I have lots of friends who ask me for accessible websites to find good links
to internet radio stations. I usually send them to
<http://www.billsparks.org/> http://www.billsparks.org because Bill is
visually impaired and understands how to create an online database of
station listings that is screen reader friendly. Bill does a great job at
keeping his website updated, but there's only so much one guy can do. 

Sometimes, you just want to try something new. Why can't there be a database
of stations that is being checked by a handfull of people to insure that
they are online and why can't that database be screen reader friendly? I was
asking myself this question one day and did a Google search for internet
radio database. The results weren't good. What I found were programs that
were not accessible and tons of online resources that hadn't been updated in
years. 

Well, I kept searching and eventually came to the InfraDrive Mozekty page. 

LINK:

 <http://www.infradrive.com/mozekty.php>
http://www.infradrive.com/mozekty.php

The description of the program said that "Mozekty is a free fast tool to
play your audio streams and radio stations, you can also get a list of the
latest radio stations on the internet and save your favourite stations.
Features include:

Listen to hundreds of internet radio stations from around the world with
this full-featured player.

Add, edit or delete stations from your stations database.

Check for latest stations found on the internet by connecting to
Bitsnips.com.

Get full info and statistics about the current playing stream.

Full control from Mozekty system tray icon when the application is
minimized.

Friendly user interface.

Great tool with a small size." 

I knew this was the program I was looking for. I went to the InfraDrive
Download Page and got a copy of Mozekty. 

LINK:

 <http://www.infradrive.com/downloads.php>
http://www.infradrive.com/downloads.php

The program worked great but had one problem with JAWS. As I tabbed through
the various options, I noticed that JAWS wouldn't read the actual list of
stations. This was an obvious problem. How was I going to know what station
I had selected? 

I sent an email to [log in to unmask] and got an immediate email and
Skype call from Ehab El-agizy. As we chatted, I discovered that this guy was
really interested in my issue. He wanted to make this program accessible for
blind and visually impaired users and to continue to offer it for free. We
talked about JAWS and Window Eyes and how they read the screen to people who
are blind or visually impaired. He downloaded a demo of each program and
decided that the best way to bring accessibility to this program was to
write his own Text to Speech interface. 

As you can imagine, I was floored. How many people do you know would take
this kind of interest in making a program accessible? Well, a few days
later, he was sending me the first beta. It worked well and I could use my
default SAPI voice to access most of the program's menus and combo boxes. 

This was outstanding. A few days later the second beta arived. Now the
entire program spoke and additional speech support was added. Now, I could
choose any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voice and make it the default voice for the
program. I could now access the program just as easily as any person with
vision. I was so impressed by the work done that I promised to spread the
word to as many blind and visually impaired people as possible. You are
reading the result of that promise. 

If you are interested in internet radio, I'd like for you to give this
program a download. If you know of good internet radio stations, please
submit them so we can add them to the database for all to enjoy. The current
version does not support streams by RealMedia because of their perprietary
nature. This may be fixed in future releases. Ehab wants our feedback and
has a forum for us to post suggestions and new internet radio listings. You
can also send new listings to [log in to unmask] He did the programming
and I did the testing. We made a great team and I hope we can continue to
work together on the program's development. So, what are you waiting for?
Click this direct link to download Mozekty. 

 <http://www.infradrive.com/downloads/Mozekty.exe>
http://www.infradrive.com/downloads/Mozekty.exe

NOTE: You will need to download the Microsoft .net framework before you can
use this program. Click this link to download the Microsoft .net Framework
from the Microsoft website. 

 <http://tinyurl.com/b88mw> http://tinyurl.com/b88mw

 
Denny Huff
Assistive Technology Specialist
 
Gateway For The Blind LLC.
P.O. Box 515
St. Clair, MO  63077
 
P: 636.262.1383
F: 636.629.1710
Skype ID: DennyGayle
[log in to unmask]
WWW.GatewayForTheBlind.Com <http://www.gatewayfortheblind.com/> 
 
For more information on blindness, visit:
http://www.MoBlind.Org <http://www.moblind.org/> 
 
THE GATEWAY TO INDEPENDENCE
 


    VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
Archived on the World Wide Web at
    http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
    Signoff: [log in to unmask]
    Subscribe: [log in to unmask]