Randy Laptop

Long, long ago on a website far, far away…

no, i’m not really a fan of Star Wars - but it seemed a fitting tribute to the first entry here relating to my own software.

JUnpack is software written by myself and Matthew Horspool many moons ago, to aid in the extraction of JAWS scripts. it is now outdated and there are other solutions on the Internet, but it is provided here for your convenience.

This is the first of a few projects I will be uploading here under the “abandonware” flag. This simply means that I will no longer be working on this particular project - or, in some cases, version of a project. I’ve decided to add these old files because I cannot help but notice that many of my visitors come from sites that talk about these old programs - it seems a shame to disappoint.

I gladly will answer questions about anything abandoned, though; please feel free to post them as comments here - if you don’t want your comment to go public, simply say so when you write it and I promise to respect you and leave your words out of my reply.

Enough said then, if you want it, you can download JUnpack from here. may it rest well and if you still use it, serve you faithfully.

This is just a quick update to let all interested in my books know that a new page has been added to the site.

Recent Reading, accessible at randyLaptop.com/recent-reading, is a dynamically updated list of my most recently read titles, with book synopses, reviews, ratings (and for those of you with eyes) covers.

I will continue to blog about my reading (probably quarterly), but this page fills a nice gap for people who drop in to see what’s been on my bookshelf recently. I do hope that, if you’re only subscribed to my books topic or even if you find an interesting post somewhere else, that you take a few minutes when your other business here is done to check out what I’ve been reading recently.

The eloquence software speech synthesizer has, for many years, been a staple of not only my life but that of innumerable other screen reader users as well.
I wanted to write something of a tribute to it here, as a sort of opening for the more personal entries on this site.

I can’t truly remember the first time I started using the JAWS Screen Reader - not specifically. I was too young, I suppose - and even had I taken the
time to mentally fix the date and time in my mind, I hadn’t the technical expertise nor the years of experience to appreciate the differences between a
screen reader and a synthesizer. I grew up running Hal (from Dolphin Systems) on a dos machine, and when windows came along and I found JAWS, simply accepted
that they had different voices.

It occurred to me yesterday whilst playing jumble on my Franklin Language Master that I was truly getting old - the speech was too fast for me to distinguish
the c and the z and caused me to make a mistake. So when I came back to my laptop and started reading some e-mail, I took a moment to appreciate the clarity
that Eloquence offers. Of course you can argue that I hadn’t used the Franklin device for several years, the volume was low, I wasn’t paying a great deal
of attention… yet all of those things, whilst true, still make me think that Eloquence means much to me.

The text-to-speech market has changed tremendously over the last decade. Big companies now offer big voices: even so, it’s not impossible to get one of
the ScanSoft voices on a mobile phone or portable daisy player - files that were hundreds of megabytes only months ago downsized for the mobile market.

My problem with all these voices is that they are not 100% artificial - they use, in case you were unaware, segments of Human speech. Clever processing
rules and translations tell the engine which segments of speech should be played to simulate words, and thus we have a “human-like” voice.

This seems remarkably desirable for many people. I concede that in some industries it’s incontrovertibly useful - and for sighted people, the more human
the better. But from a very young age, I always liked the fact that my screen reader wasn’t a person. People don’t always read precisely what you tell
them to, in the way you want, pausing on queue and adjusting their pronunciation at your slightest whim. Despite a longstanding image of a little man sat
inside my computer, I never associated the speech I hear whenever I’m logged on to speech I hear elsewhere. The two are distinct, separate, and their only
relation is that I can understand them.

Even so, there are plenty of formant synthesizers in use today (i.e. ones not using Human samples). I would venture to say that Eloquence (or its IBM variants),
DECtalk, Doubletalk and E-speak are today’s leaders. The aforementioned nicely cover both hardware and software as well; although not the same (I’d love
an Eloquence microchip for instance)!

The question I have to ask myself then is why I’m so inured with Eloquence? It’s almost like a built-in prejudice, and it can be frustrating at times.
Firstly, I have used it more than perhaps all other synthesizers combined. Not only that, but I’ve used it for a wider variety of purposes: yes, all involve
written text, but the form of that text has varied from recipes to poetry; fiction novels to reference works. Be I relaxing with a book or chatting online,
Eloquence has been there pervasively.

There are downsides to this attachment, of course. Eloquence is old - tried and tested certainly, but there are issues that could be addressed (such as
certain combinations of letters crashing the entire synthesizer). Also, whilst it provides extraordinary powers of customisation as regards pronunciation,
that’s not always handed down by a screen reader. In JAWS, for instance, there’s no way to directly change how eloquence pronounces things itself. The
JAWS dictionary manager lets you shuffle letters around and try and make it speak the best you can, but the synthesizer itself allows direct phoneme entry
which would make things much easier. With that, you could not only change the pronunciation of a word, but its stress, etc - and for a heavy fiction reader
such as myself, some things niggle mercilessly.

Another problem is that I’ve been pampered too much by JAWS. Since the introduction of the speech and sounds manager, I read all my fiction with quotes
in a different voice. The voice I use is only a slight modification to the default (the pitch lowered slightly) but it is a useful distinguishing characteristic
for me. Unfortunately, due to licensing restrictions, Eloquence doesn’t make an appearance in NVDA or free screen readers.

So what’s the future of the synthesizer? Well, what do I know? I’m just an average user. But it seems to me that despite the undeniable popularity of the
more Human-sounding voices, Eloquence (and its formant brothers) has long life yet. As to the particular voice that is Eloquence, it’s hard to say. It’s
not only screen readers on the desktop - mobile phones and notetakers are carrying the torch as well. If it were to vanish, I am sure I wouldn’t be alone
in my sadness.

I do love the quirks it exhibits. The aplomb of the programmers astonishes me - the way in which Eloquence can say the word voyage so naturally and yet
utter “bon voyage” in such great, French style. It is a remarkably subtle synthesizer, with many a nuance (if you will pardon the pun). Yes, it mispronounces
many things. From Harry Potter alone there are terms like “Azkaban”, “Cruciatus”, “Firenze” and “Hermione”. The science-fiction world offers plenty more
- “Jedi” has an I sound at the end, and trek names of places and people (such as “nerys”, “Jem hadar”, “Dukat” and “Cardassia”) are all off. The power
of this synthesizer means that all of these (and countless others) are easily fixable, simply by substituting letters and showing a little creativity.

So: a powerful, impressive, long-lasted product. It’s weathered changes of ownership and used by thousands. There aren’t many things it can’t say properly,
given the right ASCII tickle. So a toast is in order, I suggest. To Eloquence. To Dr. Hertz and to all those other great people, to the JAWS developers
who bridged the technologies - and as I lift my metaphorical glass, I’d also like to thank these people. I’d never enjoy a good book in the same way if
it weren’t for you.

An introduction
reading is something I am passionate about. I seem to lack the skill to read braille at any great speed, but thanks to audio books (and primarily) to e-books
and Optical character Recognition, I am able to enjoy a range of books I would otherwise be unable to access.

For years, I’ve read book after book, with no decent way of tracking what I’ve read and what I haven’t, or what I thought of each title. naturally certain
books, series and authors stick in my mind as being superb or droll, but the specifics obviously fade over time. In july last year (2008), I signed-up
to Goodreads and, after the novelty had warn off, promptly forgot all about it.

Goodreads is a social cataloguing site for books. it allows you to create any number of shelves and add books to them. Each book you add lets you attach
a rating, a review, private notes, and they’ve even got a microblogging system in place (in the form of “I’m on page…” whatever). it’s sad that in July,
I added a couple of books, and then didn’t bother to keep with it. Three months later, I was doing a lot of reading and decided that I wanted to keep track
of what I was getting through. I remembered Goodreads, and so returned to the fold, as it were.

I now ensure that, any novels I may devour are promptly noted on the site. I occasionally add trivia questions and have a few friends there, too. it’s
a great resource for book lovers, and if you are at all interested, I urge you to at least take a look. their website is at
http://www.goodreads.com
- my username there is cachondo.

these Posts
I’ve decided that with a new website comes new responsibility. I want to do a lot with my site, one of the things it seemed fun to do was summarise my reading.
i’m going to do this monthly, bimonthly or quarterly, depending on how much I read in any given period.

I want to keep track of how much I’ve read in a given period. I’ll note series and books of particular interest - naturally I’m not going to review each
and every title: goodreads stores my thoughts (even though in some cases I only write a few words), and you can look at my shelves there if you’re interested.
So let’s press on.

Statistics for the end of 2008
Keeping in mind that there’s a 3-month gap (between July and October), in the last few months of 2008 I read 28 books. These books added up to 11,632 print
pages. This equates to just over 4 and a half books a month (including July and the hiatus. This also averages out to me reading 71 pages a day, and that’s
a fact worth remembering. I knew I enjoyed reading, but these numbers just go to show it!

you might ask, what titles gripped me? Working backwards, then, we have the Mode series, by Piers Anthony. these are books about virtual reality and cover
many topics from spaceships to sexual molestation. I enjoyed them as light reading, really; Anthony is certainly a good author and I’ve enjoyed many of
his works before.

I also read the millennium series of books, which were written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens and set in the Star trek: Deep Space nine universe.

Blindness, by Jose Saramago, was a read because of the movie (which I have yet to see). I found it an interesting literary title, a riveting portrayal
of a blind society and not at all offensive to me.

Garth Nix’s Sabriel is the first of a series, but I didn’t quite get on with them as I have other titles. Still, maybe one day I will read the sequels
and come to a better apreciation.

TrudI Canavan’s Black Magician trilogy was truly gripping, and yes, I am supposedly an adult. nonetheless, despite the obvious kids targeting and the obvious
plot, these were, obviously, good reads.

A new book in Eoin Colfer’s Artemis fowl series is nothing to scoff at. I consider The Time paradox one of the best yet, and if I’m honest with myself
(although it hurts to say), a fitting end to the series for the moment.

Some new authors to round off the year included Chris Dolley, NiccI French and David Sedaris (the latter of which I found banal but the first two quite
enjoyable). I have to thank q for recommending Dolley’s Shift and Kim (my fiancee) for interesting me in French.

To conclude, I need to mention my favourite books of the period, of course. And it’s hard to limit myself to one title, because there are two that deserve
special mention.

Firstly, there’s Mortal Fear, by Greg Iles. I read this one sat on a sofa in Kim’s mother’s house, and if it weren’t afternoon with the sun streaming through
the window and people sat nearby I would probably have been quite scared. A book hasn’t scared me for a long time, and that one certainly would have. I’ve
read several other iles titles, and henceforth my favourite has been The Footprints of God. I’m afraid that has now moved down a rung in favour of Mortal
Fear.

Last but by no means least is Robert J. Sawyer’s outstanding novel, Frameshift. I’ve actually read it twice, both times at my grandparents smoky, cramped
house; lying spread-eagled on their smoky (but irresistibly comfortable) sofa. When I first encountered it, I was hoping for a bit of uplifting science-fiction.
I was away from Kim (it may have been a Christmas or easter holiday or something like that). I was therefore feeling a little melancholic and hoping for
escape.

what I found was such an emotionally involving story that, when i’d finished my first read-through at 1:13 AM, I had tears in my eyes. The concluding pages
held such gravitas, solemnity and dignity that tears seemed a fitting tribute.

My second reading piled on even more emotion, because looking back, it was perhaps my first true glimpse of separation. I’ve not always lived with my grandparents,
but there’s no denying that Kim’s family are, if not quite a different class, certainly a different breed. I was entering her world and leaving my old
one behind at that point, and despite gaining everything and being madly and undeniably in love, I could not but be conscious of a small loss. not even
a loss - perhaps a change, certainly for the better; but a change nonetheless.

Looking back, I can only parallel the adjustment like this: I read this book the first time on a warn, smelly sofa, in suffocating cigarette smoke with
the TV in the background and nobody to appreciate what the story was about. My folks meant well, but they neither had the intellectual capacity nor the
drive to take much of an interest. to them, I was reading a book. end of story. nowadays, I read on a reclining leather sofa. Perhaps there will be a TV
show on, maybe some music - or simply the silence of the room. it’s never oppressively hot, and there’s either fresh air wafting through the open window
or a delightful aromatic experience (from a candle or electric air freshener). if I want a drink, I need to stop reading and get it myself; it’s not just
handed down from a grandparent on high. Conversely, whilst I’m pouring the kettle, I can say to Kim, “Oh, by the way…” and discuss an interesting plot
aspect with a receptive audience.

Realistically, I know the reasons for these things. I understand that we could only get great, comfy reclining furniture because of a sale. I realise that
it’s never too hot because we cannot afford to overextend our heating bill, and the candles provide illumination in the same vein - fighting the rising
cost of electricity. But even so, my life has changed - and Frameshift was one of the ways in which I fully began to perceive the changes. I highly recommend
the read.

In conclusion
this post has turned out to be quite a bit longer than I envisaged. I’d forgotten the pleasure of writing and letting words flow - I haven’t for a long
time, you see.

It is perhaps fair to say that if I read enough, updates will become monthly and so the posts might just be a little shorter. but I’d ask you not to hold
me to that one…

If you’ve enjoyed this, please feel free to follow the books category on my site, to e-mail me, to befriend me on Goodreads or to follow my currently-reading
progresses (either from Goodreads Via rSS or on Twitter).

We’re almost three weeks into 2009 and I’m already on my fourth book (3 of which are a series), so there may be a January summary yet. Eyes forward, literary
friends - and may the world of words continue to delight you for as long as you live and breathe.

Greetings to one and all!

While the title of this entry may lead you astray, I feel it my solemn duty to inform you that I do not have a staff of over 30,000, am not planning operations
behind the iron curtain and that my only relationship to women’s undergarments is the pursuit of their removal - and that solely in the case of one particularly
beautiful femme fatale.
For the benefit of those of you not intimately familiar with Britain’s High Street culture, I should also point out that “new Look” is the name of a women’s
clothing store around here…

Anyway, now that we’ve cleared up that potential confusion, allow me to welcome you to the newly redesigned and utterly conventional randyLaptop. Conventional,
you ask? And I must declaim “yes!” Because I’ve turned this whole thing into a blog.

I will hopefully be adding many an article on many a topic. At time of writing, the only thing I had on my temporary home page was the game card shark,
which is also here. More content shall appear soon.

One more thing I will mention before I wrap this up is the list of categories at the bottom of the home page. Beneath each category is an rss link - subscribing
to these will allow you to only be notified of the topics you’re interested in.

Whilst it can be argued that I’m not a particularly diverse individual, this site can, thanks to the blog software, be a home to both personal comment
as well as home-grown software and any other delights I can think of. I enjoy many fine things - reading, film, games and even the odd stint at writing
(be it short stories or poetry). By using the category feeds, you can sign up for only those things that interest you.

this isn’t to say that you can’t sign up to the main feed here, of course - which will naturally give you everything of mine in one fell swoop and to which
you are more than welcome. I always hope that what I have to say is either interesting, useful or informative, and I can only trust that by using an established