h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There really is a potential guide entry about speech synthesisers in that. I'd be happy to cut and paste what you've written so far, then get the red pen out and correct the spelling. That way you have the bones and you can then fatten it up a bit.

What do you think?

ello! I was actually thinking about this last night, whilst I lay in bed and couldn't sleep I wonder if it'd be better to do a slightly more encompasing article; covering more aspect of visually impaired/Blind access to PCs and other techno hardware; this could cover the scanner systems that can be gotten and things like the new speech out for series 60 symbian 7 and 6 mobile phones? If you were to do that for me it'd be great (and might just get me going on starting off such an article!) Perhaps if you did it it would be best for you to Email the 'corrected' version to me? I've been trying for ages to get myself as more of n article writting researcher, but I've still one article in PR thats been there a year now, and I have to try and finish that this week to finally get it out of the way I think I also said I'd write an entry on 'nighthoover' which elaborated a bit more on what is in some parts of the guide, kind of for newbys who got frizzled by the whole NH thing...

I can certainly do that. I'll pick up what you've said so far, take out a few of the "know what I means" and put them in a bag for you to feed to the ducks later, then email it to you. After that you're on your own! I like the sound of a more encompassing article too. Is Word OK?

I'm sure you'd find the NH one fun to do. I feel guilty myself that I don't give more back to the site in the way of Guide Entries. They are in my head though.

I think I'l make it a new years resolution to do more guide entrys; I think next year I'll try to write a new entry on something at least* once a month; as you say I've tons in my head that just need a bit of resurching and getting down on the computer screen; nh will be fun to do though and I've quite a few recipies for dishs I cook that'd be good in teh guide; as we have quite a high student population at any one time, some of my things I used to cook from back at Uni might be good as they fit the essential criteria; tasty, cheap, full of veg and nutrition, quick, easy

Right, I've put the red pen away now and I have something to send to you. I've done it on Wordpad but I'll also send it separately just as the content of an email as that might be easier. Or I could paste it here, which might work too as I can stop it from doing something ridiculous to punctuation marks.

When you get it, you're on your own! It was all like a foreign language to me but fascinating. Even if it never gets as far as being a Guide Entry, I've learned something. I've corrected the spellings, checked product names and got those right, removed a million "like" and "you know" and chopped the order of what you wrote a bit, but just to put like with like. However, the words are 99% your own.

A useful web page for terminology: http://shapevle.cant.ac.uk/slespeechuser.htm

wish i was as effecient as you seem to be if you want to Email it, best to use my main one; faben @ talk21 .com (without the spaces in it obviously) I'm not guarenteeing I'll be able to get going on it straight away; its two weeks before the next bit of my course, and I've a portfolio to do, a mock interview presentation and psycometric test to prepare for, and at some point I think I should try to find out if there is still some carpet in this house under the dust bunnies

I sent it to the address on your page so I'll and resend it now. Yours to ignore or polish as you like, but it certainly has great potential.

I'm not efficient, I'm procrastinating. There's a pile of marking to do! Last week I changed a tap washer rather than get on with work. I hope you're better at finishing with that portfolio than I would be. I'd spend ages vacuuming the carpet instead.

How's the portfolio going? Can you see the carpet yet?

More to the point, I'm going to keep prodding you until this entry gets done! Actually I had another question. Now I know how you read, how do you post? The smilies particularly. I am a curious fish.

Well, like then, I'll give a walk through of how I am posting/about to post this...
Right, I read through, with the screenreader, JAWS reading out aloud my page, in the covo list, I tend to go through it faily quickly, and I came to this convo, saw a new reply, hit tenter on that brought up the page read through, or had JAWS read your post; as there was only one new post, I when I got to the conversation, did control end, to take me to the end of the page, and control cursor up to move up the page quickly a paragraph at a time till I got to your post, read it, hit enter on teh reply button once this page loaded, the page to write the reply in I did control home, getting me to the top of th page, then did a pg down, as I know roughtly how far down on the page the edit f field is to type in the txt, then did control c cursor down till i got to the edit field, hit enter on it to get me in to it and then I just type; I'm a pretty good touch typis, and every time I hit the space bar, or enter the JAWS reads out the word I've jsut written, though sometimes I type too fast for it to keep up with me I used* to do about 70 words per minute, but I@m a little slower now I don't get so much practise since I stopped studieing at uni unfortunatley my spelling is still crap though the smileys I just remember them and do the < and the smiley and the > to get them hussa! the portfolio I' not got round to yet but I did do the application form and covering letter for this practise mock job interview we are doing, I'm trying now to get stuff together for a presenation presentation we have to give as part of the mock interview process we're having on the course, which I'm goign to do on powerpoint (never used powerpoint before in real presenation situeation, though I've had a bit of trianign on using it on this course....) must do the presentation pretty much done by end of tomorrow, as I want thurs to pop out and do some crimble shopping for people on the course, and to visit my bank Friday afternoon I've gas men comign round to service the boiler finally! and I expet I'll still be doing the portfolio on Saturday! oh well... I might do a bit on it tonight actually <

decided to work on the presentation last night started at about half midnight took about an hour, and I've a word document with most of the content that'l be put into the powerpoint and which I'll base my presentation from didn't take me long; once I get going on stuff, even this stuff, which I knew nothign* about till I started last night, I quckly learn it and get to grips with it One of the reasons I love studying so much, I'm just so good at it No really I am just that I tend to opperate on a 'just in time' method think I'll try to get the powerpoint sorted today as much as possible, then I mgiht get chance to hoover this week, and do the portfolio say Friday or something

I've come to the conclusion that we all work to the "just in time" method! But I'm very efficient at getting on with other peoples things rather than my own, so I'll cut and paste what you said back there and add it to what I sent you before. Do you prefer it as a Wordpad attachment or as the email itself?

I did have a question but it fell out of my head. When I find it I'll ask.

Good luck with the Power Point and the portfolio! Is this for an exam?

Not for an exam as such, the course does I think carry a frew university credits, that could I guess in theory be added towards a degree. But the presentation is part of a mock interview set up, and I want to giv eit as good a go as I can; plus I've never really used PowerPoint before, so its a good oppertunity to try it out when it is only* a mock the portfolio is the culmination of work on the course, and the main thing relaly I guess Word docs useually work better as an attachment rahte r than pasted into an Email

I've still not finished the portfolio I've begun* sticking toethe the guide entry on screen readers: A3545697 though I've not got that* far with it yet

That's an excellent start! I won't let you neglect this. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I think I got all the brand names spellings right for you, anyway.

I thought at least if I had it on here as an entry, then I can dive into it whenever things get a bit quiet during the day

I've just seen what you've done to it recently. Wow! It's looking good! Well done!

I'm itching to go through with my teacher red pen and check the spellings for you. I wonder if Jim would let me be your sub ed. One sentence in particular needs a few corrections. In the 3rd paragraph you've written:

"Alterntivily many confedent touch typists will turn off the speech all together when typing for prolongued periods so that the speech does not speek the words or letters as they type."

Of course that might be something you did deliberately to put a joke into that particular sentence, so forgive me, but if not then you should have:

Alterntivily = Alternatively
confedent = confident
all together = altogether
prolongued = prolonged
speek = speak

How are the new sofas? Don't get too comfy sitting on them with a glass in your hand to finish the entry.

yes; I was typing it with the speech turned off, and no* the spelling mistakes were not on purpose, I am an awful speller I will run it through my spell check in MS word once I've done a bit more on it teh sofas are good; I'm seriously thinking about getting a wireless keyboard so I can sit on the sofa and type on here of course I'll have to turn the speakers up a bit so I can hear it at the back of the room but I'm sure it'd work I will try to have another bash at doing some more on it this week comign

*delurks*

So how does a braillereader work? I'm picturing sometjing like a thin sheet of flexible plastic with little pins underneath...

The Braille display is pretty much like that, its not* that* thin a sheet, let me thnk, probably an inch and a half high (the newer ones are probably better than this ) and they have a set number of 'cells' (a cell being the space for a single braille character), so they'l be a 24 or 28 or 34 or 48 cell display (I.E. teh highest number of letters that will fit on it) I don't have one mind; they start at about £10000, possibly a bit less, and get more expensive depending on how good a one you get I relaly must finish this guide entry off soon, it should nt take too much more work

Gah, you could get a pretty good car for that! Not a luxury one, mind, but we could've paid cash for ours and had a nice amount left over... Assuming my assumptions about the exchange rate is right

Thought maybe posting something here would serve as a reminder to work on it