Jaws 6.0 has arrived!

By Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Student Computing Services Manager

JAWS 6.0 is out and available for download from the Freedom Scientific website (www.freedomscientific.com) or on CD-ROM - available from me, Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner. The CD-ROMs also contain documentation for the application.

The JAWS 6.0 version that UNT currently has is the one that still uses the authorization diskettes, and network managers who choose to download JAWS directly from the FS website should choose the Quella version and not the ILM version. The new ILM version is the one that uses internet authorization instead of diskette authorization, and I am still arranging with Freedom Scientific to get this new authorization scheme.

Plenty of authorization diskettes are still available from me but please try to remember to put authorizations back on the floppy before removing or updating JAWS 5.x installations. A tutorial on how to effectively remove and preserve authorizations is given below. Additionally, a complete discussion of installing JAWS and preserving authorizations is given in this December 2003 article in Benchmarks Online. Persons interested in using the network version of JAWS should talk to the technical staff at the Willis Library as they have been using that version successfully for quite some time. Most people, however, should choose JAWS Setup when presented with the Table of Contents of the CD to install the individual desktop application.

Authorizing JAW 6 from the diskette is a little tricky - it generally doesn't work like it did in the past when you just popped the diskette in the drive and magically authorization happened. This time you need to run the executable on the floppy called hjauth.exe.

Choose Install Authorization. Please note that this is also how you remove authorizations and put them back onto the floppy disk for future use.

Be sure you turn virus protection off before you do the authorization or it probably won't work. One other thing to note is that you will also have a shortcut labeled 'FSReader Demo' on the desktop once JAWS 6.0 is installed. This is a demo version of FSReader which is a new product from the company that reads documents that are in Daisy Text (Digital Accessible Information System) digital talking books format. The Freedom Scientific website further describes this product:

Using FSReader, individuals with low vision or other print disabilities can navigate to a particular point in a book from the table of contents or the index by browsing headings, or by flipping pages. They can reopen books right to the place they left off and set multiple bookmarks. In books containing both audio recording and text, users can fast forward and rewind and even speed up the narrator. They can switch between recorded audio and text with synthesized speech or even read along with the audio using one of Freedom Scientific’s refreshable Braille displays or MAGic screen magnification software.

Technical personnel with customers who may be in need of a Daisy Text reader are encouraged to try out this new product and provide feedback to both the Office of Disability Accomodation and Academic Computing Services so it can be determined whether we might want to purchase FSReader in the future.

The CITC is continuing its Software Maintenance Agreement with Freedom Scientific so we get our JAWS updates as quickly as possible. It should also be noted that Freedom Scientific and Novell Netware cooperate in a plug-in and script exchange in an effort to make the GroupWise email software as compatible with JAWS as possible. JAWS 7.0 is scheduled for release in August 2005. For more information about JAWS and to get copies of the installation media email me, Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, at ehinkle@unt.edu.

Return to top