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You are here: November 2014

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tech podcast 206 is now up

Hi folks,
Podcast 206 is now on our RSS feed. A long time person makes an appearance, two segments worth. Consumer reports articles I bring up, and we also have our contact info. Hope you enjoy!

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Window-Eyes 9.0 beta 1 is now available

Hi folks,
Here is some news in regards to Window-Eyes 9.0 beta 1. I’ve got it installed and it is very snappy, and I like what they have done.


Nov-24-2014

If you’re subscribed to the Guess What podcast feed, you’ll automatically receive this Guess What in MP3 format.? Check out www.gwmicro.com/podcast for more information.? If you want to download the MP3, read this article online, or view more Guess What articles (when they are released), please visit www.gwmicro.com/beta.

Enjoy!

Welcome to Ai Squared’s Guess What series, an introductory look at the highly anticipated release of Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1.

Today is the day that you have all been waiting for!? Today is the day that you get access to all-new web support from Window-Eyes! You get access to ARIA, HTML 5, dynamic web pages, improved responsiveness, intelligent web support, the best table support on the web, mouse-reading in Internet Explorer, auto recovery, QuickBooks, Google Docs, and preliminary support for Windows 10!

But, before we discuss how to get Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1, there are a few important details you need to know about the new version, including both technical and pricing information.? First, let’s cover the technical details.

What operating systems will Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1 support?? It will continue to support all Windows operating systems starting with Vista and above, including preliminary support for Windows 10. While you may still install Window-Eyes on Windows XP, Ai Squared will not be able to provide technical support for Windows XP.? Since Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, we have not tested it with Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1, so install it on XP at your own risk.

If you are running Window-Eyes 8.x, you can install Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1. Remember that you can download a FREE full functioning copy of Window-Eyes if you have Microsoft Office 2010 or higher at www.windoweyesforoffice.com.

If you purchased a brand new copy of Window-Eyes version 8.4 today or after today, you will receive the 9.0 upgrade at no additional charge.? If you are eligible for the upgrade either because of a purchase or an earlier SMA, you will automatically receive the upgrade via electronic download as soon as it is available. You will also receive the new version on CD.? For a complete list of all new features in Window-Eyes, you can find them in the Readme in the Help menu of Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1.

Find out all of the pricing information and other details by going to www.gwmicro.com/beta.? Additionally, you may contact Ai Squared at (802) 362-3612. Orders will be shipped on a first-come, first-served basis, so make sure to place your order today!? Please note that Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1 is only available for English copies.

And now, for the moment you have all been waiting for, you can download Window-Eyes 9.0 Beta 1 starting now at www.gwmicro.com/beta!

Aaron Smith

Web Development * App Development * Product Support Specialist

Ai Squared * 725 Airport North Office Park, Fort Wayne, IN 46825

260-489-3671 * www.aisquared.com

To insure that you receive proper support, please include all past correspondence (where applicable), and any relevant information pertinent to your situation when submitting a problem report to the Ai Squared Technical Support Team.

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Serotek making changes, podcasts are unknown

Hi folks,
I was tipped off via Philmore Productions about eledged firings that took place at the Serotek corporation, makers of the Socializer, SamNet, and their flagship products SATOGO and their screen reader. While messages were posted via Philmore, I was careful to indicate on the pre message that I didn’t know what was going on. Blind Bargains posted Serotek Releases Statement, Says the Best is Yet to Come which links to Serotek’s blog and tells everything on what is up. This post entitled: Serotek Loses 5, Future of Company in Doubt initially indicated that the 5 mentioned were fired, and later updated to indicate that they resigned. Apparently, they were offered other positions dealing with the podcast network they developed, among other things. Nobody really knows what has happened, but companies sometimes need to restructure their efforts.
People probably talked about GW Miicro closing its doors, but we ended up learning that AI Squared and GW Micro teamed up which could be a good thing. People should not just jump to conclusions like what I’ve heard on the phone lines. I heard that Serotek may have felt the heat in regards to the NVDA software by NV Access but apparently that isn’t the case. I think we should relax and see what is going to happen before we say that Serotek is done for. We just don’t need to do that.
I’ve not used their products much, I did try SA to go, but never tried their flagship product at all. I hear it is a good product, and I’m not going to sit here and bash something that people are using and that is working. Just like NVDA, I am not going to bash that piece of software, although, one person I know has had bad luck with it. That doesn’t make it bad, different PC’s are going to take it different. Lets see what will happen with Serotek, and hopefully we’ll see what types of products they are going to come out with.

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Technology podcast 205 is now available!

Podcast 205 is now available on our RSS feed and some strong language and descriptions of sex is in this cast. Go and get it and enjoy the show!

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The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed

A lot of tech news is your typical review, or typical question and answer type of thing. In Wired Magazine this month, there is an article entitled: The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed and it is not pretty. Lets just take one section which really got me going from this article.


“Nearby, in a shopping mall, I meet a young woman who I’ll call Maria. She’s on her lunch break from an outsourcing firm, where she works on a team that moderates photos and videos for the cloud storage service of a major US technology company. Maria is a quality-assurance representative, which means her duties include double-checking the work of the dozens of agents on her team to make sure they catch everything. This requires her to view many videos that have been flagged by moderators.

“I get really affected by bestiality with children,” she says. “I have to stop. I have to stop for a moment and loosen up, maybe go to Starbucks and have a coffee. She laughs at the absurd juxtaposition of a horrific sex crime and an overpriced latte.

Constant exposure to videos like this has turned some of Maria’s coworkers intensely paranoid. Every day they see proof of the infinite variety of human depravity. They begin to suspect the worst of people they meet in real life, wondering what secrets their hard drives might hold. Two of Maria’s female coworkers have become so suspicious that they no longer leave their children with babysitters. They sometimes miss work because they can’t find someone they trust to take care of their kids.

Maria is especially haunted by one video that came across her queue soon after she started the job. “There’s this lady,” she says, dropping her voice. “Probably in the age of 15 to 18, I don’t know. She looks like a minor. There’s this bald guy putting his head to the lady’s vagina. The lady is blindfolded, handcuffed, screaming and crying.

The video was more than a half hour long. After watching just over a minute, Maria began to tremble with sadness and rage. Who would do something so cruel to another person? She examined the man on the screen. He was bald and appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent but was otherwise completely unremarkable. The face of evil was someone you might pass by in the mall without a second glance.

After two and a half years on the cloud storage moderation team, Maria plans to quit later this year and go to medical school. But she expects that video of the blindfolded girl to stick with her long after she’s gone. “I don’t know if I can forget it,” she says. “I watched that a long time ago, but it’s like I just watched it yesterday.”


Lets talk about this a minute. Some bald guy putting his head in some girl who may be 15-18 can be a serious problem. If you do that on your own time, thats your business. You take a video, thats your business. Putting that on the Internet becomes a problem. I want to thank people like Maria who tirelessly put their lives on the line to filter out things that may be questionable and against the law. Its a tough job, and someone unfortunately has to do it. Here’s the thing. I can’t speak about myself, but one thing I did wonder was whether these things had any audio. If it did, then it would be just as bad, because the woman or girl clearly didn’t want anything, and that is technically against the law. I hope justice was done, if at all possible. I also wonder if they turn these videos over to the police to see if any crime is committed? Tech is not pretty. Take a look at the article in full, and comment if you wish.

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review of the new intel driver update 2.0

Hi all.
This is primarily for the geeks out there but for those that update their stuff you will have been used to the activex control for intel made by system requirements lab.
Have you struggled through activex installs, running internet explorer in admin mode just to use it?
Had trouble with non detected or wrongly detected devices?
Well this is for you, its the brand new brouser indipendant intel driver update 2.0.
Sporting such features as zipping all your drivers into 1 big file and downloading.
You can choose old or new drivers.
you can even schedual automatic downloads.
You can detect and go its all at your fingertips.
Go and get it today.
Well almost.
The little add aside here is what to expect.
1. google intel driver update
Open intel driver update.
2. click the link to download driver update.
3. run the driver update installer and follow through the standard licence install and then launch.

This is where it gets tricky.
Access wize a lot of the view info is missing, the program displays inside a semi web graphic window.
Firstly settings.
Don’t bother, there is a combo box which surprise is inaccessible and 5 unlabled radio buttons which are no use to you.
Next is a view latest drivers button.
Now unless chrome was not configured or my feed settings in ie were wrong I got an error about a feed which is not complete and a lot of junk came out.
3. driver finding.
There are 3 buttons to do this.
1, find drivers.
This does nothing at least in nvda.
2. manually find drivers.
Clicking this or any manual will get you to the download centre eventually.
there is a go online button to click which will go to the centre to once that button is clicked.
You will want to find the button which has a list box round it and says recommended auto detect drivers.
hitting it, you assumedly get a progress bar but guess what its inaccessible.
wait and wait for about 5 minutes, tab round eventually you will get a page which says latest or older.
You can download old versions of drivers or latest drivers ofcause latest is recommended.
There is a select button for another product which just dumps you at the home screen again.
There is a select all button which is what you want.
There are blank space, graphics and pains all over the place which are unreadable.
I assume this is to select individual components but I am to lazy to fire up supernova.
hen again, nvda sometimes detects stuff supernova can’t.
Eventually you will get several checkboxes which are checked which is good because you don’t know what they are anyway.
There is a download button and a unlabelled brouse button however unless you are an xp user or a user that has a custom download location then it goes in a folder in your downloads of your user account.
Next hit download.
There will be a progress bar.
once its done go to your downloads folder as you normally would.
in there is a folder called intel components.
In there is something like win7_8_vista 1519237834948234.zip or something.
his is the driver zip package.
pen it with 7zip or whatever.
There is a readme file.
pen that.
In there there should be a date either before or right after a line that says production version.
All the drivers are in there.
Once you have the latest update for your cpu or whatever, read the file and closed everything you are back at the intel driver window.
Hit install.
This is where things get a bit bad.
At this point I’d like to know what the frack was being installed.
Listen to your system disconnecting and connecting hardware.
Unless if you have chipset utilities to install just wait, and wait till you get a restart button.
hit that.
the system will restart.
Check your device manager and you are done.
You may see new devices you never thought you had before.

End notes.
1. chipset.
If you do have a chipset program then the chipset install is always done separately.
you will get a second window which is also inaccessable.
Hit next and wait.
hit accept
hit install and wait.
Finally hit finnish and you are good to go and things will continue as it does.

Intel based systems only.
As far as I know you need more than
an intel processer to even have a chance of getting the driver update to even recognise your system.
If you have an amd device or something and most of your system is amd unless I assume you have more intel devices installed on the system you will not get the drivers buttons on completion of the update check.
After looking at the readme and drivers it looks like that the intel driver updater will update any intel based firmware or bios that a computer has which is intel based to.

Dislikes.
1. while I am happy the activex control is totally gone, I really don’t care for the window issues and interface issues.
The lack of some progress bars and the fact I can’t see what I am eating are the big deals for me.
Once you have got everything semi setup though you should have little issue with setup.
As far as I could find out the driver updater does not install itself on startup at least in general windows startup.
The driver should update intel systems.
The driver will continue to download and install things though even if you are up to date, that is it will allow you to download, then install.
But won’t update stuff that’s updated already obviously but who knows.
In conclusion this thing could have been better but its ok fore a first time app of this type.
the amd driver downloader is like this to but not as bad.
This window doesn’t even have a title bar.
I also don’t like not knowing what needs to be updated and what does not need updating.
But that’s life.
laters all

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