Accessibility tools
If you are using a screen reader with this courseware, you will need to use a browser with Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) support (Internet Explorer 6+, Mozilla 1.21 and Netscape 7.01 have this standard). You will also need to use the Flash 6+ player.
The screen reader you use will need to integrate the Adobe Flash
Player implementation of Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), for example
Window-Eyes from GW Micro
or Jaws®
from Freedom Scientific.
- Increasing the text size:
If you find the text difficult to read you can easily change the font size within your browser by selecting (in Internet Explorer) 'View | Text Size | Larger/Largest'. Alternatively, you can click (Ctrl + ) to increase, (Ctrl -) to decrease or (Ctrl 0) to return to original size. All browsers have this functionality.
Additional software tools to support your studies
The table below lists some further software available for download from the Internet. This list is just a sample from the many useful utilities that can be found on the Internet that may be of help to you in enhancing your study. Tools for marking up 'pdf' documents, with the electronic equivalent or a highlighted pen or sticky note, can be particularly helpful for study and revision. Freely available software called Abode EBook reader provided this facility. However this appears to have been superceded by Adobe Reader Version 7, which seems to have more limited capability. It is however well worth searching the Internet for tools like this. An alternative to eBook Reader is the iMark tool which has similar capabilities, but not however that this is not free software.
Details on how to install software that you find on the Internet and further information on the utilities listed in the table will generally be available on the website where you download the software from.
You should always check files and software you download from the Internet for viruses, and backup any valuable data before installing software, SOAS accepts no responsibility for damage that may be caused to your computer by any of the files included on this e-study guide or downloaded from the links below.
| Software and overview of functions | Download Details |
| OpenOffice.org | OpenOffice provide an open source 'Office'
software solution, which provides an alternative to the commercial
software produced by Microsoft.
http://download.openoffice.org/
|
| AbiWord | AbiWord is a freely available wordprocessing
package which provides an alternative to Microsoft Word.
http://www.abisource.com/download/
|
| Unzipping and Compression Freeware | Utilities for 'zipping' and 'unzipping' files,
to compress the files to smaller sizes. This is useful for example
when sending attachments by email.
http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Software/Unzipping_compression_freeware/
|
| Diiigo Markup | This tool allows you to add notes, highlight, bookmark and markup
"live" Web pages directly from your browser. You may
add Diigo as a plugin for free.
http://www.diigo.com/
|
| FreeMind | This is a free mind mapping software tool.
(Requires Java 1.4 or higher)
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
|