Hi there,
And here's issue 2 of Without a Mouse. This time round you've got:
This time the topical tap is from Microsoft Word. Did you know that CTRL+D opens the font dialog? It's an awful lot quicker than finding the mouse, moving it to the "format" menu, clicking on it, and clicking on "font".
Astute readers will notice that this is the same keystroke as last time, but for a different application. How green can you get - we can even recycle keystrokes!
In the vast majority of dialog boxes there is a button that looks slightly different to any other buttons, maybe with more of a 3D look or maybe a slightly different colour. This is what can be described as the default button. This means that this is the button that gets pressed when you press the ENTER key, no matter which control has "focus". So for example when you close a document you may get a message asking whether you want to save changes, you will probably have 3 buttons - yes, no and cancel. Usually the yes button is the default, so you can just hit the enter key. You may already be doing this, but now you know and you can look out for other default buttons in other dialog boxes.
A number of my readers have asked whether the programmes I talked about last time are keyboard accessible. Well ZoneAlarm certainly is. The messages it brings up are in HTML type format, so you can use your normal Internet strategies for reading and responding to them, like tabbing and looking for short cut keys. I'm afraid to say that Ad-Aware isn't so friendly. My apologies. However, there is there an alternative.
Thanks to Neil, one of my New Zealand readers, I can now tell you about Spybot Search and Destroy. During the installation, when you get to the "select components" dialog you can choose the "icons for starting blind user mode" check box and check it. Once installed, when you find the programme via the Start Menu, Programs, Spybot - Search and Destroy, there is a "for blind users" item. Once in there are icons and buttons that aren't totally accessible by the keyboard. But the good news is that everything you want and need to do is availble from its menus. Just remember that you can can to the menu bar using the alt key. Then use the access key for each menu and each item on the menu. (I explain more about access keys in my book, if you're interested.)
You can download spybot from www.spybot.info.
This and all other recommendations are on a separate page of the website. Go to www.withoutamouse.com and follow the "recommendations" link.
If you're anything like me, you've got more and more files on your computer. Keeping track of exactly where you saved something can be a bit of a nightmare, even with the best folder/directory structure in the world. Well, some of the big players in the Internet Search Engine business are looking to give us the same sort of service looking for our own files on our computers.
I heard about this on BBC World's ClickOnline Programme on October 7th. (Thanks to my sister Julia in Cardiff for pointing me towards this.) There's a bit of software called Blinkz that's in beta at the moment. Other big search engine players are developing there own. You can watch the broadcast or read the transcirpt at:
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/clickonline_archive_40_2004.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=2
Well that's it for this issue.
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Rebecca
Rebecca Ballard
Without a Mouse Training
PO Box 8010
Reading
RG31
5XJ
Tel: 0870 765 3258
Mob: 07017 412 662
Email: contact@withoutamouse.com
Web: www.withoutamouse.com
and
www.rebeccaballard.com