ATMac

The sub-categories within “Audience” divide the posts up according to which are most relevant to which types of readers.

This DAISY player includes text highlighting, not currently available in the free Olearia player and also reads more formats than Olearia can. The new features come at a steep price though.

Digit-Eyes is an application that runs on the iPhone and which uses inexpensive off-the-shelf address labels and a standard inkjet or laser printer to enable iPhone users to make labels that are read aloud by their phone. It can also be used to read manufacturer’s UPC barcodes.

AccessTech News provides a step-by-step tutorial to introduce you to the wonders of Keyboard Maestro - a program that lets you automate things you often on the computer.

OneThingToday looks like a great task manager to help you focus on what’s important today. Once you’ve used the calendar view to input your tasks, switch to the “Today” view to get a single box (optionally transparent) which floats on top of your workspace, constantly reminding you of what you’re working on.

A PDF to Word converter will only work on text-based PDFs, not image-based ones, but it’s very useful if there is a PDF that you need to convert back to a document format so you can edit it. AnyBizSoft is giving away free licenses via their Facebook page until August 8, 2010.

Amongst updates to the iMac series of computers, Apple yesterday announced an external bluetooth trackpad. This works exactly like the MacBook’s built-in multi-touch trackpad but has a working area of approximately 4.3 by 4.3 inches (11cm by 11cm). A full set of gestures, including the VoiceOver “trackpad as screen” gesture control are available.

Digit-Eyes uses your printer to print barcode labels which you can then associate with text or audio recordings. To read the labels back, you photograph the labels with your iPhone camera and then the iPhone will read the text or replay the audio for you.

Jane Farrall has constructed a great table listing all the important features about all the known assistive/adaptive communication (AAC) applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. She’s actively updating the table in response to feedback, this is a great resource for those looking for information about AAC out there.

New tutorials are available for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad AAC program Proloquo2Go. These cover an introduction to P2G, customising the appearance and content of Proloquo2Go, and some special topics such as making backups, modifying pronunciation, and customising the voices used.

Switching to the Dvorak keyboard layout doesn’t cost anything and can help you type more easily once you learn to use the layout. Here’s how to go about it using Mac OS X Snow Leopard.