J-Say 13 is Available! Our Biggest Release for Some Time!

Introduction

We are very proud to bring you the anticipated release of J-Say version 13.0. This new and exciting version of the product will be released on 5 February!Without doubt this is the most significant upgrade to the J-Say product for several years and it is now an ideal platform for people to be able to use a computer without the need to work with the keyboard.

J-Say 13.0 is a product combining the excellence in voice recognition available within Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional from Nuance, and high quality screen-reading from JAWS for Windows developed by Freedom Scientific. However, now in its 12th year of development, J-Say adds a vast array of tools and utilities to ensure that voice recognition for blind people is highly effective.

This webpage contains a list of all the new features and improvements within J-Say 13.0.

Lower Price!

For several years, J-Say has been priced at £525, with upgrades costing £125. If you were not upgrading from the latest release, the cost was slightly more than this. We have lowered the price of both a single user licence and upgrades.

A single user licence of J-Say is now £400. Upgrading from any previous version to the current release is £100. The price includes the J-Say software, our comprehensive tutorial and “Command Summary”, and free Technical Support.

Product Flexibility!

In the past, in order to use J-Say, it was necessary to install a very specific version number and build of JAWS, together with the required version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional. This is no longer the case.

J-Say 13 happily coexists with JAWS versions 14 through to 16, together with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 12 or 13.

This means two things. If you want to upgrade to Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 13.0 to benefit from the latest voice recognition technology, this can be done. However, if you prefer, you can retain your existing Dragon product from Nuance and still benefit from all the new features in this release.

The developers of JAWS, Freedom Scientific, produce frequent updates to the screen-reader. You can safely take advantage of the updates without affecting J-Say functionality. In terms of J-Say, this is quite a breakthrough!

New Logo, New Installer!

J-Say now boasts not only a new logo but a much cleaner, faster installer program.

The previous installer would take several minutes in some cases to install the necessary files to the computer. Now, this is achieved within just a few seconds. The files are installed to the JAWS Settings folder relative to your Microsoft Windows account. J-Say can also be installed into multiple JAWS versions if required.

The logo is in black and white with a head of a shark looking straight at the viewer and up. The shark has his mouth open with teeth showing. In the back of his mouth is the text “J-SAY” in white.

New Features!

Dynamic Echo

Previous releases of J-Say have had considerable difficulty with echoing back phrases you speak when using Windows8. This is no longer the case. We’re very pleased with the reliability of the reporting of text as you speak it!

Dynamic Echo has been tested in many different applications including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Internet Explorer, the Dragon NaturallySpeaking “Dictation Box”, Twitter clients and other environments.

Faster Navigation and Screen-Reading

One of the things we’ve been concerned about for some time is the slow response between the time a command is spoken and JAWS carrying out the instruction.

Not only is navigation much faster than in previous releases, but you are now able to interrupt the JAWS speech when you wish to do so. For example, if you are reading a paragraph of text and you wish to skip to the next one, just say, “Next Paragraph”, and JAWS begins to read it. Imagine that concept when reviewing Email messages! It is very easy and quick to skim through your Inbox, deleting all the messages you do not need and replying to those which are important.

Correcting Text Just Got Easier

Traditionally when correcting text, this has been done using Dragon’s “Correction Box” tool. While this is still available, J-Say now provides a much faster method of correcting errors which Dragon NaturallySpeaking may make.

When the error is made, simply select the text with a voice command and say, “Speak the Choices”, without entering the “Correction box”. J-Say will read all of the possible alternatives available. You can choose one of these or dictate again. When the error is corrected, simply say, “Go Back”, to resume the dictation of the text in the correct location.

“Forget It”

If you stumble over the delivery of a word or phrase, simply say, “Forget It”. The last phrase is erased and J-Say will advise you of the text where the cursor is located so you can pick up the thread of the dictation. This makes it very easy to continue your writing with confidence!

More Flexible Language

While all of the older voice commands are still present, J-Say now uses the word, “It”, in order that you can work with a specific item.

For example, if located within an Email message, “Open It”, will open the message and, “Close It”, will return you to your mail folder. When selecting text, “Speak It”, will read the highlighted text. A full list of all the new commands can be found in the J-Say “Command Summary”.

Finding Text is Made Simple

Previously, when searching for text in a Microsoft Word document, it has been necessary to work with Word’s “Find” Dialog Box which is not easy when using the voice alone. J-Say now has a new method of finding text to read in documents.

Speaking the command, “Find From Here”, or, “Find From Top”, will cause a sound to play. Simply dictate the text you wish to find and speak the command, “Find It”. The sentence surrounding the located text is automatically spoken without having to cancel out of a further Dialog Box and use an additional voice command to read it.

If the located text is not what you were looking for, simply say, “Look Again”, and J-Say will move to the next instance and read it.

The J-Say Clock

The J-Say Clock not only tells you the time! It contains very powerful and flexible stopwatch facilities as well as timer functions. You can also set alarms to sound at any time! It can also be set to play Westminster chimes at varying intervals which are controllable by you, all with voice commands.

Please consult the “Learning Module” for a full description of using the J-Say Clock. A Chapter is entirely devoted to this topic.

J-Say Alerts

Have you ever been confronted with a situation where you've been to a website, and you always want to come back to the same place if it exists each time you visit it? Google would be a very good example, When you've searched for something, and the new page loads, you do not want to have to find where the search results start, nor do you want to hear how many Headings or Links are on the page.

A J-Say Alert will not only advise you that the text exists, but it will also set focus to the relevant area of the page. All you need do is set up the J-Say Alert and then forget about it, unless you want to delete it.

Please consult the “Learning Module” for a full description of using the J-Say Alerts. A Chapter is entirely devoted to this topic.

J-Say Audio

J-Say Audio allows you to enjoy your music, books and any other audio in exceptionally high quality.

With J-Say Audio, you can:

• Browse your music library,
• Create playlists,
• Rearrange the playing order,
• Delete playlists,
• Control audio playback from within any application in which you are

working,

• Listen to audio CD’s,
• And more.

Please consult the “Learning Module” for a full description of using J-Say Audio. A Chapter is entirely devoted to this topic.

J-Say Radio

J-Say Radio makes it possible for you to listen to radio stations from around the world, provided they are broadcast on the internet. Thousands of radio stations exist playing a wide variety of music covering many genres. Speech content is also very popular for news, sport and discussion of current affairs.

When compiling our J-Say Radio directory, we have chosen what we feel are some of the most popular and high quality music radio stations covering ten specific genres. You can listen to any station of your choosing, add it to a list of favourites so as to hear it again, or assign it to one of the ten presets which can be accessed from any application. Listening to your favourite station could not be easier!

Please consult the “Learning Module” for a full description of using J-Say Radio. A Chapter is entirely devoted to this topic.

J-Say Tags

J-Say Tags is an intelligent application which allows you to manage files within Windows Explorer.

Selecting files within Windows Explorer is almost impossible if you are using your voice alone in order to carry out this task. J-Say Tags make the whole process very simple and straightforward.

Simply move through the files or folders, marking or “tagging” those you wish to manipulate. Tagging files in multiple folders is possible.

When all your items are tagged, you can cut, copy and delete them simultaneously, or alternatively create a playlist of audio files based upon the tags to be used alongside J-Say Audio.

Please consult the “Learning Module” for a full description of using J-Say Tags. A Chapter is entirely devoted to this topic.

J-Say Diary

The J-Say Diary provides a number of simple calendar functions to help you keep track of appointments and work with specific dates.

With the J-Say Diary you can:

• Hear today’s date,
• Store appointments,
• View existing appointments,
• Use the same appointment title multiple times for recurring events,
• Add notes to appointments with no limit on text length,
• Read and edit appointment notes,
• Delete appointments,
• Insert today’s date into a text area,
• Discover a day on which a particular date falls, for example finding out the day on which a person was born.

The J-Say Diary is a one year calendar and is designed to be very simple and easy to use.

Please consult the “Learning Module” for a full description of using J-Say Diary. A Chapter is entirely devoted to this topic.

Notes on New Features

Remember that all the features listed above can be completely controlled with your voice alone. There is no need to work with the keyboard unless you wish to.

Considerable improvements have been made to J-Say features which people rely upon, such as J-Say Shortcuts and Text Notes.

Nuance have significantly changed the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Profile Setup screen from which the system gains an awareness of how you speak. J-Say support is not only available for the new screens within the application, but context sensitive help is also there for you together with a full description of the enrolment process in our “Installation and Setup Guide”.

New voice commands exist to select a JAWS Voice Profile, together with controlling all of the JAWS OCR capabilities, such as scanning a PDF document, window or current control if desired.

When closing messages in Microsoft Outlook, J-Say used to provide a good deal of extraneous speech. This has been significantly reduced.

Training

While we do provide an extremely comprehensive tutorial for J-Say in Microsoft Word format, in order to gain the maximum benefit from the new features you may like to consider purchasing a level of training. This can either be delivered on site in the United Kingdom or remotely in any part of the world using the telephone or Skype. Training provided remotely costs £30 per hour (45 US Dollars). A recording of the training session can be made available or written notes if preferred.

Alternatively, a J-Say distributor in your State or region may well be in a position to provide training for you.

Compatibility Considerations

J-Say 13 coexists with:

• Microsoft Windows Vista,
• Microsoft Windows7,
• Microsoft Windows8 and 8.1,
• Microsoft Office 2007 through to 2013, (Microsoft Office 2013 is highly recommended),
• JAWS for Windows versions 14 through to 16,
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional version 12.5 or 13.

Conclusion

We very much hope that you will enjoy using J-Say version 13. We are doing our best not only to improve features which have been used in the past, but also to broaden the product so it can be used outside the confines of Microsoft word, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Internet Explorer for traditional tasks. We are for example next month going to be working on support for iTunes 12.0 from Apple so as to make it more keyboard accessible and usable by voice.

Should you have any questions about J-Say 13, either prior to or following an upgrade, please Email jaws@hartgen.orgg. Alternatively you can telephone from within the United Kingdom 02920-850298. In the United States please call 415-871-0626.

Thank you for your interest in J-Say 13!