Following is an exchange with JFW concerning the latest and greatest
version of the product.  fyi, the icon is new, too.  It has a shark fin on
it.

I just received JFW 3.0 and hope to have it installed on the windows 95
computer by the end of the week.  A couple of questions, to begin with:

1)  When using a software speech synthesizer, does the audio card trip over
the speech?  Do I need a second audio card?  is this more trouble than it's
worth on a desktop machine with good audio and speakers?? Will the speech
boom out of the speakers and gross out my family???
Support:  The software synthesizers control the speech to the sound card,
so you have to have a software synth in addition to JFW.  When you say
"trip
over", DECtalk Access32 software does stammer sometimes when large lists
are
being drawn to the screen.  I don't recommend that you install a second
sound card, as it might be more trouble than it's worth.  In general, you
can hear CD ROM music and speech simultaneously, as well as MIDI and speech
at the same time.  Some soft synths allow wave files to interrupt speech
and
some don't.  I'm going to try to keep track of this so if you have any
personal experiences with them, let me know and I'll add any notes you have
to mine.

2)  Is JFW3.0 for windows 95 only?  (seems to me, yes.)
Support:  Yes, JFW 3 is for Win95 only or later, NT 4.0 as well.  Two
separate
versions of 3 will be released.

3)  can I install it from DOS or do I have to  use Windows?
Support:  Currently our JFW install program is a Windows only install.

4)  will it make Office 97 accessible?
Support:  JFW 3 for 95 works pretty well with Office 97.  Much better than
JFW 2
worked with Office 97.

5)  Will it read the DOS stuff before Windows comes up ('Your computer was
not properly shut down....run scandisk?')
Support:  JFW won't read the stuff that comes up before windows 95 is
loaded, like
scandisk stuff, but you can choose to "have JAWS run first" from the file
menu in JFW and it will read your password dialogs and other info that
comes
up prior to programs loading, but after Win 95 loads.

6)  will it read 'Now it is safe to shut down your computer?'  (Window
Bridge does.)
Support:  No, JFW won't read the "safe to shut down your computer" message.

My experience is that JFW3.0 is a big step up from JFW2.29.  It doesn't
change the fact, though, that the whole accessibility thing is a big pain
in the brain.

Ann Byrne
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