Here are just a few programs that we have found useful over the last year. This is all free or open source software, downloadAble from the Internet. If anyone has come across anything that they feel should be added to this list, please contact Andy at abanns@ace-north.org.uk.
Stamina Typing Tutor - This is a great free little program that includes lessons and phrases to practice your typing. It records your speed in a graph and gives you the choice of using a qwerty or dvorak keyboard. You can also choose your own music to play whilst you are practicing typing. Some of the sentences in the phrases section are a little 'risque,' but these can be edited easily enough.
Tux Paint - A fantastic freely downloadable paint program for children, that makes good use of colours, sounds, special effects and stamps in a simple interface. It is easy to save and print your work and you can undo and redo any painting stages as many times as you like.
Format Factory - A very useful free application for converting many different file formats (music, video and image) to other file formats, including a batch converting feature to convert a number of files at once.
Dasher - A superb, freely downloadable program for fast and efficient text entry with word prediction. Dasher has a very unusual, but logical interface that takes some getting used to, but is well worth a try. Originally designed for eye gaze and head pointing systems, but can just as easily be used with a mouse, mouse alternative or switch.
FireFox Mouseless Browser Add In - A very useful, downloadable add in for Firefox that adds 'tags' to every link on a web page so that the page can be entirely navigated via the keyboard e.g. by typing in a number on the number pad and pressing enter to go to a particular link. This is a nice idea if you are a switch user using a third party program to access your PC, such as The Grid 2, Interaact or Viking (Tobii) Communicator.
GazeTalk - Part of the eyegaze COGAIN project, Gazetalk is a very useful and very simple looking, high contrast program primarily designed for text entry. It uses an ambiguous keyboard and word prediction to make text entry as simple as possible for eye gaze, headpointer and mouse users.
3B - This is a fun 3D web browser that lets you choose your own character (avatar) and create your own virtual room that you can walk around in with all of your favourite websites on the walls of the room. A very original and enjoyable way of navigating the internet.
LabelControl - This is a useful little application created using AutoHotKeys, inspired by Mouseless Browser in Firefox. It allows you to hold the ctrl key down and puts numbered tags next to icons and toolbar options within windows so that you can navigate around your computer without needing a mouse.
BBC Dancemat - This is a great flash based website with some free, fun touchtying lessons (qwerty) for children of all ages.
Dvorak (How to) - For those of you like myself (Andy) who might have had some problems with RSI, want to improve their typing speed or just fancy a change, this site tells you how you can change your computer keyboard layout to Dvorak, a more efficient and ergonomically designed layout than the qwerty standard.
Auditorium - This is a very unique, web based game that might be nice from a sensory stand point or for people using touch screens. The idea is simple but takes some logic to figure out, sound waves have to be redirected to play music. A very difficult one to describe so try it out!
OneSwitch - This website contains lots of information for ways in which to use switches. It also includes a whole host of switch adapted arcade games for one switch users.