Reading AccessWorld Made Easy Deborah Kendrick
One thing I know for sure about technology: there is always more than one way to get things done! That rule applies to keystrokes, applications, and categories of tasks. Would you like your screen reader to read continuously? One command for this in Jaws is Insert-down arrow; another, perfectly serviceable way to get the job done is by pressing Insert-a. Want to answer a call on your iPhone? Two finger double tap works. And so does flicking right until your VoiceOver says “Answer Call” and then double tapping there with one finger. Or, for yet another alternative, wear a headset and press or tap on the device’s control as directed.
The point of all this musing is that when it comes to reading AccessWorld, there is also more than one way to enjoy each and every issue.
Using the Website
Each month when a new issue of AccessWorld goes live, many readers read it right there on the web site, opening a browser of choice and savoring (we hope) each informative article. You can do that, of course, at work or at home, at your desk or wherever else you might access the internet with your computer, tablet, or smartphone. If that’s your preferred method, all you have to do is open a browser of choice, type www.AFB.org/AW in the address bar, and wait for the fun to begin. If you missed an issue aand want to revisit it, or want to take a look through the AccessWorld back catalog, you can visit www.afb.org/aw/backissues. Also remember that you can read any issue of AccessWorld all on one page; on every table of contents page, there is a link to do so just after the link to the last article in the issue. In Apple's iOS, you can even save this webpage to certain apps for offline reading. For example, if you activate the "Share" option on this webpage in Safari, near the bottom of the list of share options is an option titled "Save to Voice Dream" (only appearing if you have the app installed) which will save the issue to the Voice Dream Reader app. This may be true for other apps as well.
If you are on a desktop computer, you can also generally save an entire issue of AccessWorld for offline reading or for use on a digital book player like the Victor Reader Stream. Most internet browsers will have a "Save" option in their main or file menus that will allow you to save your current webpage. You can also press CONTROL + "S" to access this feature directly. On windows, you want to press the "TAB" key to move from the field where you choose the name of the file to the combox where you choose what file format you want to use when saving. A good option is generally something like "Webpage, Single file" or "Webpage, HTML Only" to have the issue be saved in a format you can simply navigate to and launch and or move to a digital book player.
Many readers, however, enjoy a simpler, more streamlined approach to reading our magazine. For a reading experience that allows you to skip around within an issue of AccessWorld, jump forward or back with ease, and/or save an article for later, try reading AccessWorld with NFB NEWSLINE.
What is NFB NEWSLINE?
If you’re not already familiar with NFB NEWSLINE, here’s a brief description. Begun some 25 years ago, NFB NEWSLINE is a service provided by the National Federation of the Blind to blind and print disabled people. The service is free and you only need prove eligibility to participate. If you’re already a patron of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, for instance, that will serve as proof of eligibility. NFB NEWSLINE offers access to some 500 newspapers and magazines, as well as weather alerts, job listings, TV listings, and various store ads. Once you have an account, you can access it any time and there are several paths to doing so.
Originally, NFB NEWSLINE was designed to be accessed with a telephone. Today, you can also access NFB NEWSLINE through smartphone apps or your Amazon Echo. I’m going to talk about my own two favorite approaches here: 1) dialing in from any phone or 2) accessing NEWSLINE content with a braille display.
The telephone approach
Originally, NFB NEWSLINE was designed for use with landline phones (remember those?) Many users do still read their favorite publications with that nostalgic device. Although I let go my landline years ago, I still use a simple phone call to reach NFB NEWSLINE. Just add your local NFB NEWSLINE numbers to your contacts, or dial the number from your smartphone or other cell phone’s keypad. The system will recognize your number, ask for verification that you are you, and present the first menu. You can choose from newspapers, magazines, set up a favorites list, or follow a path to pick up reading where you were last interrupted, and more. Using your telephone keypad to issue commands, you can navigate by publication, article, sentence, word, or character. You can speed up and slow down the speech, spell a word, change the speaking voice, and email material to yourself for archiving on your own computer or mobile device.
Walk the Walk
Remember, there is more than one way to do most things with technology, and locating your favorite publication on NFB NEWSLINE is no exception.
I’ll walk you through the steps I take to read AccessWorld via NFB NEWSLINE with the telephone. I’m using an iPhone 12 Pro, but remember, you could follow these same steps from any phone with a key pad. I have the local phone number (for my particular city) for accessing NFB NEWSLINE in my contacts, so I just say “Call NFB NEWSLINE” to Siri and the call is made. I hear a welcome message and am prompted to Press 1 if I am Ms. Kendrick. I am and I do. Then, I am offered a menu of choices.
One of these choices is Favorites. If a publication is in my Favorites, I begin there. Another choice is Subscriber’s Control Panel, and if I go there, I will have the option there to begin reading where I last left off. If I was reading AccessWorld on my last visit to the service, I will select this option and the system will resume reading on the same article from the same issue that I was enjoying during my last NFB NEWSLINE session.
Finally, and here’s the approach I personally usually take, the option is offered to press 7 from the Main Menu, which takes the listener to Magazines. Here, you will reach a sub menu of magazine categories. All Magazines, choice #1, lists all magazines on the system, arranged alphabetically. Sometimes, this approach could be tedious, but since AccessWorld is near the beginning of the alphabet, it comes up as one of the first five. The next category is Blindness Specific magazines, and from this list, AccessWorld comes up as number 2. (Other magazine categories, incidentally, include areas like fashion, family, news, general interest, and more, but we’re looking for AccessWorld in this exercise.)
Again, there is always more than one way to get to your desired destination. Once you have chosen the magazine, NFB NEWSLINE offers you available issues, usually the two or three most recently published. Upon choosing your issue, you are again presented with a menu, from which you can select individual articles or sections. In this and all NEWSLINE publications, you also have the option of simply pressing #99, which will begin at the beginning of the chosen issue and read straight through the entire publication.
By using your phone’s keypad, you can move forward and back by paragraph or word or skip an article altogether.
If you want to read an article a second time or examine it with closer scrutiny for any reason, you can email it to yourself. As long as you have an email address on file with NFB NEWSLINE, you can choose to email sections from any publication to yourself. When you press pound 9 to interrupt reading, you are offered the choices of pressing #2 for this particular article, #3 for the section, or 4 for the entire publication. In other words, you could simply begin reading AccessWorld at the beginning of an issue, press pound-9 followed by 4, and send the entire issue to your email inbox.
Reading AccessWorld in Braille
A number of braille displays now offer NFB NEWSLINE as an available online service for download. At this writing, devices known to have this capability include the Chameleon and Mantis from the American Printing House for the Blind, the Brailliant BI 20X and 40X from HumanWare, and the NLS e Readers. (These are the devices offering direct download from NFB NEWSLINE; owners of other braille displays may read these files by more indirect means.)
With one of the displays mentioned here, you can log in once to your NFB NEWSLINE account, and select the publications you wish to download. Those publications will then be downloaded directly to your device.
If you choose not to have content deleted automatically, you also will then have the ability to save older issues for reading later.
Subscribing to NEWSLINE
If you are not already subscribed to NEWSLINE, the process is easy.
Call (866) 504-7300. Or visit: https://NFBNEWSLINEONLINE.org and look for the words “Sign Up.” Here, you can either complete the application online or follow instructions for printing and mailing. The service is free of charge to all eligible individuals.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
