another header editfield known as "BCC:", which will appear between the "CC:" and "Subject:" fields by pressing CONTROL N, THEN alt V, a. This is the blind carbon copy field which some people like to use. The difference between sending a copy in this BCC way and in the CC way is that a copy sent in this box is "secret", i.e. the other recipients of your e-mail do not know that a copy was sent to the BCC recipient--very inclandestine! You can also use the hot key of ALT B to turn the BCC field on and off when in the message header. Note 2: There may be other fields in the header of an e-mail you send or receive, such as "From", "Date" and "Time" but these are automatically completed for you by Outlook Express itself from information it holds on you and from the computer's system clock. If you have two or more e-mail addresses, you can ARROW up or down the "From:" header to put focus on the address you wish to use to send your mail. Note 3: Remember to Maximise the screen (with ALT SPACEBAR AND X) straight after pressing CONTROL N to open a message for composing if it is not already maximised. Thereafter, it should remain maximised each subsequent time you open a new message window but there are instances when the maximised state of the new message window fails to hold. If this happens to you, which will mean that you cannot easily read what you have typed in the message body area after about 10 lines have been typed, remember to maximise each time. Note 4: Be aware that, as e-mail over the Internet is not secure, you should not include information such as your credit card details, bank account information, etc, as it could be intercepted by fraudulent persons. This is in contrast to using "padlocked" Internet shopping sites, where your information is protected by heavy encryption and therefore more secure than using your credit card in a shop or restaurant, provided that you only use secure shopping sites, of course. (This is explained in more depth in Volume 2 of this manual.) Tip 1: If you want to hide your own e-mail address from being viewed by a recipient, you can do this by sending the mail to yourself and putting the recipient's address or e-mail list's address in the BCC field. Tip 2: A quick way to open Outlook Express and send a message and then have it automatically close again is to use the Run dialogue by pressing Windows key R, then typing into the editfield you will now be in the e-mail address of the recipient preceded by the word "mailto:", e.g. "mailto:jwjw@onetel.com" (no quotes). You then press ENTER and Outlook Express will open, let you complete the rest of the e-mail headers and message body and then send it as usual by pressing ALT S--and you have finished! You may also find that this approach works if you also have an Internet telephony program set up on your PC like MSN Messenger or Skype by typing such as "callto:jwjw@onetel.com" into the Run dialogue. 8.4. Sending or Forwarding Multiple E-Mails Simultaneously If you wish to mass-mail many people simultaneously, you can do this without having to send them individual messages or even type a long list of addresses into the "To:" field as mentioned above. What you can do is: 1. Either: A. To send an original message, press CONTROL N to open a new message window. or B. To forward a message, with the message open on screen, press CONTROL F. 2. Then press ALT T (for Tools) followed by R (for Select Recipients). 3. In the dialogue which opens up, TAB three times to the "Address List" field, where you will be in your standard Address Book. You may find yourself at the bottom or top of the contacts list. 4. ARROW down or up the contact name entries in the above list and select any number you wish to send the same message to. For example, if you had ten names beginning with the letter A, just hold the SHIFT key down and ARROW down ten times to highlight them all. Alternatively, if you wanted to e-mail everyone in your Address Book, with the cursor at the top of the list, press CONTROL SHIFT down ARROW. If you just want to send the message to, say, four people spread around your Address Book, go to the first recipient, highlight it by pressing CONTROL SPACEBAR and then, with the CONTROL key still pressed, move to the next Address Book entry and press SPACEBAR again, etc, until all four are highlighted. If you wanted to select large blocks of entries, hold the SHIFT key down and press the PAGE down key several times. 5.A. Now press TAB three times to the "To:" button and press ENTER on it. Note, though, that with this option everyone you have highlighted to receive your message will know who else has also received it. All of the recipients' names will appear in the "To:" field. 5.B. If you do not want the other recipients of your message to know who else has received it, you should TAB on past the "To:" button to the "BCC:" button, press ENTER on that, and then continue as below. 6. You can now press TAB once to view the full list of Address Book entries you have selected for mailing. 7. You may have only selected/highlighted the precise entries you wish to send a message to or you may have highlighted your hole Address Book. If the latter and you find that you now do not want a few of the selections, you can ARROW to them in this list and just press DELETE on them to remove the unwanted entries. Sometimes this latter method is faster than individually selecting Address Book entries if you want to mail most of the people in the Address Book. 8. Lastly, TAB forward to "OK" and press ENTER. 9. Now that the recipients are selected you should be able to view them in your e-mail header "To:" or "BCC" field but you may have to use mouse mode to do this. 10. You can now simply tAB to the "Subject" and then the message body and complete the rest of your message as normal and send it, as described from 3. onwards in the previous subsection. Note 1: You can also, at step 4 above, if you prefer, get individual contacts in the contacts list inserted into your "To:", "CC:" or "BCC:" lists by pressing either ALT T, ALT C or ALT B respectively when the contact's name has focus. Note 2: When I try to send more than 100 e-mails in this way my server fails to co-operate and tells me that I am trying to e- mail to too many recipients. This may vary depending on the ISP/e-mail provider, so you will have to experiment with yours. You may have to settle for mass mailing in blocks of, say, 50 at a time. Note 3: If just one of your e-mail addresses is not typed in your Address Book in the correct format, all of the messages in the block you are sending will bounce and fail to be delivered. You will have to correct or erase the offending Address Book e-mail address and re-send the block. This does not happen if one of the recipient's address is simply not found or now obsolete. 8.5. Undelivered E-Mail If your e-mail is undelivered for some reason, most commonly because you have typed in the wrong e-mail address, the next time you go online it will be returned to you together with your other e-mails from the server mail box. It will have been returned by the "Postmaster" on your server and will indicate the reason for non-delivery. This could include the reason that the recipient's mailbox is full, so you will have to send the message again later. 8.6. Receiving and Reading E-Mail To receive your e-mails: 1. Launch Outlook Express (as above). 2. Press CONTROL M, when all of your messages will be downloaded from the server and placed in your Inbox. Simultaneously, the e- mail in your Outbox will also be sent. 3. Press CONTROL I to go to the inbox, if you are not already there, when you will normally fall on the last message in the box if it was empty. If you do not come into your Inbox in this way, you may have to press the TAB key twice to get there. You will be able to ARROW up and down the messages and press ENTER on any one of them to open it and read it. If you want to read your messages in the order that they are deposited in your Inbox, provided that you have not changed the default way that Outlook Express lists messages, you should press CONTROL HOME to go to the top of the list and then view the messages by ARROWING down them. Every time you have read a message and then deleted it, the next message will move up the list to where the deleted message was. 4. You can read the body of the message by PAGing and ARROWING up and down in the message as normal and you can cut and paste to and from it. You can TAB forward or SHIFT TAB backward through the headings and message body and your screenreader may also feature hot keys to read certain parts of the message to you automatically, e.g. HAL 5 will read the author's name, subject line and message date for you if you press SHIFT NumPad 8. With Window-Eyes you will have to leave MSAA mode by pressing CONTROL SHIFT A before you can TAB through the message headers. Later versions of Window-Eyes also feature hot keys to read given header details to you as well, for instance, press F5 to hear author information including such as who sent you the currently open e-mail, the date, subject line, etc, and press F6 to open the attachments list and hear any attachment titles if you have any in the open message. 5. When you have finished with the message, press the ESC key to close the message window and return you to the inbox message list. You can delete, reply to, forward or print a message. Note 1: Depending on the screenreader you are using, whilst your messages are downloading in step 2 above, you should be able to TAB or down ARROW through a number of options, e.g. there will be a "Stop" button to disconnect the download part way through and a "Hang up after sending and receiving" button to check (by pressing SPACEBAR on it) if you would like to be taken offline as soon as the messages have finished downloading. Note 2:Should you not wish to simultaneously upload and download your messages by using CONTROL M, you can elect to either just upload or download if you wish. Do this by pressing ALT T (for Tools), then press ENTER on "Send and Receive", followed by either pressing ENTER on "Receive All" or "Send All" to just receive or just send respectively. Note 3: If you have a lot of messages to download or upload or one of your messages has a large attachment on it which might take a long time to download, you can open and read any already downloaded messages whilst the rest of the messages are uploading or downloading without doing anything detrimental to the procedure. However, experiment with this because doing this may not be stable with all screenreaders and system set-ups. Note 4: If, for any reason, you are cut off part way through a download of messages, you are likely to find that when you next go online to download your mail, you will receive both your new messages and duplicate copies of the messages you already downloaded but which were cut off. This is because, when you do a successful complete message download, at the end of the download, your mail client then deletes the downloaded messages from your server's mailbox, which fails to happen if you are cut off part way through a download. 8.7. Finding an E-Mail Message Remember that messages in your Inbox will be kept in alphabetical order by default, so you can ARROW or PAGE down (or up) through these to find one. If you have many messages in your Inbox and want to go straight to one of these, provided you know some basic information, such as who sent it, some of the title, some key words in its message body, etc, you can use the CONTROL SHIFT F shortcut: 1. With Outlook Express running and your Inbox open, press ALT E (for Edit) and then F (for Find), followed by pressing ENTER and the find dialogue box will open. If you are using JAWS, you can acheive this by just pressing CONTROL SHIFT F. 2. The focus should fall on your "Inbox" where your messages are downloaded to. 3. TAB forward to the "From" editfield and if you know who has sent you a message, type in their name and press the ENTER key. If this person is in the Inbox, you will be taken straight to that e-mail and pressing ENTER again will open it for reading. 4. Alternatively, if you do not know a name, you could TAB to the "Subject" editfield and type the whole subject line in here, if you know it, or just one of the keywords of the subject in to have an e-mail or number of likely e-mails found. You can also, if all you know is some of the likely key words in the message field, TAB to the "Message" editfield and type these in and press ENTER, e.g. if only one of your messages is to do with quantum mechanics, type in the word "Quantum". If more than one of your messages contains the word quantum, you will be presented with a list of all the messages which have this word in them to ARROW up and down and press ENTER on to open them in turn. 5. There are ways of further refining a search, such as advising when a message was received before or after and you can, for instance, check the "Message Has Attachment" box if you know this was the case. Therefore, a message with a given word in the "Subject:" line plus having an attachment with it would be found and no messages would be found which do not meet both of these criteria. 6. You can do the same in the other folders which are in your Outlook Express folders list by TABBING to the "Browse" button, pressing ENTER and then ARROWING up and down through "Inbox", "Outbox", "Sent Items", etc. 7. When you have the focus on the folder which contains the e- mail you want to find, e.g. your "Deleted Items" folder, Press TAB once to OK and then press ENTER. You will return to the "Browse" button, so TAB forward to the "From" editfield and type in the name of the person who sent you the e-mail, then either TAB forward to "Find" and press ENTER or press ALT I. 8. If you wish to search all folders simultaneously, you should browse to the "Outlook Express" main folder instead of one of the sub-folders before carrying out these instructions. 9. The message will be found for you to press ENTER on and open up for reading. 10. If you wish to find a particular word or phrase within a message when it is opened up and on screen, you can either use the CONTROL SHIFT F shortcut or just press F3. You then type the word to search for in the editfield which you drop in and press ALT F to commence the search. Use "Find Next" to find a subsequent occurrence of the same word or phrase (you may have to use your navigation/mouse mode to read the result of the find operation). Note 1: You can use the above method to find all of the messages from a given person or with a particular word or words in the subject line in order to bulk delete them if you do not wish to read multiple messages from someone or on a particular topic thread, e.g. press ALT E, F, press ENTER, then press ALT U and type a word or words which appear in the subject line, press ENTER and then in the list of messages containing those words in the subject line just press CONTROL A to highlight them all and then press DELETE to erase them all, followed by ESCAPE. Note 2: Your "Sent Items, "Deleted Items", etc, folders will not be in alphabetical order and, if they become crowded with messages you do not want to get rid of, you may wish to have things placed in alphabetical order for ease of finding by ARROWING or PAGING through them. To do this Press ALT V (for View) and B (for Sort By) and press ENTER on "From" and "Sort Ascending" if they are not already checked. Your messages will no longer be in date received order but rather in alphabetical order from A to Z. 8.8. Deleting E-Mail Messages You can delete messages individually or in category groups. 8.8.1. Deleting Single Messages or Whole Folders of Messages To delete a message in your Inbox, press CONTROL I, cursor to the message you want to delete and when it is highlighted (spoken) press the DEL key.You can do the same with any messages in your Sent Items, Outbox, Deleted Items, etc, folders by pressing CONTROL Y and ARROWING to the subfolder first. To delete the whole contents of a subfolder, e.g. your Saved Items folder, open the subfolder, go to the bottom of the message list with CONTROL END and then press CONTROL SHIFT HOME to highlight all the messages in the folder, followed by pressing the DEL key and Y to confirm. You could do the above to also delete the whole contents of your Deleted Items folder but there is a quicker way to do this. Just press ALT E (for Edit) followed by Y (for Empty Deleted Items Folder) and then Y to confirm the action. 8.8.2. Deleting Groups of Messages by Conversation/Subject You can read and delete whole threads of messages with the same title in their subject header by working in "Group Message by Conversation" mode. This can make getting rid of blocks of unwanted e-mails, such as some topics from e-mail disscussion lists, quick to achieve. Do this by: 1. Change your view by pressing ALT V, V and then ARROWING up to "Group Messages by Conversation" and press ENTER. 2. Now, when you have many messages in your Inbox, you will find that they are all displayed in groups with the same subject, i.e. the original e-mail query with all of the replies to it underneath it. You can ARROW up and down the groups of messages as normal and expand/open up a group or thread of messages/replies by pressing the right ARROW key if it is not already expanded and you can then ARROW down the replies. 3. To delete a whole group, with your cursor on the first message in the group, press your left ARROW key to collapse the group if it has been expanded and then press the DELETE key. The original message and all replies to it will simultaneously be deleted and sent to the Deleted Items folder in the same grouped structure. 4. You are likely to receive a message asking you if you wish to continue. You can either press ENTER on the "Yes" button to get rid of them all and do this every time you delete a group of messages, or you can TAB to a "Don't Ask Me This Again" button and press SPACEBAR on this to ensure that in future when you delete groups of messages the unwanted messages are all deleted without you having to press ENTER on the "Yes" button. Note: The above example assumes that you have "Automatically Expand Group Messages" checked on in your Tools, Options, Read property sheet. On the other hand, if you have this unchecked, the message replies will not be automatically displayed below the main message which initiated the group discussion and you will have to ARROW right to open and then ARROW down to view the reply message group. 8.9. Viewing Only Specific Mail and News Messages Your Inbox and Newsgroups folders may sometimes hold so many messages in them that they become difficult to work with and read. To narrow down what mail and news messages are shown in these folders, Outlook Express provides facilities to make it easier to deal with messages, so that you can quickly find only the messages you are interested in and have the others excluded from view. for example, with the folder open that you want to make restrictions in, e.g. the Inbox, if you press ALT V and hit ENTER on the "Current View" option you can choose to view all messages by pressing ENTER on "Show All Messages" if it is not already checked, or you can choose "Hide Read Messages" to display only the messages which you have not yet opened, or you can press ENTER on "hide Read or Ignored Messages" to hide messages you have marked as "ignore" as well as opened/read ones. You can also arrange Inbox messages by their subjects by selecting "Group Messages by Conversation". You can also make the above viewing restrictions in the newsgroups folder, in addition to some which are only available when you have your newsgroups folder open. Opening a news message makes these extra message filters available. Thereafter pressing ALT V, pressing ENTER on "Current View" and then on "Downloaded Messages" will display your most recently downloaded messages. Selecting "Show Replies to My Messages" will display only the responses you have had to a message you posted on the newsgroup yourself. There are also ways of customising current views and defining new views but you should be careful not to create a view you cannot thereafter use and thereby get yourself into difficulty. The screenreaders I have tested with do not, on the whole, do very well in these dialogue boxes. 8.10. Replying to E-Mail You are able to reply to the sender/author of an e-mail only, if you wish, or to all of the people he/she sent that e-mail to if it was sent to several recipients at the same time. 8.10.1. Replying to the E-mail Sender Only To reply to an e-mail you have received from someone else, with the original message on screen, press CONTROL R, when you will be set up to complete the message editfield with your own return message. The original message will appear immediately after your return message, the "To" field will have been automatically completed for you from the original message and the "Subject" editbox will have been completed with the original message's title preceded by the letters "Re:" meaning reply. Remember to check the "To:" editbox to ensure that it is going to go back to the correct place--the original may have been forwarded by a third party or from an e-mail list. It is a good idea to edit out any extraneous header codes, etc, before returning or forwarding a message. 8.10.2. Replying to all Recipients of an E-Mail If the above original message was simultaneously sent to you and several other recipients (i.e. those listed in the "To:" field of the message), you can send a reply to the author plus all other recipients by pressing CONTROL SHIFT R and then continuing as in the last sub-section. Tip: If you want to know the e-mail address of someone Who's message you have received via an e-mail list, with the message open, you can do so by pressing CONTROL F3. You can then ARROW up to the sender's name and address and you can ARROW through several other details and properties pertinent to that message and sender. Close this details list by pressing ALT F4. 8.11. Forwarding E-Mail to Other People Forwarding is when you pass a message you have received onto someone else, at the end of a message of your own. To do this: 1. With the original message open on screen that you wish to forward to someone else, press CONTROL F and complete the "To:" editbox with the new recipient's e-mail address. The "Subject" line will automatically be completed with the original message's subject title preceded by the letters "FW:". 2. Type a line or two into the message body area to advise the person you are forwarding the message to that this is what you are doing, e.g.: "Hello Jim, Have a look at the message below, which I received from another friend. I think that it may interest you." 3. Send the message as normal by pressing ALT S and then ENTER. 4. It will be forwarded when you complete the sending process with CONTROL M. However, note the following: Forwarded messages have all lines of the original message you are forwarding preceded by a greater than (>) sign. This can be irritating to listen to via a speech synthesiser, so you can ensure that these > symbols do not get sent with the message by: 1. With Outlook Express running, press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options. 2. Now CONTROL TAB TO "Send" and TAB to "HTML Settings" or "Plain Text Settings" (depending on which one you have checked--it should be the text one). 3. You can now TAB to "Indent Your Message With" and if it is checked on (it is by default), press SPACEBAR to uncheck this so that the > sign does not appear in messages you forward. Note, however, this will not stop you from receiving such "indents" from others if they have not set up their options to send in the same way. Note: If your original message had an attachment with it, this attachment will also be forwarded with the forwarded message. 8.12. The Outlook Express Address Book 8.12.1. What is the Address Book and what can you do with it? The Address Book (also known as the Contacts List) is where you can save friends' or other regularly used e-mail addresses (and other details) in order to place focus on one of these and press ENTER. The selected contact's property sheet with a summary of their details which you entered about them will then become available for you to TAB through. You can also CONTROL TAB to several other property sheets for viewing relevant contact details, e.g. their Website "Home Page", their "Business Page", etc. When these properties are open, you can also add further contact details in the editfields in these property sheets as well and save them via the OK button. Note that some screenreaders will not automatically read the contents of these editfields without you having to use the screenreader's read current line hot key. 8.12.2. Quickly Inserting a Contact's E-Mail Address into the "To" Header if you Cannot Remember It If you want a quick way to get a contact's e-mail address automatically entered into the e-mail "To:" editfield when sending an e-mail, you can just type this person's name in the "To:" editfield precisely as it appears in the Address Book after pressing CONTROL N, when the program will automatically find this person in the Address Book and enter his/her e-mail address for you. Normally, any e-mails you reply to will have the recipient's e- mail address placed in the Address Book automatically, as long as this feature is switched on in the Tools, Options, Send dialogue box. 8.12.3. Manually Adding Someone to your Address Book/Contacts List If you want to add someone's e-mail address to your Address Book e-mail "Name" property sheet yourself, you would: 1. Press ALT F (for File). 2. Then N (for New). 3. Now press C (for Contact). 4. Now TAB through and complete the details you are asked for, such as the new contact's name, e-mail address, etc, and then TAB to and press ENTER on "Add". If this person has more than one e-mail address, you can now immediately type the next address as you will have been returned to the "E- Mail Addresses" editfield. 5. You then TAB again to "Add" and press ENTER. 6. If you are regularly e-mail corresponding with visually impaired people, it is then advisable to TAB to the "Send E-Mail Using Plain Text Only" button and check this on by pressing the SPACEBAR before TABBING to the "OK" button to complete the process by pressing ENTER. Note: The above "Name" property sheet is only one of seven in the Address Book, so you should press CONTROL TAB to move through the others to see what you can do here. For instance, you can enter and save details of home, business and personal facts, even things such as anniversary and birthday dates; you can press ENTER on the "Go" buttons to be taken onto this contact's home Web page, if you have entered his/her Web page address (URL) in the line above "Go", etc. Remember, you can press F1 at any time to obtain a brief help note of what any of these property sheet tabs is for. Yet another way to add someone to your Address Book is (with the person's message opened on screen): press ALT T, ARROW down to "Add to Address Book" and then press ENTER, followed by ARROWING down to "Sender" and again pressing ENTER. You can now complete any personal details for that contact in the various control tabs and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. 8.12.4. Moving to the Address Book and Finding an Entry You can get to the Address Book when Outlook Express first opens by TABBING forward until its link is spoken and then arrowing up and down or you can press CONTROL I and then press SHIFT TAB twice until it is spoken. When you are in the Address Book, you can jump to an entry by pressing the first letter of the contact's name you are looking for, e.g. if you are looking for Colin Smith, press C until his name is found, then press ENTER to open up the message screen to send him an e-mail. If you want to see details of the entries in your Address Book, such as someone's e-mail address, press CONTROL SHIFT B. 8.12.5. Using the Address Book Find People Feature There is an Address Book "Find People" shortcut by pressing CONTROL E. You then type in any details you have, such as name, e-mail address, etc, and press ENTER on the "Find" button. This would be useful if your Address Book is lengthy. Note: You can also use this find feature to find people who may be listed on such as Yahoo! People Search, Bigfoot Internet Directory Service, Switchboard Internet Directory Service, etc, by ARROWING to that particular option in the list of search services below the Address Book option. 8.13. E-Mail Address Groups (Distribution Lists) You can set up e-mail address groups (also known as distribution lists) of specific people in a group or club who you always send the same group messages to. You can then enter the group's name in the "To:" field of your message header or obtain it from your Address Book/Contacts List, type your message and send it to all members simultaneously. To set up a group: 1. Press CONTROL SHIFT B to open up the Address Book. 2. Press CONTROL G to open the group editing dialogue. 3. In the editfield which you fall in, type in the name of the group/club concerned, e.g. Computer Club. 4.A. If the members of this club are already in your Address Book, you should TAB to "Select" and press ENTER. Now TAB to a list box and ARROW up or down it to put focus on the club member (or type their name in to find it automatically). When the member's name is found, press ALT T to store this in your group list. Continue in this way until all Address Book club members have been stored. 4.B. If none of the Computer Club members are in your Address Book already, or only some of them are, you should TAB to "New Contact" and press ENTER. The standard new contact dialogue comes up for you to complete contact details as normal. Just keep pressing ENTER on "New" for each new group entry. 5. If you wish to record other details about the group, such as its address, phone number, Website address, etc, you can CONTROL TAB to a "Group Details" property sheet before completing the process. 6. After all group members have been stored, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. 7. The name of the group will now appear in your Address Book along with your individual Address Book contacts. 8. To send a copy of an e-mail to all group members simultaneously, just select the group name from your Address Book as normal and complete your message and send it. 9. To view the individual entries in a group and make amendments to any of the recorded details for a group member: A. Press CONTROL SHIFT B (or use the Tools, Address Book menu option). B. Type the group name into the editfield you will now be in from which you wish to view the member's details of or select it from the list of contacts after TABBING once and then press ENTER. C. TAB once more to "Main Identity's Contacts" and right ARROW once to open the list, ARROW to the group name in question, TAB again once or twice and then ARROW through the members in that group and press ENTER on any one to open up that contact item for viewing. D. You can now CONTROL TAB through several property sheets with differing details, summaries, etc, depending on what information you provided for that contact when you originally placed it into your Address Book. E. to delete a member from the group, place focus on the member you wish to have removed from the group, press the DELETE key and Y to confirm. Note 1: In the Address Book View Menu, "Folders and Groups" must be checked to be able to view group e-mail details. Note 2: When sending a message to a group, if just one of the recipient's messages bounces at the server, the whole lot will fail to be sent. In this case, you will have to remove the offending group member or correct the address and then re-send them. 8.14. Saving and Moving E-Mail You can save your mail in a folder full of messages, in a standard file or print it and file it away. When you delete a message from the Outlook Express Inbox, it is automatically saved in a folder called "Deleted Items", which appears in the folders list. This is an automatic place to save your e-mails and you can press the DEL key on any of these to completely delete it. However, you may wish to make a special folder for important messages to be saved in. Do this (with the focus on the "Local Folders" folder level) by pressing ALT F, F, N. Then give the new subfolder a name, e.g. Work Files, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. To copy a message to this new subfolder Go to the message headers in your Inbox, leave focus on the message you wish to move elsewhere, press CONTROL SHIFT V, ARROW down the list of folders to the one you want to move the message to, then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. To rename a folder, ARROW to it, press F2, type in the new name and press ENTER. To delete a folder and send it to the Recycle Bin, ARROW to the folder, press the DEL key and Y for yes. You can save a file as a text file with ALT F, A, type in a filename, TAB to "Save as Type" and ARROW to TXT , then TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. In the File Menu (ALT F), you can also elect to print a message, delete a message, move to a folder and copy to a folder. 8.15. Importing and Exporting If you have to reinstall Outlook Express onto a computer which you have already been running it on, you will not have to save your Address Book, Saved Items, etc, details and messages. They will be kept for you and made available as usual in your newly installed program. 8.15.1. Importing Messages, Address Books and Account Settings you may wish to import messages and other details into your currently installed copy of Outlook Express. You can do this by: 1. To import (copy from another e-mail program to Outlook Express), press ALT F (for File) and then I (for Import). 2. You will be able to ARROW up and down a list of possible import options, for instance, Address Book, messages, mail account settings, news account settings, etc (if the latter two options are not available in your version of Outlook Express, see the next sub-section for another method of importing and exporting account settings). Press ENTER on the one you require. 3. You are then given a list of e-mail programs to import (copy) from. These include such as Eudora, MS Internet Mail, MS Outlook, MS Outlook Express 4, Netscape Communicator, and several more. ARROW to the one you want and then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 4. The folder the messages you wish to import from should be automatically found by Outlook Express but if it is not, perhaps because you originally chose to save them in other than the default folder (not recommended), you can use the "Browse" button to navigate there in the usual Windows way. 5. Then TAB to "Finish" and press ENTER to complete the process. 8.15.2. Exporting Messages, Address Book Details, Account Settings and Other Files In a similar vein to the procedure explained in the last sub- section, you can also export Address Book and message details and files by using ALT F (for File) and then E (for Export) and then by going through a mirror process as with import but, of course, you will be copying from your current version of Outlook Express to another e-mail program or to another copy of Outlook Express. If you want to export your Outlook Express e-mail account settings, such as your POP3, SMTP, dial-up phone numbers, etc, to save in a file in case of some form of corruption or to transfer to another copy of Outlook Express, you do this as follows: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then A (for Accounts). 2. In the "Mail" property sheet (CONTROL TAB to it if you are not already on it), TAB to and press ENTER on the "export" button. 3. Your account name and/or e-mail address name will be offered as a filename to save to, e.g. if your account name is "Onetel" and your e-mail address is "jwjw" then the filename your account details will be saved to will be called "Onetel jwjw.iaf". Such files are always given an .iaf extension. 4. Then TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. 5. Lastly, TAB to "Close" and press ENTER to finish. Your e-mail settings file will have been saved, by default (unless you changed this) to your My Documents folder with the .iaf extension. You can now take this account settings file and use it to import these details into another copy of Outlook Express elsewhere using the same procedures as just explained but, in step 2, you choose the "Import" button instead of the "Export" button. Note: At stage 2 above, you can also CONTROL TAB to other property sheets and save different account settings if you like, such as your newsgroup settings if you use newsgroups. You can also export some or all of the information fields in your Address Book to a text file and save this for safe keeping if you wish. Do this by: 1. Go to your File menu and then press ENTER on "Export". 2. Now press ENTER on the "Address Book" option. 3. Then ARROW to "Text File (Comma Separated Values" and then TAB to the "Export" button and press ENTER. 4. You come into an editfield to say where you want the TXT file to be saved, so if you want it on a floppy disk, type in here "a:\adbook" or whatever you want to call the file and then press ENTER on "Next". 5. You now come into a pick list of headings corresponding to the information fields you may have in your Address Book, so if you want them all to appear in the file, highlight them all with CONTROL A. Otherwise, just ARROW down to the one after the last field you want, e.g. if you want the details down to "E-mail Address" only, ARROW to the line after the email field and then highlight from there upwards with CONTROL SHIFT up ARROW. 6. TAB to "Finish" and press ENTER to complete the procedure and send the file to a floppy disk. 8.15.3. Where Outlook Express Keeps its Data Files and How to Save them and Move them Elsewhere Outlook Express saves its data files several folders deep and gives them .dbx filename extensions. On my computer they are found in: C:\Windows\Application Data\Identities\{90340A80-DF6C-11D6-92F2- DBC9B1717252}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\ but, of course, the middle part of this path (the part between braces) will vary from computer to computer and from user to user if you have more than one user on a computer with different identities set up. To discover where your .dbx files are kept exactly, use the Windows Fine feature or the DOS DIR command and search for *.dbx. So, for example, your Inbox will have a filename of "inbox.dbx", your Outbox will be called "outbox.dbx", etc. If you have created a folder to filter your messages into from a specific e-mail list called Access-UK, then this will be saved as "access-uk.dbx". You are likely to have other saved .dbx files in this same sub- folder as well, such as "pop3uidl.dbx", "offline.dbx" and "folders.dbx (your Folders list data file). If you download e-mail to one computer and then wish to move the messages to another computer and read them on that, you can copy the inbox.dbx file to such as a laptop and work on it on that and then copy it back to your desktop PC later. You could copy it using the old DOS Interlink program via a cable connection or the more modern Laplink or Windows Direct Cable Connection feature, or you could copy it to a disk and then copy it from the disk to the other computer. If you use a floppy or recordable disk via which to transfer the files, they may have their attributes made read-only (R attribute) and so if this happens you will have to reset them so that they again become archive (A attribute) files. The Outlook Express Address Book with its contacts and contact details is saved in two files called "default.wab" and "default.wa~" in the path/folder of: C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\ If you copy these Address Book files to either a floppy disk (if they will fit) or to a CD or elsewhere on your computer, you will then be able to recover and replace any copy you may have which might become corrupted and unusable. 8.16. File Attachments A file attachment is where you insert a file created in another program into your e-mail. You may wish to do this instead of sending a plain text file in the body of your e-mail, for instance, with a Word or WordPerfect formatted file, so that the formatting, such as underlining and emboldening, are not lost in converting the file to text only, as would otherwise happen. 8.16.1. Attaching a file To attach a file: 1. With your cursor in the main Outlook Express e-mail message editfield, press ALT I, press ENTER on "File Attachment", then type the path to the file you want to send in the e-mail message editfield which you will fall in, TAB twice to "Attach" and press ENTER. If you do not know the path to the file, use the "Look In" button to browse to it in the normal Windows way. 2. Send the e-mail with the attachment as normal. 8.16.2. Opening and Saving an Attachment TO open an attachment or save one to disk prior to opening it: 1. To open an attachment (with the e-mail message open and on screen as if you were reading it), TAB (or SHIFT TAB ) to the attachment in the attachments list and press ENTER. The attachments list is found on your open e-mail between the Subject line and the message body. Alternatively, navigate to it in mouse/navigation/jaws mode and press ENTER. Your screenreader may also have a go to attachments list hot key, e.g. INSERT A with JAWS and F6 with Window-Eyes. If there is more than one attachment in an e-mail message, when you are on the first attachment, you can press the left and right and up and down ARROW keys to move through the others or press the first letter of the name of the attachment file and then press ENTER on them to open each. The multiple attachments are usually stacked up in a double verticle column but some screenreaders may change this to a single column. 2. When you open an attachment, you may get a Warning message about possible viruses in attachments. If you are satisfied that the source of the attachment is secure and bona fide, press ENTER to save the attachment to disk for later opening, or ARROW down to "Open It" to observe the contents of the attachment immediately in its associated program in such as Windows Notepad, for example, if it is a text file. 3. To change the default place where your attachments will be saved, after pressing ENTER on "Save it to Disk, accept the filename the attachment came with (or change it), then instead of TABBING to the "Save" button, immediately press SHIFT TAB twice. You will now be in a list of places to save to, starting with the Desktop, from where you can ARROW down to the C: drive, the A: floppy disk drive, etc, and just press ENTER when you reach where you want to save to. 4. Lastly, if you did not immediately elect to open the attachment as mentioned above but instead saved it to disk (which is recommended), go to the attachment wherever you saved it to and open it as usual by pressing ENTER on it or launch your word- processor or text editor and open it from its saved location in the normal way via the Open dialogue. Alternatively, you can save an attachment as follows: If you wish, you can save an attachment via the File Menu rather than SHIFT TABBING to it and pressing ENTER on it and using the procedure described above. With the e-mail message open on screen, you just press ALT F, ARROW to "Save Attachments" and press ENTER. You can choose which attachment to save in the list which appears, if there is more than one attachment in your message, and then TAB to and press ENTER on the "Save" button. You can also change the default place where attachments save, e.g. to My Documents if it is not already set up to go there. Note: It is recommended that, before opening a saved attachment, you run your virus-checker on it to ensure that it is clean of such as macro viruses (see Section 1 "Virus-checkers") for where to obtain a free virus-checker if you do not already have one. 8.17. Inserting Text into an E-Mail Message If you do not want to actually attach a file to your e-mail message, you can, instead, with a text only file, simply insert text at the cursor point in your message body by pressing ALT I, T (for text from file) and ENTER. All you do now is type in the path to where your plain text file can be found, e.g. c:\My Documents\readme.txt, and then TAB to "Open" to get it inserted into the message body of your open e-mail. You can, of course, navigate to this text file from the "Look In" tab if you wish instead of typing the path to it. 8.18. Jump to Links in E-mail You can not only use embedded links which others have provided in e-mail messages for you but also provide these links for recipients of your messages as well. 8.18.1. Jumping from E-Mail to a Website Sometimes an e-mail you receive, such as from a company advertising their Website and products, will have embedded in it a link to their site. When you fall on this in the body of the message, you can just press your ENTER key to be taken straight online with your browser to this Website automatically. 8.18.2. Inserting Jump to Links into your E-Mail If you wish to provide a link in an e-mail message you send to someone else, you can do this with messages in HTML format by simply taking a new line and typing the Web address (URL) or e- mail address on that line, when that line will automatically be seen by the recipient's computer as an e-mail or URL link, e.g.: jwjw@onetel.com or http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard Alternatively, to cover the eventuality that the recipient may receive their e-mail in plain text format (as recommended for screenreader users, and ensure that these links will definitely work, you may have to add a little "mailto:" code before the URL or e-mail address, e.g.: mailto:jwjw@onetel.com or http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard/index.htm 8.19. Sender's E-Mail Address Identification If you want to see the e-mail address of someone who has mailed you, with the focus on the message sender/subject line in such as your Inbox, press SHIFT F10, then press R (for properties) and then (in your screenreader's mouse mode) ARROW down from the top until you reach the sender's name and e-mail address line. 8.20. Obtaining a Received Message Verification Receipt With Outlook Express 5.01 and later versions, you can request a receipt to verify that a message has been opened on the recipient's computer, as long as the recipient has his receipts option turned on to support this. You can do this by pressing ALT T (for tools) and O (for options), then CONTROL TAB to the "Receipts" property sheet, when you will be able to check two check boxes to enable this facility. 8.21. Blocking and Unblocking specific E-Mail Messages If asking a particular company or individual to remove you from their mailing list has not worked and you are still getting e-mail or news messages from them, you can stop this in Outlook Express by: 1. With focus on one of the offending messages, highlight it by pressing SHIFT END. 2. Then press ALT M (for messages) followed by S (for Block Sender). 3. You then receive confirmation that all future messages from this source will be blocked (will not appear in your Inbox) and be asked if you would also like to delete any past messages from this source from your system. Press ENTER for "yes" or TAB to "No" if you do not wish to do this. In future any messages from this source will go straight into your Deleted Items folder. Similarly, if you do this with news messages, such messages will not be displayed in future. 4. To unblock a message source so that messages will be displayed normally again: A. Press ALT T (for Tools), followed by R (for Message Rules). B. Then press S (for Block Senders List). You can then TAB once in the ensuing dialogue box to a list of blocked senders and highlight one of them by pressing SHIFT End followed by TABBING to "Remove" and pressing ENTER, followed by ENTER again to confirm. C. You then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER again to finish. Note 1: Blocking is part of Outlook Express's "Message Rules". Pressing ALT T, then R takes you into a sub-menu which then allows you to choose between news and mail messages in order to filter, automatically delete, copy elsewhere, etc, certain messages from specified places, people, with attachments, etc, so that you can have messages dealt with automatically in a way you personally prefer, e.g. Send all messages with attachments or from a specified e-mail list to a specific sub-folder. Note 2: If you are receiving unwanted "spam" advertising, sexual or fraudulent business proposal messages rather than advertising from a respectable company, do not under any circumstances reply to them, as this will only confirm to them that your e-mail address is live. Just delete such messages or filter/block them as above or as in message rules below. Note 3: Recently (particularly since the beginning of 2004) two new types of fraudster have come to the fore using e-mailing and false Websites to trick you into giving them your credit card, PIN number, etc, details. The first of these is known as "phishing" and the second is called "spoofing". Phishing is the practice of luring unsuspecting Internet users to phoney Websites to obtain information from them, such as PIN and credit card details, in order to use these fraudulently. Spoofing or IP spoofing exploits a loophole in Internet Explorer so that a fake or spoofed site displays an authentic-looking Web address. Examples of these fraudulent sites which you may receive e-mails tempting you to go to and type in your financial details are a fake Barclays bank site, an AOL site, a phoney Paypal site, etc. No company of this type would ever send you an e-mail asking you to respond in this manner, so always delete such e-mails or, if in doubt, phone the company concerned to double-check first. 8.22. Using Message Rules to Sort and Reply to Messages Sorting messages with message rules is a way of filtering messages you receive into the folders you would like them in according to certain predefined criteria instead of them always all going into your Inbox or of effecting certain other actions on them. For instance, you could specify that all messages from a given person, e-mail list or newsgroup are automatically deposited in a certain folder, or you could have particular messages automatically forwarded to on of your Address Book contacts, or you can arrange for certain messages to be automatically deleted as soon as they hit your Inbox. You can even ensure that persons who use the same e-mail account have their messages downloaded to their own personal folders and you can send automatic out-of-office replies to messages you receive. These rules can be applied to both e-mail and newsgroup messages. for how to achieve this sort of thing, consider the below two e- mail examples. 8.22.1. Step-by-Step Example 1: Filtering Specific Messages into a Newly Created E-mail Folder To achieve this: 1. Press ALT t (for Tools) and then R (for Message Rules). 2. You can ARROW through choices of "Mail", "News" and "Block Senders List". So press ENTER on "Mail". 3. A dialogue box opens for you to create a new mail rule. You will fall in the "Criteria" list which you can ARROW down to select the conditions you wish the incoming messages to match, e.g. "Where the From Line Contains People", "Where the Message Has an Attachment", etc. This is what you do when you create your first message rule; for subsequent rules you will have to TAB to "New" and press ENTER on that first. Note also that when you already have at least one rule defined, you can ARROW down your list of current rules and you can TAB through buttons to modify one of the rules, to copy it elsewhere and to remove any of the rules. 4. For this first example (which uses a real life e-mail list and will work for you if you are subscribed to the Access-UK list), ARROW to and put focus on "Where the Subject Line Contains Specific Words" and press the SPACEBAR to select it. You could also press SPACEBAR on any number of the other eleven conditions in this list if you wanted to make the message rule tighter and even more specific, e.g. you could elect only to filter messages with a particular word in the "From:" line of your e-mails which also have an attachment with them. 5. Now TAB to the "Actions" list and select the "Move it to the Specified Folder" option by pressing the SPACEBAR on it. 6. TAB on once to the "Rule Description" area and ARROW down to "Move it to the Specified Folder" and press SPACEBAR. You may also now have to press ENTER as well. It is at this point that your screenreader may not tell you exactly what is going on, so check things in navigation/mouse mode if you are unsure. 7. The Outlook Express folders list will open and you can ARROW to "Local Folders" and then TAB to "New Folder" and press ENTER. 8. You will be asked for a "Folder Name" for the Access-uk" e- mails to go into, so make one up which is meaningful to you, e.g. type in "Access UK", TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. You can now TAB and ARROW to the "Access UK" new sub-folder and leave focus on this. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 9. You will return to the "Rule Description" area and should be able to again ARROW to "Where the Subject Line Contains Specific Words" and press ENTER to open up an editfield. Then type the word or words in you want monitored which appear in the subject line of specific e-mails, e.g. "Access-UK" (no quotes) and TAB to "Add" and press ENTER. You can keep moving back to the above words editfield to add more words if you like and each time you add a word or string of words press ENTER on "Add" again. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. The reason you may want to specify "Access-UK" is because this always appears in the subject line of e-mails sent from the Access UK mailing list. 10. Now ARROW to "Move it to the Specified (access-uk) Folder" and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to be able to place focus on the newly created sub-folder you want to have Outlook Express place these messages in. Focus is likely to already be on this sub-folder. 11. Now TAB to the "Name of the Rule" area and note that the new rule you have just created will be given a name like "New Mail Rule Number 1". You are in an editfield here and can either accept this name or type another in of your own preference, so type in a meaningful rule name of your own. 12. Lastly, TAB to "OK" or "Close" and press ENTER to finish. You return to the "Mail Rules" property sheet and should then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to complete the procedure. 13. Should you wish to either modify a rule or delete it you can do this by pressing ALT T, then R, followed by TABBING to the "Rules List" and placing focus on the rule you wish to modify or delete, then TAB to either "Modify" or "Remove" and press ENTER. Note: Message rules are not the easiest environment to work in, so if you fail to select/highlight any necessary options or do not complete the appropriate editfields as outlined above, Outlook Express will advise you of this and of what to do, so you can SHIFT TAB backwards and correct your mistakes or omissions. You could also use the "Modify" button to make changes as described in step 13 above. 8.22.2. Step-by-Step Example 2: Automatically Replying to E-mail Messages when Away From Home or the Office To set up an automatic out-of-office auto-reply: 1. Launch Outlook Express and press CONTROL N to open a new blank message. 2. TAB to the message body area of the blank message and type in here the message you want everyone to receive about you not being available at present, e.g. "I will be out of the office and unable to reply until after 26 December." 3. Now press ALT F (for File) and then A (for Save As) and save your message in such as My documents as a .txt file, e.g. under a name like "johnaway.txt", not forgetting to select "Text Files (*.TXT)" in the "Save as Type" list. Then leave the message by pressing the ESCAPE key. 4. Press ALT t (for Tools) and then R (for Message Rules). 5. You can ARROW through choices of "Mail", "News" and "Block Senders List". So press ENTER on "Mail". 6. A dialogue box opens for you to create a new mail rule. You will fall in the "Criteria" list which you can ARROW down to select the conditions you wish the incoming messages to react to, e.g. "Where the From Line Contains People", "Where the Message Has an Attachment", etc. This is what you do when you create your first message rule; for subsequent rules you will have to TAB to "New" and press ENTER on that first. Note also that when you already have at least one rule defined, you can ARROW down your list of current rules and you can TAB through buttons to modify one of the rules, to copy it elsewhere and to remove any of the rules. 7. For this second example, in the "Criteria" list, ARROW down to and put focus on "For all Messages" and press the SPACEBAR to select it. 8. Now TAB to the "Actions" list and ARROW down to and select the "Reply with Message" option by pressing the SPACEBAR on it. 9. TAB on once to the "Rule Description" area and ARROW down to "Reply with Message" and press SPACEBAR. You may also now have to press ENTER as well. 10. In the filename editfield which now opens up, indicate the place where you saved your johnaway.txt message, e.g. c:\my documents\johnaway.txt, and then TAB to "Open" and press ENTER. 11. Now TAB to the "Name of the Rule" area and note that the new rule you have just created will be given a name like "New Mail Rule Number 1". You are in an editfield here and can either accept this name or type another in of your own preference, so type in a meaningful rule name of your own, e.g. johnaway. 12. Lastly, TAB to "OK" or "Close" and press ENTER to finish. You return to the "Mail Rules" property sheet and should then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to complete the procedure. Note: The above second (out-of-office auto-reply) example will only work if your computer is left switched on and Outlook Express is set to automatically retrieve messages at preset intervals. Turn this on by: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and in the "General" property sheet TAB to and press SPACEBAR on "check for New Messages Every" to turn this on. 2. TAB to the editfield which opens up below and type in the number of minutes interval you want Outlook Express to go online at and send and receive any messages, e.g. if you only want messages sending and receiving three times a day (every 8 hours) type "480" in here. This is the maximum period you can specify. 3. Then TAB once more to the "If my computer is not Connected at this Time" list and leave focus on either "Connect only when not working offline" or "Connect even when working offline". 4. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. Warning: Avoid using Outlook Express's automatic reply ability if you are on e-mailing lists or you receive a lot of junk or other spam e-mails, as in the former case you will be sending out of office replies back to everyone on the list and in the latter case you will only be confirming to spammers that your e-mail address is valid and active. 8.23. Obtaining Website Content by E-Mail To save time online sifting through the contents of the pages on a Website, particularly if it has many links, you can request and receive an on-screen print-out of a page by e-mailing to: text@pagegetter.com Where you would type the name of the URL into the body of the message, e.g. http://www.microsoft.com. With this you receive a plain text copy of the page contents. or web@pagegetter.com Where you type the URL of the page to be retrieved and then receive the full HTML page, together with any images. or webgate@vancouver-webpages.com Where you would type the URL of the page you want into the message body, preceded by either the word "get" or "dump", e.g. get http://microsoft.com. or html@pagegetter.com Where you type the URL of the page to be retrieved and then receive the full HTML page, together with all links, etc, but no graphics images. or google@capeclear.com Where you send your query in the Subject line of your e-mail and only get back the most up-to-date 20 pieces of relevant information from the Google online e-mail search engine, e.g. type "from the keyboard tutorials" into the Subject line of the e-mail and send it, when you should receive information about my From The Keyboard tutorials as well as several others. Pressing ENTER on any of the linked URLs in the return e-mail you receive from Google will open your Web browser and take you to the site concerned. When viewing the contents of such downloaded pages in your e-mail program, if you decide you would like to be taken online to a particular link, you can simply press ENTER on the appropriate line in the e-mail message to be taken straight online via your default Web browser. A host of techniques for doing anything by electronic mail can be sought from: www.expita.com For a guide to using many Internet features via e-mail, you can surf to: www.faqs.org/faqs/internet-services/access-via-email/ 8.24. Using Shorthand Emoticons in Your E-mails The occasional use of "emoticons" in your e-mails may help to express your feelingss about a given message or situation when a text message only might make this difficult to convey. Emoticons are also known as "smileys" and are a type of acronym or shorthand. For example, a symbol combination such as :-] represents a smiley which signifies that you are happy with or agree with a particular statement or emotion. It generates a graphical picture of a smiley face on the recipient's screen. There are other symbols signifying displeasure, a nod and a wink, etc. However, most visually impaired people tend to replace these symbol combinations and visually smiling or frowning faces with a word between brackets or arrows which conveys a feeling or emotion, such as , , , , etc. The below list gives an idea of the range of available emoticons and their most common meanings but is not necessarily fully exhaustive: AAMOF As a matter of fact. BBFN Byebye for now. BFN Bye for now. BRb Be right back. BTW By the way. BYKT Big but you knew that. CMIIW Correct me if I'm wrong. EOL End of lecture. FAQ Frequently asked questions. FITB Fill in the blanks. FWIW For what it's worth. FYI For your information. G Grinning. HTH Hope this helps. IAC In any case. IAE In any event. ICL In Christian love. IMCO In my considered opinion. IMHO In my humble opinion. IMNSHO In my not so humble opinion. IMO In my opinion. IOW In other words. J Joking. L Laughing. LOL Laughing out loud or lots of luck. MGB May God bless. MHOTY My hat's off to you. NRN No reply necessary. OIC Oh, I see. OTOH On the other hand. ROTF Rolling on the floor. ROFL Rolling on the floor laughing. RSN Real soon now. S Smiling. SITD Still in the dark. TIA Thanks in advance. TIC Tongue in cheek. TTY Talk to you later. TYVM Thank you very much. WYSIWYG What you see is what you get. Y Yawning. In other cases combinations of symbols are meaningful: :( or :-( Expresses unhappiness. :] or :-] Expresses jovial happiness. :[ or :-[ Conveys despondent unhappiness. :D or :-D Expresses jovial happiness. :I or :-I Indicates indifference. :-/ or :-\ Indicates confusion, undecidedness or sceptical. :Q or :-Q Expresses confusion. :s or :-S Conveys loss of words or incoherence. :@ or :-@ Expresses shock or screaming. :O or :-O Indicates surprise or, yelling or realisation of an error (Oh). You can find a full list of emoticons at: www.techdictionary.com/emoticon.html Remember, just do not over-use emoticons, as you may find that instead of clarifying a situation or feeling you just further confuse the position because not everyone is cognizant with them. 8.25. Shortcut Menus When you are in any of the Outlook Express windows, folders or when you have focus on a message in your Inbox or have a message open on screen, you can always, as an alternative to many of the keystroke shortcut commands, bring up a shortcut Context Menu. You simply do this by pressing SHIFT F10 and then ARROW up or down the shortcut commands listed there. These commands will be different, depending on the window you are currently in. These types of shortcut menus are frequently found in other Windows programs, too. For example, If you press SHIFT F10 whilst a message in your Inbox has focus (without opening it), you can then ARROW up to "Properties" and press ENTER, then, in navigation or mouse mode, ARROW up and down many of the details pertinent to that message, e.g. the sender's return e-mail address. In this same Context Menu, you can also ARROW to and do such things as reply to the sender, forward the message to someone else as an attachment, mark the message as read, move or copy the message to one of your other Outlook Express folders, add the sender's e-mail address and other details to your Address Book, etc. 8.26. Sending Coloured Business-Type HTML Formatted E-Mails with Pictures or Sounds Up to now we have been sending plain text e-mails only but you can spice e-mails up by sending them in HTML format. This would not be recommended if you are sending messages to visually impaired people but you may wish to send the occasional impressively formatted business e-mail and you may wish to send such as a Christmas message to a friend which uses the "Christmas" stationery provided in Outlook Express and you may wish to include a musical sound to be played when the message is opened or your own voice saying "Merry Christmas" which you may have recorded in a sound editor such as Sound forge, Cakewalk or Total Recorder. Having said this, remember that formatted messages with coloured backgrounds, pictures, audio sounds and so forth will take much longer for you to upload and for the recipient to download. This is OK if the recipient has a fast Internet connection such as broadband but you may get few thanks from someone with a 28.8 KBPS modem who had to download the message and did not even want it! I suggest that you try some of the below and e-mail the messages to yourself to get an idea of the different upload and download overhead involved. So that you are aware that this more sophisticated e-mailing format is available, here is a snapshot of what you might do: 1. Open a new message window by pressing CONTROL N or after selecting someone from your Address Book. 2. Then press ALT O (for Format) and then ARROW UP to "Rich Text HTML" and press ENTER. This will change the format of this message from plain text to HTML format. 3. Now go back into the Format menu with ALT O and ARROW down the many formatting choices you can make. Open up some of the dialogue boxes and sub-menus in here and have a look around and experiment. 4. For example: A. If you press ENTER on "Style" you will be able to ARROW down and choose from several styles of message very similar to those available in MS Word styles, such as Creating your message/document with heading levels, with numbered or bulleted lists, etc. B. If you press ENTER on "Font" you can select a more salubrious looking type face for your message. C. Pressing Enter on "Increase Indent" quickly indents your message a little. D. The "Background" option gives you sub-options of "Picture", "Colour" and "Sound". If you choose "Colour" you can change the background colour on your messages to such as yellow, green, etc; if you choose "Picture" you can then type the path to a picture file or select one from a list of about 40 in "Look In"; and you can do a similar thing by choosing "Sound" and then "Browse" and selecting a sound file with a .WAV extension to insert into the message from a list of over 70 in your Windows operating system. E. Now TAB to "Apply Stationery" and press ENTER to go into the sub-menu. In here there are around seven stationery templates you can select to give your message a particular look, such as "Party Invitation", "Formal Announcement" and "Technical", etc. The "More" button lets you type the path to other HTML templates if you know the whereabouts of any. 5. When you have made your formatting selections, type your message and send it in the normal way and, if you do not have a broadband Internet connection such as ADSL, wait and wait and wait for it to upload! In typing your message body, you can, when using HTML formatting, employ the usual shortcuts to underline, embolden and italicize text, i.e. CONTROL U, CONTROL B and CONTROL I respectively. This is, of course, in contrast to sending e-mail using plain text, which does not permit this type of formatting. 6. You should not have to go back into the Format menu when you next send a message to turn HTML off, as the program should go back to your "Plain Text" default. 8.27. Accessing your E-mail Whilst Away from Home with Web Mail You can still access your e-mail if on someone else's computer in the UK or whilst abroad. Here is how you would do it. 8.27.1. Accessing E-Mail whilst Abroad If you want to keep up to your e-mail whilst abroad, e.g. using someone else's computer anywhere in the world, such as at an Internet cafe, you can usually do this. In this case, you will need to have an Internet-based, Web mail account provider which may not be part of your ISP, such as provided by Hotmail and Yahoomail. With one of these you can just log onto their Web pages with your e-mail client, provide your username and password, and then view your e-mail online, delete any number of your e-mails or download them for viewing offline. You may also be able to view your e-mail whilst online with Internet Explorer. 8.27.2. Accessing E-Mail whilst elsewhere in Your Own Country On the other hand, if you are still in the UK but not at home, if you have an ISP-based e-mail mailbox, you should be able to use Internet Explorer to go to their Web pages, find their mailbox or mailzone link (or some similar titled link), log on with your username and password and view or delete the messages. However, whilst most ISP e-mail providers will also permit you to download your mail, a few do not allow this. If it is not clear when on your ISP's site just what you are allowed to do and there is no help link, then e-mail or phone their helpline for clarification of their rules. For example, if I wanted to view my e-mail online, delete any of it or download all or some of my messages, I would use my Internet browser to log onto one of my ISP's sites at: www.onetel.com and then activate the "Mailzone" link which is just a few TAB presses from the top of the home page, followed by typing in my username and password in that order in the editfields provided and then TABBING once to the "Get Mail" link and pressing ENTER. I would then have full access to my e-mail messages for reading online or deleting. There are usually also alternative addresses you can use to get to your mailbox on your ISPs site, e.g. using http://webmail.onetel.com also works in my case. 8.28. Breaking Large Messages into Smaller blocks for E-Mailing Some people's mailboxes on their ISPs server will not accept very large e-mails, e.g. those with large sound or video files attached to them, although most will accept up to 5 Mb in size. If you encounter this problem, you can elect to make Outlook Express split your e-mails into smaller blocks before it sends them, to avoid rejection. Conversely, if you find that your e- mails are already being sent in chunks instead of in one file and you wish to stop this, you can also use the below procedure to reverse this. 1. Press ALT T (for Tools)and then a (for Accounts). 2. If you are not already on the "Mail" property sheet, SHIFT TAB until you get to the tab/sheet title and then right or left ARROW until you get their. Then Tab to a list of e-mail accounts you may have set up on your computer and leave focus on the main (default) e-mail account you use. Now open up its properties by either TABBING to the "Properties" button or pressing ALT P. 3. You will now be in another multi-tabbed dialogue box, so SHIFT TAB backwards once to the property sheet title you are in (probably "General") and then right ARROW to the "Advanced" sheet. In the Advanced sheet TAB until you get to "Break Apart Messages Larger Than" and if you want to stop messages from being split up, press SPACEBAR to turn this off. If it is already off and you want to turn it on, press SPACEBAR to check it and then TAB once to an editfield and either type in the size (in Kb) of the chunks of data you wish to send in each block or ARROW up or down the list of size choices. 4. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. Note that in the "Advanced" sheet you can turn on or off several other advanced features, such as requiring a server to use a SSL secure connection (if your ISP supports this), whether you wish to leave a copy of your messages on your ISPs server rather than automatically deleting these after you have downloaded them (again if the ISP permits this), etc. 8.29. Setting up an Hotmail or other Account In Windows 98 and above, if instead of or in addition to your present e-mail account you would like to open an Hotmail or other e-mail account, using Outlook Express, you can do so as follows. However, since October 2004, Hotmail has stopped providing its e-mail download to Outlook Express service free of charge, so you will have to sign up for a payment account if you wish to use Outlook Express as your e-mail client together with Hotmail. However, you can still open a free Hotmail account but you will have to view your messages by going to the www.Hotmail.com site, logging on and read them online. Hotmail Example: 1. With Outlook Express running, press ALT T (for Tools) and then A (for Accounts). 2. In the dialogue which you come into showing your present account(s) if you have any, TAB to "Add" and activate it by pressing the SPACEBAR. 3. Next ARROw down to and choose "Mail" from the list you come into and press ENTER. 4. The wizard which now takes over setting up your account asks you for certain details. If you already have an account set up on your computer, the wizard will use your present default account details for your new account but you can change any of these by overtyping them. The wizard will want to know: A. The display name for your new account, which can be anything of your own choosing and will be what others see when you e-mail them from this new address, so type in your own name or something unique but not too embarrassing. B. TAB once to "Next" and press ENTER and then type your normal e-mail address in here if it is not already entered for you, e.g. mine would be jwjw@onetel.com but, of course, enter your own here, e.g. franksmith@hotmail.com, then press ENTER. C. The next part is the most technical and potentially confusing. You now come into a series of changing editfields asking you if you have either a POP3, Imap or HTTP incoming e-mail server And you can SHIFT TAB backwards to a list of these three incoming server options to ARROW through, so leave focus on the one you want, which for this example is "HTTP" for an Hotmail account but for most other accounts will be POP3. Depending on the choice you made above, when you now TAB forward once again note that with the Hotmail choice you will now have three more choices in here which you can ARROW up and down, namely Hotmail, MSN and Other, so ARROW to the one you want, which will be Hotmail for this exercise. With the other two choices first-mentioned of POP3 and Imap, you will not get the last-mentioned three choices. Next you now TAB once to another editfield where you will be required to again type server details in, which will be the type of your e- mail outgoing server protocol, which for Hotmail means that "Hotmail" should already be entered in here but for most other servers will be the name of your "SMTP" server. Then press ENTER. Note: If you are setting up incoming and outgoing e-mail which is not on the Hotmail servers, in the POP3 and SMTP editfields, you will have to enter the POP3 and SMTP addresses of your e-mail provider. These facts can be obtained from your ISP or other e- mail providers helpline if you do not already know them. For instance, mine are: mail.onetel.com for both the POP3 and SMTP editfields. Yours will be different unless you are also using OneTel as your provider, e.g. they may be something like pop.cwcom.net for the POP3 part and smtp.cwcom.net for the SMTP part. D. The next stage is where you are asked for your logon and account details, which will have been provided to you by your ISP or other e-mail service provider, e.g. you will be given the first part of your above-chosen e-mail address for this but you can overtype this with something else if you like. Then TAB to "Password" and type in here your existing Hotmail or other e-mail provider's password you already use if you have one or if you have no password type any password you would like and TAB to "Remember Password" which will be checked by default so that you do not have to type your password in every time you use your e- mail account. Press SPACEBAR to uncheck this if you do want to type it in and therefore have full security from others using your account. Then press ENTER. E. The last stage of the wizard is the congratulations screen telling you that you have been successful in setting the new account up, so press ENTER on the "Finish" button you are now on. 5. The wizard will close and you now return to your original dialogue box. If you like, you can now make your new Hotmail or other account the default account to use for e-mail by: A. SHIFT TAB backwards a couple of times to your list of e-mail providers, then ARROW to the Hotmail account and then TAB to the "Properties" button and press ENTER. B. Your new e-mail account properties and details will now display. You can TAB through and view the editfields in here to see your display name, e-mail address, reply address, etc. If you would like to change any of these to suit your new e-mail account, you can do so, e.g. complete the "Reply Address" editfield with the new Hotmail e-mail address you supplied above, whatever that was, e.g. franksmith@hotmail.com. If you would also like this new e-mail address to be included in any e-mailing session when Outlook Express checks your servers for e-mail, you should check on the "Include this Account for Receiving and Synchronizing " if it is not already on. C. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 6. You return again to the original dialogue you started in. If you would like to make your new Hotmail e-mail account your default (usual account to be used when e-mailing), TAB to the "Set as Default" button and press ENTER. 7. To complete this part of the procedure and finish, TAB to "Close" and press ENTER. Note 1: If you want to delete an e-mail account, after pressing ALT T, A, in step 1 above, you can ARROW to the account in question and then TAB to "Remove" and press ENTER. Note 2: As you will have gathered, the above Hotmail set-up procedure, of course, is only one of two procedures you will have to go through to get a workable Hotmail account. It sets things up at your computer side of things only. You will also have to go online to the Hotmail Website to set up your account there as well. You will have to provide a username and password for yourself and, unfortunately, as is commonly the case these days, you will have to be able to see a graphic to type details into an editfield to sign on to the Hotmail site. If you cannot see this graphic, you will need sighted help to complete the whole hotmail set-up process. Note 3: Be aware that a Hotmail e-mail account does not work the same as most ISPs e-mail account mailboxes. Instead of automatically downloading all of your e-mail in the server's mailbox, what you initially download is the headers of your e- mails from the mailbox. You then go through the headers, subject lines, etc, and delete those you do not want, after which you go back online and download only the undeleted messages. The unwanted messages in your mailbox will then also be deleted. So, in this respect, Hotmail e-mail works in a similar way to downloading newsgroup headers. 8.30. Using Imap to Manipulate Your E-Mail Some ISPs, e-mail server providers and company LAN servers also provide what is known as ImaP Internet Message Protocol (IMAP), which essentially permits you to keep all of your e-mail messages on a server so that you can carry out whatever actions you want to do on them on the server, e.g. read them online, delete them, back them up, etc. As this is an online protocol, you do need to be online all the time you are reading messages. This is fine if you have a broadband connection or are working on a LAN but if you only have a standard MODEM and use a dial-up program, paying as you go, this would not be practical for most people. Note 1: Outlook Express 5.5 and 6.0 are almost identical to version 5.0 in their general operation, property sheets, folders, shortcut keystrokes, etc, but if you have Outlook Express 5.5 and want to view the additional features in that version over version 5.0, plus some no longer supported options, see the "Readme.txt" file in the Help Menu. You may, however, get better results from an up-to-date screenreader over one which was created before OE5.5 or 6.0 were released, so check with your screenreader manufacturer before upgrading to newer versions. You should also ensure that your ISP also supports any newer version. Note 2: To see a full list of Outlook Express shortcut keystrokes, go to Appendix 4. ******** >SECTION 9 JOINING MAIL LISTS AND NEWS LISTS Some of the better-known list managers are Listserv, YahooGroups, Topica, OneList, Yahoogroups, Listproc, Egroups, Smartgroups and Majordomo. Some of these lists are controlled by humans and others by computers. To subscribe to an e-mail list (usually no charge) the way to register is in the following general form. Send an e-mail worded something like: recycle-it-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or blindcook-subscribe@onelist.com or blindad-request@maelstrom.stjohns.edu in the "To:" field of the e-mail header. You may need to add something either in the subject or body of the message, such as "Please add me to the Recycle-IT list" or "subscribe recycle-it john wilson" (but use yor own name, of course). (All three of these lists do exist. The first deals with the topic of selling specialist secondhand computer-related equipment and just about anything else privately between list members in the UK; the second hosts tips, equipment and cookery recipes and methods from a blind perspective and is a US-based list.; the third is a US list again for advertising or requesting new or second-hand items.) Example: 9.1. The Listserv Server Whilst many of the below commands will work with the Listserv list server and the individual Techno-L list itself, not all will, as this is an example only. The commands and form will vary from server to server and list to list. To subscribe to the UK techno-l e-mail list via the provider called Listserv you would use the form: listserv@listserv.nas.net typed into the "To:" field of your e-mail header and in the message field enter the message: subscribe techno-l john wilson with no entry in the subject field. Here Subscribe is your request, techno-l is the name of the list you want to subscribe to (its a solid, real-life UK-based e-mail list) and anything after that is supposed to be your real name but could, of course, be a pseudonym--don't use Batman, they will know you are lying! Shortly afterwards you will receive a return e-mail confirming that your message was received and possibly giving you some instructions on how to proceed. You will have to confirm your request to join this list by replying to this e-mail. To unsubscribe, again send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.nas.net and in the body of the message type: signoff techno-l To send a message to the owner (administrator, known as a Moderator) of the list send an e-mail to: techno-l-request@listserv.nas.net In other cases, the format for contacting the owner of a list may be as follows: owner-techno-l To temporarily stop mail from being sent from the techno-l list say, if your going on holiday for two weeks, send a message to: listserv@listserv.nas.net and in the message field type: set techno-l nomail but note that this will have to be done for all lists on the Listserv server and any other servers you are subscribed to if you want all messages suspending. To recommence mailing use: set techno-l mail If you get lots of messages from a particular list and would like to receive them all at once in the form of a digest, send a message to the particular individual list saying, for example: techno-l digest To find out who else is subscribed to a list (but not those who opt to be unlisted) send the message: review techno-l If you do not wish to appear in the above "Review" subscribers list, send the message: set techno-l conceal To obtain a list of past files on the list send the message: index To request one of the files in the index send the message: get (listname) (filename) To find out what listserv lists are available on a particular host send the message: list To find out what other facilities are available on listserv send the message: help If you want more information on Listserv commands, you can obtain this by retrieving the Listserv reference card with the following command in the body of a message: info refcard and by sending it to listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu To send a message to the other subscribers to a list send it to: listserv@(hostname) Where the hostname is the name of the list, e.g. techno-l. Or the form may be: techno-l@listserv.nas.net If you reply to an e-mail message, you will find that some lists are set up to relay the message to all other subscribers, whereas others just forward your reply to the specific original message sender. Therefore, before replying, check the contents of your e-mail "To:" editfield to discover where it will go. Furthermore, some mailing lists are "gatewayed" to Usenet newsgroups, so anything you submit to the list will also be forwarded to newsgroups and vis versa. ******** >SECTION 10 USENET NEWSGROUPS 10.1. What are Usenet Newsgroups? Newsgroups are the interest groups which together make up the Usenet news system. Newsgroups work similarly to e-mail but the news is not automatically sent to subscribers. Instead, the information is posted where interested persons can go and read specific topics. The newsgroups available to you depend on what your Internet service provider (ISP) provides. 10.2. component Parts of Newsgroup Names and What They Mean Newsgroups have multipart names separated by full stops, such as: comp.dcom.fax The suffix (or other part) of a newsgroup name often indicates the type of subject it covers and some of the main newsgroups are: comp--topics to do with computers. sci--Topics to do with science. rec--To do with recreational matters, including sports and hobbies. soc--is to do with social newsgroups. news--topics on Net news itself. misc--Covers miscellaneous matters. talk--Deals with political and argumentative types of topics. To read newsgroup articles you have to use a news reading program, such as Free Agent, Outlook Express or Netscape. The articles are mainly text files but there are some binary (including graphics) files, such as the ALT binary groups. For a list of Usenet newsgroups go to: net.dummies.net/usenet Some newsgroups of interest to new newsgroup users are: news.announce.newusers--For general advice and tips. news.newusers.questions--Where you can view questions others have asked about newsgroups and post questions of your own. news.answers.--To obtain answers about Usenet. 044.general--To read general UK news. ******** >SECTION 11 READING NEWSGROUPS WITH OUTLOOK EXPRESS Versions 5.0, 5.5 AND 6.0 From personal experience, whilst Outlook Express is usable with speech and from the keyboard, I would recommend that you use it for your e-mail only and use Free Agent for news posting and reading instead. This preference, though, may not be the case for all users, depending on which screenreader they have--try them both and make up your own mind. To find out how to use Free Agent, see Section 12, "Reading Newsgroups with Free Agent Version 1.21" below. If your version of Windows 95 contains only the older newsgroups reading program called "Internet News", you can download the Outlook Express update from: www.microsoft.com 11.1. Launching Outlook Express as a News Reader To Launch Outlook Express as a News Reader, you can either: 1.a. Run the Internet Explorer program and then press ALT T, M, N, which will load Outlook Express with its default news reader. Press ENTER on the "Connect" button if you want to go online immediately or TAB forward to "Work Offline" to work without the phone line being open, then press the ESC key. 1.b. Run Outlook Express directly, from its icon on the Desktop, or from the Program Files folder. Press ENTER on the "Connect" button if you want to go online immediately or TAB forward to "Work Offline" to work without the phone line being open, then press the ESC key. 2. If this is the first time you have loaded Outlook Express as a newsgroups reader, you will be asked to provide certain information to log on (see "Internet Service Provider Details" in the Free Agent section below). You will also be asked if you want Outlook Express to immediately go to your ISP server and download all the newsgroups it holds so that you can subscribe to some of these. You should accept this offer. 3. Whichever of the above two methods you use (1.a. or 1.b.), you can then TAB through several links to "Read News" and press ENTER. 4. After the newsgroups are loaded (this could take a minute or two) you ARROW up and down your subscribed newsgroups and press the TAB key on one you want to look at the individual headers in (if you have already downloaded these) followed by arrowing again to move through the headers. Press ENTER on any header to have it read (if the message has already been downloaded) or the program will ask if you now want to go online and retrieve the selected message. 11.2. Subscribing to Newsgroups To get started reading news you will have to subscribe (join) some. To do this you should be online. You should then press CONTROL W to open the newsgroups dialogue box. You will land in an editfield which is a type of search box in which you can type a string to find particular types of discussion groups you are interested in, e.g. type "blind", and all the newsgroups with "blind" in their names will be found. TAB on twice to a newsgroups list which now shows all the found newsgroups for your "blind" search (if no search string is entered, the list will contain all of the newsgroups on the current server). If you have ARROWED to a particular newsgroup above, just TAB on then to the "Subscribe" button, press SPACEBAR or ENTER, TAB to "Go" and press ENTER again. The newly subscribed newsgroup will now appear with your others at the bottom of the Local Folders list and the available headers in that newsgroup will be fetched from the server. At a later date you will want to update your list of headers. to obtain more headers, with the focus on the newsgroup you want them from, you press ALT T, G, and the next 300 headers will be downloaded to sift through. 11.3. Deleting a Newsgroup All you have to do to delete a newsgroup with all of its headers/articles is press the DEL key followed by ENTER when the newsgroup has focus in the Local Folders list. 11.4. Pen-picture of the Outlook Express Screen For a description of the Outlook Express screen, see "Pen-Picture of the Outlook Express Screen" in Section 8 above. To navigate through the various subscribed newsgroups and subject headers, use a combination of your TAB key and the ARROW keys. You should be aware that the folders you will "see" include e- mail details as well as newsgroups. TABBING forward will take you past several links including the Address Book (list of saved e- mail addresses for later use), the Local Folders list (with your e-mail Inbox, Outbox, sent Items,etc), Read Mail link (takes you to your Inbox of e-mails), Read News link (takes you to your newsgroups folder to read news, some links to search for things and a number of other links. If you go to the newsgroup you want a list of articles from and press ENTER, Outlook Express will go to this site on the Net and fetch a list of article headers in that group for you to choose from. Just press ENTER on the title/header you want to read and the article will be fetched and loaded for reading. Alternatively, you can open up your Local Folders list by pressing CONTROL Y, then ARROW down, when you will hear your list of subfolders in your Local Folders list, e.g. Inbox, Sent Items, etc, and then move on to your list of newsgroup server main folders. To open a list of the subscribed newsgroups on any news server folder, press ENTER and the newsgroups will open up to ARROW through and press ENTER on. 11.5. Basic Online News Reading To read news online (if you are not already connected to the Net), press ENTER on the "Connect" button when this shows to instruct Outlook Express to go online and retrieve and display each article as you press ENTER on its title. You can also press CONTROL less than key (<) and CONTROL greater than key (>) to move to the previous and next article respectively in the current group. Pressing CONTROL U takes you to the next unread message. To close the current message and go back to the messages list to read another message, press the ESC key and then ARROW up and down to make further choices. If, instead of downloading a whole group of messages or headers as in the above paragraph, you only want to download one or two messages, you can select the headers you want while offline. To do this: 1. while offline, select the downloaded message titles/headers which interest you in the usual Windows way, e.g. CONTROL held down whilst you ARROW to each non-consecutive message you want and then press SPACEBAR on each of the required messages to highlight them. 2. Then, when your ready to go online, you press ALT T, S, to "Synchronise Newsgroups" and then go offline again after all selected messages have downloaded from the server. 3. If you would like to display only those messages which you selected for offline reading, after disconnecting from the Net, press ALT V, V, S, to show only downloaded messages. To find a message in a long list of downloaded headers, with the focus in the headers list, press CONTROL SHIFT F, TAB to the "Subject" editfield and type in some of the text in the message header you want to find, then press ALT I or TAB to the "Find" button and press ENTER. The message will either be opened for reading or you will be taken to it on the Net to read or download. 11.6. Filtering News Messages To find out how to view only certain messages and restrict others, see "Viewing Only Specific Mail and News Messages" in Section 8 above. You should also look at "Using Message Rules to Sort Messages", in Section 8 for even more fine tuning of what happens to newsgroup messages. 11.7. Deleting Messages and Headers To clean up your newsgroups folder and remove all messages after you have read them, press ALT T, O, CONTROL TAB to the "Maintenance" sheet and press ALT C. Then TAB to the "File Information Browse" button and press ENTER, followed by ARROWING to the newsgroup folder you want to empty and then TAB to OK and press ENTER. Then TAB to the "Delete" button, press ENTER and Y to confirm. Repeat this if you have more than one newsgroup to empty and then finish by pressing ENTER on "Close" followed by ENTER on "OK". 11.8. Responding to an Article with Outlook Express The easiest way to respond to an article is to simply e-mail the author. you can do this by pressing CONTROL R, following which you type your message in the same editfield as the original article and press ALT S to send it. However, if you want your communication to go to the whole newsgroup, you can Press CONTROL G followed by ALT S. You complete the posting by pressing CONTROL M. Besides adding your reply to the message you should delete the parts of the original message which are superfluous. 11.9. Introducing a New Topic If you wish to start a new topic of discussion rather than commenting on one which is already in progress, with the focus on the newsgroup you want to post the new message to, you press CONTROL N. You then type your new article as normal, starting from the "Subject" box. Then TAB to the message editfield and compose your communication. Send it by pressing ALT S followed by CONTROL M. To join a newsgroup dedicated to the discussion of Outlook Express, which also provides pier support, sign on to: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.inetexplo rer.ie5.outlookexpress Note: To see a full list of Outlook Express shortcut keystrokes, see Appendix 4. . ******** >SECTION 12 READING NEWS GROUPS WITH FORTE AGENT AND FREE AGENT VERSIONS 1.92 This section will concentrate on the free version of Agent, called "Free Agent" but most of the instructions will still apply to the full, purchasable version called "Agent". Whether Outlook Express or Free Agent works best for you as a newsgroups reader will largely depend on the screenreader you are using and how up to date it is. I suggest that you download the combined Free Agent and full Agent software and compare the Forte and Outlook Express News reading packages. You may also be able to ask your screenreader manufacturer if he has (or will create) a suitable set of script files for Free Agent. Additionally, from a speech feedback point of view, Free Agent is easier to use as a news reader than it is as a means of sending, replying to and forwarding messages, but all of these are still, nonetheless, achievable. These comments may, of course, be more or less valid as both Outlook Express and Agent/Free Agent are subjected to new minor updates and bug fixes and interface improvements or regressions. 12.1. Downloading Agent and Free Agent To simultaneously download a 30-day try-and buy copy of the full Agent software plus a free copy of Free Agent go to: www.forteinc.com What you do then is: 1. TAB or ARROW just a few times down to the "Downloads" link and press ENTER. 2. You will have to ARROW or TAB well down this downloads page to find where to download Agent, which is just underneath a "Current Version" heading. You would therefore be best to jump straight there by using your screenreader's find feature, typically by pressing CONTROL F and then typing in "Current Version" and pressing ENTER. 3. From here ARROW down a few times past a "Agent 1.92" heading to two lines below the "32 bit" heading where you will find an "FTP" link. 4. Press ENTER on the "FTP" link and you will get a "Start" Download" link to press ENTER on. 5. The download will commence and you may wish to keep checking the Status line to keep track of the download progress. It is likely to take ten or fifteen minutes to complete with a 56K modem and is a file just over 2 Mb in size. 6. The file will download to your Desktop or wherever you may have directed downloads to go to and will be called "A32- 192.exe". 12.2. Installing Agent or Free Agent and Downloading Newsgroups 1. Go to the "A32-192.exe" file and press ENTER on it to commence the installation. You will now have three choices, ether to go for a new first-time installation or an upgrade to an older version currently on your system. For a first-time installation, just TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 2. To have the program install into its default folder of: c:\Program Files\Agent just TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 3. You will now have a choice of accepting the default character sets of English and European languages but if you want additional languages, press ENTER on the "Choose Additional" button and make your choices in this dialogue box. Otherwise, simply go to "Next" and press ENTER. The additional languages are part of the new features of Version 1.92 which were not available on earlier versions. 4. The next step asks you if you want a shortcut on your Start Menu or anywhere else and if you press ENTER on "Yes" you will get a list of places to put the shortcut. ARROW up to "Start Up" for it to go onto your Start menu and then press ENTER on "Next". 5. Now you will be on the "Start" button, so press ENTER to commence the installation. This will only take a few seconds, when you will be on a "Finish" button to press ENTER on. 6. Whilst the installation proper is now complete, you are now asked whether you would like to run the program as a fully- featured free 30-day try-and-buy version or you can ARROW up or down to other options, such as providing a key to run it fully- featured if you have already bought a key to do this or you can ARROW to the use Free Agent as a free but not fully-featured package. After making your choice, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 7. You now encounter the set-up page where you have to provide Agent/Free Agent with some basic information for it to be able to communicate with your news and mail server. In the "News NNTP Server" editfield type in the name of your ISPs news server, e.g. mine is "news.onetel.com". You then TAB to "Mail SMTP Server" and typing the name of your ISPs mail server, e.g. mine is "mail.onetel.com" and, lastly, you TAB to your e-mail address field and complete this. Your name is optional. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. More information about this can be found in the next section. 8. You then receive a message asking you if you now want to go online to download a complete list of newsgroups available from your server. You should accept this offer by pressing ENTER on the "Yes" button but you can, if you wish, choose "No" and do this later. When I last did this with my News server, on 4/8/02, the download took six minutes and 35,754 available newsgroups were downloaded. After this, remember to disconnect from the Net before now examining the program and the downloaded newsgroups as instructed below. 12.3. Internet Service Provider Details Whichever version of Free Agent/Agent you download, when you install it or when you first launch it, you will have to complete certain details for it to be able to function: NNTp--The name of your Internet service provider's computer where the news is stored, e.g. news.onetel.com or news.cwcom.net SMTP--The name of the computer which handles outgoing mail, e.g. mail.onetel.com or smtp.cwcom.net You will also have to provide your e-mail address and name , then press ENTER on "Next" to the end of the information completion. Free Agent will then ask if you want to go online and get the available newsgroups. You should accept this offer. It will take some minutes to set up the first time but thereafter will be much speedier. You are now ready to read news with Free Agent. Note: If you do not know critical communication information such as your NNTP and SMTP addresses, you should consult your ISPs support or technical advice line for these details. 12.4. Launching Agent and Free Agent You can launch Free Agent in several ways: 1. If the installation placed a quick launch icon on your Desktop, you can go to it by pressing Windows Logo key and M, then press either A (for Agent) or F "for Free Agent) and then press Enter. 2. If it placed a label in your Start Menu, launch it by pressing Windows Logo key and then by ARROWING down the list until it is spoken and press ENTER. 3. Launch it via the Run option on the Start Menu by pressing Windows Logo key and R (for Run) together and then type into the editfield: c:\program files\agent\agent.exe and press ENTER. 4. You could also navigate to the "agent.exe" program file using Windows Explorer to launch it. Having launched either Agent or Free Agent continue with the rest of these instructions to discover how to use its most important and useful newsgroup reading features. 12.5. Pen-Picture of the Free Agent Screen Free Agent will open with three windows, the left one (at the top) giving a list of newsgroups, the right one (at the top) showing a list of available articles for the newsgroup which currently has focus and the third one (at the bottom) is the message viewer which displays an article in that group for reading. You use the TAB key to cycle through these windows and the ARROW keys to move up and down the newsgroup and article lists. In addition to using the menus and shortcut keys, when in any of the above three windows, you can click your right mouse simulation key to bring up a context-sensitive list of common operations. Just press ENTER on any one of these to quickly perform that command. Depending on what has focus, you may also be able to bring up an alternative Context Menu by pressing ALT F 10. 12.6. Online Versus Offline News Reading You can read news online by browsing and reading newsgroups as you go and you are able to mark lengthy articles for later download. Online reading will run up a phone bill, so, instead, you may wish to use Free Agent as an offline news reader to keep your phone bill down. to do this, press ALT N, then ARROW through the various options in here to the "User and System Profile" if you are not already on it and then CONTROL TAB to the "Online" property sheet and press ENTER on the "Use Offline Defaults" button. Your status line should tell you if you are or are not offline. 12.7. Subscribing to Newsgroups You will have to navigate through the list of newsgroups which were downloaded when you first installed the program to place focus on one you are interested in and then press SPACEBAR to highlight it and then press CONTROL S to mark it for subscription.If you do not know what to subscribe to, try: news.announce.newusers This contains basic information for new newsgroup users. ARROWING down the list of thousands of newsgroups to find this is not practical, so you can find it by pressing CONTROL F (for Find) and typing the name of the newsgroup in and pressing ENTER, which will go straight to the newsgroup. Having pressed CONTROL S to subscribe, if you are not already online, you should then go on line to effect the subscription, when the message headers will be downloaded and be visible in the top right window. When the headers are all downloaded, a message will be shown on the Status Line saying "Finish Retrieving New Headers". Groups are displayed alphabetically but, as already stated, you can search for particular groups by pressing CONTROL F, e.g to find music groups type in "music" and press ENTER to be taken to the first instance of a newsgroup with the word "music" in its name. To see other instances of "music" press the F3 key. To unsubscribe from a newsgroup, with the focus on that group in the Newsgroups Window, Press SPACEBAR to highlight it and then press CONTROL S and Y to keep the messages you have already downloaded but not read or N to delete these. To get the new available articles, connect to your ISP, start Free Agent and then press ALT O, N (for Get New Headers in Subscribed Groups). If you were not already online at this time, you will be taken online at this point. Rather than viewing the articles you are interested in immediately online, you can place the focus on their titles/headers in the Messages Window, TAB to the Message Viewer Window and press "M" to mark the message for later retrieval (the Message Viewer Window should indicate the length, in numbers of lines, of the message you are marking for download). When you have marked all the messages which interest you, you should Press ALT O, M, to "Get Marked Message Bodies". The Status Line will keep track of the state of downloading. You can then go offline and read the downloaded articles. Press CONTROL B to move from one downloaded article to another. If you would like to be able to "see" more information about the article headers in the headers window list, you should press the h key, wen other details about each header, such as its author's name, and the date and time it was sent will be displayed as well. To view only the groups you have subscribed to rather than thousands of unwanted groups, press ALT G, h, S. If you want to open up the whole message list again, press ALT G, H, A.. 12.8. Navigation in Free Agent There are a number of navigation keystrokes you can use in Free Agent and even more in the full Agent version but only those which work with both versions will be covered here. Of them the below are of particular interest. Pressing ENTER whilst in the View window will take you online to download the message body of the message header which currently has focus in the headers list. Pressing ENTER on a message header will open the message in the Message Viewer Window for reading. Articles have threads (also known as conversations) which link them and you can press "N" to highlight the header for the next related article in the thread or the next thread if the article you are on is the last article in this thread. You can skip to the next unread message in the current thread with "T" and, similarly, pressing "B" skips to the next unread message body. Pressing "S" marks all messages in a group/folder read if you then press Y for yes. To zoom in on a window and make it full screen, press "Z" whilst the focus is in the window (repeat this to restore things). To expand a thread (open up all of the subsequent responses to the original message)press the equals sign (=) and press the dash (-) to collapse it. You can view the next unread message in the current thread with CONTROL T. You can use CONTROL N to go to the next article in the thread and retrieve it automatically. Note: If you invoke a shortcut whichis only supported in the full Agent version, you will be told this and be able to press ENTER to close the message and continue with no adverse effect. 12.9. Changing Preferences If you press ALT N to enter the Options menu, you can ARROW down a menu with several preferences options which you can change to suit yourself, e.g. press ENTER on any of the menu options and then CONTROL TAB between the various property sheets (this may not be easy and you may have to resort to your mouse cursor to access the property sheets and then TAB down any one of these to make changes to such things as what size and style font will be used, laces to check/change your personal e-mail and news reading details, etc. There are hundreds of configuration changes and refinements you can make in these tabs and property sheets, so have a good look through them at some stage. Note: You will find that some of the above option tabs are not enabled in the free version of Agent, e.g. "Inbound Email" and "Menus and Toolbars". 12.10. Keeping News Messages Free Agent will automatically purge (delete) news messages when they are old but if you want to keep one so that Free Agent cannot delete it you would put the focus on the message header in the Messages Window and press the letter K. An icon (graphic) will appear at the left of the message. If you want to be able to delete this message at a later stage, you will have to repeat this sequence, when the keep icon will disappear. 12.11. Deleting News Messages To delete a single message, with the focus on the Message Window, ARROW to the message and press the DEL key followed by the letter Y. If you want to delete several messages, select them in the normal Windows way and press the DEL key followed by Y to confirm, e.g. press CONTROL HOME to the top of the list of messages, then hold down the CONTROL AND SHIFT KEYS and press the END key followed by the DEL key and Y to confirm to delete all the messages in a given newsgroup. To delete a whole newsgroup and its messages, with the focus on the newsgroup, press ALT G, D, and Y to confirm. 12.12. Responding to an Article with Free Agent To reply to an article directly to its author by e-mail, with the focus in the Message Viewer Window, press the letter "R", when Free Agent will open a new window in which you can edit a message or header. The "To:", "Subject:" and "From:" editfields will automatically be completed for you. After typing your message, press ALT S to send it. If the "To:" editfield is incorrect, the program will advise you and allow you to return to it and type in a valid e-mail address. After this press ALT S again to send it. To send a follow-up comment on a Usenet article, press the letter F, type the message and send it by pressing ALT S. The "To:" editfield will be completed with the newsgroup name automatically, etc, as with replying to a message by e-mail above. If you try to exit Free Agent with e-mail or usenet messages unsent, it will offer you the opportunity to send them immediately by pressing Y for yes or N for no. To post a number of stored messages when you go online, press ALT O, P. When you want to introduce a new subject of conversation rather than following up an old one, with the focus on the header in question, press the letter P, type the subject in the "Subject:" field, which you will already be in, press TAB and type in the message body. Send it as before by pressing ALT S. Note: To see a full list of Free Agent shortcut keystrokes, go to Appendix 4. 12.13. Sorting News Messages If you would like your messages sorting using different criteria from the default of sort by thread, you can press ALT G, O, and select from subject, author, date received, size in lines of text and date deleted. 12.14. Getting More Help To obtain more information about Free Agent's capabilities (of which it has many more), press ALT H for help, and hit ENTER on the "Contents" option. Read through the "Getting Started" section first and then progress to other sections. You can also press ALT H, I and then type in any word you wish to have searched for to fined information on that topic, e.g "offline", TAB to the nextlist and ARROW up and down the different offline topics (if there is more than one), then TAB again to the "Display" button and press ENTER. Another way of obtaining help on common topics is to press ALT H, H and then TAB through the offerings here and press ENTER on one of them to hear guidance, e.g. on "How to Use Agent as an Offline News Reader". Press ESCAPE to leave help. You can obtain a free copy of the full Agent users' guide in Word format from: www.forteinc.com and download the zip file called: agtman15.exe 12.15. Some More Free Agent Keyboard Shortcuts Press ENTER--To view a list of messages in the selected group. Press CONTROL O--To go online. Press P--To post a new Usenet message. Press ALT enter--To view the properties for the selected group. Press CONTROL S--To subscribe to or unsubscribe from newsgroups. Press F--to forward a reply to a newsgroup message. Press ALT M, O--To make the text in the message window wrap. The standard windows shortcut keystrokes are also generally available in Free Agent, e.g. CONTROL P to print, CONTROL c to copy, CONTROL A to select all, etc. ******** >SECTION 13 DOWNLOADING FILES AND PROGRAMS FROM THE NET You can copy files from one system to another on the Internet with either File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). These can be text files, pictures, programs, home brew beer recipes, etc. When you type a URL (Web address) or press ENTER on a Web page link you are downloading a file onto your PC from the Web. To download a file from the Web without it automatically running, hold down the SHIFT key whilst pressing ENTER on the download link. 13.1. FTP File Downloads An FTP server holds many files and you may be able to upload files of your own to it as well as downloading files onto your PC from it. You cannot download files from a "private" FTP site. If you want to download a file from a "public" FTP server, which you do not have an account with, you can do so by logging in as "anonymous" and typing your e-mail address as your password. FTP sites are often easier to obtain files from than regular WWW sites, as you do not have to complete online forms on them before downloading. The site will be structured in the same way as DOS directories (and Windows folders) are. You just press ENTER on any of the folders to move to the subfolder and press ENTER on the file you want to download to commence the downloading. When you are on the site, to find out what is available there and what the shortened filenames contain, you should view the "Readme" and "Index" files or any associated TXT or similar files. You can download two types of FTP files to your hard disk: ASCII and binary. If you want to get files via FTP, you need an FTP client program. Most Windows 9X browsers can handle FTP downloads and if you have a PPP or SLIP account you can also use a winsock FTP program, e.g. WS-FTP. Other FTP client programs which are reasonably screenreader-friendly are such as FTP Explorer, CuteFTP, NCFTP and FTP Voyger. The other means of obtaining files from the Web is by pressing ENTER on the link or typing the full URL path in the address box and pressing ENTER, when your Windows browser will act as the FTP client for the download from the server. Internet Explorer can handle this for you. An FTP URL takes the following form: ftp://servername/directoryname/filename If you leave out the directory name and filename, you will be taken to the top level directory of that FTP server, e.g.: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/ This path has no filename, so you are taken to the top level directory. 13.2. HTTP File Downloads However, more commonly, you will find yourself going to "WWW" sites to download files from the Net. These always start with "HTTP://" but Internet Explorer automatically prefixes your URLs with this, so you do not have to type it in. Additionally, not all Web addresses commence with FTP or WWW, so if you see an address of this type, just type it into the address field as usual, e.g. access.adobe.com If you are typing an address into the address field of Internet Explorer which ends in ".htm" or ".html", this means the file you are downloading is a single file, not a program, and has been written in HTML language. This file will normally be best read from within your browser. However, you are often given two choices of format for downloading files from WWW sites: HTML or text. If you TAB to the "text" option before downloading, you will be able to read the downloaded data file in any word- processor or text editor but it will loose its formatting. 13.3. File Download Steps The steps you take to retrieve a file are: 1. Run your Web browser. 2. Type the URL in the address box (after pressing CONTROL O) and press ENTER. The page at the FTP site will load in and each file and directory in the current directory will be displayed as a link. 3. TAB to (or use the search box to find) the directory you are interested in and press ENTER on the link (links are underlined and in blue). Then press ENTER on the desired file to download it. 4. You will be asked by Explorer whether to open the file or save it to disk, so choose to save it to disk. 5. You will be offered a filename to save it under but you can change this if you wish by typing a more familiar one in, preferably with the path to where you would like it to go, e.g.: c:\webfiles\jfw35demo.exe assuming, of course, that you have already created a folder from your C: drive called "webfiles". If you want to use the winsock FTP program called WS_FTP, as your FTP client software instead of Internet Explorer, download it from: ftp://papa.indstate.edu/winsock-l/ftp/ws_ftp.zip You then unzip the file and use it by following the instructions/help system that comes with it. 13.4. X:Drive Free Web Disk Space You can obtain between 20 and 100 Mb of free virtual Web-based disk space by signing up to X:Drive on the Net. You can then upload files from any PC to this virtual disk and then download them to another computer anywhere else in the world. It is possible to make the data safe with passwords or make it freely available to anyone else. This removes the need to copy and carry data around on floppy or CD disks. You may access your files using X:Drive's own interface or, with a small downloadable program installed, access your X:Drive files by using Internet Explorer as if they were on another disk drive on your own PC. You can sign up with X:Drive at: www.xdrive.com 13.5. FTP-by-E-Mail If your computer only has e-mail facilities and no FTP capabilities, some sites provide FTP-by-mail, in which files can be returned to you by e-mail, for example: ftpmail@doc.ic.ac.uk (in Britain) bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu (in America) ftpmail@ieunet.ie (in Ireland) Most files and programs you may wish to download from the Web, including FTP files, are either zipped (compressed) self- extracting files or standard compressed files. To decompress and run a self-extracting file or program (which is likely to have a .zip or .exe extension) just use the run command in Windows 95/98 and type the path to it or highlight it in Windows Explorer and press ENTER. If the file is not self-extracting but just compressed, you can use a DOS program called PKZIP to decompress it. There is also a Windows version of PKZIP. You can also use a compressing/decompressing program called Winzip. To download a copy of Winzip go to: www.winzip.com/ and look for the download page and download links. Sometimes you might find the program you are looking for under an "Evaluation" link as well. ******** >SECTION 14 HOW TO FIND PEOPLE AND PLACES ON THE INTERNET There are a number of avenues for locating people on the Net. Try the following. 14.1. Search Engines Use a "Search "engine" and in the search text box type the person's name enclosed in double quotes, e.g.: "James Watt" and press ENTER on the submit button. If this person has their own internet site, it should be found. Any e-mail address this person has is likely to be displayed on their Web page. 14.2. Contacting the Domain Postmaster If you know which e-mail provider someone has, you could e- mail the Postmaster at that domain (domain being the part of the e-mail address after the @ sign, e.g. @compuserve.com) giving the individual's details and ask for the e-mail address. For instance, you would e-mail to: Postmaster@compuserve.com The Postmaster is also the person you would e-mail if you were having problems with your mailbox. 14.3. Searching through Usenet Newsgroups If you know someone uses newsgroups, try using a program such as Altavista to search for his name amongst Usenet newsgroups or try www.dejanews.com. 14.4. Searching Online Directories Try an online directory, which may or may not have the person listed, such as www.four11.com and go to the e-mail search box. You can also register your own e-mail address here if you wish other people to be able to find you easily. You can also seek people at the following sites: www.whowhere.com www.internic.net/wp/whois.html--which particularly finds people who have their own company sites on the Net. www.hq.nasa.gov/x.500.html--for directories of phone and e-mail listings for people in many countries. ******** >SECTION 15 DIFFERENT WAYS OF CONNECTING TO ACCOUNTS Because all Windows Internet packages support winsock, Windows users can mix the packages they use. Good free and shareware programs for connecting to the Net are: 15.1. PPP/SLIP Programs Free-PPP--which you can download from www.rockstar.com/ppp.html 15.2. E-Mail Programs Eudora Light--from www.eudora.com Pegasus Mail--from www.pmail.com/. Netscape Navigator/Communicator (with PPP connection, browser and e-mailer)--from http://home.netscape.com Microsoft Internet Explorer (with PPP connection, browser and Outlook Express e-mailer/news reader)--from www.microsoft.com 15.3. Newsgroup Readers Free Agent from www.forteinc.com 15.4. FTP file Up- and Download programs There are many FTP upload and download programs available for putting text, sound and video files onto the Internet, such as uploading files to your own Website, if you have one, or for downloading files from the Net to your computer. 15.4.1. General Overview For example: You can use ws_ftp--from www.ipswitch.com And there is CuteFTP from--www.cuteftp.com plus a good free FTP client is FTP Explorer from--www.ftpx.com FTP Explorer is free to home (not business) users. It is the one I would recommend for the basic use of screenreader/speech system users because it is simple, easy to use and very transparent. You can even go onto the FTP Explorer Website at: www.ftpx.com and subscribe to an FTP Explorer users' e-mail list to swap experience, tips and ask for help from others on the list. Everything in FTP Explorer is either accessible with shortcuts, or via the menus or from within Tools, Options and the several property sheets in here. You will have to know (or obtain from your ISP) various details to set up the protocols and addresses the same as with all FTP clients but after that you just view things on the FTP server by TABBING through the three default windows when working with it, i.e. the first window is the tree view window where the directories/folders on a server are displayed, the second window is the list of files in the folder you have highlighted in window one and the third window is the log window which shows a list of commands you have given and whether they were carried out successfully or whether they failed. 15.4.2. Step by Step Example of how to use FTP Explorer 15.4.2.1. General FTP Explorer is free for downloading and use at home by individuals. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. After you have created your Web pages on your hard disk, you will have to find a method of making them available to others. This could be via a domain of your own running from your own computer or it could simply be space on your ISPs server, which you may obtain free or at a monthly or annual charge. An ISP which provides 10 Mb of free server space for you to create your own Website is Onetel but there are many other choices. The below provides basic details about using FTP Explorer in relation to keeping your Website on your ISPs server. You can download FTP Explorer from: http://www.ftpx.com It's simple to use with a screenreader and is only about a 800 Kb download. 15.4.2.2. Set-Up and Protocols Installation of FTP Explorer is the normal Windows style and you will also have to provide several pieces of information before you can use FTP Explorer. Some of these will be of your own choosing and others you may have to contact your site provider to obtain. These are: 1. The host address, which is the address of your provider's server, e.g. ftp.onetel.com. 2. A password of your own choosing. 3. A login username, which is likely to be of your own choosing. 4. The "Initial Path" is any sub-directory off of the ISP server's root directory which you may wish to be taken straight to instead of going to the root first and then having to navigate to your own sub-directory where your html files are kept, e.g. /fromthekeyboard. But you do not have to do things in this way if you do not want, as you can simply leave this field blank and always land on the root directory/folder of your Website if you prefer. 15.4.2.3. Uploading and Downloading Files You use FTP Explorer by: 1. After setting up your password, login name and other protocols, etc, when you first launch FTP Explorer from the shortcut on your Desktop, you will be taken into the profiles, settings, etc, dialogue and you can just press ENTER or ALT C to go online and connect to your ISP. If this does not happen for you, you can simply press CONTROL N to open the above dialogue to go online. 2. After logging on, you will be in the first of three windows, which is the tree view window where you can arrow up and down folders and open them if your site has more than one folder set up on it. If you then press TAB you get to the second window which has the list of individual files in it, which you can arrow up and down and right and left in and view your individual .HTM or .HTML files and other files, such as video and sound files, e.g. index.htm, readme.htm, introsound.wav, etc. If you then press TAB again to the third window, which is an information log file window, this will tell you if your log on has been successful, if your files have been displayed OK, if your uploads have succeeded, etc. 3. When on your Website on your ISPs server (or anyone else's FTP Website), pressing ENTER on any .htm or other file will open a download dialogue and allow you to download it to your specified download directory, e.g. c:\website/, in my case (but any other folder you yourself prefer or create for this purpose). You can also effect downloads by pressing ALT F, W or ALT f, T. 4. To upload a single or multiple files, put focus on the folder or sub-folder on the ISP server where you want the files to go to and then press ALT F, followed by U. So, to upload to my site, I would remain in the first window where the tree view is and upload whilst in that view--you do not go to the files view in the second window to do this. 5. An upload dialogue will open where you can type the path to a single filename in or browse to it or several files to highlight for uploading. After selecting the files, TAB to "Open" and press ENTER. The page(s) or file(s) should only take a second or two to upload,unless they are audio or video files when the time factor will be longer. That's it! Note: Sometimes your files will upload but, for some reason I have not yet fathomed, the case of them will change. This would mean that the links on your Web pages to your other pages would not work. If this happens to you, when you are on your Website with FTP Explorer in the above files view, after having uploaded them, just go to each file, press F2 to open an editfield and retype the correct filename in with the correct case lettering and press ENTER to make the change. You will probably have to do this with the filenames of all of your uploaded files. 6. If you wish to delete any given file on your Website, you just go to it in window two and press the DELETE key followed by Y to confirm. You would be best deleting such files in this way before uploading new replacement files. To delete all files on your site, highlight them with CONTROL A first and then press the DEL key. 7. To end the session and come offline, press ALT T (for Tools) and then D (for Disconnect), or to simply cancel a current download press ALT T, C. You can also find files you know the names of via the Tools menu, "Find" feature and there is also a "Goto" option as well. 15.4.2.4. Configuration Tips 1. If FTP Explorer is not displaying the way you or your screenreader would like, experiment in the several menus to see what works best for you, e.g. press ALT V (for View) and try changing the display from "Large Icons" to "Small Icons or vis- versa ", changing to "List" or "Details" displaying of file information, changing "Arrange Icons" from "Auto Arrange" to such as by "Name" or by "Type", etc. 2. Do not forget the many option changes which can always be made in a program's Options property sheets, i.e. press ALT V (for View, O (for Options) and then TAB and CONTROL TAB through the on/off options and selection lists and the six separate sheets in here to make any fine-tuning choices for yourself. 15.5. Chat programs Try IRC (Internet Relay Chat)--from www.mirc.co.uk. Many free and shareware Windows programs for e-mail, Net browsing, chat and for reading newsgroups are downloadable from the following sites: Forest Stroud's winsock applications site at www.stroud.com The Tucows site at www.tucows.com The Jumbo site at www.jumbo.com The Shareware Com site at www. shareware.com If you do not have access to the Internet you may be able to download files from an FTP site such as: FTP.keme.co.uk FTP.simtel.com If you have neither Internet nor FTP connections, try phoning Onetel for their free ISP service (but you pay 1p a minute for your call time) on 0800 9570778. Please note that the best-known and therefore most frequently used Internet programs (such as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Free Agent, Eudora, etc) will be most likely to be supported by your screenreader having set files or script files written for them, so it is advisable to make use of these rather than lesser-known software--but you can always experiment, of course. ******** >APPENDIX 1 WHERE TO FIND MORE INTERNET INFORMATION More information on various aspects of using the Internet can be obtained via a number of resources. Below I list some of particular interest. 16.1. From the Internet Itself Go to net.dummies.net 16.2. In Braille A Guide to the Internet and How to Access It, from the RNIB--A free beginner's brief, non-technical overview of Internet facilities. Phone: 0845 7023153. Internet for Dummies, 1997, from the NLB, on 0161 494 0217--an in-depth tour of the Internet from a screen and mouse-click point of view (but a little out of date now). Access-It, from the RNIB--a monthly specialist visually- impaired oriented computer magazine in Braille. This is also available on floppy disk and by e-mail. Compute-It, from the RNIB--a braille monthly with standard articles of interest to visually impaired people from a collection of the mainstream PC magazines. This is also available on floppy disk and by e-mail. 16.3. On Cassette Several PC magazines published monthly and recorded onto cassette, floppy disk, downloadable files and CD-ROM by TNAUK are available, Tel: 01435 866102. Website: www.tnauk.org.uk A UK organisation produce a monthly C90 computer tape called Talking Computers. Ted Martin runs it and is on e-mail ted@pound.charitydays.co.uk. Another UK C90 tape sponsored by Dolphin Access Systems but produced independently by Simon Wilks is called The Whistler and he is on: 020 84780673. 16.4. By E-Mail The Microsoft Accessibility Update, From Microsoft--a periodic access-related bulletin e-mailed to subscribed persons. Registers for it by completing the online form at www.microsoft.com/enable/news/subscribe-u.htm. However, they suspended publishing this Accessibility Update in 2004 but may resume its provision at some later date. To see what accessibility news bulletins and articles Microsoft are currently supplying, just go to: www.microsoft.com/enable/news A weekly US bulletin taken from the New York Times called Tech Update is e-mailed to subscribers by Wil Smith. Wil can be contacted at: e-mail wilsmith@iglou.com. A monthly UK magazine bulletin available worldwide and sponsored by the RNIB is called "Eaccess". You can register to receive it free by sending an e-mail to: eab-subs@headstar.com with 'subscribe eab' in the subject header. ******** >APPENDIX 2 LIST OF E-MAIL LISTS DEALING WITH PARTICULAR TOPICS OF VISUAL IMPAIRMENT 17.1. List of VI-Related Lists and Examples of How to Subscribe to Them BASR-L--Discusses Web browser and screenreader accessibility matters. To subscribe send an e-mail to: listproc@trace.wisc.edu Leave the subject line blank and in the body type: subscribe basr-l firstname lastname BCAB--UK Blind Computer Users' Association list. To subscribe send an e-mail to: majordomo@cs.man.ac.uk Leave the subject line blank and in the body of the message type: subscribe bcab AVIOS--This is the UK Association of Visually Impaired Office Staff information and discussion list. They discuss telephony and general UK office-worker-related topics.To join send a blank message to: avios-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Leave the subject line and the body of the message blank. to Unsubscribe from the AVIOS list, send a blank message to: avios-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com To temporarily suspend AVIOS list messages so that you receive none until you tell the list to start sending messages again, e.g. for whilst you are on holiday, send a blank message to: avios-nomail@yahoogroups.com and to recommence receiving mail at a later date, send a blank message to: avios-normal@yahoogroups.com Note: these subscribe, unsubscribe, nomail and normal commands are universal for all lists on Yahoogroups, so if you know them for one Yahoogroups list, you know them for them all. audyssey--This is a dedicated games magazine for blind people. To receive this e-mail magazine send an e-message to: jmeddaug@cris.com Leave the subject line blank and type in the body: subscribe audyssey Blind-L--Deals with non-Windows computer issues. To join send an e-message to: listserv@uafsysb.uark.edu and type in the body: subscribe blind-l firstname lastname Lookout--A list for users of the Lookout and Dual screenreader and magnifier. It provides peer support and update information for these packages. To subscribe send an e-mail to: lookout-support-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and leave the body of the message blank. blindwebbers--Provides discussion on and tips about creating blind-friendly Internet Websites for both experienced and learner visually impaired Web authors. To subscribe just send a blank e-mail to: blindwebbers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and leave the subject line and message body blank. To contribute to the Blindwebbers discussions, send your message to: blindwebbers@yahoogroups.com GUIspeak--Discusses Windows-related computer topics. To add your name to the mailing list send an e-mail to: listserv@listserv.nodak.edu And in the body type: subscribe guispeak firstname lastname National Talking Express--Discusses matters arising from the UK NTE monthly tape magazine. To subscribe just send a message to: nteexpress-subscribe@smartgroups.com and leave the subject line and body of the message blank. Blind Attic--This is the US Blind Treasures trading, buying and selling list for all types of goods, whether new or second-hand. To subscribe to the Blind Attic list send an e-mail to: blindattic-request@blindtreasures.com If you want to advertise something for sale or request if someone has something you want on the Blind Attic list, send your e-mail to: blindattic@blindtreasures.com VIsector--A UK-based list for UK companies in the field of VI commodities to post job vacancies to. To subscribe and receive notice of these job vacancies send an e-mail to: visector-request@ukvijobs.com Leave the subject line blank and in the body of the message type: subscribe visector jwjw@onetel.com but, of course, do not type my e-mail address in, rather insert your own address. You cannot post messages to the VIsector list, only receive them and then respond directly to the job vacancy advertiser. Blind-Chit-Chat--Provides a forum for blind people to have informal discussions. You can subscribe by sending an e-mail to: blind-chit-chat-subscribe@egroups.com Further examples of the format to use when subscribing to mailing lists: To subscribe to the JAWS discussion lists: For UK residents, send a message to: jaws-uk@freelists.org and type: Subscribe in the Subject Line and leave the body of the message blank. To suspend mail whilst away for a few days send a message to: jaws-uk-request@freelists.org and in the subject line type: Vacation When you return from holiday send to the same address the following command: unset vacation To leave the jaws-UK list, send to: jaws-uk-request@freelists.org and type: unsubscribe in the subject line. If you wish to join the US JAWS list, send a blank message to: jfwlite-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and leave the rest of the message blank. To subscribe to the UK Recycle-It second-hand computer equipment and other items list send an e-mail to: recycle-it-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and add something like "Please add me to your list" in the subject field and leave the body of the message blank. To join the UK Access UK list for discussion on general technology and other access-related issues, send a message to: access-uk-request@freelists.org Leave the message body blank and in the subject line type: subscribe To post a message on Access-UK, send your message to: access-uk@freelists.org To suspend mail or leave the Access UK list, use the same commands as outlined above for the JAWS-UK list. To find a mailing list on a particular topic you are interested in and to subscribe, send an e-mail to: listserv@listserv.net and in the body of the message type, for example: list global blindness or list global fishing with the last word(s) being the subject you are interested in, namely "blindness" or "fishing". In a few minutes you will receive an e-mail telling you how to sign onto any lists which Listserv have registered with them in respect of these topics. Of course, this will only be a list of the available Listserv lists and not any which are hosted by other providers like Smartgroups, Yahoo!, Freelists, etc, so you will have to do something similar (but probably not exactly the same) to get lists from other providers. 17.2. Downloadable Comprehensive List of e-Mail Lists of Interest to Visually Impaired People There is a list of e-mail lists for you to peruse and find lists which might interest you to join. This is at: www.whitestick.co.uk and you can find and download many more texts and programs from this site as well. ******** >APPENDIX 3 LIST OF HUNDREDS OF GENERAL WEBSITES OF INTEREST 18.1. Recommended Sites to Visit Many of the Websites in this appendix are repeats of those mentioned in the main body of this tutorial, although many more are only mentioned here and nowhere else. This appendix, however, does not encapsulate every site which is alluded to in the above sections. If you cannot find what you want here, search the main body of the tutorial for it. When entering one of the below Website URLs in to your Web browser's Address Bar, type all characters and symbols up to the two dashes (--), but do not include the dashes. You do not usually need to type in the prefix of an address (http://), as browsers automatically insert this for you. The sites with an asterisk (*) at the end of their brief description have been created with the screenreader in mind for maximum accessibility. Most of the others should be found to be reasonably accessible with a good screenreader. Please remember that websites are appearing and disappearing on the Internet all of the time. Some are frequently rewritten and others change their URL from time to time. Additionally, the sites at the top of this list are more likely to be recently created than those towards the bottom. www.direct.gov.uk--Provides an up-to-date and authoritative Government information and advice site for all kinds of Government information. You can find general details about such matters as health, education, disabilities, etc. It has been created with easy to see pages with as few as possible graphics and has a search feature to find specific areas of interest quickly. You can also go directly to certain areas of information like disabilities and details for careers by going to www.direct.gov.uk/disabilities (for matters like employment, specialist equipment, social services, disability rights, etc) and www.direct.gov.uk/carers.* www.tpb.se--This site provides two free daisy book reading programs. The most basic is called TPB Reader and is around a 12 Mb download or can be ordered on CD. The more advanced reader is called Playback 2000 and is only available on CD due to its size. This is a Swedish libraries site and you should go to the "English" link near the top of the home page.* www.en.wikimedia.org--Holds the site of an impressive online encyclopedia which is kept up to date and added to by volunteers. This is one of the world's largest reference points and encyclopedias. www.savemoneynow.com--Is a site where you can compare prices and obtain advice on making savings on household bills such as gas and electricity. www.wugnet.com/myspeed/speedtest.asp and www.numion.com--Are both places where you can check your Internet connection speed and get feedback on how efficiently it is working in your area and with your own computer. www.switchwithwitch.com--Is another prices comparison site but this time mainly for phone providers. It also tells you how to switch provider. www.moneysupermarket.com--Lets you compare credit card interest rates to get the best/lowest rates. www.tradingstandards.gov.uk--Provides a Government site with information about the UK postal and telephone preference service to get onto the list so that you receive no or at least fewer unwanted phone calls from advertisers and promoters and fewer unsolicited junk mail letters. www.travelmarket.com--A site where you can compare prices of suppliers of travel tickets, holidays, and the like. www.radiotimes.com--Provides a scfreenreader- and magnifier- friendly service whereby you can view radio and TV times programmes listings plus over 200 other radio and TV channel programmes listings.* www.willdrafters.com--Is a site you can obtain advice about writing a Will from and you can even make your own Will online. Another such Will writing and advice service can be found at: www.tenminutewill.co.uk. www.freecycle.com--Provides a Website for people and companies to advertise free gifts and offers available in such as the UK, US and Canada. There is a "Free Stuff" link with items like books, bags, theatre tickets, money off coupons, etc, available. Goods are also available for sale on this site too. www.revealweb.org.uk--Here is the UK's National Library for the Blind's Revealweb Website holding the names and details of many UK organisations and individuals who provide accessible goods and services for visually impaired people. www.vip-highstreet.com--From this consumer-orientated Website you can jump from links to high street shops which themselves have accessible shopping sites. There are links to supermarkets, furniture shops, electrical and computer shops, etc, and there is information pertaining to customer rights.* www.applianceonline.co.uk--Is a shopping site where you can purchase many different types of home appliance, such as cookers and washing-machines, often at prices significantly lower than high street shops. www.kelkoo.co.uk--Is another shopping price comparison site from which you can check UK shop prices and buy items. and www.manybooks.net--Is a site where you can both find free books to download and links to other similar sites from which to obtain free books. www.cinebench.com--Allows you to download a free computer benchmarking program to run and find out the efficiency of the most important parts of your PC such as processor and memory to see if it has any running problems, bottle-necks and parts which could do with upgrading, etc. www.fotopic.org--This is where you can sign up for 250 Mb of spare Internet storage space for your photographs. www.websightuk.org--Hosts a site for VI persons which provides information of interest to blind people, holds reviews and permits you to hear online features such as the UK Soundings tape magazine.* www.apple.com/podcasting--This is where you can view an online tutorial to learn how to create and listen to podcasts. A podcast is a broadcast on any topic they like either made by a corporation or private individual and posted on the Net for anyone else to download and listen to. They are usually posted as compressed files, such as in MP3 format. www.processtext.com--Provides a site where you can download several programs which are designed to convert many types of files to other formats, including converting Adobe PDF files to other formats such as MS Word. www.cbfsms.com--Is where you can access a free computer to mobile phone text messaging service. www.tafn.org.uk/audio.htm--This is a radio guide from where you can listen to a range of on-demand BBC, general independent UK and also some international radio stations from one site. There is no subscription and the site also has zoom facilities on each page for screen magnification.* www.medterms.com/script/main/hp.asp--Provides an online dictionary of medical terms and symptoms. www.talkingproducts.co.uk/index_text.htm--Supplies information about many of the talking gadgets and other products which might be of use to visually impaired people.* www.yrguk.com/entertainment/jungle--Provides a speech-enabled and blind-friendly jungle adventure game. The main site at www.yrguk.com also carries several other blind-friendly games and information links.* www.yrguk.com--Contains an audio news, radio station etc, site specially created for blind users. You can get results without having to navigate Web pages, just by pressing specific numbers on your keyboard.* www.webformator.com--Is where you can download a free Web page formatting program called Webformator to make Web pages more accessible to blind people. It works with all screenreaders and can deal with pages containing Flash 6 and also pages with tables on them. You will need IE5.01 or higher and Windows 98 or higher.* www.gamesfortheblind.com--Provides a chat facility called Accessible Chat free of charge. This features a special speech-friendly interface you can access via JFW or Window- Eyes for visually impaired people to engage in type-talk chatting in a manageable environment.* www.moneyspider.com--Contains free information for ISA investors. www.themillionweb.com/demos--Here is where you can download a demo of a screenreader-friendly version of the Millionaire quiz game. www.callcredit.co.uk, www.equifax.co.uk and www.experian.co.uk-- Are all sites where UK residents can check their own personal credit worthiness files and discover their standing and, perhaps, get an idea if anyone else has tried to use your personal details illegally to obtain such as credit cards, loans, etc and given you a bad record. www.upmystreet.com--Allows you to enter your UK post code (or anyone else's) and then receive lots of information about that area, e.g. the name of the local M.P., whereabouts of local take- ways, restaurants, etc. www.kitchensinc.net--This provides a site where you can download free gaming software which is speech enabled for visually impaired people, e.g. monopoly, quiz games, casino games, etc. www.sightconnections.com--Is a site created by a visually impaired person to facilitate the use of over 250 e-mail discussion lists for visually impaired people plus many Internet radio stations. It features Europe's only radio station specifically for blind people, which is called VIP On Air.* www.chpi.org/whatsnew.html--Is the url from which to download a braille translator called "XML2BRL". It converts either XML or TXT files to embossable Braille or Braille which can be then read on a Braille display and is freeware. It only works on Linux- based computers but a Windows version is due out soon.* www.aprompt.ca--Provides a place to download a Web page accessibility repair tool called A-Prompt to find problems with Website accessibility and take the Web Master through how to fix them step by step.* www.adaptech.org--This site permits you to view and download a selection of free and low-cost adapted software packages for visually impaired people, such as screen magnifiers, OCRs and text-to-speech programs but some of these are only available in the French language. Go to the "Downloads" link to get to the list of software.* www.aida32.hu--Provides a Web-based utility which can tell you how much RAM you have in your computer and what type of RAM and speed it is. It will also advise you if you have any free RAM memory slots on your motherboard. www.phonedirectorysearch.com/internat.htm--Is a source for obtaining international phone numbers. Many listings are in English but some are in their countries native language. www.lastminute.com--Is the location to find last-minute, cheap travel tickets for flights and holidays. www.tesco.com/access--This is the online shopping site for the Tesco supermarket, from where you can choose your goods and then have them delivered. This link has been made specially accessible for screenreader users.* www.centralwebs.co.uk/links/books.html--Is a Web page from which you can download a number of free book texts, view online references and also the site contains a free text to speech reading program. www.saynoto0870.com--This site features a very handy way of discovering the cheaper, geographical numbers to companies which only provide non-geographic numbers for customers, such as 0870 and 0845 numbers. You can thereby find alternative numbers to ring (if they exist and have been registered with the site) which will cost you significantly less to call per minute. You just activate the "Search" link and either type in your required company name or the company's 0870 number to find if an alternative geographic number is known. You can also contribute to the service by adding companies and numbers you yourself know but which the site has not yet had registered. www.sightconnections.com--Provides a Web page with links to around 47 streaming radio stations and 2 TV streams from Australia. www.oneformat.com--Since September 2003, has been making available a way of overriding a Web designer's choice of colour, print size and font and background images by providing a Website where users can create and download their own style sheets. These style sheets can then link to a Web browser for use on other Websites. http://en.wiipedia.org--Is the site for a free encyclopedia which is not especially for blind people but can be used quite successfully. www.moneyfacts.co.uk--Which provides a site to view many financial organisations' offerings in accounts, bonds, mortgages, interest rates, etc. You can also find out this type of information at www.news.ft.com and at www.fsa.gov.uk. www.jungle.com--A site from which you can make online commodities purchases, such as music Cds, computer software and hardware, mobile phones, PC games, electrical goods and much more. Sign up for their weekly newsletter near the top of their home page. www.disabledworkers.org--Is where you can find information about disabled workers in given fields in your locality if you need one of them to do work for you and where you yourself can register on the database for inclusion as a disabled worker if you qualify. www.sports.com--Gives Net access to a great wealth of sports information. www.ihavemoved.com--Provides a site on which, if you have just changed address, you can have everyone who needs to know automatically advised of your new address. Your new details will be passed on to the people/organisations you tell it to advise at no charge, e.g. banks, utility companies, clubs, friends, etc. www.ebooklocator.com--Provides a searching site to help find details of book titles published in e-book format. It contains details on many thousands of e-books published by over 400 publishers. www.sortit.org.uk--This is a newly created RNIB Website aimed at the 11 to 16 age group, containing general information, details on leisure subjects, teenage magazine availability, etc.* www.royalmail.com/access--Provides an accessible equivalent of the Royal Mail's general Website. It meets with Bobby standards. You can access all kinds of postal-related information and supply an address in order to be given the post code which pertains to that address* www.home.earthlink.net./~blindworld--Features an American site specialising in blindness issues, such as news, medication, blind sports, blindness research, products and gadgets for the blind, and the like.* www.telediscount.co.uk--Is a UK company which provides a Website through which you can make cheap phone calls abroad without having to register with them or put money up front to use them. You just log onto the site, open up a list of about 150 phone call destination countries, view what the charge will be and then type in the abroad phone number you wish to ring. You can obtain standard (non-mobile) calls for the cost of UK local calls or less. www.uswitch.com--Provides a UK energy price comparison service to find out where to get the best gas, electricity, phone bill, etc, suppliers. www.eyes2eyes.com--Is a site run by a visually impaired American providing blind-related information about such matters as personal, employment, medical, safety and vision issues. Visitors can submit articles and tips and post messages to others.* www.allexperts.com--Provides a large Website where you can select a topic and ask any questions of an expert by activating an e- mail link and typing in your query. The expert, who will be a volunteer and a real live person, will e-mail the answer back to you. They have experts on just about any topic you can imagine. www.audiobooksforfree.com--Provides a download site where books can be obtained for free. www.saveonyourbills.co.uk--Gives you access to comparative information about goods, services and utility providers to check if you are getting the best value for money with your current providers. This type of information can also be obtained at www.ukpower.co.uk and www.energywatch.org.uk. www.handybits.com/shredder.htm--Is a Web page from which you can download a free file shredder, i.e. a small program which does the same for computer files that an office shredder does for hard copy paper. Shredded files can then not be recovered by unauthorised persons (or yourself) and reinstated and viewed on your PC. www.accessplace.com--Is a daily updated site of over 4,000 links to other sites in over 300 categories. Its a quick way to find what you want and then intuitively and easily select and be taken to any of them. www.blindtreasures.com--This is a US site specifically for blind people to auction just about anything, not just IT equipment. For more information and how to use it, just surf to the site and look around. http://onlineshop.rnib.org.uk--Hosts the UK RNIB Internet shopping site to purchase VI adapted goods and services. www.disabledgo.info--Houses a site for people with sensory impairments where info on accessible places like pubs, restaurants and theatres can be found in many towns and cities. How to get there, etc, is given and the cities/places listed are being added to continually. If you want to give them details of an accessible venue you have discovered, do so via their e-mail address of: feedback@disabledgo.info. www.grabameal.co.uk--Contains online menus for foodstuffs by food type/region. www.meru.org.uk/speechmakers/powertalk.html--Is the download URL for a free MS Powerpoint speech API to verbalise what is on the screen when using Powerpoint. It is called Powertalk and is a 2.5 Mb download. www.topica.com--Hosts a large number of features, such as e- mail and tips on how to use common software programs, e.g. Word 2000, Access 97, etc. You can sign up free and then select the information categories which interest you from the "Tips World" link. www.everyhit.com--Provides a fast-moving, up-to-date site on which you can ask questions about music and obtain answers, such as obtaining a list of any particular artist's single hits and the dates they were hits on. You can also do many other searches for details on albums, tracks, artists, etc, to find facts. ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/users/n8kl/nfbtr767.zip--Is the URL to download Version 7.67 of the free American Grade 2 Braille translation software. You can also download this free translation package plus a Windows user interface program called Wintrans from: www.wintrans-bt.org. www.ispreview.co.uk--Contains reviews of different Internet service providers to help you choose the best one for you. www.archive.org--Houses the Wayback Machine which is a web trawling and archiving program which takes a mirror image of the internet every two months and saves this as a kind of historic record or Internet library. To find a site as it was on a given day, you provide the URL of the site you want and from the table provided select the date you would like to go back to to obtain a copy of that site on that particular day. www.expita.com--Supplies a site where you can read much information about accessing the Internet by e-mail. It is the Access by Mail Website known as "accmail". www.e-accessibility.com--Provides a Website and monthly newsletter for VI persons, jointly supported by RNIB, NLB and GDB.* www.bookshare.org--Provides for US citizens an online community for scanning and sharing copyrighted books legally. Any book scans can be submitted for sharing by e-mailing the recognised scan and (preferably) the image scan. To obtain instructions on how to join, submit and discover what books are available for you to download send an e-mail to*: volunteer@bookshare.org www.192.com--Is the best site to find anyone in the UK. It searches databases of all phone books and electoral registers in the country. www.thefreesite.com--Provides one of the best Websites for locating freebies, whether promotional items, gifts by competition or computer software. www.jetform.com--Is where you can view and purchase a copy of an online and offline electronic forms completion program for VI people. It is called Verbal-Eyes and works with JFW 3.5 and Window-Eyes 3.1 upwards. http://validation.nlb-online.org--Holds over 70 high-quality reference resources, by three different providers, such as the Hutchinson Encyclopedia of Britain, Hansard and the Good Bed and Breakfast Guide. This same site also features a link to another reference resource called X-Refer with information available from Penguin Dictionary of Business, Dictionary of Law, Dictionary of Wine, Penguin Encyclopedia of Places, Collins Concise Dictionary of Quotations, Dictionary of British History, Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, New Brove Dictionary of Jazz, Dictionary of Shakespeare, Compact American Dictionary of Computer Words, etc. There is also the AEBSCO UK Reference Centre with over 300 full text archive newspapers and magazines such as BBC Gardener's World, the Economist, The New Scientist, Computer Weekly, The Guardian, The Rolling Stone, and the like. For more information and to get a username and password, phone Una Regan at the NLB on 0161 3552083 or e-mail to una.regan@nlbuk.org. www.redwhiteandblue.org/news/bonsmenu.htm--Hosts a site where you can find links to other blindness related sites and advertise and review accessibility products. You can also join the BONS (Blind Online News Service) weekly e-mail news letter which also contains links to other Websites with blindness-related subject matter.* www.howitworks.com--Is a site providing information of an IT nature, plus educational facts and coverage of PC games. www.gamesfortheblind.com--Is a blind-friendly site providing specialist games for the blind and a chat room called Accessible chat.* www.xe.com/ucc/--Contains a facility for you to type in a currency and have it converted into its up-to-date equivalent in another currency. www.tlorimer.btinternet.co.uk--Is where you can download several useful free and shareware programs, e.g. download managers, MP3 players, Web search engines, etc. It is maintained by Tom Lorimer who is himself blind. He has also created and made available a HTML Web page creation tutorial which can be downloaded.* www.blindhelp.comThis is where you can find a link to a messenger program which reads incoming messages. This program is called Talking Messenger. http://pages.sprint.ca/radioclicks/files/default.htm--This is where you can find a screenreader-friendly radio and vide stations playing site with media from dozens of countries and hundreds of stations.* www.register.co.uk--This is the UK information technology site to obtain up-to-date IT information specific to this topic. www.screenreader.co.uk--Contains a free Web page rendering program called Webbie for download. This makes Web pages easier to work with for some screenreader users by presenting the page like a word-processor document. www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/download--Is the Microsoft page where you can download a free copy of the latest version of MS Windows Media Player and other media-related software. www.drivershq.com--Contains links to every PC equipment manufacturer in the world, e.g. to download up-to-date drivers. http://members.fortunecity.com/mhunkin/marval_man/index.html-- Holds information on blind-related topics, accessibility information and links to music and entertainment stations (US based).* www.speedbit.com--A Website from which you can download a program called Download Accelerator to help speed up your downloads, allow you to recommence a cut off download, etc. www.morganauctions.co.uk--Is an Internet-based auction house for computer and some other electrical goods. www.shopsmart.com--Provides a place to search for best prices for goods. www.enablelink.com--Hosts information about disability aides, such as magnifiers and screenreaders. www.enablemart.com--This is another site for disabled people to access information, find out about screenreading programs, magnifiers and much more. www.audio-tips.com--Is the site of the 1-step vocal e-mail program for those who prefer to speak and hear e-mail. www.seti-search.com--Is where you can go to operate a Web-based search engine which was written to be used by blind people. www.bfmsoft.com/--Here you can find a useful shareware program named CD Wizard to play your CDs with and go onto the Net to search for information on that CD. www.airoboform.com--Is the site of a freeware online automatic forms completion program. www.dictionary.com--Hosts an American online dictionary for free use. If you use the URL www.dictionary.com/translate you can get languages translated for you. www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard/keyboardsearch.asp--Is where you can find lists of keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft products all in one place. www.webopedia.com--This is an Internet-based encyclopedia of computer-related information and support. www.thescreenreader.org.uk--Provides a regularly updated FAQ file with answers to numerous questions about HAL in zip, text and HTML formats.* www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass--Contains a text-only page for browsing masses of historic, archaeological, and so forth, information held at the British Museum. The home page has a text-only link and screenreader and Braille display users, plus the ability to change font size, colour, style, etc, for partially sighted people.* www.192enquiries.com--Lets you search for business phone numbers. You can search on countries, towns, do a national search, search by trade group, etc. http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/lists.html--Lists over 12,000 English language books for free reading as full text on the Net. These texts have been compiled by the University of Pensylvania. www.recipeweb.co.uk--Provides cooking recipes from top UK chefs and nutritional advice. The ingredients, method and equipment needed are clearly listed. You can add a recipe to your online recipe book, e-mail a selected recipe to a friend or have it print out for you. www.useit.org.uk--Hosts information and links to Internet shopping, online texts, accessibility subjects, radio ham information, and so forth.* www.wingletang.com--Is a new site created especially for the use of visually impaired computer users. It has links to other sites of accessibility interest and is maintained by the hosts of the Whistler computer tape magazine.* www.windrivers.com--Boasts the Web's largest collection of drivers for all device types. It has a driver installation help link and you can register for their e-mail newsletter. www.download.com--Permits the free download of numerous freeware and shareware programs. www.amazon.co.uk--This is the site of an Internet-only shop, selling books, CDs, videos, and the like, which has an impressive selection. It has a text only link in the preferences at the bottom of the home page.* www.audiotips.com--Offers a voice chat room so that you can chat without having to use the keyboard. You will need a suitable sound card and microphone. www.forteinc.com--This is where you can download the very useful and keyboard-friendly newsgroups reader called Free Agent from. www.bigfoot.com--Is a service which provides a way to search for people and also gives permanent free e-mail addresses and sends e-mail from your Bigfoot address to your e-mail account. www.toad.net/~quinnbf--Is a site where a speech-friendly, Windows-based American football game can be downloaded from. www.acbradio.org/--Contains on stream radio listening programmes and blindness-related stories and information. The National Talking Express monthly magazine can also be listened to from this site.* http://bobby.watchfire.com--Provides a Website checker which will check the accessibility of sites for you and Webmasters in order to effect improvements for screenreader users.* www.webwasher.com--Allows you to download a free program called "Webwasher" which blocks or disables cookies. This will block advertising cookies but not those from sites which you might want a cooky from. www.mailwasher.com--Is the download URL for a good shareware e- mail cleaning program which allows you to eliminate spam and other types of unwanted e-mail. www.rnib.org.uk/library--Where Braille, large print and tape book readers can enjoin in joint discussions about these, where there are book reviews from around the world, new book releases, regular literature competitions, and the like.* www.efax.com--Is a site where you can register and be given a number to receive online Faxes. The Fax you are sent goes to your ISP server and is then appended as an attachment to an e- mail message for downloading to your PC together with the rest of your e-mail messages. www.digalo.com--This is a French site which offers what is said to be a good quality English SAPI software speech synthesiser for only around œ29.00. Other languages are also available and you can download MP3 files of the speech to check for quality and suitability. www.reelbooks.com--Permits the online purchase of over 60,000 book titles and belongs to Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind in Washington USA.* www.realnetworks.com--Is where you can download several software utilities from the Realnetworks site, such as the Realaudio Player program. www.music635.co.uk--Hosts up-to-date pop music news and single and album reviews. www.flatline.org.uk/silas--Provides an access gateway for blind and partially sighted surfers which converts Web pages into more usable formats.* www.spaceports.com/~mprobert/access/index.html--This is the site of an online British encyclopedia which is mainly text- based and easy to use from the keyboard. Mr Probert's encyclopedia can also be downloaded from: www.wilma.co.uk/book.html for free personal use.* www.netlingo.com--Provides an Internet language dictionary to help you understand Net terminology. www.bbc.co.uk/education/betsie/--Contains much educational and general BBC-related information and reviews and also the Betsie program which can be used by programmers to make Websites that are easier for visually impaired people to access.* csun.edu/cod/--Contains a "Virtual Exhibition Hall" with links to all the previous year's CSUN accessible software and hardware exhibitors sites. Just navigate to the "Virtual Exhibition Hall" or About COD" link and press ENTER.* www.deja.com--Is a facility to search for online news information. www.alltheweb.com--Is a very prolific meta-search engine which runs on the Web rather than on your hard disk. www.tipworld.com--Is a source of computer and Net reference material. www.askjeeves.com--Is the site of a question-based Web search engine. www.sitesforwomen.com/--Contains several topics of interest to women in general, such as shopping, cookery, consumer rights, etc. www.ferretsoft.com--Hosts a suite of very useful utilities, downloadable free, such as the Ferret search engine and Ferret chat room finder. www.mudhut.co.uk--Features new music and new groups and contains a selection of downloadable music from new bands. www.prodworks.com--Is the Productivity Works site containing their dedicated speech-assisted Web browser called PWWebspeak.* www.dolphinuk.co.uk--This is the Dolphin Computer Access company's Website with company information and a free DOS screenreader called HAL Lite for download.* www.freeloader.com--Is another site for downloading many programs and utilities for free. www.web.csd.scarolina.edu/bck2skol/bck2skol.html--Is a site providing lessons for people new to the Internet. www.freestuffcentre.co.uk free software download site. www.annmorris.com--Is the US Ann MorrisEnterprises site where specialist equipment for the blind can be purchased.* www.cdnow.com--Is another Internet shop selling CDs which is US- based. www.fergusonenterprises.com--Provides the same type of service as Ann Morris above.* www.freebies4u.co.uk--Free download site for programs, utilities, demos, drivers, etc. www.highstreetcentral.co.uk/free.htm--Houses a directory of free download software sites. www.cs.queensu.ca/faqs/email/finding.html--Holds information on numerous avenues of Web search techniques. www.doherty71.freeserve.co.uk/yorkblind.htm--Is the York Blind and Partially-Sighted Society's website cataloguing many accessible attractions in the historic city of York. You can take a virtual walk along York's Bar Wall.* www.empowermentzone.com--Deals with many net and general software accessibility issues and holds a number of accessibility related files.* www.four11.com--Hosts a search tool to find companies and their addresses. www.zdjournals.com/w9p/9702/w9p9723.htm--Holds a thorough document about how to set up multi-boot computer systems. www.rnib.co.uk--Is the RNIBs Web page with news, services, etc.* www.wrn.org/audio.html--Provides a list of available audio books. www.cheapflights.com--Acts as a filter for people looking for bargain air flights, holidays, holiday insurance, etc, and can send you periodic e-mail showing last-minute bargains. www.go-fly.com--Is the site of an Internet flights booking company called "Go". www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk--This is a new site which went online in December 1999 which permits surfers to address health-related questions. It meets the accessibility criteria set down in the WAI standard.* www.gwmicro.com--GWMicro's Window-Eyes screenreader site.* www.kurzweiledu.com/kurzweil1000.html--Is where you can browse information about the Kurzweil OCR system and download a copy of the Kurzweil 1000 user manual.* www.dss.gov.uk/ba/index.htm--Contains benefit and other Benefits Agency information. www.thevillas.demon.co.uk--This is a site where second-hand specialist computer equipment can be bought and sold. www.officialdocuments.co.uk/uk.htm--Is the site of HMSO (now called the Stationery Office), where Hansard, Acts of Parliament and budget documents can be read and downloaded. www.henrichsen.org--Hosts many blind-friendly games and programs of interest for downloading.* www.scansoft.com--Contains downloadable software, including the 1998 version of the Textbridge OCR program for free. www.microsoft.com/enable/--Contains information and software for people with access needs.* www.gutenberg.net--Holds over 6,200 book texts for free download whose copyrights have expired. www.soundlinks.com/accessit.exe--This is the downloadable archive of the "Access IT" magazine from the RNIB with back copies up to the last three months. It is also where you can buy a copy of the IBM Home Page Reader from in the UK.* www.hoover.com--Is where you can search for companies, obtain share values, etc. www.convertafile.com--Is a site which can upload a file of yours and then convert it into any of 70 different formats for you. It then downloads it to you a few minutes later in the new format. www.mp3.com--Is a popular MP3 file (music) site where you can download free music tracks and also obtain free MP3 playing software, such as Winamp. FAQs and technical information are also available. www.wyfiwyg.com--Contains access technology for sale plus newsletters and computer information for the visually impaired.* www.netcore.ca/~imagic/--Provides talking books on line. www.google.co.uk--Provides an online meta-search engine which intelligently searches and lists its hits in order of importance/frequency of occurrence. www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk--Is the Inland Revenue's Website for tax information and to read and download tax forms. www.thisismoney.com/--This is a site containing information in respect of financial matters, stocks and shares, etc. www.yahoo.com--Is the site of the well-known Yahoo standard Web search engine. www.nexttage.com--This is a site where you can buy and sell anything (not just VI equipment) without going through the auction process. You state what you want to buy and how much you are prepared to pay and if any supplier is interested in selling at that price, he will e-mail you about this. www.winzip.com/--This is the site to download a copy of the famous Winzip software compression and decompression software. www.zdnet.com--Contains a safe site to buy software and download shareware and demos. It contains numerous things, such as holiday specials, PC sales, software, share investing, driver downloads, online shopping of all kinds, etc. www.freedomscientific.com--Henter-Joyce/Freedom Scientific's screenreader and magnifier Website. www.hotbraille.com--Contains a free Braille transcription service of up to 4 Braille pages. Your print copy will be translated and then posted free anywhere in the world. www.microsoft.com/enable/training/tips-u.htm--Is where a useful tips file is stored for disabled users of Internet Explorer.* www.itreviews.co.uk/maillist.htm--Will get you onto the mailing list of a site which is speech-friendly and holds many up-to-date software and hardware reviews. You can also register for a regular e-mail letter. www.assist.com--Is a site with good information in respect of assistive technology.* www.dti.gov.uk, www.homeworking.com and www.smarterwork.com are all sites containing valuable information for the self- employed. www.internic.net/wp/whois.html--Provides listings of Internet domain owners and associated information. www.jokerdog.com--Contains some free access games for use with JFW. www.futureforms.com--Is the place to find a Web forms reading and completion program for visually impaired persons.* www.indexbraille.se--Is a Website where you can obtain a free download of a Braille translation program for Index embosser owners. You must provide your Index embosser serial number.* www.raging.com--Hosts an online Web search tool. www.sunsite.berkeley.edu/alex/Where you can find a catalogue of on line electronic books. www.tucows.com--Holds thousands of files and software programs for free download. www.stroud.com--Same type of site as Tucows above. www.thtech.mit.edu/shakespeare/works.html--Is where you can find the complete works of William Shakespeare online. www.fsa.gov.uk/consumer-help--Offers advice on avoiding financial fraudsters and answers many of the commonest financial questions. It is run by the Financial Services Authority. www.enablelink.com--Enablelink is a Website run by De Witt and Associates solely about blindness issues. It covers technology, family life, reviews, assistive software and hardware sales, etc, and aims to create an online community.* www.altavista.com--Another Web-based online standard Web search engine. www.companies.online.com--Is where you can find information on lists of companies. www.nyise.org/whatsnew.htm--Covers Internet-related topics specific to visually impaired people.* www.wordweb.com--Is a speech-friendly Web-based dictionary and thesaurus. This is free of charge and you can obtain Window- Eyes set files for this from www.gwmicro.com www.screaming.net--A UK site where you can obtain a free ISP and charge-free Internet surfing. www.teddy.fcc.ro--Provides a Downloads link where, amongst other things, you can obtain a free file called Advanced PDF Password Recovery which removes all passwords on PDF files so that you can unlock and read them with the Adobe Acrobat Reader or any other software able to convert PDF files to other formats. 18.2. Website Resources Accessible by E-Mail Below are a couple of resources which you can access without going onto a Website, rather by directly e-mailing them. To access an e-mail database of thousands of online cooking recipes send an e-mail to: recipes@recipebyemail.com and in the subject line put the type of food you want specific lists of recipes on, e.g. pork. You will receive back in a few minutes a list of numbered pork recipe titles. When you have decided which recipe you would like to try, send another e-mail to: recipes@recipebyemail.com and on the subject line just type in the recipe number you want. The recipe will be e-mailed back to you within seconds. To convert a PDF file to a text file, attach the PDF file to an e-mail message and send it to: pdf2txt@adobe.com After which it will be returned to you by e-mail converted. Note: Since the end of 2002 Adobe's Acrobat Reader 5.1 has been available and Acrobat 6 has also been released in 2004. These have been written in conjunction with some screenreader manufacturers so that it will render and read PDF files correctly and easily with a screenreader, e.g Window-Eyes 4.1. To obtain a copy of Acrobat 5.1 go to the download page of: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html By the time you come to use the above-mentioned pdf2txt conversion service, it is very likely that it will have been discontinued because of the additional conversion abilities of Acrobat 5.1 and 6X. ******** >APPENDIX 4 KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS IN INTERNET EXPLORER, OUTLOOK EXPRESS AND FREE AGENT The following list of keyboard shortcuts may be useful for revision purposes or as a means of quick reference. The left- hand side of the two dashes below shows the keystrokes to press and the right-hand side of the dashes shows the effect of the shortcut. 19.1. Internet Explorer 5, 5.5 and 6 F1--Displays Internet Explorer help or gives context sensitive help when on an item in a dialogue box. F5--Refresh the current Web page. F6--Moves you forward between frames. F11--Toggles between full screen and normal browser window view. UP ARROW--Moves you towards the beginning of the document. DOWN ARROW--Moves you towards the end of a document. END--Move to the end of a document. ENTER--Activate a selected link. ESCAPE--Stop downloading a page. HOME--Move to the beginning of a document. PAGE UP--Move towards the beginning of a document in large increments. PAGE DOWN--Move towards the end of a document in larger increments. SPACEBAR--Marks or unmarks a checkbox. TAB--Moves forward through the items on a Web page, the address bar and the links bar. ALT DOWN ARROW--Opens a drop-down listbox. ALT RIGHT ARROW--Takes you to the next page. ALT LEFT ARROW--Takes you to the previous page. ALT HOME--Takes you to your home page. ALT D--Takes you to the address bar. CONTROL CLICK--In History or Favourites bars, open multiple folders. CONTROL D--Adds the current page to your Favourites Menu. CONTROL E--Open search in Explorer bar. CONTROL F--Find on this page. CONTROL H--Open history in Explorer bar. CONTROL I--Open Favourites in Explorer bar. CONTROL L--Go to a new location. CONTROL N--Open a new window. CONTROL P--Print the current page. CONTROL S--Save the current page. CONTROL TAB--Moves you forward through frames on a Website with frames. CONTROL W--Close the current window. CONTROL SHIFT TAB--Moves you back between frames. SHIFT F10--Displays a shortcut menu for a link. SHIFT TAB--Moves backwards through the items on a Web page. 19.2. Outlook Express 5, 5.5 and 6 Shortcut keys can be used to select commands and navigate through the Preview Window and the Message Window. The following shortcuts apply to both e-mail and newsgroups unless otherwise indicated. Main Window, View Message Window and Send Message Window: F1--Opens help topics. F5--Refreshes news messages and headers. ALT ENTER--Views the properties of a selected message. CONTROL >--Takes you to the next message in the list. CONTROL APPENDIX 5 GLOSSARY OF COMPUTER AND INTERNET TERMS 20.1. Glossary Active-X: An object-based Microsoft standard for computer program building blocks. Adware: Software displaying advertisements whilst you use it. ALT: An alternative system of Usenet newsgroups. Altavista: A World Wide Web search engine. Anonymous FTP: A way of getting onto an FTP Website by typing "Anonymous" as your username and your e-mail address as your password. Archive: A storage file(s) in a compressed format. ASCII (American standard code for information interchange): The most common way of representing characters in a computer (as plain text). Attachment: A file, such as from a word-processor, attached to the body of an e-mail and sent with it. AVI (audio video interleaved): A format devised by Microsoft to cope with the large size of digitised video by compressing it. Baud: The quantity of electronic symbols that a MODEM can send down a phone line per second. BBS (bulletin board system): An electronic bulletin board you dial up to read messages from and copy messages to. BCC (blind carbon copy): A person or place where a copy of your e-mail goes without other recipients knowing about it. Binary file: A file that contains more than just text. BIOS (Basic input-output system): This interfaces PC hardware to the operating system. BIT: the smallest portion of computer data. Bitmap: A picture constructed from small dots. Blogger: Someone who keeps an online diary, known as a blog, which is accessible to others. "Blog" is short for Web log. BPS (bits per second): The speed at which data is transmitted, e.g. through a MODEM. Broadband: A high speed connection to the Internet, e.g. with a cable or ADSL modem. Browser: A program which lets you navigate around and read information on the Web. Byte: A block of eight bits. Cable Modem: High speed modem for data transfer use via cable television network systems. CC (carbon copy): A list of other people who also receive a copy of an e-mail. Client: A PC which logs onto and uses the services of a second computer, known as a server. CMOS (Complementary metal oxide semiconductor): The memory that stores a PCs hardware configuration. Communications Program: A software program which permits your computer to talk to another computer. Cookie: A piece of data placed on your computer by a website you have visited that lets that same site recognise you next time you visit it. Dial-Up Network: The TCP/IP provided with Windows 95 to get you connected to your PPP account. DLL (Dynamic link library): A shared subroutine library, used mainly by Windows programs. Domain: Part of the official name of a computer on the Net, e.g. onetel.com or freeserve.co.uk. Download: to copy a file from a computer on the Internet to your computer. Duplex: Full duplex is able to send data in both directions, e.g. copying to and from the Internet. Embedded link: A link situated within the text of a Web page and forming an integral part of the text (see "Link" below). EMS (Expanded memory specification): Additional memory above the conventional 640 K DOS limit. Eudora: An e-mailing program. FAQ (frequently asked questions): Answers to frequently asked computer questions. Fidonet: A network of BBSs throughout the world which have e- mail addresses. Firewall: A security system restricting the kinds of in and outgoing messages on the Internet via a specially programmed network computer. You can also get them for stand-alone computers, e.g. Zone Alarm. Freeware: Freely provided Computer software. Focus: The part of the screen which currently has the attention of the program. FTP (File Transfer Protocol): An Internet-based method of transferring files from one PC to another. Gateway: A method of connecting two networks which use different protocols via a computer. GIF (graphics interchange format): Graphics files and pictures. Gigabyte: One billion bytes or characters of information. Handle: A user's nickname. Header: The to, from and subject part of an e-mail message. Hardware: The solid, physical components of your computer and computer peripherals, e.g. hard disk, sound card, printer, scanner, etc. Highlighting: Highlighting (also known as "selecting") is the process in Windows of singling out or focusing attention on a particular word, line, paragraph, chunk of text, whole document, etc, to carry out a specific operation on, e.g. to delete, move, copy, change the case of, etc. Highlighting/selecting is done by holding down the SHIFT key whilst moving over the text you want to highlight with standard Windows keystrokes such as ARROWING up and down, holding CONTROL down and ARROWING left or right a word at a time, pressing the CONTROL key followed by the END key to highlight everything to the end of the document, etc, e.g. hold down the CONTROL and SHIFT keys and press the right ARROW key three times to highlight the three words to the right of the cursor and then press the DEL key to delete these three highlighted/selected words. Home page: The introductory Web page about a person or company. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): The computer language that Web pages are written in. HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): The method by which Web pages are transferred over the Internet. IDE (Integrated drive electronics): Used with many hard disk drives which have most of the controller electronics inside the drive package. IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol): Modern protocol for dealing with e-mail. Internet: A network of interconnected networks of computers which can communicate with each other. IRC (Internet Relay Chat): Provides the ability to speak to on another over the Internet in real-time. Inter-NIC: The Internet Networking Information Centre. Intranet: An internal microcosm of the Internet which uses browsers, etc, e.g. within a company. ISDN (integrated services digital network): A digital phone system which usually works at either 128 kilobits per second or 64 KBPS. JAVA: A modern computer programming language. Browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer can access sites written in JAVA but some specialist browsers for visually impaired people cannot, e.g. PWWebspeak and IBM Home Page Reader prior to Version 3.0. JPEG: A kind of image file frequently found on the Internet. Link: A hypertext place on a Web page where a mouse can be clicked or the ENTER key pressed to obtain more information from the current site or be taken to other sites on the Web. Links are underlined and normally highlighted in blue. Linux: A publicly-owned version of the Unix operating system with open source code. Listproc: A program which handles mailing lists. Listserv: A program which automatically handles and manages mailing lists. Lynx: A text-based Web browser. Mac-TCP: The Mackintosh's version of a TCP/IP. Mail server: An Internet computer providing e-mailing facilities. Mailing list: A method of mailing all incoming mail to a list of subscribers to the list. Majordomo: See Listserv. MAPI (Mail application programming interface): Microsoft's E- Mail standard. Megabyte: One million bytes or characters of data. MIDI: A method of transmitting music. MIME (multipurpose Internet mail extension): A method of e- mailing non-textual files. MODEM: Short for modulator/demodulator, it permits your PC to talk over the phone. Moderator: Someone who vets messages before sending them to an e-mail list or newsgroup. Mosaic: An old Web browser. MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group): This is a video file. MSN (Microsoft Network): A commercial means of accessing e- mail, the Usenet and the Web. Netscape Navigator: A Web browser. Network: Interconnected computers, known as a LAn (local area network) if they are in the same building or a WAN (wide area network) if the computers are further afield. Newsgroups: Subject areas on the Usenet. Newsreader: A method of reading and posting messages on Usenet newsgroups. Node: A host computer on the Internet. OLE (Object linking and embedding): A file or program which is embedded as an object in another file. PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association): Credit card sized computer accessories, such as a MODEM or network card. PDF file (portable document format): A text format for distributing files, which requires an Acrobat Reader program to access it. To convert a PDF file to a text file, attach the PDF file to an e-mail message and send it to: pdf2txt@adobe.com After which it will be returned to you by e-mail converted. Pine: An e-mailing program used with Unix. PKZIP: A DOS or Windows-based file compression program. POP (Post Office Protocol): A method of collecting your e-mail and downloading it to your PC from a mail server. PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol): A method of connecting your PC to the Internet via the phone line. Protocol: The accepted rules by which one computer communicates with another. Realaudio: A facility for listening to audio programs over the Net, obtained from www.real.com. SCSI (Small computer systems interface): An interface standard for connecting peripherals, including hard drives. Server: A computer that provides services to other computers, called clients, on a network. Shareware: A program provided on the understanding that if you keep it you pay the requested sum. SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol): See PPP. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol): A system by which Internet mail is passed from one PC to another. Spam: The process of posting unwanted commercial material to a large number of Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists. Spyware: Programs designed to collect information from the user's computer and send it to someone else's computer without their permission or knowledge. Streaming audio: A downloaded sound file from the Net which starts playing before the download is complete, e.g. Realaudio. Tag: A tag is an instruction on a Web page which tells your browser how to display the text which follows it, e.g. the tag will make the following text bold. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): The method networks use to communicate with each other on the Net. Telnet: A program that lets you communicate with and log into other computers on the Internet as if you were actually sitting at that remote computer. Terminal: A method of connecting a screen and keyboard to a computer, as in terminal emulation, e.g. Windows 95 Hyperterminal. Text file: a file that contains text only and no graphics or pictures. Thread: A chain of related articles posted to a newsgroup. Trumpet: A Windows-based newsreader program. TSR (Terminate and stay resident): DOS programs that reside in memory so you can run them within other applications. TWAIN (technology without an interesting name): If a scanner complies with this standard you can run it from many windows, graphics and desktop publishing applications. Unicode: An advanced form of ASCII. Unix: A computer operating system. Upload: To copy files from your PC to someone else's computer on the Net. URL (Uniform Resource Locator): The addresses which link pages together on the World Wide Web. Usenet: A system of myriads of newsgroups. Virtual reality: A realistic 3-D representation of something. Virus: A program written to spread between computers and cause malicious damage to them. VOIP (Voice-Over-Internet Protocol): A means of phoning people using your phone handset but being connected over broadband Internet cabling rather than over a phone company's network. WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative): A Website creation standard outlined by the W3C group to ensure that Websites are accessible to people with disabilities such as the visually impaired. WAV files: Windows sound files ending in .wav. Webcaster: Someone who broadcasts programmes of music, talk shows, etc, over the Internet. Webmaster: A person who creates, designs and updates Websites with HTML. Web Page: Part of a Website which can be displayed on screen. Website: A collection of Web pages covering a particular topic. Windows Explorer: An Internet browser from Microsoft. Winsock: A way that Windows programs work with TCP/IP, e.g. connecting to the Internet via PPP. World Wide Web: An information system of millions of interlinked pages of information on the Internet which you can jump back and forward amongst, known as "surfing". XML (Extensible Markup Language): This is an up-and-coming, more advanced type of HTML which permits the exchange of information between computers in a way that preserves the structure of the information , e.g. between databases or exchanging data across the Internet. XML describes the data on a Web page, rather than just describing the look of the page. You could, therefore, copy a whole Web page into a spreadsheet, for instance, and immediately work with it. XMS (Extended memory system): The additional memory commonly used in memory in 80386 and 80486 PCs above the conventional 1 mb DOS limit. Yahoo!: A program with Web information and search facilities. ZIP: A file compressed with PKZIP or WINZIP which has a .zip extension. ******** >APPENDIX 6 OTHER Tutorials AVAILABLE FROM THIS AUTHOR 21.1. All of the below titles are available as plain text files as downloads from my Website at: http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard Tutorial titles and brief descriptions 1. "Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard", Volume 1, covering Web and e-mail protocols, Web Search engines, navigating the Internet with Internet Explorer 5.0/5.5/6.0, e-mailing with Outlook Express 5.0/5.5/6.0, Downloading files and programs from the Net, using a range of Internet search engines, Joining Internet newsgroups with Free Agent 1.92, configuration and hints and tips for screenreader users, and much more. 2. "Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard", Volume 2, covering hints and customisation, Download Managers, Online Auctions, Internet Chat Rooms, RealAudio, Internet Shopping and Internet Banking. 3. A selection of separate and individual manuals instructing visually impaired people how to use off-the-shelf print scanning/reading programs via screenreaders and the keyboard, including TextBridge Pro 98, TextBridge Pro 9 and Millennium, Omnipage Pro 10, 11 and 12, ReadIRIS Pro 6, TypeReader Pro 6 and Abby FineReader Pro 5, 6 and 7. Each scanner tutorial is an independent manual in its own right. For example, the titles of the principal two of these scanner tutorials are entitled: "Using OmniPage Pro 10, 11 and 12 from the Keyboard to Scan Print" and "Using FineReader Pro 5, 6 and 7 from the Keyboard to Scan Print". 4. "Audio Playing, Copying and Sound Editing From the Keyboard", Edition 1. This covers Easy CD Creator 4, Sound forge 4.5, Windows Media Player 6, Windows Recorder, Winamp 2.72, Freerip.mp3, RealPlayer 8 Basic, and much more. 5. "Audio Playing, Copying and Sound Editing From the Keyboard", Edition 2. This covers Winamp 5.0X, GoldWave audio editor 5.06, CDEX ripper 1.51, Basics of burning with Nero 5.5 and much more introductory and general sound-related information. 6. "Nero Burning-ROM Versions 4,5 and 5.5 from the Keyboard" (includes Nero INCD 3.3 and Nero Media Player). This covers burning of data and audio CDs and DVDs withe Nero Burning-ROM and the Nero Wizard, Saving and reopening compilation templates, Using Nero online help, burning/cloning whole hard disks and partitions to CD or DVD, converting MP3 files to other formats, a good deal of specific configuration and general information on CD and DVD burning drives and CD and DVD disks, using Windows Volume Control, and much more. 7. "Nero Burning-ROM 6 Ultra and Enterprise Editions from the Keyboard" (includes Nero INCD 4). This covers burning of data and audio CDs and DVDs withe Nero Burning-ROM and the Nero StartSmart interfaces, Saving and reopening compilation templates, Using Nero online help, burning/cloning whole hard disks and partitions or folders to CD or DVD, converting MP3 files to other formats, ripping sound files to MP3 or MP3 Pro files, a good deal of specific configuration and general information on CD and DVD burning drives and CD and DVD disks, using Windows Volume Control, and much more. 8. "Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 from the Keyboard". This takes spreadsheet users from the beginner stages of Excel through much intermediate material and also covers a few more advanced features. It will give you the skills to use Excel for home accounting purposes, for keeping self-employed small business records and for use in the employment workplace. 9. "Microsoft Outlook 2000 and 2002/XP from the Keyboard". This is a tutorial instructing on how to use the richly-featured suite of programs which is a must for anyone seeking employment or wanting to do advanced e-mailing or calendar and other related tasks at home or at work. It covers all of the main features of MS Outlook and many other more technical topics. Covered is: E-mailing, Calendar, Journal, Tasks, Notes, Contacts, arranging appointments and meetings, searching, plus customising Outlook for visually impaired and blind users and appendices of Outlook general shortcuts and HAL, JAWS AND Window-Eyes hot keys and much more. 10. "Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 from the Keyboard". Available as a plain text file and instructs on how to use over 45 separate skills in these powerful leading word-processors for use at home or in the workplace to make you highly productive and efficient. ******** COMPLiMENTARY CLOSE Now that the first stage of the odyssey is over, I hope that following these sections has not been too arduous but, having been through the Internet beginner's stage a few years ago myself, I understand just how confusing and inconsistent a place the Internet and World Wide Web can be. You are likely to have to revisit several of these sections before you become fully comfortable with using the Internet but remember that it is practise which makes perfect. If you would like to take your Internet surfing skills a step further into a more advanced and daring stage, I have now written an other tutorial on the Internet covering several trickier but potentially more rewarding and exciting topics. This is Volume 2 of Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard. Details in respect of this publication are to be found in Appendix 7. Best Regards, John Wilson. ******** (End of file.)