From: Kelly Pierce 
Subject: blind computer user network news #11
abbreviation for organization. Internet sites which don't fall into any other 
category are
given the domain name of org. It usually
indicates that the site belongs to a non-profit, non-governmental 
organization.
                                 P
    --plain vanilla format: same as ASCII format. Ensures text to be 
readable, not affected
by type of soft- or hardware used or rapid changes in computer technology.
   --protocol: the way a computer transmits and receives characters.
8-1-n 8bits 1 stopbit no parity dosbased 7-1-5e even parity for unix based 
systems.
   --PPP: Point-to-Point Protocol. A protocol that allows a computer to use a 
telephone line
and modem to connect to the Internet; an alternative to a SLIP connection.
           
                                 Q
   --QuickTime: A video compression standard developed by Apple. The 
uickTime
standard is one of the most popular formats for video clips on the World Wide 
Web.
           
                                 S
   --screen capture: Communication software opens a file in your
computer and dumps an image of the contents of your screen into it.
   --search engine: A mechanism for finding documents on the Internet--e.g 
WAIS, Yahoo
and Alta Vista are search engines.
 --server: A computer system that manages and delivers information to 
multiple stations. 
One server can have several different software programs running on it.        
   
   --signature file: A footer added to the bottom of e-mail messages.         
  
   --SLIP (pronounced SLIP): A protocol that allows a computer to
use a telephone line and modem to connect to the Internet. It's an
alternative to a PPP connection.
   --spam: The act of spewing out large numbers of electronic
messages via e-mail or newsgroups to people who don't want to receive them; 
considered
a gross breach of etiquette. The term is believed to be derived from a Monty 
Python skit
in which the word
is repeated over and over again. Its relation to Spam, the much-maligned pork 
luncheon
meat, is uncertain.
          
                                 T
   --TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet (working) Protocol. A 
standard set of
rules which allows computers on
different networks to communicate with one another. The Internet came into 
being with the
development and adoption of TCP/IP.
  --Telnet: The Internet protocol which allows a computer at one location to 
connect with
and act as a terminal of a computer at another one. Unlike FTP which involves 
the transfer
of files between computers, Telnet primarily involves the transfer of and 
response to
commands from the terminal emulator to the host computer, the host to the 
terminal, and
to the terminal emulation programs which utilize Telnet protocol.           
   --terminal emulation: computers mimicking emulate the way
information is displayed accept keyboard commands.
  --T-1: A phone line connection that can transfer data at 1.5 million 
bits-per-second. It
is frequently used to connect LANs to the Internet.           
   --T-3: A phone line connection that can carry data at 45
million bits-per-second--more than enough to do full-screen video.
   --thread order: original message in a newsgroup followed by replies.       
   
   --tn3270: A Telnet program and protocol used to log into  IBM
mainframe computers.
   --twitch games: Action games requiring lightning-quick reaction
times, dexterity and caveman intelligence.
           
                                 U
   --UNIX: A computer operating system designed to be used by many people at 
the same
time; the most widely-used operating system for servers on the Internet.      
     
   --upload: process of sending a file from your computer to the net.
   --URL (Uniform Resource Locator): protocol for identifying documents on 
the Web. All
Web addresses have an URL--E.g. The New York Times is http://www.nytimes.com. 
     
    
    --USENET (pronounced USE-net): A world-wide system of thousands of 
discussion
areas, called newsgroups, with comments from hundreds of thousands of users. 
Most Usenet
machines are on the Internet.
                                V                      
   --Veronica: (Very Easy Rodent Oriented Net-wide Index to
Computerized Archives) A frequently updated database with the names of almost 
every
menu item on the thousands of Gopher servers. 
   --VMPEG (pronounced VEE EM-peg): application for playing MPEG video files. 
      
   
   --VRML: (Virtual Reality Modeling Language): a computer language that 
allows users
to create three-dimensional programs. In a VRML
application a user can click on any object to travel to another part of the 
program or to visit
another Web page.
           
                                 W                      
   --WAIS (pronounced WAYS) : Wide Area Information Service. A
search engine that indexes large quantities of information and makes the 
indexes searchable. 
     --WAV (pronounced WAVE) : An audio file format.           
   --Webrowser: A program used to navigate and access information on the Web. 
They
convert raw html coding into a graphical display.
Some are also able to navigate Gopher sites, connect with FTP servers and 
display different
types of image files. Popular browsers include Netscape Navigator, Microsoft 
Internet
Explorer and Mosaic.           
   --webcast: a brodcast on the web; available to users with high bandwidth 
connections: no
less than a 28.8 kbps modem and
preferably ISDN* or T1* access.
   --Web goddess, webgoddess: A female Web master.           
   --Web master, webmaster: The person in charge of maintaining the content 
found on a
Web site, or of keeping it up and running.  
   --Web site: A collection of Web pages, usually consisting of a home page 
and several
other linked pages.           
   --WebziS\R~A magazine on the World Wide Web. See zines.
  --word: A group of bits, used to designate various
information within a computer. An 8-bit word is called abyte.
   --World Wide Web: (www) A system of finding and accessing
Internet files and programs utilizing hypertext. Allows users to navigate the 
Internet by
following links from documents on one
computer to documents on others. It employs html, allowing files to be viewed 
in a
graphical format.
           
                                 Z
   --zine: Short for magazine. Generally, has a narrower focus, a stronger 
personality and
a lower circulation than traditional magazines.
                             --------
                            Treasures!
    Planning on upgrading to a Pentium and wishing for a home for your 486? 
    Got a Braille 'N' Speak classic you aren't using any more? an old 
synthesizer? an out-
of-
date, beginner-ready copy of a computer tutorial? 
   List what you've got in the Treasures column, the Computer Network's home 
for
wonderful things that their current owners have used and loved and don't need 
any more!
Anna Byrne is your contact person. 
                             --------
                     Editing: Art or Science?
                          By Cindy Brown
                          and Anna Byrne
   (In this article, Cindy describes the process of editing with speech. She 
uses Jaws for
DOS. Anna describes Braille translation with Duxbury. The need for 
translation may be
elusive to those who are not familiar with Braille symbols, but we do our 
best to interpret
the issues involved into English.)
   Initial Editing. I would like to think of editing as an art, and I suppose 
there are basic
elements of artistic endeavor involved. 
  Spacing is an important element of editing--i.e., imagining how the 
finished product will
be laid out in a reasonably comfortable-to-look-at layout on the page. I 
confess, however,
that our first consideration has been to save space, not being as concerned 
about the
optimal visual presentation. Nonetheless, spacing has been a much larger 
occupation than
the reader might initially imagine. I'll describe this in greater detail 
below.
  
  I would suggest that punctuation is a part of the art. Changing punctuation 
to help the
language flow more readily for the reader, helping the reader focus on the 
ideas and
information being expressed, not the syntax, is an essential aspect of 
editing. 
   
  In a publication such as ours, the mission is to convey information without 
critiquing
particular products, politicians, or institutions. Occasionally the editor 
needs to edit out
vituperations which would draw us into political or legal battles. 
Accomplishing this without
altering the overall thrust of the piece, at times, takes some creativity on 
the part of the
editor.  But the science of editing takes by far the most time and energy. 
Much of it is
mindless but time-consuming.
   For some reason that has not been explained to me, when material is 
downloaded from
e-mail, it is often filled with spaces--lots and lots of spaces. These spaces 
can appear
seemingly anywhere--at the beginning of lines, in the middle of lines, at the 
end of lines,
in between lines. So one of my first jobs is to find the spaces and then to 
close them up.
With the use of a speech synthesizer, this is not easy. It takes more than 
just listening to the
words and the flow, because the screenreader skips the spaces to bring a flow 
to the
reading. This is terrific when you're trying to make sense of what you are 
reading, but not
so convenient when you're editing. So, I need to go through line by line, and 
if the line
seems unusually short, this is the first alert that something is wrong. Then 
I erase space by
space. It had been suggested to me that I use the "search" function in 
WordPerfect to find
these spaces. But this doesn't do the whole job. In many cases, when only a 
few words occur
at the beginning of the line, the line break, as far as the computer is 
concerned, has taken
place only a space after the last letter of the previous word, so the 
"search" function doesn't
pick it up. 
   Additionally, when materials have been downloaded, they sometimes appear 
with strange
combinations of letters or letters missing. If I cannot make sense of it, I 
need to phone the
author for assistance.
   Then to conserve space and conserve paper, the printer expert and I agreed 
that
paragraphs should be indented only three spaces rather than the customary 
five spaces, and
that there should be only one space between sentences rather than the 
customary two. So
this means that I need to go through and eliminate all the extra spaces. In 
this case, the
"search" function does work. We acknowledge that this conservation of space 
undoubtedly
has been more noticeable to the readers of the print edition than readers of 
the Braille, but,
again, our primary mission is to communicate the information. 
   Past editions have contained numerous editing problems, and the quality 
could be
enhanced if I can get a Braille copy for proofreading. But in the paragraphs 
below, you will
learn why this is too time-consuming to be practical. 
   Brailling with Duxbury Braille Translator. The newsletter comes to me as a 
WordPerfect
document on a disk. In order to translate it into Braille one must first 
convert the disk file
to a document type that the translator can read with a file name it will 
accept. Microsoft
Word for Windows can convert a WordPerfect file to a text file, to a Word 
file, to a text file
with line breaks, to a windows Write file... MSWord also includes a status 
line with column,
line, and page number information. Care is required, though, when the 
conversion is made.
Word gives you a message telling you that converting the document to text 
might cause the
loss of some formatting information. Are you with me so far? Well--then it 
replaces all the
page break symbols with blank lines! Experience teaches you things like that.
   Before setting up the title page, one must determine how page numbering 
should be
done. There are of course choices--top of page, bottom of page, odd-numbered 
pages, all
pages... A Duxbury command does this.
   Next--centering and spacing lines. Duxbury is well-documented. He (all 
programs are
male) believes that all centered lines are headers, and I just allow him to 
think so. Placing
the header-start command ($hds) before the text on the line and the 
header-end ($hde)
following the text centers the line. There is a skip-line command ($sl1, for 
one line, $sl2 for
two lines, etc.). The new-page command ($pg) allows for ending a page without 
filling it
completely so that titles don't end up on page bottoms without their related 
texts.
   The table of contents is done with Duxbury "tab" commands. You tell him 
which column
should be the last on the line, what kind of fill characters you want before 
the page number,
and he takes care of everything--except, of course, determining the page 
number where each
article begins. I tell him that all articles begin on page 2, and when I find 
out where they
really begin I go back and change the copy. 
   Once the text is formatted, Duxbury's "Braille" command translates text 
into Grade II
braille, and the proofreading begins. "The Computer Users Network" becomes"! 
-put{ us{s
net'W," and the newsletter is "edited by Cindy Brown," $it$ by c9dy Br[n. 
   The next step, then, is to braille the newsletter a page at a time, 
proofread and correct
each page, braille it again, proofread and correct again, and go on to the 
next page. I use
low-quality light weight paper that I can throw away, so that it isn't so 
painful to discard
page after page. 
   Although Duxbury is excellent it still makes mistakes. The period at the 
end of a
sentence, for example, is the same symbol used in Nemmeth Braille mathematic 
code for
the number 4. In the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.", 
the final
word is "dog4" which in Braille looks just right; but Internet 
addresses--ripco.com,
eskimo.com--are translated "ripco4com and "eskimo4com." And every time the 
document
is corrected and translation is done again, the addresses must be corrected 
again.
   In order to be sure that the print and Braille copies hold identical 
information, another
necessary step is to translate the Braille file into an "ink" file. When this 
is done, lines are
skipped between paragraphs, five spaces are indented at the beginning of the 
line instead
of three, appropriate margins are set, and the result is a document almost 
ready to print.
   The last thing is to undo any special changes--making a Braille asterisk 
into a "ch" sign,
for example--that made the Braille copy more readable.
(Note: In computer Braille code, the "ch" sign is used to denote the 
asterisk.)
    Now both the Braille and print files are ready for production. The 
Braille printer must
be instructed about line length, page length, top and bottom margins, 
interpoint (i.e., two-
sided Braille page) "yes" or "no". It takes about fifteen minutes to print a 
37-page, interpoint
newsletter. And of course if you forget to instruct it otherwise, while doing 
two copies, the
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