From: Kelly Pierce Subject: all: computer user network news Below is the tenth newsletter of the Blind Computer User Network in Chicago. For back issues, check out our home page at http://www.city-net.com/vipace/friends/chicago. Computer Users Network News Adaptive Technology for the Blind and Visually-Impaired Fall, 1996 Vol. II no. 4 Published bimonthly by The Computer Network Blind Service Association 22 West Monroe Street Chicago, Illinois 60603 Copyright: 1996 Editor: Cindy Brown Project Coordinator Dave Porter rdunique@ripco.com CONTENTS Two Important Notices """"" 2 >From the Editor's Desk: AnExplanation Is Due """""" 4 CompuServe Through Windows: A Pane at a Time by Anna Byrne """"""""""""" 9 Internet Glossary """""""" 18 Dates to Remember! """"""" 35 -------- Two Important Notices! First--All memberships must be renewed before getting the next issue of this newsletter. The annual membership donation is a minimum contribution of fifteen dollars, made payable to Blind Service Association, Computer Network. Donations should be delivered to or mailed to Blind Service Association, c/o Computer Network, and must be received by Jan. 15, 1997 in order to assure you of getting on the mailing list for the Jan.-Feb. issue. Please indicate in which format you wish to receive the newsletter: cassette tape, diskette, or standard print. Second--be sure to attend the Computer Network's fun-filled open house on Saturday, Dec. 7th on the ninth floor at BSA's office, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Events will include: vendors demonstrating the latest in adaptive technology for the blind and visually-impaired computer user, the unveiling of the CN web page, and a raffle ($5.00 for each chance to win a refurbished computer)! Don't miss it! -------- From the Editor's Desk: An Explanation Is Due By Cindy Brown This is the tenth edition of our Computer Users Network News, and that is something to celebrate. But we had promised you twelve editions by this time. What's the problem? The answer is not simple, and, in fact, there is more than one answer. As you may remember, we did somewhat swimmingly in getting the newsletter out according to schedule for the first year. But the operation became more complicated-- first, when we decided to mail out issues rather than having persons pick them up at monthly meetings. We felt it wasn't fair that if members were paid up, they had to travel to downtown Chicago on a particular Saturday morning of the month to get what was due them as part of their membership donation. So we did what we thought was necessary to get the various formats of the newsletter mailed-- securing the appropriate envelopes from BSA and assigning someone to do the labels. Well, it has become clear that printing up address labels for this group is not easy for blind or visually- impaired persons; and as hard as we tried to resolve this issue, we repeatedly had difficulty getting the job completed. A subsidiary problem to the printing of the labels has been the lack of coordination in maintaining an accurate membership/mailing list. A second complication has been in regard to the brailling of the Newsletter. We began with a wonderfully competent and available Marie Porter to do the Braille printing. She had her own printer, and initially brought it down to BSA, hooking it up beside BSA's Juliet printer. She, with the help of Tim Paul, Wayne Smith, Jimmy Sue Castleberry, Denise Avant and others printed, assembled, and stuffed envelopes, getting the newsletter mailed out on deadline. However, when it became difficult for Marie to get down town, she began doing the printing in her home with the help of Mary Ann Bartkowski who would join her there. This complicated logistics--i.e., getting paper, envelopes, etc. to Marie's home; and, furthermore, there was now only one printer, so the printing time was doubled. Marie and Maryann never complained about the time it took, but we have since learned that it takes about ten hours to print forty Braille copies. In recent months, Marie has become incapacitated, and thus unable to carry on as our publisher. Anna Byrne has nobly taken up the task, but has discovered how much time and energy this takes. Increasing the workforce doesn't help when we have only one printer. Even print copies have not been easy to duplicate and assemble in large numbers with the equipment and resources we have. Tapes and diskettes, however, have posed little problem. Getting the material read on tape by a BSA volunteer, and then having the tapes duplicated by Dan Nuwelt, has been relatively easy. We acknowledge that sometimes, the volunteers have not understood the importance of taping on the 1-7/8-in. IPS to accommodate our readers who do not have 4-track players, but we think we have remedied this issue. Some of these problems have arisen because of decentralization and lack of communication. But another problem has been to have no backups for key individuals with functions to perform which are essential to the completed product. In attempting to remedy this, except for the writing and editing of articles, tasks will be completed in the offices of BSA. Anna Byrne (with help from a sighted relative) is currently printing address labels with backup from BSA staff, and regular updated information from membership coordinators, Joe and Darlene DeCourcey and their committee consisting of Larry Bickhem and Pennie Lilly. But we have re-examined the continued production of Braille copies: "Is it worth it?" At this writing, BSA is in the process of hiring someone to do Braille printing on a regular basis. But when one considers that it takes an hour to do just four copies of this newsletter, we think it is not worth it. We hope our members will understand our decision to discontinue the Braille production of the Computer Users Network News for persons who are not both blind and visually-impaired. An extra fee will necessarily be charged to non-hearing-impaired persons, insisting on Braille. This new policy will begin with the upcoming issue, January-February, 1997. In the meantime, we regret to say we did not meet our goal of six editions this year. But we intend to get on schedule for 1997 while continually examining how we can improve. We are extremely grateful to all who have helped us out in the past two years, and hope that they and others will continue to support us. (Cindy Brown is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and supervisor at the Community Counseling Centers of Chicago. She also does private practice psychotherapy.) -------- CompuServe Through Windows: A Pane at a Time 5 by Anna Byrne "Welcome to CompuServe." It's a sound clip, not the speech synthesizer, and it tells me that I have entered WINCIM, CompuServe's Windows version of its information manager software--one of the sub-applications this connection with the cyber-world affords the visually-impaired user. From here, choices include news, weather, sports, home and leisure, fun and games, professional, finance, entertainment, travel, computers, communications, education, shopping--each accessible by the push of a button. In addition there are menus for such functions as mail (my personal favorite), "Consumer's Report," a forum where I can download the latest version of the speech product I use, the Internet via Netscape, and so much more. I have examined tactile diagrams of Windows screens and I wouldn't give a fig for any one of them; not because they are inaccurate, but because: Who cares? What I need to know is not what the screen looks like to someone else, but how it is navigable for me as the user of a speech-output screen reader. The CompuServe screen is like this, to me: Across the top is a list of choices, i.e., a menu bar: file edit services mail special Windows help Below that somewhere is a series of "buttons" including the selections, such as shopping, listed above. Each choice directs the user to additional selections which can be reached by either pushing the button or pulling down a menu. Pushing a button means tabbing to the selection and pressing "enter" or going into review mode with the screen reader to find the selection and pressing the mouse-click button designated by the screen reader. Pulling down a menu means using the down-arrow keys to move through the choices presented and either pressing enter or doing the mouse-click thing again to select. When you move through a group of choices, the one you are reading is highlighted. That means it is a different color from the others and often it is flashing on and off. What makes this such a challenge for screen readers is that a highlight is not always the same color--just a different one from the surroundings. And, while we're at it, the screen background and the other words on the screen may be virtually any color; and if you don't like the color you can change it to any other. The first thing a screen reader needs to know is how to track the highlight and how to read the information just once, not every time it flashes. But I digress--the visually impaired computer user does not need to know how to do this but he needs a screen reader that does. Mail. Pressing the alt key, immediately adjacent to the spacebar, brings one to the menu across the top of the screen. Here instead of moving a character at a time, the arrow keys move a menu choice at a time. At mail, arrowing down instead of right causes a menu to drop down like a window shade. If, from here, one arrows left or right, the mail menu snaps back up and the menu arrowed to pulls down. The mail choices, arrowing down, are: get new mail, search new mail, create/send mail, send/receive all mail, send file, in- basket, out-basket, filing cabinet, send forum message, address book, member directory. Down-arrowing to "create/send" and pressing "enter" places the cursor in the addressing area. One can type in a name that was saved previously and WINCIM will recall and display the address. Or you can type in a name it doesn't recognize and type in the address; or tab to the list of saved names/addresses, arrow through them, and select the one you want and "enter" or "click." Now there are buttons. Selecting add and pressing enter will include this address in a list of recipients--one or more. Back at the addressing line, one can address the message to an additional recipient or tab to the button that says "OK" and "enter." Okay. CompuServe is an off-line mail reader, which means that at this point the user is not connected to the system at all: no phone call yet. You can compose a letter at leisure, save it, revise it, add files to it as many times and for however long as you wish. When it is ready to send, shift-tab places it in the out- basket and it is ready to go. To send mail, arrow to "send/receive all mail" and press "enter." The computer asks you to confirm the choice: "send/receive all mail" by placing the cursor on the okay button. You can either press "enter" again for "OK" or tab to a button that says "cancel." "Cancel" stops the action before dialing. Pressing "enter" places a phone call to CompuServe, receives all in-coming mail to the in-basket and sends out all mail in the out-basket and then--user's choice--remains connected or disconnects the telephone. The mail menu is still pulled down and the cursor is on in- basket. Pressing "enter" gives a display, with the cursor pointing to the most recently received piece of mail, sitting on the "open" button. The other buttons are "close," "delete," and "list box." Arrowing through "list box" a person can review not only the new mail--most recent first--but everything in the in- basket, from the messages just received to articles saved from months in the past. I'm finding that in today's mail is a note from a high school classmate in California. She recognized my sister's name in a database she was using, wrote my sister, and my sis in Saint 7 Louis forwarded the note to me. There is also a poem my son found somewhere on the Internet and thought it was funny. I think so too. Pressing "control-shift" and the "end" key highlights the whole poem. Then "control" and the letter c together copy the masterpiece to the Windows clipboard. Pressing "alt-escape" moves the action to the main Windows screen. Here opening Windows Write --a very basic word-processor--and typing "control v" pastes the poem into the word processor. Now it is saved: the four page poem and probably three pages of addressing information. After the garbage is deleted the poem can be printed with the Desk Jet or the Blazer; or at any time in the future selected and mailed to anyone who might get a chuckle out of it. Or maybe I will just reread it myself and smile. CompuServe is waiting--still open. "Alt-escape" returns me to mail. Pressing "open" displays the classmate's note and the ever- present series of buttons ("next," "file it," "forward," "reply," "delete.") Selecting/copying the address line, I can paste it into the address book in CompuServe without spelling a thing. Returning to mail, I select "reply"--and I'm off. When all the out-going mail is ready, send/receive takes about fifteen seconds --no stamps, no long-distance charges, and the option of changing what I've said before anyone hears it. CompuServe costs $13.45 a month for 5 hours of connect time and $2 an hour after that. The Windows access software is free and works well with JAWS for Windows. I have copied information from "Consumer's Report" to analyze; my son has downloaded (for a clearly-specified fee) the upgrade for his highly sophisticated music writing software; I avidly download and test every update of JAWS for Windows; I have even received a wave file of my son's children in their own voices saying "Hi, Gramma." I have also received from CompuServe a CD telling me how to use the service but haven't taken the time to go through it. (What? me read the book???) I recently found a note I composed in Windows Write about a year ago. It was two paragraphs, and had taken two hours to accomplish when I was new at it. Now I can't imagine why it took so long! Learning Windows is a pain!--no getting around it. It requires new ways of looking at things and new ways of visualizing them, and persistence beyond the reach of the average bear. But what astounding freedom and opportunity can result from the effort! (Anna Byrne is a senior systems analyst at Commonwealth Edison. She and her husband, Pat, have four children and three grandchildren.) -------- Online Glossary Part I submitted by Dave Porter A _alt.ch: Source of most of the uproar about public newsgroups. Designed so that anyone could set up a newsgroup. _Archie: A search tool for finding files and programs located on FTP servers. The Archie system is comprised of a number of Archie servers located across the world. Each indexes the files available on FTP servers in its area. They share their indexes with each other; thus, the complete index is accessible from any of the servers. They can be accessed via Telnet, e-mail or an Archie program. _ARPAnet: the predecessor to the Internet. Developed by the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency in the late 1960's, ARPAnet was an experimental network that initially linked scientists engaged in defense research. It was intended to link together different computers in dispersed geographical locations. The network was designed to survive breakdowns along any of its connections by sending information as packets. If a connection broke down, the packets could be automatically re- routed. _ASCII (pronounced AS-key): American Standard Code for Information interchange. Although now widely used to denote plain text--without formatting and independent of any type font--it is actually a data code now used universally in communication applications by minicomputers and personal computers to represent 128 possible character combinations, including upper- and lower- case letters of the roman alphabet, the space character, the numerals 0 through 9, punctuation marks and other non- alphanumeric characters found on a standard keyboard, plus several "control codes" that denote invisible characters like the carriage return and tab. It is sometimes known as TTY, denoting its legacy in the teletype industry. _ASCII value: the number, variously expressed in decimal, octal or hexadecimal notation, that defines a combination of eight bits--seven bits that define a character and an eighth that can be used for a rudimentary form of error correction known as "parity checking." _ASCII table: A table that lists the ASCII value for any character, in decimal, octal or hexadecimal notation, sometimes in all three. _avatar (pronounced AV-uh-tar): A word adopted by computer 9 users to denote the digital manifestation that humans take on when entering virtual worlds. Sanskrit for the earthly incarnation a god takes on Earth. Vishnu, the Hindu god responsible for maintaining the existence of the universe, has 10 important avatars, including Krishna, the philosopher king, and Varaha, the boar who rescues the planet after it is inundated by the oceans. The 10th avatar of Vishnu, Kalki, will arrive in the future to destroy the world with fire and begin a new age of purity on the planet. _AVI: A video compression standard developed for use with Microsoft Windows. Lio clips on the World Wide Web are usually available in both AVI and QuickTime formats. B _bandwidth: The amount of information that can be transmitted over a network connection--in bits-per-second. A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 28,800 bits per second. _baud: (pronounced BAWD) A unit commonly used to describe the speed of modems. The baud rate technically is the number of times a modem signal changes per second. In the days of 300 baud modems, each signal change represented one bit of information. Therefore, the baud and transfer rates of a modem--measured in bits per second, or bps--were the same. Modern modems transfer up to 12 bits of information for every signal change. A 28.8 modem is actually working at 2400 baud, but each signal change carries 12 bits of information. Therefore the data transfer rate is 28,800 bits per second. Over the years, baud and bits per second have been used interchangeably, although that is technically wrong. _BBS: Bulletin Board System. A dial-up computer service which allows users to post messages and files. BBSs often serve specific interests or geographical areas. Some are connected and provide access to the Internet. _bit: An abbreviation for "binary digit." Usually represented as either a 0 or a 1--connoting off and on, respectively--the basic language of computers. A group of eight bits forms a byte. _BITNET: Because It's Time or Because It's There NETwork. An international computer network devoted to research and education. Connected to the Internet and e-mail is freely exchanged between the systems. _Boolean: A query strategy for searching databases. Searches use connectors such as "and" or "or" to expand or narrow a search-- e.g., to retrieve information about cats and dogs, searchers type in the word "and" to insure they receive information about both groups. _bot: Short for "robot." Describes programs, usually run on a server, that automate tasks like forwarding or sorting e-mail. _browser: Software that looks at various types of Internet resources. It can search for documents and obtain them from other sources. _bps: Bits Per Second. See baud. _BTW: By The Way. An acronym frequently used in e-mail messages. _byte: (pronounced BITE) A group of eight bits. C _com: A domain name suffix denoting commercial entities such as corporations. _conceptual indexer: language (and things or ideas it represents) fit together in a relationship: rat = mammal = animal = living thing. Computer finds "rat" in passage, knows for indexing purposes to focus on rat, mammal, animals, living things. _cookies, a device that allows Web site owners to pinpoint visitors, many of whom unwittingly leave a trail throughout the Internet. _curb cuts: features built into hardware, software and operating systems to make them more functional or accessible to users; preferred because they are available on all workstations and can be used with all applications. _Cyberspace: The whole universe of information that's available from computer networks. D _Digerati: A digital version of "literati"--the hip, knowledgeable elite at the vanguard of the digital revolution. _download: process of retrieving a file from someware on the net. E _edu: A domain name suffix denoting educational institutions. _e-mail: Electronic mail. Messages sent from one person to another via computer networks. 11 _emoticon: (pronounced ee-MOE-ti-con) Shortened form of "emotion icons." Sideways "smiley-face" symbols created with ASCII characters to express emotions and physical characteristics--a-k- a smilies--often used in e-mail messages and newsgroup postings. The characters : - ) form an emoticon which means "what I've just said was meant in fun." Other examples of emoticons include: 8-) (a happy person with glasses), B-)~ (a happy person with horn- rimmed glasses who is drooling), Bch)~ (a happy drooling person with horn-rimmed glasses who has just been to a bar), :-@( a screaming person), (%-@ a screaming person who has been staring at a computer screen for 15 hours), etc. _encription: A code or language to be unscrambled before read. _ethernet: A common way of networking computers in a local area network or LAN (such as the same building or floor). F _finger: A software tool for finding people on the Internet. _flame: An online insult usually delivered by way of e-mail or a newsgroup posting. Flame exchanges often develop into long- running flame wars, which can then degenerate into holy wars. _FTP: File Transfer Protocol. The standard rules that govern the transfer of files and programs over the Internet. It allows files to be moved from one computer to another regardless of the types of computers or operating systems involved in the exchange--also used as the general name for the programs which employ File Transfer Protocol to move files. _FYI: For Your Information. An acronym frequently used in e-mail messages. G _GIF, (pronounced GIFF -- as in "gift" -- or JIFF): Graphics Interchange Format. Developed by CompuServe, a widely- used method of compressing image files such as photographs and graphics; image files which typically take up large amounts of computer memory and hard drive space and take long periods of time to download. Various groups have come up with ways of alleviating some of these problems by compressing the image data into smaller files. JPEG is a competing image-compression format --also refers to an image compressed with Graphics Interchange Format. _Gopher: A menu-based system used in organizing and retrieving files and programs on the Internet--allows access to files found on FTP servers, as well as to files normally accessed through Telnet, Archie or WAIS programs. Each Gopher server has its own unique menu of files and programs which can be accessed through Gopher programs and some World Wide Web browsers. _gov (pronounced GUV): A domain name suffix denoting government. In Internet addresses, gov denotes non-military government sites. H _hacker: A person who breaks into a computer network and tampers with the system. _hexadecimal (pronounced hex-uh-des-i-mull): Numbers expressed in base sixteen. Integers larger than 9 are expressed as sequential letters A through F. In hexadecimal, the number ten is written A. The number sixteen is expressed as 10--that is, one sixteen and no ones, just as 10 in the standard decimal system represents one ten and no ones. Why would anyone want to express numbers in base sixteen? Because that's how many bits there are in a 16-bit word, so using hexadecimal allowed programmers to denote a specific bit in any word as a single digit, 0 through F. Back in the days of eight-bit machines, programmers used octal, or base eight, numbers. _home page: A World Wide Web document. It often refers to a person or organization's main Web page which provides links to other pages within the person or organization's Web site. _hypertext: Text that links one document to another. _holy war: An endless debate often carried on over newsgroup message threads. Such debates usually center on fundamental issues of faith for which there is no chance of resolution. _html: HyperText Markup Language. The coding language of the World Wide Web. _http: HyperText Transfer Protocol. The set of rules that govern the transfer of most documents traveling over the Web. It is also the beginning of URL addresses on the World Wide Web--e.g The New York Times URL is http://www.nytimes.com. I _Internet: The international network of networks. The Internet came into being between the late 1970s and early 1980s with the development and adoption of TCP/IP. TCP/IP allowed ARPAnet to join with other networks. Although often thought of as synonymous with the World Wide Web, the Internet encompasses much more than just Web servers and hypertext documents. The Internet 13 includes all the computers that are linked to it on its various networks and all the systems used to exchange information between those computers, including Gopher, Telnet, FTP and WAIS. _IP Address: Internet Protocol address. Every machine on the Internet has a unique IP address which consists of four parts separated by dots (e.g., 204.146.46.8). If a machine does not have an IP address, it's not officially on the Internet. _IRC: (Internet Relay Chat) A multi-user chat program. Around the world, many IRC servers are linked to each other. Anyone using these servers can create a "channel," anLPa for text messages that can be viewed by users with access to that channel. _ISDN: (Integrated Services Digital Network) A network that moves more data faster over phone lines. ISDN is quickly becoming available in most of the U.S. It can move data at speeds of up to 128,000 bits-per-second. J _Java: A computer language that allows users to add animation, moving text and interactive games to a Web site. Designed by Sun Microsystems, Java works on a variety of computer systems such as Windows, Macintosh and Unix. Netscape Navigator incorporated Java into the latest version of its Web browser. _JPEG: jpeg, jpg: (pronounced JAY-peg): A standardized method of compressing image files created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG images are widely used on the World Wide Web. However, some Web browsers do not support the format, and therefore will not display JPEG images. _JPEG can also refer to images compressed with the JPEG format. K _killfile: a feature which allows an individual to screen out postings by particular users on particular subjects AKA beys filter. L _LAN: (pronounced LAN -- as in "land"): Local Area Network. A computer network located in a concentrated area like a building or floor. _Login: An ID or name used to access a computer system. also used to open a file on your computer to copy all files into a directory. -------- Dates to Remember! Sat., Dec. 7, 1996--Computer Network Open House, 10:00 AM-2:00 PM, ninth floor (See "Two Important Notices" at beginning of this newsletter.) Tues., Dec. 10, 1996--Lynx Squad 6:00 PM, ninth floor (for Internet enthusiasts). Wed. Dec. 11, 1996--CN board meeting, 5:30-7:30 PM ninth floor (open to all). Tues., Dec. 17, 1996--Posse, all-day beginning at 9:30 AM, ninth floor. Tues., Dec. 17, 1996--New members orientation6:00-7:30 PM. Sat., Jan. 4, 1996--All members meeting, 10:00 AM (TBA). Wed., Jan. 8, 1997--Computer Network board meeting, 5:30-7:30 PM, ninth floor (open to all). Tues., Jan. 14, 1997--Lynx Squad, 6:00 PM ninth floor (for Internet enthusiasts). Wed., Jan. 15, 1997--deadline at noon for articles for Computer Users Network News: c/o Cindy Brown, Will-Call drawer, eleventh floor. Tues., Jan. 21, 1997--Posse, all-day beginning at 9:30 AM, ninth floor. Tues., Jan. 21, 1997--New members oreintation, 6:00-7:30 PM, ninth floor. Fri., Jan. 31, 1997--deadline for membership renewal in order to receive next issue of newsletter (see Two Important Notices at begining of this newsletter).