by David Goldfield
As some of you may have heard, Henter-Joyce, now a division of Freedom Scientific, recently released a new program which they are calling Connect OutLoud. This program is a screen reader which is designed, primarily, to provide access to the Internet to blind users who need a speech or Braille solution for screen output. From what their Web site says, it sounded to me like a stripped-down version of JFW, the JAWS for Windows screen reader, but since the suggested list price is only $249 I was quite intrigued and decided to download a demo for myself and give it a test spin. My overall impression is that Connect OutLoud is, in fact, a stripped-down JFW but that doesn’t make it a bad program. In fact, I like it.
The program is only about nine megabytes and, therefore, one can download it from the http://www.freedomscientific.com web site in not much time, even with a 56K dial-up modem. The installation program is quite similar to the JFW installer; the Eloquence engine comes up talking and prompts you through either an automatic or custom install. Being the computer geek that I am, and being paranoid about software which wants to take over my system without telling me what it’s doing, I chose the custom installation option so that I could see, or hear, what the program was going to do to my system. It actually did no damage and the installation was trauma-free, allowing me to choose the names of folders and program groups to store the software. The installation ended and the fun began as Connect OutLoud loaded up.
The first thing that happened was a request from the software to enter my 16-digit authorization code. Whereas JFW uses a hidden authorization key to make the program work as a registered copy, Connect OutLoud doesn’t use such a system, which some may feel is a step in the right direction. What the program *does* require is an authorization code. I’m sure most of you have installed a program like Office or even Windows itself and you remember having to enter a huge code such as j4Y2qXXrZ12 ... well, if you purchased the Connect OutLoud software you will have to enter a code to get the program running as a non-demonstration, registered version. According to the product information on the web site, the code will be made available in braille for visually impaired users. Since I did not purchase this software, I was able to select the option which said “run as a demo” and the program happily accepted this, and ran in demo mode.
What are the restrictions of demo mode, you ask? The demo will work for 24 hours. Initially, I was understandably concerned about this as I thought that I would be able to use the software for only one day and then I’d be forced to download another demo for continued use. Fortunately, I was wrong in my assumption. What you get are 24 hours of actual use of the software. This means you could use it for an hour a day for 24 days, six hours a day for four days ... I’m lousy at math but you get the idea. Basically, it should be enough time for someone to evaluate it and make a determination as to whether the program is worth the magnetic coding it’s printed on.
After telling the program to run in demo mode, I was presented with the ever-popular, always annoying registration screen, asking for such things as my name, address, phone number, blood type and DNA information. Well, I’m being a bit dramatic; sue me. I discovered that you can’t ignore fields such as the phone number; if you want this program registered to Freedom Scientific, you must enter information in probably every field. Fortunately, there’s a lovely cancel button which I pushed to make the registration screen go away.
Now I can actually talk about the program itself. Yes, it is, as I assumed, a stripped-down version of the popular JFW software. Because I’ve been using JFW since version 1.0 was released in 1995, the learning curve wasn’t steep. The reading commands are the same, although there is no JAWS cursor or PC cursor to activate.
This program is a bit more than just an Internet access package. You are allowed to access and read the desktop, the start menu, applications in the control panel, My Computer, Windows Explorer, many applications in the Accessories folder (including Dial-up Networking) as well as Outlook Express, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player. The program is obviously set to work with all of these applications. If you try to enter a program other than the ones it’s set to work with, such as Microsoft Word, Connect OutLoud gives a warning, descending tone and you hear no speech. At all. I think that, for new users, a verbal warning from Eloquence would be nice. It could say something like “Connect OutLoud will not work with this program. Please press the alt/F-4 key combination to exit this program.”
If you do use a program which Connect OutLoud is permitted to work with, you’ll get access similar to what you would get with JFW. For example, “INSERT-T” reads the title bar, although there are no verbosity controls. There are also no script, frame, dictionary or configuration managers available.
Connect OutLoud reads and navigates web sites just like JFW; after all, it is, more or less, JFW. The lack of verbosity controls is a problem on some web sites, however. Connect OutLoud is set to ignore all graphical links which do not include text labels. Now this is quite nice for new or inexperienced users who might be intimidated by hearing a link with a weird-sounding name, but what if you need or want that information? Sorry, you can’t get it, as far as I can tell. This means that any web site where the standard practice is to provide links without text labels won’t be very usable with this program, whereas JFW users have the option to hear such links. The “INSERT-F7” command does exist in this program, so you can conveniently put the links in a list box. In addition, you can use forms mode to enter information when you’re performing a search or entering credit card information for online purchases.
Since Connect OutLoud works with Outlook Express you can also have access to e-mail and newsgroups. Outlook Express’ e-mail client is actually quite nice. Although I personally am not fond of the news reader, it works and it’s usable.
“FS-Editor” (formerly called “HJ-Pad”) is included, which allows users of Connect OutLoud to perform word processing and includes a spell-checking capability. I haven’t tried it, but if it’s like “HJ-pad,” which comes with JFW, then it’s not a bad little word processor.
I’m not sure how good of a deal this will be for users who just need a talking Internet program, considering that IBM’s Home Page Reader sells for $149 and I hear it’s pretty good. However, Connect OutLoud does include access to e-mail, newsgroups, the control panel, Dial-up Networking (for setting up that dial-up connection in the first place) and allows users to do word processing with FS Editor, which will also save files in Word 6.0 format. The $249 price tag does not seem too steep, considering what you get. JFW users really have no need to purchase this program and it would be kind of a waste if they did, considering that JFW does everything this program does.
A feature I especially like in Connect OutLoud is its tutor, which gives information about shortcut keys as one navigates through menus. For example, if you’re pointing to an option which says, “FILE,” the tutor will say something like, “press ENTER to open the menu,” and you can even set the tutor to announce the corresponding shortcut key for each menu item. The tutor voice, by default, is the Eloquence voice called Shelly, and I found the voice itself so annoying I changed it to Rocko before my 24 hours of demonstration had ended!
One other complaint that I have is that currently purchasers of Connect OutLoud aren’t offered a discount if they want to upgrade later to JFW. Tsk, tsk, is all I have to say. Can’t the folks at Freedom Scientific give Connect OutLoud users a few hundred dollars off the price of JFW if they want to upgrade? I know Freedom Scientific is now a huge conglomerate, but can’t they at least give customers the impression that they care about their business?
Overall, I like the program a lot and I think it might be a nice alternative for folks who just need basic access to Windows and who want to just read e-mail and Web surf.
(Editor’s Note: You may contact David Goldfield at his e- mail address: info@davidgoldfield.com or via his web site at www.davidgoldfield.com. For more information about Connect OutLoud, visit the web site at www.freedomscientific.com, or contact Bryan Carver at (800) 444-4443, or via his e-mail, BryanC@freedomscientific.com.)