ATMac

Articles about newly available third-party software, or software which hasn’t previously been reviewed on ATMac. This doesn’t include software which comes as part of OS X such as the Finder, for example.

Create simple communication boards using digital images with the free PHOTOsyms application. Your image grid can contain between 2 and 54 photos so within the grid limitations there’s quite a lot of room for customisation.

iSign is a tutorial and reference program for American Sign Language (ASL) from iDev2. It was designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The program contains an animated phrase book of 800 signs.

The Finder, iTunes, and iPhoto all now let you browse through your materially visually if you wish, instead of looking at lines of text. The address book program Espy is a third party utility we reviewed that does the same for address book entries, and now we have Webbla which does the same for bookmarks.

Did you know that Mac OS X comes with a built in handwriting recognition system known as InkWell. If you have a pen and tablet for input, you can use it right away with no set-up needed! It’s known to be quirky and hasn’t been updated for a while, but Apple recently advertised for a handwriting engineer so there’s hope yet!

An Air Mouse is one you can hold in your hand and move around. This type of mouse moves the mouse cursor in response to the left/right and up/down movement of your hand holding the mouse. The Air Mouse application for the iPhone and iPod Touch turns your gadget into one of these types of mice.

You probably click your mouse hundreds of times a day, thousands of times a week. ClickNoMo lets you rest your tendons while you continue to work and get things done by automatically clicking the mouse for you when you bring the mouse to a short stop in any one position. You can select left mouse click, right mouse click, double click, or even click-and-drag, as you need to.

Reading seems like a simple activity. One that is so simple that it’s probably taken for granted by most people. But if you’re somebody with severe physical limitations reading can become a chore. I’ve unexpectedly stumbled onto a device that I think is the best solution. Would you believe it’s the iPod touch?

MacBreakZ is an ergonomic assistant which prompts the computer user to take long and short breaks at regular times, depending on how heavily you use the computer. It prompts the users with ergonomic exercises during breaks and can be heavily customised to suit usage patterns.

Speech-to-text software, sometimes known as dictation software, is something that lets you talk to the computer in some form and have the computer react appropriately to what you are saying. Here’s a rundown on the types of speech-to-text software that exist and what’s available for Mac OS X in these areas.

Have you ever wanted to make phone calls on the net using a synthetic computer generated voice? If you’re an AAC user, then this is a great way to communicate with people remotely. This article will show you how to set up Wiretap Anywhere to send your speech voice to Skype’s internet phone system.