ATMac

For users whose main method of computer interaction is via the keyboard and who are unable or unwilling to use a pointing device like a mouse, or find it difficult to use a pointing device.

The Laboratory for Understanding Collaborative Technology at Northwestern University is working on a project to build and evaluate new original technologies for users with disabilities. They are currently recruiting subjects with a variety of impairments (cognitive, sensory or motor) from the Chicago area.

BBAutoComplete adds word auto-completion to scriptable applications. You type the start of a word, press a key, and BBAutoComplete types the letters to complete the word. If BBAutoComplete guessed wrong, you can keep pressing the key to cycle through other possible completions.

The iPhone and iPod touch come with very accurate accelerometers - the programs which are running can know when the device is being moved, and how much/how far/which direction it’s being moved. Game developers have taken advantage of this capability to develop some games which just rely on the device being moved or shaken!

Mail Act-On is a plugin for Apple’s Mail program which gives you the ability to assign a keystroke to almost any action that can be done with a mail message. It’s simple to configure and simple to use and free - couldn’t get any better than that!

PDFpen is a PDF editing and form-filling application for Mac OS X. PDFs are important to many people with disabilities because scanned documents are usually converted to PDF format. So for those who can’t handle physical paper, being able to edit or add to a PDF file is important.

Mindmaps are diagrams used to represent ideas - they use pictures, colours, position on the page and text together. MindNode is a free mindmapping application which is simple to use but does the job extremely well. It is fully keyboard accessible and the developer is interested to receive information about any access problems.

Design Science has announced the release of MathType 6, a new version of its mathematical equation editor for Mac OS X. MathType is the full-featured, professional version of the Equation Editor in Microsoft Office and many other products, and is used by math and science educators, engineers, research scientists, students and publishing professionals to include mathematical notation in printed documents, presentations and web pages.

Text expansion tools are exactly suited to automatically add the accents, graves, and acutes to words as you type. TextExpander offers a free expansion pack to add a list of accented English words automatically, but you could add them to any text expansion tool yourself.

MacWorld has released a great new article which has a bunch of productivity tips for those using Leopard. If your disability impacts your computer use then it will take longer for you to get things done, so making sure you’re saving as much time as possible can make a big difference in how much you can do.

iSoftPhone VoIP software now supports SMS as well as voice calls and also sports tight integration with OS X.