2007-12-18 22:07:48

I've been thinking of upgrading my version of Jaws, but it is so old it is a floppy-based Quella authorisation system. I currently have two keys in use from the 5 the floppy provides - one on my desktop and one on my laptop.

Before I go to the extent of upgrading I would like to know if the newer ILM internet authorisation system will allow me to install on two seperate computers, and this is the only place I could think of to ask.

Thanks, CX

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-19 03:07:23

Hi,
The newer ILM authorization system allows:
* Three activations with JAWS6, 7, 8, or 9
*The ability to request for more ILM activations for your FreedomScientific product,
*Can sometimes be a pain (i.e. Update your hardware, which messes up your locking code, which means you need to reactivate)

That's it, hope it helps CX2.

2007-12-19 09:05:28

Ah so each activation is locked to a seperate machine? Thanks.

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-21 04:10:20

Yeah, that's what so annoying. It's tied to each machine, and every time you activate a new computer, your authorization count goes down by 1. So lets say you have a desktop.You installed jaws 6,7,8, or 9. Now lets say you activate this machine. Now you have 2 activations left etc.

If it falls below 1, in my experience call FS and get new keys since you're gonna need 'em. I had some virus on my hp desktop running windows98. It somehow changed my locking code upon boot up so jaws prompted for actication every time my machine booted up. I had to call every week, or go to fs activate
and request new keys in that method, which is the one I like to use.

Then of course your other option would be the Dongle--not pleasant in my experience of them. Crappy.

And then there's that JawsPen thing, which indeed does use a FlashDrive. You do need, though, to have a machine propperly activated which is really stupid...

2007-12-21 08:59:29

Thanks, perfect.

The Jaws pen would be handy for running in 40 minute mode at least, and unlike the Dolphin pen which keeps the authorisation on the pen itself you aren't out about

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-22 21:33:38

Agreed CX2.

I'm kind of surprised FS hasn't put out a version of JAWS 9 for thumb drives, and I think they need to add the ability to use a braille display when running JAWS from a thumb drive.  The Dolphin pen can already do that.

I think what FS was going for with the JAWS on a thumb drive thing is to cary your personal settings to another computer that has JAWS, which I have done and it is wonderful when it works.  Thing is in alot of the places I've been that it would be nice to use it in, they have their hardware set up so that you can't plug a thumb drive into the USB port.  IMO FS should also offer a version of JAWS on a thumb drive with authorization for sale if people want it, like the dolphin pen.  Although I suppose you could buy a dongle for that...

Brian

2007-12-22 22:06:27

Then you have the issue of getting them to install the interceptor and the dongle drivers though, along with risking loss of the dongle. Not somehting I would wish to lose given the expense involved. Shame they can't "deactivate" licenses if they are labelled stolen, a bit like mobile phones being blacklisted if reported stolen, then provide you with fresh authorisation for a thumbdrive.

Still NVDA on a thumbdrive, or autorun from a CD has its uses too. All useful tools if you need to use a machine you haven't used before or rarely need to use.

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-22 23:07:58

I think that there should be some portable version of jaws. lets say I have a flashdrive with jaws. And you're in some setting where there is no talking software on the system, so you just plug in the drive and it should just work, that's how it should be in my oppinion.

Instead of jaws authorizations on the machine, how about jaws authorizations on the thumbdrive?

2007-12-24 11:02:05

Like I said that is what Dolphin do, and if you lose the drive for any reason you're stuck. Also you can't just plug it in and go for two reasons -
First you need the graphics interceptor installed
Second you would need to at least press enter on the "What do you want to do?" box.

On the other hand the NVDA version you can set up on a CD and have it autorun is a good idea. Then all you have to do is literally drop the CD in, assuming the computer has speakers or you can find the appropriate socket to plug in some head/earphones.

Now that would be a handy idea for us blind lot, a combined thumb drive and USB speaker...

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-25 20:31:49

Hmm. how about a USB speaker that has memory built in? rofl!

Speaking of thumb drives and such I now have a 750gig drive so I'm set for backing up every audiogame out there, plus other stuff. rofl!

2007-12-25 21:01:45

Either way around, doesn't matter. Memory plus even so much as a headphone socket would be quite handy. There are places which either leave the headphone/speaker sockets in a position you can't reach them, or even don't have sound at all.

Someone I know works for the local council with other blind people, long cane training and that type of thing. Somewhere asked her why they couldn't get Hal working and making speech, turns out they hadn't noted the "Sound card required" label on the box. When she asked if the machines had sound they replied "Of course not" as if she had asked if they cook pizzas or something.

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-25 23:10:15

lol!!! would be really cool if u could store your authorization on the thumb drive itself. every game? do you have self-destruct?

"Actually, they're just super-advanced holograms created for the sole purpose of enriching a children's cardgame."

2007-12-26 14:51:13

I'm not sure it would be that hard to fit every game on there, I would personally imagine a gig or two of space would about do it at the maximum.

As has been said yes it is possible for companies to put authorisation on the actual thumbdrive, but do you want to be out

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-26 18:53:12

Hmm, there's an idea cx2!

Hmm. I still think dongles are only offered because of portibility and such, I prefer the ILM myself, but if you are traveling and such, well then a dongle might be the way to go.

2007-12-27 11:18:28

If the flash drive version of Jaws will indeed work with network authorisation however this would be fantastic, I'm sure there must be a way for the flash drive version to check the Jaws version on the PC itself or a file put there for this purpose or some other method. You can have your own preferences for voice rate, pitch, script files, and anything else you need with you on that same flash drive and in theory use it on any machine on site.

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-28 21:26:48

Hi, I don't think it works with dongles though. I was just on the freedom scientific site, and it said ILM authorizations only. They should make it dongle compatible so then you wouldnt have to activate it. Now it's pointless, ya know what i mean? If you're gonna activate it, might as well install jaws on the thing and then just use it that way!

2007-12-29 16:14:00

Odd, I seem to recall distinctly at least somewhere it saying it would work with dongles but you had to install the dongle driver.

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-12-29 17:28:50

Oh. I might have been mistaken so I will check the FreedomScientific website
and see what i get. If there indeed is a  dongle driver, then HURRAY!

2007-12-31 02:34:59

You're right cx2, you can run JAWS from a flash drive for as long as you need to if the computer you plug it into is authorized via a network server.  I used mine in summer 2006 while I was taking a class, and everyone else was jealous because I didn't have to mess with changing settings...it just acted like JAWS on my computer at home.  One guy had to keep messing with JAWS speech settings every day because the girl using the computer before him liked the british speech.  I still say they need to update that portable JAWS version to 9.0, and make it possible to use a braille display!  I don't use one all that often (I am right now as my PAC Mate is ready to send off for the upgrade), but some people need the braille display to use the computer at all.  Not only that, but theoretically being able to authorize a thumb drive via PAC Mate desktop would be sweet, although that might not be practical given that you need active sync for that.

System Access to Go is a neat idea too.  If they could do something like that for JAWS/Window-Eyes/Hal that would be cool too, although IMO for now it's unlikely given the video intercepter you have to install on the PC.

the reason I would really like to be able to have a way to authorize JAWS on a thumb drive is for that exact sinario you mentioned cx2, college/university settings.  Mine have nothing on any of their computers at all, except in the disability services center.  They just upgraded their computers and put Window-Eyes on one because it is cheaper than JAWS and they don't seem to like FS.  Fine if they want to do that, but 1 the computer that has WE is in use alot, and 2 I don't like Window-Eyes, even though VR people try to convince me that it is better than JAWS on the Internet.  IMO I shouldn't have to use a screen reader that I don't like if I don't want to.  Also, the computers in the computer labs are set up so that somehow everything gets deleted that was installed when they reboot to keep people from putting software on them, so there goes installing JAWS on them.  I wish I could take a flash drive over there with JAWS and a paper on it, and work on it like everyone else, since it is easier for me to do that when I'm not on my own computer.  The PAC Mate is great, but you can only do so much editing on there before you have to transfer the file to a PC to make it look pretty.

</rant>
Brian

2007-12-31 03:37:03

Oh that is definitely good news. Odd on the speech thing though, I'm British myself and I utterly des[pise the Eloqu4ence British voice.

Hmm, perhaps they could set up a future Pac Mate version to act as a mass storage device itself? That would certainly help with transferring files if nothing else.

As to choice of screen reader, I utterly agree. Learning to use a screen reader is such a serious proposition, at least on the internet and to any meaningful extent when you're dealing with less than perfectly accessible web sites, that it would be ridiculous to insist someone switch just because the institution prefers another product. Then again since when do IT support departments make sense?

cx2
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.