Freedom Box

[Gary Wynn]

Freedom Box runs on M$ Windows, as well as linux.  I have the Windows 
version running, and use it often.  It is an excellent alternative to 
Jaws.  It has multiple parts to it--there is Freedom Box, which is a 
community vaguely like AOL, in that it has forums, news, and tons of 
information available  through easy to use menus.  The major difference is 
that it is *all* designed to be accessible for persons who are blind, and 
the information content  is set  up for that purpose--access to more than 
25,000 etexts for example.

Outside of the Freedom Box network--an intranet of its own--there is FBSA. 
FBSA is Freedom Box System Access, which gives speech access to the OS.   
This is optimized to work with Windows, as linux has not had much 
participation to date.  I am getting ready to set up  Freedom Box on my 
Debian installation, but not quite there yet.

Yes, it uses the Mozilla browser, and that browser is good.  Through the 
FB network, all updates are automatic--no hassle, no muss, no fuss.   The 
system is stable, neospeech is great,  and it gives me the best access I 
have yet had to the internet or to  all the capabilities of XP.   It works 
great at the command line, for example--much like ASAP.   If one is 
running JP Software's 4nt, or Take Command, it handles it just fine.

It would be great if more linux users tried the linux version and helped 
to get it improved.  It lacks features, as it has no standard editor in 
linux, or an equivalent of  Outlook.  

Matt Campbell is one of the support/development team--a linux guru as 
users of some of his previous have reason to know.  He developed 
Trueplayer among other things.

One of the advantages of having the FB network is a capability of using 
the browser on sites that would normally be inaccessible.  There are ways 
to make such sites accessible, save the  alterations, and have them 
automatically shared through the FB network--even if you later use 
IE--which I mostly do not.  This makes things like Amazon accessible.   
This should also be true through the linux version, as it does not depend 
on the OS being run.  

HTH

Gary