Storm Dragon’s Klango Blog

Let me start by saying I love Firefox. It’s my browser of choice, I install and use it on any computer that doesn’t have it. I also voted for it as the best browser: http://bit.ly/browseraboutdesktop The thing is, now they are promoting this new thing imposed on Microsoft by the Europeans. Now, Microsoft has to display a browser choice window with 12 choices of browsers because apparently some people don’t know that they have a choice in browsers. I am sorry, but if said people don’t know and haven’t checked in to it, maybe they either don’t care, or are saticfied with Internet Explorer. A while back, there was a whole thing where Microsoft wasn’t allowed to include Internet Explorer on versions of Windows shipped to Europe. This was also a stupid move, after all, all the other Os’ Linux, Mac OS, etc all have their default browser. When will it end?
I am surprised that other large companies haven’t taken a stand against this. What happens when they stop picking on Microsoft and choose another victim. I know that currently this is helping Google spread the word about Chrome. What if, however, they switch focus to search engines. What if Google is required to show search engine choices on their home page? Maybe Facebook should adverties that its users can use Myspace instead. Where does it end? Removing a companies freedom to distribute software the way they choose is not a good thing. Personally, I think it would be funny if Microsoft ended all support and sales of their products in Europe for a year. This should include XBox consoles as well as computers loaded with any version of Windows.
I am not saying that choice isn’t important, in fact, it is one of the most important things. But, to force a software company to advertise the competition is just wrong. On second thought, it would be funny to make Jaws advertise 3 or four alternative screen readers. Just kidding, it would even be wrong to do this to a company like FS, well, maybe.
As you know, if you have followed my blogs or follow me on Twitter, I am a devoted Linux user. But I found out and customized things on my own, not because some government generated crap screen told me to do it. People can think and find out things for themselves. And, I wonder if we really want the people who can’t using our stuff, oh well, at least it’s not me running the complaint department lol.
I really think we are better off with out some of them. I wrote a bit of code for NVDA to add weather information to the screen reader. When I submitted it for review it was met with a storm of protest by some of the less desirable people on the NVDA list. What would happen if we got a lot of this kind using Firefox, or heaven forbid, Linux. They would probably hault the advancement of the browser and indeed the whole Linux OS by their constant whining that their wishes weren’t being coded in. Really, Windows and Microsoft can keep those types, we don’t or at least shouldn’t want them. This is bad in a lot of ways, but I will close before I digress further.
Government should make rules about malware, viruses, spam etc. When it comes to what non-malware programs should or should not be included with an OS, let the creator decide. It’s a matter of freedom, we need to protect what we have left, even when it comes to businesses. I personally use Microsfot products very little, I have movedaway from Windows and I don’t use Internet Explorer. This doesn’t mean that Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer aren’t the right choices for someone else, and if that person chooses to use Windows, they shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, and have to deal with browser choice screens just because they are using it, even if they decide not to check in to alternatives, they still have made their choice. Here’s a link to the blog entry where I read about this Browser Choice screen stupidity: http://bit.ly/dlzFxx

After installing a few extra packages with Winetricks, Klango is working even better in Linux. I was having some problems with backspace and the arrow keys not moving through text but it all seems to be better now. If you are installing in Linux, Follow all of the instructions for setting up wine for accessible games from http://www.stormdragon.us/ and then use wine to install gdiplus, riched20, corefonts, and riched30. After that things will work a whole lot better. Remember that you will need to install a sapi5 voice for Klango to use. Open-sapi can do that for you, or you can install Espeak for Windows from http://espeak.sourceforge.net/
You will need sighted help for the installation process with both espeak and Klango. It is great having Klango on my Ubuntu powered computer.

It has been a very productive day. I have accomplished some work on getting orca-customizations.py, the one I created, translated in to several language using the Google Translator service. I ran in to a bit of a snag getting the right information out of the variable. The folks on the Blind Programming list are helping me get it sorted out.
I have installed Klango under Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic. I have Wine installed and figured I’d try to get Klango working in there because I prefer to use Linux. When I first ran the program I got the loading sound, but then it hung. I ended up having to kil the process. I thought it was a lost cause until I decided to try DM mode. The first time it made it to the part about setting up Klango for the first time and froze again. I killed the process again but restarted it again. I figured maybe it would work the second time around, I don’t know why, just a hunch I suppose. It turns out I was right too.
When editing, don’t make any mistakes, backspace doesn’t seem to work when running in Wine for some reason. Yes, I know, it’s odd. I should have written down my Twitter key too, because opening an external browser didn’t work either. I guess I will have to install the Windows version of Firefox if I want to get it working. If you try to install Klango in Wine, you will need sighted help. Keyboard shortcuts do not work during the install process, and the window seems to lose focus a lot for some reason. Try DM mode, it may work for you too.
And now, off to bed, for real this time lol.

After learning about Oracles decition to lay off the lead developer of Orca, the Gnome screen reader, lots of people have posted their thoughts. There have b een a lot of people showing their outrage at this display of pure evil on Oracle’s part. However, more needs to be done. If you have not yet left a comment, posted on Twitter, or spoke out in some way, please do so. This affects everyone, not just Orca users.

I finally got curious enough to create a Klango account. So far I am very impressed. Now, to convenc e them to make a Linux version of the software.