As a visually impaired, in order to for me to adapt to information in the computer, I make use of assistive Technologies. It varries in different forms and functionalities. In computing, it goes from magnification software, web accessibility tools, to screen reading applications.
For few days now, I have been using a certain screen reader that I have read about through its promotions from other assistive technology websites. It’s called Thunder and you can read more about it at http://www.sreenreader.net/. Everything from the sofyware itself to the manulas are available there.
This fine application costs free of charge and it will run smoothly with your other voice engines. A good voice engine is a crutial part of a screen reader because it’s what the screen reader use for speech output. Of course a clear voice output means better comprehenssion of the information.
Thunder comes with WebIE, a text-based web browser. This browser is specially-made for the blind computer users that doesn’t want to spend much time going through other web contents, such as images, graphics, flash contents and other media contents. It also rearranges the headings, texts and links so as the user would only use up and down arrow keus and enter keys on it most of the time.
When it comes to typing, Thunder uses the caps key for its functions, so if ont is using a word processor, they have to go first to its format menu and look for the case menu. This feature is a bit of a drag for this software since keys used for typing really should be used for typing. But it just takes some time of getting more used to it, and you will be on it in no tiem.
Lastly, its memory consumption and disk usage is a lot lesser than the more common screnn reading brand out in the market. This means it loads faster and you could do things faster. You get to save more space for more storage and memory for more tasks.
As a conclusion, Thunder is a great screen reader for those wh are just begining to learn computer manipulation and basic internet browsing. It may not have the more advace functionalities as a well-knwn brand has, but its capable enouh to read everything in common windows and applications, browse the internet and send emails, and a sound of thunder at startup of your login windows.
