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

Via Dreamlettes:

"We, the undersigned, request that the developers of JAWS® for Windows please provide us a free/cost effective, stripped down testing alternative. This will lead to more websites being tested to suit your software, resulting in an increased audience and hence increased requirement for JAWS."

Sign the petition online at: http://www.dreamlettes.net/petition/

(It might be a good idea to use a separate spam-blocked email address when you sign)

B.

so you want to test web-sites.

1: Accesibility Validators are freely available, e.g.
http://www.cynthiasays.com/
http://bobby.watchfire.com/

2: Text Only browsers are also freely available, if you can make sense of your web-site using a text only browser then someone using a voice reader will have a fighting chance.
Lynx http://lynx.isc.org/
W3M http://w3m.sourceforge.net/
Links & Elinks if you run a *nix O/S
Opera http://www.opera.com (ok it's a graphical browser BUT it does have a very nice text only mode)

The most commonly used screen-reader in the education and business sector is JAWS... but it is rather expensive:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/fresci/showdetl.cfm?&DID=9&Product_ID=262&CATID=40

In order to allow web developers (who often don't have $895 spare), the above petition is asking the software company to issue a stripped down version of the product.

I came across this petition via the mezzoblue.com web-site:

http://www.mezzoblue.com/cgi-bin/mt/mezzo/archives/000231.asp

I think signing the petition is a good idea, which is why I linked to it.

B.

I agree, no good for oral/audio stylesheet, but it does allow you to check the structal integrety of the page.

so why not do something positive like popping over to http://sourceforge.net/ & set up a project to develop an opensource screen reading browser. If a company chooses to follow a markiting model that involves it giving it's product away that is one thing, but I really do feel it's bit cheeky to "expect" a commercial enterprise to give away free products.

code for free...

or you could use sites like
http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=123
or
http://www.juicystudio.com/assistivedeviceschart.html