Hello to All,

Please find attached a copy of the review of my book Adaptive Technologies
for Learning and Work Environments, Second Edition, the American Library
Association. The review was written by Tom Easton in the July/August issue
of Analog magazine in the Reference Library column. Analog's web site is
http://www.analogsf.com
In addition to writing the monthly Reference Library column for Analog, Tom
Easton has written widely in the SF genre, and has also crafted stories that
focus on re-engineering the human form, and is one of the field's most
creative authors.


Excerpt from The Reference Library By Tom Easton

"At the 2002 Arisia I shared a panel with Joe Lazzaro, director of the
Adaptive Technology Program at the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind in
Boston.
 Later he offered me a copy of his latest book, the second edition of
Adaptive Technologies for Learning & Work Environments.

He himself is way ahead of his own book, for he is, he tells me, in line to
receive the Dobelle Institute's artificial vision system (
http://www.artificialvision.com/vision/index.html).
The book focuses on the many ways modern computer technology can help with
visual, aural, speech, motor, and learning disabilities, beginning with the
accessibility
options available with Windows and other operating systems. (Do you know
about Windows' StickyKeys for folks who have trouble with hitting two or
more
keys at once? FilterKeys? MouseKeys? Look under Settings-Control
Panel-Accessibility Options.)  It also discusses a multitude of hardware and
software
products, including screen readers, screen magnifiers, Braille printers and
displays, scanners, voice command and dictation systems, alternative input
systems, TTYs, on-screen keyboards, alternative communication systems, word
predictors, and more.  Appendices list sources, helpful agencies and
organizations,
and funders, and summarize disability law.  This book is a great resource
not only for the disabled, but also for those who live with or assist the
disabled,
as well as for human resources departments, schools, and social service
agencies.

There are even tidbits for the rest of us--shortcuts, of course, but also a
brief description of Baudot coding, a five-bit binary system once used for
enhancing
telegraph transmission and still used as one option for text telephones.
The term looked suspiciously similar to baud, so I Googled a bit and quickly
discovered that the baud was named after Baudot's creator, Emile Baudot, as
a unit of transmission speed (one Morse code dot per second, originally).

Why didn't Joe tell us that?  He had a different mission in mind--Just the
facts, please, with very few digressions and blessed by a lean, direct style
that makes a large amount of information very accessible."

http://www.JoeLazzaro.Com

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