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Braille 2000, how to get a percent within your document with percent codes

I was working on my show notes dealing with Vice Society. zIt is the next topic on TSB, and I’m quite behind. Suffice it to say, I finished that today. Today’s blog will talk about the percent code issue that I experienced, not necessarily about Vice as a security threat.

Within those notes, I found that there were strings within percent characters like this:

  • %phraise%
  • %survivor%
  • %string goes here%

Within the article, it has over 100 of these that are listed that the malware presented can use. Here are some of these to show you the real values. Note that the article will be linked within our show notes and is linked in an announcement shown earlier on the blog.

  • • %Agent%
  • %Malware%
  • %Endpoint%
  • %sql%
  • %Veeam%
  • %Core.Service%
  • %Mongo% ,
  • %Backup%
  • • %QuickBooks%
  • • %QBDB%
  • • %QBData%
  • %QBCF%
  • %Kaspersky%
  • %server%
  • %sage%
  • %http%
  • %apache%
  • %segurda%
  • %silverlight%

While we put 20 in here out of the hundred, that’s to show you a little bit more than what’s in the article discussion.

Suffice it to say, the list which is done by %list did work and the bullets which you see are there as well. I took the initial bullets out of this list above as there would be two bullets thanks to HTML coding.

The issue arose because we didn’t have something which is written in the documentation in place. If you are using percent codes, than you must follow it with another percent sign. So, without using a list format as shown just above, here’s how you’d write this if you were in this situation.


There are 100 items with a lengthy list of percent variables it can use. While we’d love to list them all, it would take us awhile to read them all, so we’ll only list a few. Some of the items include but are not limited to:
%reqsp
%list
• %%Agent%
• %%Malware%
• %%Endpoint%
• %%sql%
• %%Veeam%
• %%Core.Service%
• %%Mongo%
• %%Backup%
• %%QuickBooks%
• %%QBDB%
%reqsp


The paragraph above the first %reqsp is written in paragraph form, %indent but we don’t show that as the majority of the document is that way.

Since the notes are for me and I’m using a display, the force blank lines %reqsp may not necessarily be necessary. The reason why I use it is so that it doesn’t put a blank line on the first line at the top of a braille page.

Remember, Braille2000 is truly WYSIWYG. This stands for what you see if what you get. In print, it shows you the braille as it would appear. So,, doing it this way is the only way.

The other way is to use %off which disables percent codes from running at all in the file from that point forward.

I hope that this tip is of value to everyone! Thanks so much for reading.

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So … the president of China has been working on his hacking teams

Last night, I was reading some articles before I went to sleep, and there was one that was quite interesting in regards to China’s hacking team.

Seems like this has been going on since the president took over and they’ve got great talent according to the article.

The article comes from Cyberscoop, a site that coversgovernment and cybersecurity.

The article is titled How Xi Jinping leveled-up China’s hacking teams.

It starts with the timeline starting in the early 2000s. We know that they were responsible for the Breach at OPM, a breach at Mariot hotels, and other links to others in a “many many others” as part of that particular sentence.

If you search China on this blog, I bet you’ll find articles leading to tons of information so don’t feel that I’m picking on Russia. I’ve said this publicly, China and Russia are both feared and both can do a lot of damage.

One paragraph says it all. Its a one sentence paragraph and it really could hit home. It says:

But if Chinese President Xi Jinping has his way, this litany of breaches represents only the beginning of China’s digital prowess.

That speaks volumes since this has been worked on for quite awhile. I wonder if Russia has been doing the same thing? Hmmm. Only time may tell to see if that comes out at some point.

There’s more in this very interesting article, feel free to comment on it either on the blog, or by sending an email. Thanks for reading!

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Braille2000 2.80 is now out

Hello everyone,

Version 2.280 is now out, fixing a very serious bug when you use copy and paste within the product. It did not keep your annotations with the copy and paste.

We didn’t write about 2.279, sorry about that!

To get 2.280, go to panel, file management, check for updates and select B2K 2.280 or go to braille2000 to get your copy.

To use the download mechanism with in B2K, please remember that it needs administrative rights. I see that when launching the file management system, check for updates.

Contact B2K support if you have any questions or need help. .

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Braille 2000 version 2.278

Hello folks,

A little bit late here, but if you run B2K, you’ve been tipped off in regards to an update which fixed some bugs.

Here is what’s new, thanks to Bob.


Hi,

One more time… yet another B2K.

There are five fixes:

  • 1. In Select Pages, The Include Current Page button did not update the display of selected pages.
  • 2. Substitutions (e.g., replacing tabs with spaces) didn’t work for Paste
  • 3. When Pasting material not in UEB, the target document code settings would go screwy
  • 4. If the cursor is in gray, Enter does nothing (might happen following paste)
  • 5. When doing interpoint, the file might end with a gray-fill blank back side. It can be awkward to input more prose (the cursor is in a sea of gray). The new feature Insert / Text Page will generate a new page (with a blank paragraph waiting for input) that is anchored using braille page break.

Please use the panel, file management, check for updates option or download the full installer from our web site if needed.

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Braille2000 2.277 now released

Braille2000 released Wednesday a new version of Braille2000 which brings bug fixes to the product.

One of the fixes was a continuing bug I’ve seen where closing indicaters were put in to documents where they shouldn’t be. Ever seen a closing number sign indicater in something like 4chan anyone?

One change may have you re-enter your license information, this is because of an internal change where that was stored before and where it will be stored going forward.

There may be other bug fixes that I’m not aware of that you might see.

To update, go to panel, file management, software update and select 2.77 from the list.

Alternitively, go to Braille2000’s web page to pick up an executable.

Happy brailling!

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Transcribing books, it doesn’t have to be difficult with Braille2000

Before I paste this article, I held this article until some fixes were out which 2.275 fixed.

Since I failed the course, the information here may help transcribe a book, but is in no way deemed correct by standards. My understanding of transcribing a book was good, but I just had too many mistakes. With that said, let’s talk about how you might transcribe a book using percent codes for the majority of the work.


Transcribing books, it doesn’t have to be difficult with Braille2000

percent codes, and B2K itself make it very easy for a blind person

Welcome to another article here on the blog, where this article will talk about transcribing a book using Braille2000 and the percent codes.

You can, of course, use Braille2000 to do all the work within it by changing the style, spacing, and the like, but why do that? The only thing you need to do is the special symbols page in B2K as it is very simple to do and you can remove symbols based on the reading level of the student. For example, if they were brand new, maybe leaving all the symbols would be helpful to the reader, where adults need the minimum discussed in assignment 19.

Remember, assignment 19 is not complete. I may still have things to fix, and I’m not going to give the entire transcription of the assignment either. Rather, I’ll give you portions, and talk about codes as necessary.

The Title Page

The Braille title page is quite interesting in its development. Braille2000 has a code called page fill which will fill the page with the content. In another example I saw, preserving blank lines was used instead of spacing commands like I did. No matter the method you choose, you should always check to make sure it did what you wanted.

For the title page, the assignment mentions the 5 different parts of the page, and how it needs to be done. Sample title pages are given based on different criteria but the concept should be learned. I found that doing the title page took some work, as the simulated print gave a bunch of information about the book that is to be transcribed in part and the student needs to take the concepts learned and put it in to a proper title page.

I had the concept down, but questions arose because I am not affiliated with an organization and it said that it needed to be a certain way. I’m not giving any answers, and again, I’m not even graded, but I hope that the info given may be of value.

What does it look like?

Let’s take the concept of the title page and put it in to practice. The following is the way I decided to do the title page for this assignment.


%pagef %bn=t1
%list
THE HOUSE
The History of the House of Representatives
%space
Robert V. Remini
%space
Published by Smithsonian Books in association with HarperCollins Publishers.
New York, NY
Copyright © 2006 Robert V. Remini and the Library of Congress.
Further reproduction or distribution in other than a specialized format is prohibited.
Transcription of:
ISBN-10: 0-06-088434-7
ISBN-13: 978-06-088434-5
%space
Transcribed 2020 into Unified English Braille by Jared Rimer
Woodland Hills, CA
%space
In 16 volumes
Volume 1
Braille pages t1-t2, p1-p8, and 1-13
Print pages i-vi and 1-b5


Some of the information you will need like the number of print and braille pages may be unknown. When I first created the title page, I created it this way.


%pagef %bn=t1
%list
THE HOUSE
The History of the House of Representatives
%space
Robert V. Remini
%space
Published by Smithsonian Books in association with HarperCollins Publishers.
New York, NY
Copyright © 2006 Robert V. Remini and the Library of Congress.
Further reproduction or distribution in other than a specialized format is prohibited.
Transcription of:
ISBN-10: 0-06-088434-7
ISBN-13: 978-06-088434-5
%space
Transcribed 2020 into Unified English Braille by Jared Rimer
Woodland Hills, CA
%space
In 16 volumes
Volume 1
Braille pages t1-x, p1-x, and 1-x
Print pages i-vi and 1-5


I may not remember exactly how I did it, but this sample will illustrate what it may be done like if you were to do it. Note also that I used the list percent code, as it needs to be in 1-3 format or first list format. I also learned from Bob that I can put multiple percent codes on a line, but when I did it, I had the percent codes on each line. Some codes like %space I would put on one line, but others seem to be OK.

You’re welcome to play around with these types of examples and see what works for you, each person is going to be different. Remember, if you used preserve blank lines (pbl) you can press enter for your blank line and enter again to type and your line will be kept. After the title page, turn off PBL with pbl=off so that you can have your formatting preserved. In the RTF, I pressed enter when typing so that I had a blank line so I can find paragraphs easier when proofing. Remember that you can also format your file based on structure, but as a blind person, I find percent codes much easier like the above for the title page.

Special Symbols Page and Transcribers Notes

Some transcriptions need a special symbols page and a Transcribers Notes page. This assignment does not have a transcribers notes page, but has a special symbols page. In RTF, the Special Symbols page was created by putting a mark in place on a page so that the page was in place. I simply typed that this is a mark for special symbols. Remember! You want to remove that text before inserting the special symbols at the end of your project. If you were to do the transcribers notes, insert a page for that, and you can even fill that in using RTF if you know what you’re going to do. For example, if the transcription removes photos, it needs to be put on the transcribers notes page. More information is available in lesson 19 about formatting the transcribers notations page, so I won’t cover it here except to say you can put a page in place for that.

On the special symbols page, I also set the running head for the book for this assignment. This is important, because then you don’t have to worry about that later.

What does this look like?

Below, I set the running header for the book, and put my place marker in place for the Special Symbols list to be done in B2K at the end of all of the proofing.


%page
%runhead
THE HOUSE
%space
This page will be reserved for the special symbols page.
%page


%page tells B2K to creat a new page. %runhead on a line of its own is very important. The following paragraph is used for the header, so if I wanted the running head to say The History of the House of Representatives, I’d have to put that on its own line. You can learn more about setting a running head and appropriate measures to take in assignments 17-18 of the Transcription Course. The %page at the end of my text is used to tell B2K to move on to the next page. Because I didn’t put any page number indication, it assumes T2. If I needed a Transcribers Notations page, the %page would have it go to t3.

Changing Pages

In this portion of the book, we already established the new page, but we switch from Transcribers pages to Preliminary pages. We also establish print page numbers. This is simple to do in Braille2000 using percent codes in this portion, because the next section is more books by the Author.

%h4> How is this done?
%hr>
%pn=i-ii
%bn=p1
%hr>

That’s it! I set the print page number for the roman numeral pages and the preliminary page numbers. That is as simple as it goes. Until its changed again, this format will stay in place.

Dedication page

The dedication page is simple. You can put it in paragraph or list, and I chose to do this in paragraph.

What does it look like?

There are two aspects to this portion. First I need to tell Braille2000 to move to the next page, then set the next page.


%page
%np
%space
%indent
For my children: Elizabeth, Joan and Bob


I use %indent here, but you could use %3-1 to do the same thing. %space told B2K to leave the necessary blank line between the running head and the paragraph.

Table of Contents

This is the fun part of B2K because this whole thing can be automated. Because the lesson requires this very lengthy table of contents to be done in 16 volumes, even though you’re essentially transcribing only 5 pages of the entire book, I really had fun learning the intricacies of doing this. If you were wanting to type this out, its easy to do.

First of all, we have another print page, because there is a page change roman numeral 7 within the table of contents, and the rules indicate that all back pages should be accounted for even though they don’t appear in print. That is OK, we did the print page setup before, so I just set the new page set instead of %np as shown above.

What does this look like?

Let’s show you the print page change before we talk more about the contents itself.


%page
%pn=iv-v


This code indicates that we’re skipping roman 4 and going to 5, and the next sequence I.E. a5 will be used when it changes pages automatically. We didn’t change braille page numbers, so whatever preliminary page we’re on will continue.

The Table of Contents

This is the exciting part. There is a code you need to set called table of contents otherwise known as TOC for short. After that, you need to use the tab key to discern the text from the page numbers. Whether you space the last word or you just tab, it should be fine. As long as the Table of Contents tag is there you’ll be set. Braille2000 can be used to do this by doing some other settings, but as long as you check your work afterword to make sure you have what you need set correctly, you’ll be fine.

Make sure you review the rules on Table of Contents pages, as it stipulates you need to use listing format based on the headings of the book. Heading 1 is 1-3, heading 2 3-5, etc. The way I’ve learned how to do this is the %list tag which is shown above for the title page.

For illustration purposes, we’re only going to give you the first volume. Remember, you can use the center tag where appropriate for volume numbers and the like, and I would assume that PBL would be useful as there are spots where blank lines are necessary. Look at assignment 19 for complete details.

What does this look like?


%toc
%list
%center %tnl Volume 1 %tnr
Prologue 1
%space
1. Inaugurating a New Government, March-April 1789 9
2. The First Session of the 1st Congress, March-September 1789 24


New rules introduced recently indicate that transcribers notes (%tnl %tnr) need to be in place for volume numbers since it is text not in the print copy. Honestly, I’d rather have it the old way, its more cells and is completely unnecessary! Be that as it may, I’m learning this for the first time, and so to pass, I must include these. In the print, there is a tab between the prologue and page 1, the first chapter and page 9, and the final chapter of the volume set on page 24.

Let us show you what volume 16 looks like as this is very important to do at this point. Because the table of contents rules indicate that if you have a page number on the right side, it could be confused with the braille number, so B2K will move things down automatically. There are other things I’ve learned that are necessary too, but I’m not going to give you everything, just the understanding that this is capable of being done. Let’s show you volume 16 as I understand it.


%center %tnl Volume 16 %tnr
Index 593
%toc=off


Notice the %toc=off command? It should be used to indicate that you’re not dealing with table of contents entries in cases where you may press the tab key and type a number which is part of the regular text. This completes the preliminary pages, lets move on!

Text pages

The text pages are pretty simple. There are codes for indention like %indent and if lists come up like %list to tell Braille2000 how to handle certain things. Things like bullets, font attributes, and the like are handled with the processing of the file, but you can use %center for centering or %head for a heading. If subheadings are used, use %subhead for a cell-5 or %subhead7 for a cell 7. These are level 2 or 3 headings. While these are the typical, there are times to do other specific like %7-7 when doing attributes for example.

%pager

Remember that we had set a running head for all these pages? %pager suppresses the running head and it appears on the next braille page. We also need to change page numbering altogether, as numeric page numbers are used throughout the book.

%h5> How is this done?

This is done with several codes. First, we set the new page with no running head, then the page numbering as shown below.


%pager
%pn=1
%bn=1


I then decided to use a heading for the Prologue which runs for many pages but we are only transcribing the first 5 pages of print. We also by rule, need to rewrite the title of the book as required for the first page of any volume of braille.


%center THE HOUSE
The History of the House of Representatives
%head
Prologue
%indent


The indent tag is basically telling B2K that I want indented paragraphs. From now on, I hit two returns, and it has the knowledge unless otherwise stated, this is normal braille paragraphs.


The United States House of Representatives is regarded by many as the finest deliberative body in human history. A grand conceit, to be sure. But one that is not far from the mark. It is an extraordinary instrument for legislating the will of the American people. Through an electoral process it regularly absorbs fresh blood and fresh ideas so that it can reflect popular needs and demands. Every one of its members from 1789 to the present–over ten thousand individuals!–has been elected. Not one has been appointed. It has been said many times that the United States House of Representatives is the “people’s House,” and as such it has endured for more than two centuries.

Any history of this institution should begin with a reminder that many of the traditions and practices of the American system of government originated in Great Britain, a country ruled by a monarch and a two-house Parliament: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. As England expanded its empire into the New World in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and colonies of transplanted settlers were established, the king, or corporate or individual entrepreneurs who subsidized the colonization, appointed governors to represent their will and execute their instructions. To assist them in their responsibilities, these governors chose advisory councils of distinguished residents and over time allowed them to offer suggestions by which the colonies could be administered.


As you can see, if I put those paragraphsin place, it would both be indented based on the above tag. Since we have a page turn within the text, in several places, we can easily add the next page code (%np) anywhere I want a new page. If its in the middle of a paragraph, I can put it right in the text, and if needed, a separator line for the page is put in place. If not, it puts it in the appropriate place without you having to count pages. Where the page change happened to start a new paragraph, I put the tag on a line of its own.


More particularly, in 1619, the stockholders of the company that maintained settlers in what was the colony of Virginia in North America %np ordered the governor to summon two landowning representatives from each of the small settlements in the colony to meet in Jamestown. These representatives were told to provide advice only. Twenty-two men gathered in a tiny church and forthwith ignored the company’s instructions and enacted a series of laws for the colony against gambling, drunkenness, idleness and the breaking of the Sabbath. The House of Burgesses, as it came to be called, then adjourned. But, by its action, this house gave notice that it was prepared to go its own way and assume authority to legislate on matters that it regarded as beneficial for the community. It demonstrated a degree of independence that would be repeated many times in the future by other colonial legislative bodies. When, in 1639, the king instructed the Virginia governor to summon the Burgesses together each year, he was simply acknowledging what had been going on for quite some time. Nonetheless, final authority in the colony still rested with the governor and his council of prominent planters.


In that paragraph, you see that we have the %np right after a word, and we just kept on writing.


… funded and governed by a proprietor or by stockholders in a company, but ultimately most of them evolved into colonies under royal control with a governor and one or two houses of appointed and elected officials. Legislative assemblies, representing the people, became an integral part of the governmental operation.
%np
As the number of immigrants to the New World increased and the frontier moved steadily westward, the colonists became increasingly detached from the Mother Country. Far from England, they lacked regular direction from a ruling body in London, and they needed laws by which they could thrive in a hostile environment–where Native Americans regularly thwarted their efforts to obtain additional land. Thus, the settlers relied on their local assemblies to address their concerns. The colonies had no real representation …


In this subtext, I took a portion of a prior paragraph, and the beginning of the next paragraph with its page change. I didn’t complete the paragraph, but you can see how easy it is with these examples that it can be pretty easy to do your own book There are plenty of codes to help you, and we’re always available to answer any questions about this, or any other aspects of Braille2000 as it can be very complex at first glance.

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2.275 of Braille2000 is now out!

Problems addressed

  • In UEB, when translating digits followed by some punctuation, a surplus G1 indicator is added to the braille after the digits. The translation rules were fixed.
  • When using a flash drive Key, having a similar commercial flash drive also plugged in causes the license Key to fail as if it is not there. The read logic for the flash drive Key was updated to interrogate all USB flash drives connected to the computer (not just the first one of the right type).
  • The UEB Special Symbols template contains all symbols mentioned in Formats Appendix G. Normal punctuation symbols have been removed from the template (deleting them was a nuisance) and some additional symbols have been added.
  • Some BRF files opened with a Discrepancy Report (that in theory should not be possible; only ABT and B2K files contain dual representations that might, at times, differ). A layout bug was responsible, and has been repaired.
  • Using “Send To” and “Embossing Manager” (via right-click to a braille file) might show the Discrepancy Report dialog and/or the Select Braille Code dialog, neither of which is needed just to emboss the file. The Discrepancy Report and Select Braille Code dialog boxes are now suppressed when using the Embossing Manager. If an ABT or B2K file should happen to have discrepancies, the Embossing Manager automatically use the Braille Only option to emboss from the internal braille notation, exactly preserving the output obtained previously.
  • Other fixes

To get 2.275, run the panel file management, check for updates option and follow the instructions. Contact anybody at Braille2000 through jaredrimer.info’s B2K as a blind person web page and someone will assist you.

We haven’t had an update in awhile, its nice to have one. Its only several days old, so go get it! We’ll be here to help.

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I have failed the braille transcription course

Today, I submitted the final time the assignment 19. I felt very confident on the fact that I understood everything to the best of my knowledge.

In fact, I proofread everything and even found things that I can fix and did fix.

To be fair, the work I did was pretty good. I’m not going to sit here and trash an instructor that I don’t know, although some instruction would have actually been nice.

My reports don’t list everything that is wrong, but list some. This makes it hard for a student to do the best work possible.

Some of the work was done and corrected through Braille2000, and with the talking edition, I was able to fix and make sure I was satisfied with the work I did.

So, now I have to wait 6 months and resubmit all of the assignments all over again. I can easily do that, although I know I am confident in the work. It is something i must consider seeing that I have had some issues and no, not all of them were due to my lack of work.

I’m sure that some of the work was sloppy and yes, I need to get better, but without instruction, no student is going to understand what they had done wrong.

I’m not going to go through and list errors, that isn’t the goal of this post. My goal is to let people know how I’ve done, with the tools I’ve got, and that even includes instruction.

Hopefully, I can pass the next time. Its a sad day now, but I know that I would’ve had a harder time without the aids of what Braille2000 has been able to give me.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll chat soon.

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Can’t get assignment 19 passed

Well,
After a lengthy battle with making sure I got the title page correct since I clearly screwed that up, I submitted the second attempt on assignment 19 and failed yet again. Some of the errors I completely understand and others may have been caused by something else wrong, but the biggest thing I hate is “there are more errors” and for a student, I clearly don’t understand this. This is not the first time I’ve had this through this course. Hopefully, this last attempt I have will be a success. I’m confident I can get it right.

I used a combination of B2K and RTF to get this assignment done, and its been a gruling time. More later on.

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Luxottica confirms ransomware attack,

One of my followers is tweeting through bleeping computer that ray-ban owner Luxottica suffered a ransomware attack. Lens Crafters may have also been effected, and I’m familiar who lens crafters is.

If you use any of the mentioned places or eyeware, you might want to learn about this potential issue.

Bleeping Computer: Ray-Ban owner Luxottica confirms ransomware attack, work disrupted

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Podcast released, Blind bargains interviews Jared Rimer for B2K Updates

Its finally here! The podcast I’ve been wanting to do for quite a long time. On this podcast, J.J. from Blind Bargains interviews me with an update to B2K. For full details on the whole development process of B2K’s talking edition, check out the Braille2000 category on this very blog.

Want to check out the podcast? B2K isn’t the only thing covered, but their podcast 212 can now be had.

Thank you J.J. for your continued support of the effort Braille2000 is offering to the community. I hope we can continue to team up when updates worth sharing come up. We’ll be in touch!

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Lesson 18 is passed

After three attempts, assignment 18 is passed.

I would’ve gotten it after one or two if my questions were answered appropriately, but between Braille2000 helping me out as it has since 13 with making sure I got the information i thought it should be, to my braille outs now provided by Bob, I’ve got this one.

Assignment 19 time, here I come. I’m to turn it in no later than 30 days, and thats OK. I hope that I can pass the first time and then figure out how I’m to certify. Now, the fun really begins.

Thanks B2K for your dedication.

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The Hidden features of an app, this one, a nice little gem: The History feature

Braille2000 is very intricate, having lots of different features within it. Without going through each option thoroughly, there is no way to have every option known to you. This is the case in today’s feature that can help every transcriber that utalizes the application, blind or sighted.

I’m talking about the history feature, which I spotted once while looking around the panel menu. The Panel menu has lots of options that are also available in the panel itself, but as blind people, it is advised to turn off the panel within its options. See the braille transcription using braille2000 web site for more info on setting up B2K as a blind person.

The history option that we are speaking of is in the file management section of Braille2000. At the current time of writing, it can be accessed by “pannel” “file management” then history.

Once there, you can see the many files that you’ve saved through your B2K history. Unlike other history options, this one is a very comprehensive history with every save of every file. It does not matter where you saved your file, if something were to happen, this is the place to get it.

While this feature was accessible out of the box, some improvements were made to give access to the full information. In longer filenames, Jaws seemed to cut it off, and this isn’t conducive for a blind speech user. Since I do not have braille access, I am not sure how this worked prior to the build which has a new awesome feature to this search history and is available as of May 13th, 2020.

Prior to the build dated 5/13/20, the search functionality of this very powerful history function was not available. I was asked at one point by Bob to give him a version of a file and he told me how to access it like I did here. Since I’m doing the Braille Transcription Course, he wanted to see one of my earlier assignment 18 files. All Jaws was giving me was assignment 1 although i did do 10 onward. This gave Bob the idea to build out the search feature so you can search your files by filename, earliest date, latest date, and other parameters. The talking edition by default will allow you to hear how many results the search feature reduced your options by as you type. He also added radio buttons to this so a blind user can change the order of the results whether file, date, or other parameters.

Pressing OK from the search dialogue returns you back to the history, and you can then press enter on a file you want to view. For the sighted, you double click and it’ll open that file. The file in question is in read only, but if something were to happen, you just save that version and you’ve got the last working file you were happy with.
We had some very interesting challenges getting this to work, as by default, the edit boxes didn’t seem to read right with Jaws. It always read the next one. This eventually got worked out, so when you enter the search function, you’ll land in the first edit box. While I don’t understand screen reader use as why this was occuring, talking to Bob and understanding how this was working correctly elsewhere gave him the idea on how to fix this one, and the build you get today will have all of this functionality.

When you get in to the history, you can just up and down arrow to see what it has. Jaws will read the file name, the path of where it was saved to, and the date and time of each entry. Added to this release that you will be getting will be the new search facility to search this data, and the ability if needed to maximize the window if you are needing to see more data than you’re able to. It should not be necessary for you to need to maximize the window, but the option is available through alt+space x as you would any other window or the equivalent button found withthe the mouse.

The new search dialogue is a button and it is the first tab when you press your tab key. This button has various elements as discussed earlier in this article. It has name, path, earliest, latest, and past the cancel and ok buttons, you find the order set of radio buttons on how you want to sort your data. The talking edition will allow you to hear as discussed earlier how many search results are there, and it will tell you how many options as you refign your search.. For example, if I searched for my assignment 18 file called assignment18, it’ll find all of the files including DXB’s for my instructor that I’ve ever saved. I can even only get the B2K’s if I want. I think this will benefit the entire Braille2000 community sighted or blind.

How to Update

If you’d like to update so that you can get this new search functionality within your history, its now available! Go to pannel, file management, software update, and get the update dated 5/13 or greater.

Thanks for reading, and make it a great day.

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Getting Started with Braille2000 as a Blind Person

Welcome to another article here on the tech blog. Today, we’re going to cover how to set up Braille2000 for speech use. I want to let people know that Jaws 2018, 2019, and 2020 will work with
Braille2000, as long as you are in:

  • ? Print view
  • ? Braille view with a braille display

My web site talks at great length the difficulties of using Jaws with no braille display, as part of teaching you how to use this program.

Lets start with the launching of Braille2000. When it launches, you’re presented with a dialogue with multiple tabs. If you want to evaluate the program, it is best to control tab between the tabs to find the evaluate option. You can evaluate the different versions which include direct entry, document
processing, and talking. Each version will work equally, but do not save your file! Doing so will sprinkle “demo across your file, and will ruin it if you are using it for production.

Whether you use the demo, or the full program, you’ll need to do some things that will help Jaws, whether you have a Braille Display or not. It will also help when you’re viewing without the display because Jaws will not read anything else. The talking edition is not effected by some of these changes,
but we’ll step through this anyhow.

First, lets talk about the “control panel” that is on by default. There is a menu called panel, and some of the options we may want to use will be included in there. The panel is a clickable portion of Braille2000 that allows the sighted transcriber to select different options like math, paragraph style,
options for creating and opening files, and much more. Most of the time, the blind transcriber will use normal windows commands to do a lot of the things the panel allows the sighted transcriber to do.

Some of the other aspects of the program you’ll need to turn off include the line numbers, paragraph markers, and the view selector. I found in my testing that the paragraph markers do not have any effect with Jaws as I had mine on. The line numbers will show the line number and my testing indicates that
these are two digit numbers that Jaws will read.

Lets talk about NVDA. NVDA will read the menus, and dialogues of the program. It will not read anything else in the braille reading window. The Talking Edition is going to be the only way you will be able to get anything out of this program. I’ve reached out to NVDA support with a data dump of what is
happening within B2K and have not heard anything else on how we can have it fixed through scripting or anything else. This will make it difficult for the blind transcriber that works with Braille2000 to utilize it without using the Talking Edition.

Lets talk now about how to turn off these options that I talked about above that will help you get the best out of Braille2000.

    * Hit alt+a for the adjust menu, then D for display.

  • * Press tab and find options to turn off “show control panel all the time” “line numbers” and “view tabs” as the main three options.
  • Optionally, find the “paragraph marks” and press space bar on all of these options.

  • * Finally, hit enter to save and close the dialogue.

After you’ve done all of these things, Braille 2000 is ready to go for basic use.

The menus

The menus are very straight forward. If everything is set up correctly, Jaws and NVDA will speak them as you press the alt key and navigate using your up and down arrow keys. This program’s submenus are utilized by using the right and left arrow key. Feel free to explore, the menus and look at various
options. Some of the options you’ll need is adjusting paragraph styles, what to do with new paragraphs, setting running heads, and setting page numbering. All of these options are in the do menu and the options you need have mnemonics associated to each option. Instead of giving you each particular
command, you are free to explore and find these options. The accessibility department will be here to assist while you learn the program.

The speak menu

The speak menu is going to be your friend whether you use Jaws or NVDA. To access it, press alt+k and you’ll find various types of settings for what you need right now, and other options for speaking specific things as words, cells, dots, explicitly, and much more. The Talking Edition Documentation gives
complete access to all of the details on this powerful program, and continued write ups on the blog will talk about percent codes, lesson material examples, and how I’ve used the Talking Edition to allow me to complete an assignment pretty much on my own. The blog also has a complete history of the talking
edition from the beginning when it started talking to today. This guide is not going to cover everything, but some basic setup instructions to get you started.

Registration

Registering the program is quite easy. Braille2000 will give you a license number. This license number and a password of your choosing will allow you to access the program with no restrictions over the Internet. There are other types of license options that you can use, and Braille2000 will be happy to help
you throughout the process of your journey. Once you select which option you want, the registration is easy. For example, when opening the program, select the internet log on section and fill in the license number and the password of your choice. Once you do this, you’ll need to tab to select the log on
button. It will register itself and allow you to use the program with no restrictions.

If you have any questions, Braille2000 is just a phone call away! Here is the link to the Braille2000 web site and here is the liink to Talking Edition Specific stuff including audio, write ups, and a link to the category of the blog where this article will also go. Thanks so much for reading, and make it a great day!

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B2K 2.274 February 26, 2020

Folks,

There was a release on February 26th for Brille2000 version 2.274. This is a bug fix release fixing percent code logic in certain situations where it was not working corectly.

If you need assistance updating, please lt us know.

Go to pannel, file management, fetch software update.

Whn closing Braille2000, it’ll prompt you to install and downoad th verson.

If you’re working, you may use the program till you save and exit it.

Please contact the B2K team for more info an thanks for reading!

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Poetry, lists, and outlines: How Braille2000 has assisted me in the endeavor of braille transcription as a blind person

The combination of B2K and percent codes is wonders

Welcome to another article here on the technology blog and podcast web site. I’m not here to give any spoilers, however, I’m here to talk about assignment 18 and how I’ve learned to do poetry, lists, and outlines.

One caveat: this assignment is still in progress, and its not completed yet.

Please do not take this verbatim. This is a blog post on how something like this may be done. Always consult your instructor or person helping you if you need help.

My goal of this blog post is to show how a blind person can use Braille2000 in conjunction with WordPad, Word, or Google Documents to be able to produce good quality braille.

You’re welcome to play with the samples to see how it works, but please don’t call this assignment complete.

The assignment has many more parts to it other than poetry and outlines, and they may be presented as examples on how this is done later.

  • The page numbering sampled here is in conformance to the assignment
  • Typical percent codes such as %1-3 are used
  • Braille2000 and the style of the paragraph is used
  • Detailed non-speed braille keys will be given on how to do this

According to the lesson book, poetry and outlines are written in list format. Nested lists are used more for outlines, and some listed items like the lists found on the Braille Transcription done as a blind person web site. The outline here was very confusing because the braille is showing each item in the margin with no assistance. I read it carefully, and a mentor named Mrs. Taylor advised what the outline should eventually look like.

Again, I want to stress that the majority of this work was done alone, and understanding the structure of the outline and my understanding of it took some time. Since I’ve not done poetry or outlining, but read some through my life, this was definitely a learning experience for me.

I’m doing this assignment in pieces, because it is so lengthy. At the time of writing, I’m done with the poetry, the outline, and the paragraph list section dealing with CPR. The CPR section won’t be discussed here, but there are still several items yet to do.

The Percent Codes

No matter what you’re using, you’ll have to format it. Braille2000 can be adjusted by importing the entire file, and then adjust it upon looking at it. To do this, you’ll need different strategies.

Paragraphing

Paragraphing is done by adjust, paragraph style. Tab to the radio buttons, and select the option you want. Jaws and NVDA should read these dialogues and the info within them just fine. There are also preset options within that like indent1, block1, and many more which has set options that B2K will use.

The Running Head

The running head is needed on each particular portion of the assignment where the title of what you’re doing should go. To do a running head, select Do, Running Head. Note! It is important for the blind reader to understand that if you tab around, the default edit box will never be found in the tab order. You’re placed in to that automatically. Type the Running Head, and press enter. The radio button “text above” is automatically set once typing in to this edit box, and it can be changed throughout the file if needed. To edit it, just go to do, running head again.

New Paragraph Style

The New Paragraph style is found in the adjust menu, and works similar to the paragraph style. The difference between the two is dependent on the cursor. The Paragraph style fixes the current paragraph or highlighted text, while the new paragraph changes the way the enter key behaves.

So Lets get started

Lets get started. The assignment takes a page of assignment 17 where they use the hyphenated page numbering. To do this, The page numbering code has been adjusted to give you this capability. This is shown as a vertical bar, which on your computer keyboard, is shift and your backslash key. (|)

When you use the print page numbering scheme, the braille page number is not necessary, unless you change the braille page number as discussed in lesson 19 for transcribers and preliminary pages. For assignments 17 and 18, the page numbering is only print which asserts a braille page number 1 which is all you need.


%pn=18|12


Assignment 18 also gets a new twist, each portion of the assignment is given a running head if it goes on to a separate page. The first poem in this assignment does this.


%head
RECUERDO
%runhead
RECUERDO


I use the head tag for the heading for this one, as the first page doesn’t have a running head. A new percent code page with no running head (pager) is put at the top of the file, to indicate that this page should not utalize the running head. This is very important when we get to the second poem which is only a page, but we do not know this until transcription importing. This is why I have decided to assert the running head in case it does. I do this with the first one, and it does run in to a new page, only by a few lines.

There are also attributions, and the rules on them were studied in assignment 17. Those are done with the %x-y tag (examples: %1-3 %5-7) but I choose to do it as the same cell as %7-7 even though it should not run over.

The formatting of poetry is done in the nested list format which is discussed in the lesson book. They point you to read more if poetry includes other attributions or things that I’m not too familiar with.

Braille Formats Principals of Print to Braille Transcription 2016 Section 13: Braille Authority of North America

If my understanding of this is correct, here is how I coded the first poem. Remember! Your milage will vary, and since this is ungraded, I can only tell you how I did it, based on my understanding of it, and nothing more.


%head
RECUERDO
%runhead
RECUERDO
%1-3
We were very tired, we were very merry —
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable —
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
%space
We were very tired, we were very merry —
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
%space
We were very tired, we were very merry —
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
%7-7
Edna St. Vincent Millay


The space command (%space) allows Braille2000 to insert a blank line. This is important in many different formatting chores, not just the poetry aspect of this assignment. It is also used in the lists format which is discussed in this assignment, and it may be used elsewhere. The poem sample above taken from the assignment was my interpretation of it, and you are welcome to play with the codes to see what it can do if you changed it.

The pager command I gave you earlier becomes very handy here, because the assignment talks about each section starting on a brand new page. The running head, must be the same as the title you’re working on. So, with the background in mind, we introduce you to the next page command (%np) and it goes to the next page number automatically.


%pager
%np
%head
THE WIND
by Robert Louis Stevenson
%runhead
The Wind

%space
%1-5
I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies’ skirts across the grass–
%3-5
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
%space
%1-5
I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all–
%3-5
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
%space
%1-5
O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?
%3-5
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!


This was a little more complex because I’m going from the first level of list to the second. The braille clearly shows this. This portion took a little bit to understand, and I feel by giving you the assignment in full will not be productive. Instead, the samples should be used as a general guide of how to use percent codes to do an assignment like this. There is plenty more in this assignment that won’t be covered here, and so far I’m 10 pages in. I’ve got no idea how many pages it’ll be, and I have not asked.

What about the outline?

The outline is more challenging. The braille I think was put in 1-1 to force a braille reader to figure out the spacing on that. If I knew better and I tried this, I’d fail! Thanks to Mrs. Taylor for assisting with the basic concept of the outline. This outline should be shown in full, as it trumps the third poem’s 1-5 three-level aspect. Keep in mind, that when I did this, I kept looking at the B2K program asking for style info, and comparing it with what I had understood. Overall, I got it, and I’m looking forward to getting the last of the assignment done with a story and a recipe to go if I remember it correctly.

What has tripped me up is the fact that the titles are bolded and in braille, we don’t have the titles of these things in any emphasis. Remember that there may be words or other aspects that need their emphasis, so watch for that. This is true for the poetry aspect, as the third poem which is not shown may have words that have emphasis. As the student, you alone, need to check for these. The sampling here may or may not even include said emphasis, which is why I say that it should be used as samples of how I ended up doing things.

Here’s how I coded the outline.


%pager
%np
%head
NEW SCHOOL NEEDED
%runhead
NEW SCHOOL NEEDED
%1-11
I. Structural deterioration of existing Wilson High School building
%3-11
A. Damaged roof covering and rotting roof timbers
%5-11
1. Three major leaks during last year
2. Dust problem caused by termite damage
%3-11
B. Crumbling stairwells and broken handrails
C. Insufficient fireproofing and safety protection
%5-11
1. Four fires during last year
2. Denial of safety rating by city fire marshal
%7-11
a. Antiquated sprinkler system
%9-11
(1) Not enough outlets
(2) Not enough water pressure for sustained operation
%7-11
b. Inadequate electrical wiring
c. Insufficient fire-escape routes for current enrollment
%1-11
II. Inadequate education plan for current and projected enrollment at WHS
%3-11
A. Shortage of physical space
%5-11
1. No laboratory facilities for science students
2. Lounges and closet areas currently used for classrooms
%7-11
a. All tenth grade English classes
b. Three eleventh grade French classes
c. Two twelfth grade hygiene classes
%5-11
3. No gymnasium or locker-room facilities
%3-11
B. Shortage of equipment
%5-11
1. No ranges or ovens for home economics students
%np
2. No lights or bleachers on outdoor playing field
3. No spare athletic uniforms
%3-11
C. Shortage of money
%5-11
1. For new programs
%7-11
a. Cancellation of planned state workshop in teacher education
b. Curtailment of new art program
%9-11
(1) No money for supplies for sculpture students
(2) No money for demonstration lectures by local artists
%5-11
2. For teachers
%7-11
a. No money for much-needed additional general science teacher
b. No salary raises for WHS teachers in three years


This was quite complicated, and I know that people will want to see something like this. If you copied the text and put it in to braille2000’s editor, you can use the talking edition to be able to check the formatting and see if thats what you intended. When Miss Taylor indicated fixes because I miscalculated where I was and how it was memorized, it turned out that I could verify this through speak style and it tells me. I am glad Bob taught me speed braille, because I have 4 defined including that one.

The others are page, line, cell (speak as) read the line, and read the paragraph.

The purpose of this is not to have the discussion of what the speedbraille keys are, but to show you what I have done to make my work better.

The poetry and outlines aspect of Braille2000 and the transcription course makes this product work well for me. Even with Mrs. Taylor’s help with the understanding of transcribing poetry and outlines, I pretty much figured it out on my own. With checking with B2K and also a brailleout of the first poem, I’m sure that my assignment as a whole will be something I’m proud to be able to percent code and check, all on my own.

I’m still going to rely on a braille out of the assignment, because you can catch something that speech may not be able to tell you. You may be tired, and you may have made a mistake, so its better to also read it, especially with an assignment as complex as this.

Other transcription software packages rely on templates. B2K relies on its own editing tools, percent codes which can be used in Word, Wordpad, or Google Documents, or other compatible Rich Text editor(s) out there. The talking edition can be used to be able to check a portion of your work to determine if you the transcriber are doing it correctly.

There’s more than one way to possibly do work like this, and you may find a better way with the percent codes. I’m happy I have a choice, should you give this a try?

Why do you not want to try Braille2000 yet? The power I’ve given you just with these examples of the assignment still being done can show you what you’re capable of. Can the transcription software you chose do this?

If it does, I’d love to learn more! Templates in word may be good for some, but some don’t have word like me. Would those templates work within something like Google’s documents? Only you can decide, not me. I’m happy I have the choice on how I want to work on these documents, and I am sure that others may do theirs differently than this.

Thanks so much for reading, and do contact Bob or I through the B2K or transcribing as a blind person web sites and ask us questions on how this powerful software can work for you!

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Braille2000 2.274 2020-02-13

Hello folks,

Below, you’ll find notations of today’s release. Some good stuff here.


  1. no added spaces surrounding simbraille material in the print file.
  2. voicing of boxing lines.
  3. voicing of repeated cells (sequences of blanks, dot-5s, boxing cells, hyphens) by giving the count of the number of repeated cells.

To update, please run the updater through the panel file management software updates. It’ll be dated today, and press OK. Press OK on the dialogue to close B2K and do work as you wish. When you close B2K it will go ahead and update itself to the latest release.

Please contact the B2K team if you have any questions!

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How did the early assignments get done with no B2K talking edition?

Folks,

I’ve been talking about the Braille2000 program for awhile, and while this is a post on Braille2000, I’m going to take a different light on it and talk about how I’ve been able to do the assignments pre the talking edition.

Some caveats:

  • I started with jaws 2018 and upgraded to 2019 during this process.
  • NVDA was tested upon request, but found that it was not efficient at all. Someone asked me through linked in, and I tested.
  • During a prior interview which is found through this blog post and soon will be available through the Braille Transcription as a blind person web site, narator is not even an option.

With this information out of the way, lets dive in to the first twelve lessons

Assignment 1

Assignment 1 I did a lot later, after I had learned enough of Braille2000 and could do the work independently. I did the 6-key in 3-1 default paragraph style. This particular assignment is not to be turned in to the instructor, but depending on your instructor, and whether you’re taking the assignment set via corespondence or not.

The Rest of the assignments

You’ll find varying ranges of difficulties when it comes to the first twelve. Assignments 2-4 can be done strictly with Jaws with the understanding that you need to learn how to set your paragraph marks.

Here are some tips:

  • Don’t use your arrow keys for up and down if you’re on the last line and Jaws says page fill or end of file. I made this mistake, and got some very interesting results when I sent it off to Bob for him to peruse.
  • Adjusting paragraph styles need only be done once, enter results in new paragraph style, while the paragraph style is for the current selection. Changing the current paragraph can be changed to all of file when tabbing around if the entire file is messed up. To do this, go to adjust, paragraph and make your selections by tabbing to the radio buttons and shift+tabbing to the current paragraph button and press space if you want that. There’s also another button to change this to all of file.
  • As the assignments get harder, Jaws alone will not be able to get the job done. While I’ve had braille outs of my work, the talking edition would’ve saved me when I was reading things and it made sense to me, and listening to it under exact while checking the braille of the assignment would’ve helped. This is because inlater lessons, it was important for emphasis and the like taught later, but the talking edition is wired to tell you symbols like grade 1 word, symbol, passage, and terminators. It also speaks capitalization in the same manner whether its word, letter, or passage.

One of the things that I really like in Braille2000 is the keyboard aspect of the program. When keyboard mode is on, and you’re in 6-key mode, Braille2000 will give you exact keystrokes of what you’re pressing, so you may determine right then and there if thats correct. Braille2000 can also give you a print line reading of the work with a couple of keystrokes either through menus, or the control+q, quick commands.

The control+q, quick commands have become very valuable in later lessons, especially during assignment 16 when prompting from a mentor continued to tell me of an issue I couldn’t find! I read the braille, read the braille of the assignment, and it wasn’t clicking until I heard it through speech while reading the braille of the assignment.

While that was a later lesson, my reports indicate that I was not doing a great job, and I was accused of not even proofreading my work. With multiple braille outs, and giving up on the note taker, I vowed to get the book in braille so I can read the formatting and what was expected.

This really became apparent after I pretty much tried to do it with the knowledge of what I had, and doubted myself even though the work was in uncontracted braille. I was making too many mistakes, taking spaces out where they were to be because I’d read it on an 18-cell braille display. I learned real quick after several lessons that this wasn’t going to work. I even was asked if I was using the notetaker, which I said no.

As the contractions started to be taught, Jaws read the symbols as ASCII symbols.

  • The Ascii Braille Code
  • You can download a copy of the ASCII braille chart directly from the jaredrimer.info site, through our document repository through the above links. Its best to right click or shift+f10 on these files and select save target as or save link as and save it to the PC that way. Pressing enter or left clicking may yield different results. You’ll definitely need it if you aren’t using the talking edition.

    At one point, I was going through the braille in braille view, and took out a capital sign which was needed because I heard the word comma! This was my own error, and I felt pretty stupid for doing that, but I was going by what it said, and this could’ve been before braille outs, but then again, maybe not. I later learned the code, because B2K’s talking edition wasn’t really developed until I started 13 and percent codes could be used.

    I probably could have cheated and typed everything out as I read it, told the program to write it in uncontracted mode, and be done, but forcing myself to learn 6-key entry would be better, and in fact, automatic translation is not all that perfect and 6-key is the only way to fix these things.

    While I wrote about percent codes, a future blog post will talk about the importation process, and how I’m able now to check my work based on how I understand things. Braille copies are good, but fixing the errors can only be done in 6-key mode.

    To read my reports to date throughout the course, you may access the transcribers section of the braille transcription as a blind person web site. There are audio demos and discussion of each possible lesson, although I didn’t demo some of them because you could see how more complex it was.

    What about 12?

    Assignment 12 was probably the most interesting assignment that I have ever come across. I found it very challenging without the talking edition, and it was even harder because I understood it one way, and the instructor wanted it another way.

    Below, I’m going to put in quotes what I wrote as the beginning of the assignment 12 notations, so you have an understanding how rough this was. This comes directly from the assignment 12 web page.

    In this assignment, there are quite a few definitions that are discussed which are prominent for this assignment.

    • Grade 2 Braille
    • Grade 1 Braille
    • Standing Alone

    Other terms may include letter-sequence, symbol-sequence, and terminator.

    This assignment took me two tries. It seems like this is the common theme, two tries as of late. On March 18, 2019: I got my first report. I really thought I had understood this assignment to the best of my ability, and boy, was I wrong.

    • There are 8 grade 1 symbol indicator errors in the very first sentence. How could that be when in EBAE, a-j k-o and p-z all had letter signs also know as grade one symbols? I’m not giving you the answer, but it is correct in my file now.
    • In the same number, they indicate there is a terminator error.
    • In a different number, there were reported 3 grade 1 symbol errors. I really didn’t understand this as I thought.
    • More capitalization errors. Like I didn’t have enough trouble already, 5 of them in this particular unnumbered problem.
    • In the same sentence which is unnumbered, they expect a terminator. Back to the drawing board.
    • A grade 1 symbol indicator is also missing from the same number. Can I just quit?
    • Malformation is back! More text is to form on a line. I totally didn’t understand this assignment.
    • An erroneous error and more grade 1 symbol errors in a sentence.
    • More grade 1 errors in another sentence and throughout as well as a malformed line.

    As you can see, I was trying really hard to understand this, and I even had my braille and probably several copies. One of the things I really didn’t understand was the sentence that had something similar to the following sentence.

    I wanted to alphabetize my files on my computer a-f, g-i, j-o, p-s, and t-z. The problem was that I got a-f, g-i, j-o, and p-s, but my t-z files were gone!

    Yes, I’m exaggerating. The computer can do all of this, and I’m probably not making sense now, but if you had to braille this sentence there is a logical way to do it.

    • Put the grade 1 indicater after f, as a doesn’t need it.
    • g-i put grade one synmbol only on g as I didn’t need it
    • j-o, p-s, and t-z all grade one symbols next to the beginning of each letter.

    This is the way I did it. I was knocked off for 8 groupsign errors? This is how braille is written, not some random way, and I read it correctly with my braille. How could I imagine that they wanted it to be in passage grade 1 and I’ve never really read passage grade 1 fully until that lesson.

    There were other errors, and the instructor still tried to trash me on having not proofed my work. I tell you what, you didn’t see me with the braille copies, and stacking them up where I could check each one of them to make sure I got everything correct, now did you?

    The talking edition can’t help with all this, but it can help with making sure that you have your grade 1’s where you expect them by voicing to you while you read the braille and confirm you did it the way you understood it to be. It will read passage, word, symbol, and terminator information for grade 1 material when using the appropriate symbols.

    Thats the power of Braille2000 now! Want to get your copy? Visit Braille2000 or jaredrimer.info to learn more, get demos, write ups, and more. We look forward in serving you!

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    Braille2000 and percent codes

    I’ve been saying for awhile now that percent codes and a word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs can help the blind person in putting together a very nice braille file.

    During the transcription course which is run by the NFB we learn various types of formatting.

    Right now, I’m working on assignment 18 which covers lists, outlines, menus, and poetry just to name a few. Poetry and outline work are very interesting to say the least, and with the aid of Braille2000, you can take a section you’ve done, and check it to make sure it is relevant.

    For example, you can use the percent codes to be able to write paragraph formatting, list formatting, transcribers notes, cell positioning based on other formatting rules that take content to several cells after the previous line, and more.

    During the current assignment, I’m learning how to do paragraph styles in conjunction with list and poetry work.

    In Braille2000’s mode, you can change the paragraphing style through adjust, paragraph. New paragraphs can be set to anything you need, or changed afterword just by putting your cursor to the first line of the paragraph and making it whatever you want, such as a list format, centered heading, or a sub-heading which is indent 5 runover 5.

    Using the talking edition of Braille2000 in conjunction with Jaws or NVDA reading menus works well. If you want to review the document and you use NVDA, the talking edition can tell you everything you need to know. This is because the NVDA screen reader doesn’t read the window, but B2K’s talking edition can act as your screen reader by reading the document, formatting information, and a whole lot more.

    With the way that assignment 18 is designed, Jaws will tell you when the page is broken, and it can also tell you page numbering and the like. The read to end doesn’t tell you about page changes, but it can tell you about where you are through quick commands and even through the menus.

    I believe this is the first piece of technology that can truly help a blind person format their braille document, if thats what they need to do. This can be used for pleasure, or for full-time work.

    This is how this would look using a file I used for myself.


    %pbl %pn=1

    Sophia Marie

    bad ass bass with soaring femme fatale vocals

    Tagged as:
    %list
    Alt Rock,
    Electro Rock,
    Hard Rock,
    Pop,
    Rock,
    Grungy Rock,
    Woman Singing Electro Pop.

    %indent
    A few years ago Sophia Marie aka Wicked Wench was an obese single mother living on welfare in California. With a history of drugs and promiscuity, her
    future did not look bright.

    The early death of her mother in 2004 from obesity complications could have added to Sophia’s problems, but instead she used the event as a wake up call
    and decided to change her life.

    Today, Sophia Marie is 50kg (110lbs) lighter and setting her new home of Sydney Australia on fire with her ballsy hard rock music.

    Sophia Marie grew up in a musical family, playing flute and piccolo in school bands. She switched to playing bass guitar when her dentist made her wear
    braces but soon gave that up too when a jealous boyfriend objected. It was over a decade later before she picked up the bass again.

    Completely self taught on the bass, once Sophia picked up the instrument again she found herself making up her own riffs and soon after, adding melodies
    and lyrics to her compositions. She then recruited a band, started performing gigs and a new rock star was born. Her new partner was so impressed by the
    quality of Sophia’s music that he decided to sell his house and invest the money into making Sophia’s debut album!

    Sophia Marie’s debut album “Twisted” pulls no punches. Describing herself as a cross between Madonna and Metallica, Sophia seamlessly blends soft and hard
    into an exotic mix of musical emotion. Unashamedly sexual in nature Sophia says she sees the hard rock music as a male stimulant to her powerful, soaring
    vocals, which she says, are a natural female reaction to good loving done right!

    %tnl Sophia’s music video for Voodoo from her album “Twisted” %tnr

    %pn=2


    There are several aspects of this segment that I used for this illustration.

    • %pbl will preserve blank lines
    • %pn=1 tells the program to insert a print page number in text format
    • %list tells the system to use a standard list format cell 1 runover 3
    • %indent tells the system to use cell 3 runover 1 paragraphing
    • %pn=2 tells the system to give me the next page as numbered
    • %tnl and %tnr left and right specific transcriber note symbols

    Afterword, we got next page %np to work which increments the page numbering automatically. The lesson will cover textbook format when we get to lesson 19.

    There are plenty of percent codes that can be used, but as you can see, we’ve got a lot to work with and I had a braille file I can use on my note taker as a BRF, or even have it as a hardcopy.

    B2k’s talking edition through the speak menu could verify to me what it was looking like so I can verify if thats how I wanted it.

    Does this sound intriguing? Please give Braille2000 a shot. Its free to try, and I’m hoping my insight in to how I’m working on assignment 18 and a sample of something personal will inspire you in to trying this very powerful software.

    The Braille Transcribing as a blind person web site has audio in regards to how I took the early lessons and the difficulties so you can hear both. In future audio, I’ll demo percent codes, how they can be used, and more.

    Have questions? Bob and I are phone calls away. Send email or call anytime. Thanks for reading!

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    Braille2000 2.274 February 9, 2020

    In this update, Braille2000 has been fixed to better conform to percent code usage if you use percent codes. Percent codes are the hight of a blind person’s usage of the software as you can use an accessible program such as Word, Google Docs, or Wordpad to bring in text and perform formatting commands on it.

    We’ve added some new percent codes, and this update fixes the logic of using one of them before another, and it should not matter the order necessarily.

    The dictionary fixes fixed some stuff if you use the spell checker. Its quite interesting fixing one thing fixes quite a number of things that it had but yet weren’t working properly. Other things have been fixed with the dictionary too.

    To get your update, run the updater through panel, file management, software updates. The version is dated February 9th at 11:51.

    When you select it, hit OK. A dialogue will pop up telling you to close B2K to be able to run the updater. Pressing OK on that message will dismiss it. If you’re working when you fetch the update, it won’t run until you close B2K so just work as normal.

    B2K does not want to interrupt your work, and that, I like. Remember, you can always contact the B2K team through our respective web sites: jaredrimer.info or braille2000.com whatever works best for you.

    Thanks so much for having an interest in the Braille2000 project, and thanks for reading!

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