As some of you may have heard, Henter-Joyce, now Freedom Scientific,
released  a new program this week which they are calling Connect out
Loud.  This program is a screen reader which is designed, primarily, for
access to the Internet for blind users needing a speech or Braille solution
for output.  From what their Web site says, it sounded 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 of this new program for myself and give it a test spin.  My overall
impressions; it 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 you, therefore, could download
it from the 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 out Loud
loaded up.

The first thing that happened was a request from the software to enter my
sixteen digit authorization code.  Whereas JFW uses a hidden authorization
key to make the program work as a registered copy, Connect out Loud 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 software you now have to enter a code to get the
program running as a non-demonstration, registered version.  Since most of
the people who are using the software are blind, let us hope that the folks
at Freedom Scientific will provide this information in an accessible medium
such as Braille.  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 may well ask.  The demo will work for 24 hours.  Initially, I was
understandably concerned about this as I thought that I would only be able
to use the software just for a 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 then 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
one can't ignore fields such as the phone number; if you want this program
registered to FS 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. <grin>  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, the
program gives a warning, descending tone and you get no speech.  At all.  I
think that, for new users, a verbal warning from Eloquence would be
nice.  It could say something like "Connect Out Loud will not work with
this program.  Please press the alt F4 key combination to exit this
program."

If you do use a program which Connect out Loud is permitted to work with,
you'll get similar access as you get with JAWS.  Insert T reads the title
bar, although there are no verbosity controls.   There is also no script,
frame, dictionary or configuration managers available.

Connect out Loud reads and navigates Web sites just like JFW; after all, it
more or less *is* JFW.  The lack of verbosity controls is a problem on some
Web sites, however.  Connect out Loud 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 at 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 which
makes heavy use out of having links with no text labels won't be very
usable with this program, whereas JFW users have the option to hear such
links.  The insert F7 key exists in this program, however, to put the links
in a list box, and you can use forms mode to enter information, such as
when you need to perform searches or enter credit card information for an
online merchant.

Since Connect out Loud works with Outlook Express you can also have access
to email and newsgroups.  Outlook Express's email client is actually quite
nice, but I'm not fond of the news reader, but it works and it's usable.

FS Editor (formerly HJPad) is included, which allows users of Connect out
Loud to perform word processing including spellcheck capability.  I haven't
tried it, but if it's like HJpad, which comes with JFW, then it's not a bad
little word processor.  By the way, I know that Henter-Joyce is now a
division of Freedom Scientific, but ... come on, guys, ... you could have
thought of a better name for the editor.  How about Freedom Pad.  Now
that's a cool name.  Then again, it sounds a bit like something I'd find in
the feminine products division of my local pharmacy, so maybe not.


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 out Loud does include
access to email, 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.  For $249, it's not a bad price 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.  The one feature I do like in Connect out Loud is its tutor, which
gives information about shortcut keys as you navigate through menus.  As an
example, if you're pointing to an option which says "file" the tutor would
say something like "press enter to open the menu" and you can even set the
tutor to announce the corresponding shortcut key for that 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. <smile>

One other complaint; currently purchasers of Connect out Loud aren't
offered a discount if they want to later upgrade to JFW.  Tsk, tsk, is all
I have to say.  Can't the folks at Freedom Scientific give Connect out Loud
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 mainly
want to just read email and Web surf.

                     Godspeed,
                        David Goldfield
                         (410) 398-6914
                          http://www.davidgoldfield.com


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