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updated: September 20, 2010

Assistive technology and useful computer freeware - for Windows, Mac, and other operating systems.

by Robert Harvey Clay

Assistive or adaptive technology software is software designed for use by disabled individuals, however many times software programs not necessarily aimed at those who have a disability are so useful, not mentioning them would be an unforgivable oversight.

Most of these programs are downloadable free of charge as freeware, or open source software.* I have been downloading, installing, and using freeware since 1997 and have never had a problem with it.

Occasionally this is high quality software designed by disabled individuals for use by disabled individuals. Some free assistive technology software is Open Source* or educational programs downloadable from organizations. A few freeware programs mentioned here are lower featured versions of a program that Is offered at a small fee if you decide to upgrade. A few of these programs are produced by talened programmers who offer software free of charge just because they enjoy doing it.

Listed here is a variety of quality assistive technology and time saving software programs which can be downloaded and used free of charge.  (Make sure the applications will work on your operating system, e.g. OS: Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP/NT/VISTA/Win-7 Mac UNIX, etc.  WARNING: many programs place a small icon in your system tray (beside the clock). Too many icons running at one time can drain memory and cause errors and sluggishness. This is less of a problem if you have a lot of RAM memory. Newer computers typically have more RAM memory than older computers.

All my personal comments are in red. Although I make no guarantees, I believe many people will be pleased with this software.

If you're online and don't have an anti-virus program, you're asking for trouble. Here's one that's free.

Avast is a quality anti-virus program that comes in three versions. Version one is freeware: that's the version I use.
NOTE: Don't forget to register it. 

SEN Teacher This page lists cost-free software which has proven useful to teachers and parents of learners with special needs. 

SmartClose

Tired of right-clicking every system tray icon to "turn off" running programs before installing a new program? I hated it so much I searched the Internet for three days to find a program to do it for me. I was thrilled to discover it was freeware!

Many tasks that can be performed on PC's these days require you to close all currently running programs. For exmple, almost every installer asks you to close all other applications to minimize conflicts and to avoid replacing in-use files. 

Of course, you could manually close each program one by one, disable the screensaver…, but that is where SmartClose comes in. SmartClose will automatically close all running programs, disable the screen saver and halt all other processes that can interrupt without asking.

But what when the task is finished and you want to restore everything that was disabled by SmartClose? Restart the computer? No, because before SmartClose closes or disables anything, it will save the current state of the system (running programs, screen saver…) to a 'system snapshot', that can be opened and restored again later.

www.polital.com/assist - a selection of quality free AT software 

Click-n-type free   On-screen keyboard
Click-N-Type is an on-screen virtual keyboard designed for anyone with a disability that prevents him or her from typing on a physical computer keyboard.  As long as the physically challenged person can control a mouse, trackball, touch screen or other pointing device, this software keyboard allows you to send keystrokes to virtually any Windows application or DOS application that can run within a window. The Click-N-Type Virtual Keyboard is a 32 bit application that requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win-7 or later. 
NOTE: be sure to download the word-prediction add-on!

Paint.net is free image and photo editing software for computers that run on Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe^® Photoshop^®, Corel^® Paint Shop Pro^®, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.

Windows 7 (recommended),
   or Windows XP SP3,
   or Windows Vista SP1 (SP2 and Platform Update recommended)

• 800MHz processor (dual-core recommended)
• 512MB of RAMs
• 1024 x 768 screen resolution
• 200+ MB hard drive space
• Optional: 64-bit mode requires a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit edition of Windows

Paint.net is a wonderful program that is: award winning; available in nine languages; has an online help system and support forum; downloadable plugins; has free updates; layers; unlimited undo with a compete history; and much more. It's easy to use, yet powerful and versatile.  

Trace.wisc.edu Here is a long list of assistive technology software available for Apple; Mac; Windows; Unix; and Linux. Some is freeware, some is inexpensive shareware.

FBackup^4.4 The two main functions of a backup program are the backup and restore operations. FBackup makes them easy for you, by offering friendly wizards. You start a new backup wizard, select what, where, how and when to backup, and the backup is ready to run. If you have to restore files, you'll open a restore wizard and it will ask you where you want the files to be.

This program will backup important files (e.g. "Documents" folder, music folders, or individual files, etc.) to another location in exact form (immediately useable) or compressed form as a "zip" file. Backups can be manual, or run automatically. I paid $30 for a program that does the same thing. Doing this has saved a lot of time, and lost data. This software is highly rated by users and critics alike, and is free for individual or commercial use.  Available in over 20 languages.
For  Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2008/2003/2000 Server (32 and 64-bit)

Our lone complaint on this front is that the more complex effects and filters aren't accessible via the main window and require you to double-click a shot before you can use them. Besides standard tools for rotating images and renaming files in bulk, this app also can convert pics among a wide variety of formats.

In addition, you'll find tools for capturing screenshots and creating basic slide shows, as well as a simple audio player. We were excited to see a utility for generating Web galleries, but we quickly despaired when we couldn't get it to work. Still, we recommend XnView to digital photographers who already have a first-class editing program.

Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/7/NT/2000 SP 2  and
MacOS X, Linux x86, Linux ppc, FreeBSD x86, OpenBSD x86, NetBSD x86, Solaris sparc, Solaris x86, Irix mips, HP-UX, AIX !

Available in a large number of languages. Also offered for pocket pc.

Thunder is award-winning free screenreader talking software for people with little or no sight. It works well with Windows 7, Vista or XP. Thunder is available all over the world in 8 languages and it really is absolutely free.


Do you know someone who is blind or visually impaired? Why not help them to download free software onto their computer so it will talk to them?

myPortalePim  Desktop calendar with many functions. Day's event, tasks with alarm, GMail checker, image viewer, notes, feed RSS, launcher, password manager, image viewer, weather and address book.  

myPortablePIM is designed to be portable, used from a USB stick to always have your data with you.  There is no installation. Just unzip the downloaded package and you're ready: no key and no log file written by myPortablePIM outside of it's installation folder. You'll need to create a startup desktop icon from the programs EXE file You can mark the day's events, tasks and reminders with alarms. You can set the tuition for them and send via email the details through the "Send email" button. Supports the iCal standard to import and export. There are different views on the calendar: monthly, weekly, daily and personalized. You can create several calendars with different colors thus being able to identify the events easily. There are two views, called Desktop 1 and Desktop 2, where arrange your windows as you want. 
You can switch from views by the button on status bar.
Compatible with: Win9x, NT4, ME, Win2k, XP, Vista, Win7

If you need a portable, multi-function Personal Information Manager this one is highly rated by those who use it.

AbiWord Just need a good, easy to learn word processor with features like: multiple undo, columns, tables, and "as you type" spell checking? Then Abiword word processor might be just you need. It works on a variety of operating systems and supports a huge number of languages. Documents can be saved in a quantity of different formats, e.g. doc, rtf, and txt, etc.

AbiWord is unique among word processors in its drive to become a fully cross-platform word processor. Our source code is carefully written so that AbiWord will run on virtually any operating system with a minimum of time spent on porting. This combined with our support for internationalization (the ability to run AbiWord in many languages) gives AbiWord a massive potential user-base.

Currently we run on most UNIX systems, Windows 95 and later [it works fine in vista], QNX Neutrino 6.2. We also have a MacOS X native port available.

HTTrack is a free and easy-to-use offline browser utility.

It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an sting mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.

WinHTTrack is the Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Seven release of HTTrack, and WebHTTrack the Linux/Unix/BSD release.

PicPick is user friendly and full of features for creating your image, suitable for software developers, graphic designers and home user.

It is an all-in-one program that provides full-featured screen capture tool, intuitive image editor, color picker, color palette, pixel ruler, protractor, crosshair and even whiteboard.

It has not only everything you need, but it loads fast, sits quietly in the system tray until needed.

This software is provided as freeware for only personal use. In this case, you are granted the right to use this program free of charge. Otherwise, you need to pay for a license for commercial
I like this all-in-one graphic capture/editor better than the one I paid for. Be sure to choose Program options>editor>show classic menu toolbar interface. It's much easier to use that way.

LSMacro is a freeware keyboard macro utility prograUndefinedVariable. You can run multi programs, open urls, screen capture, send key/mouse events to an other programs with just a few keystrokes. 

I use this software for keyboard shortcuts to my favorite programs. I found it more reliable and versatile than the Windows native method of creating keyboard shortcuts. It must be running as an icon in the system tray to work. 

Lsmacro Will Run On: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/

XClock displays a very large glowing digital time display when your computer is idle. Advantages of this screen saver include optional flashing time separator (for each second) and optional slow movement around your screen to prevent burn in. It does not incorporate any advertiing or spyware. Version 1.01 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

I'm using it succesfuly on Windows Vista, so I asume it will work on XP/Vista/win-7 

Talking Desktop Clock adds new features to your Windows^® system tray cloc.

     

• It shows the time in the system tray and/or on the desktop,

• You can choose from many attractive clock styles, both an

log and digital.  

• You can also make custom clock styles.

• It uses Microsoft^® Speech or Microsoft^® Agent to announce the time on the hour, ½ hour, or ¼ hour, or at any interval you choose.

• It can play a chime on the hour, ½ hour, or ¼ hour, or at any interval you choose.

• You can choose from a number of different chimes, from classic to silly.  You can also make custom chimes that play .WAV files.

AccessApps - Over 50 open source and freeware assistive technology applications which can be entirely used from a USB stick on a Windows computer

• It uses Microsoft^® Agent to show a talking animated alarm.  The alarm can also play any sound you choose and includes a handy snooze button.

  An alarm can be set to go off once, daily, weekly, monthly or annually, with very flexible scheduling.  Each alarm can have multiple schedules.

• An alarm can beset to go off once, daily, weekly, monthly or annually, with very flexible scheduling.  Each alarm can have multiple schedules.

• You can configure an alarm to open files, run programs, send email, and open web pages.

• An icon in the Windows^® system tray gives quick access to the alarm clock.  The New Alarm Wizard makes adding an alarm fast and easy.

• Talking Alarm Clock's windows are easy on the eye, with soft colors and gentle transitions.  There's also help balloon that shows a full explanation of each part of the alarm clock window

Sequence publishing - The Sage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a professional software package that integrates a complete dictionary and multifaceted thesaurus of the English language into a single and powerful language reference system. Free, For Windows XP, Vista and maybe in 7.

Dictionary comprises more than 145,000 references with multiple detailed definitions (over 200,000). It provides comprehensive coverage of English, including encyclopedic information (geographical, historical, political,...), academic knowledge (medicine, biology,... ) and more. There is also a large collection of examples of usage (approx. 35,000).

TheSage's thesaurus is tightly integrated into its dictionary, providing nearly 1,200,000 relationships between definitions (synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms,Some additional and notable features include: structured lookup display, advanced wildcard search, tabbed interface, anagram search, customizable user-interface, flexible copy-to-clipboard functionality, multi-session history, local installation (no internet connection is required).

TheSage can be turned into a speaking dictionary. Click on the phonetic transcription of a lookup to hear how it is pronounced or have TheSage read all or part of any lookup.

Wow, and it's free!

Easy calendar

An easy to use calendar, just click on a date and type with reminders, Recurring reminders - enter information about important dates one time and they are always displayed in the calendar. Connected reminders - span multiple days on a single calendar line, US Holidays - Federal and popular US holidays can be set up with a few mouse clicks, Individual date appearances - the appearance of specific dates can be mized, Icons for user commands. Other features: Fonts (in whatever color you choose), Month/Week/Day views, Customizable appearance, popup menu main menu and user commands, Export to html - put your calendar on the internet. Does not run an icon in the system tray.

Moffsoft FreeCalc  [NOTE: not Microsoft, but very nice software] is a great replacement for your existing Windows® calculator. includes a very concise, easy to understand on-board help system.  We took the standard Windows calculator functionality and added:                       

(Shown approximately life-size.)

Tape - Save, print, or clear the simulated paper history

Color schemes - Select a color combination or use your Windows color settings.

Tray icon - Turn on the tray icon for quick and easy access.

International support - Digit grouping and decimal point characters change based on your regional settings.

Digit groupings – Number groupings for easy to read numbers.

Option settings - Flat buttons, always on top, tray icon, run on startup, and hiding the tape are some of the calculator options.

Visible memory value - You'll always know what's in memory because it's displayed on the calculator status bar.

New keys - Clear Tape {CT}, double zero {00}, triple zero {000}, and memory subtract {M-} keys have been added.

Free and Inexpensive Adaptive Technology Database from Adaptech Research Network.

www.cameramouse.org/ Camera Mouse is a free program that enables you to control the mouse pointer on your computer screen just by moving your head. 

Assistive technology software - mostly shareware (try and buy), some freeware

www.roboform.com/ - Every time you're required to fill out an Internet form, RoboForm does it for you in a fraction of a second with incredible accuracy. It also takes you to preset websites, then fills in the the username and password automatically. The lite version is free and has a few limitations, still indispensable for those who hate filling out forms.  [I highly recommend RoboForm to everybody. The lite version is free, the full version is 29.99 - either version is indispensable.]

www.hottnotes.com/ - hott notes is the free sticky notes reminder program for your desktop

www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/assistive.htm - Offers a collection of unique and useful vision related asistive technology applications. 

MWSnap is a small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen. 

Current version is capable of capturing the whole desktop, a highlighted window, an active menu, a control, or a fixed or free rectangular part of the screen. 

MWSnap handles 5 most popular graphics formats and contains several graphical tools: a zoom, a ruler, a color picker and a window spy. It can be also used as a fast picture viewer or converter.

MWSnap does not require installation and does not need any special dlls, drivers or system files which can mess up your system. 

www.webbie.org.uk/  - WebbIE is a text-based web browser for blind and visually-impaired people, especially those using screen readers, used since 2001 all over the worlAccessible programs, letting you access news and audio on the Internet in a simple and accessible way, allowing you to use podcasts, listen to the radio and read RSS and news with your screen reader or other access solution. Together they provide a way to access websites and other great things online - and they are all free! It's available in may different languages.

Artweaver - Artweaver is a Windows Freeware program to simulate natural brush tools. It is therefore suitable to leave your creativity run free. Artweaver offers you a clear program window, which can be used without training immediately.
(Available in Dutch or English. Very small lettering and no curved line tool, but will work with a drawing tablet input device. Has many advanced features.)

Products by Freeware on Emptech

Software for the handicapped - freeware and shareware mostly MS-DOS (not Windows)

PortableApps.com/Accessibility - Load them on a flashdrive and carry them with you.

www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php - NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications (including word processing,  spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite (which works on Windows and other OSs), NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.

Yahoo search result - Here is a saved "search result" on Yahoo that may help you find software for Mac computers, using the words - open source software mac

www.oatsoft.org/Software - free and open-source AT software (for Mac, Windows, and other OS)

Assistive technology shareware + freeware  - for Mac OS, mostly shareware (try and buy)

Mozilla Firefox fast web browser - The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features, including the smart location bar, one-click bookmarking and blindingly fast performance. (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) includes a listing of add-ons

www.firevox.clcworld.net/ - Fire Vox is an open source, freely available talking browser extension for the Firefox web browser. Think of it as a screen reader that is designed especially for Firefox. (for Mac, Windows, and Linux) 

http://accessibar.mozdev.org/ - Accessibar is a toolbar extension for Firefox which aims at providing various accessibility features for users who could benefit from them. These features primarily focus on the dynamic manipulation of the visual display of the web page in addition to the integration of a text to speech reader which can read out loud the browser's user interface as well as web page content. (for Mac, Windows, and Linux) 

www.opesourcemac.org/  - Lists free, open-source software for Mac OS X

apple.com- Apple's open-source listing of software for Mac OS X and UNIX

magnifier.sourceforge.net/ - Virtual Magnifying Glass is a free, open source, cross-platform screen magnification tool. It is simple, customizable, and easy-to-use. Virtual Magnifying Glass 3.3.2
(for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X)
www.internet4classrooms.com/ - A listing of Internet assistive or adaptive technology sites. Many software sites are listed (for Windows and Mac).

Dasher project - Dasher is an information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures. Dasher is a competitive text-entry system wherever a full-size keyboard cannot be used - for example,

• when operating a computer one-handed, by joystick, touchscreen, trackball, or mouse;
• when operating a computer with zero hands (i.e., by head-mouse or by eyetracker);
• on a palmtop computer;
• on a wearable computer.

IrfanView graphic viewer

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 , 2008, Vista, Windows 7.

It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals. NOTE: don't forget to download the plug-ins!

I am a disabled person with poor physical coordination, but thanks to remapping my keyboard keys with "SharpKeys" (freeware that turns certain keys off, or changes the function of a key) I don't keep hitting stray keys by mistake, and difficult to reach keys can be made easier to reach -- thus, my abilities are vastly improved.    

Keys that are commonly considered trouble makers by somepeople are:

1. the "Insert" key - which enables the " overwrite" mode

2. the "caps lock" key - which when left on cAUSES tHIS.

3. the "Windows" key - which if hit accidentally causes a number of unexpected things to happen.

4. the "num Lock"  Key - which turns the number pad on and off

NOTE:  Be careful not to disable a key that is needed to operate the computer.  

There is more than one way to change the behavior of certain keys on your keyboard, or turn them off altogether. 

• The basic way is to manually alter the "registry" --  better left to computer technicians in my opinion.
• A simpler, more effective method (and hopefully safer) is to use software made for that purpose.

There are shareware applications that go beyond turning off keys and changing which key performs what operation -  such as changing keys differently depending on what application is being used, or which user is currently operating the computer. To find such software applications search the Internet with the following words: disable, any, keyboard, key, windows, software  [it may simplify the search to add the name of your operating system, i.e. vista, windows 7, etc].

I use a freeware application called "SharpKeys" which can eigther change the behavior of any key on a standard keyboard, or render any key  inoperative. 

If you would like to download "SharpKeys" and use it for free, 

go to: http://www.randyrants.com/2008/12/sharpkeys_30.html

I have little faith in the slow and somewhat unreliable defragmenting and junk-file cleaning tools that come with Windows, so here's two award winning freeware programs to do the job.

Keep your computer fast and reliable with these quality system freeware tools!

CCleaner The number-one tool for cleaning your Windows PC. It protects your privacy online and makes your computer faster and more secure. Easy to use and a small, fast download.

CCleaner is our system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!  And it's free!
   

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a compact and fast defragmenter that supports both FAT 16/32, and NTFS file systems. It is supplied with advanced optimization techniques, which will remedy your system sluggishness and crashes caused by files fragmentation.

 Optimizes file system

This tool will speed up your computer and make it run more smoothly by moving system files to the faster part of the disk and clearing the MFT Reserved Zone from regular data files.

Disk Defrag doesn't only defragment files - it prevents further files fragmentation by merging free space on the disk into a large contiguous block.

You can set the program to run automatically when your system goes idle. It will analyze the disks and defragment them in the background if required. With this feature your files fragmentation will be eliminated as soon as it occurs.

Smart defragmentation algorithms allow Disk Defrag to run much faster than similar defragmenters and consume less system resources.

• File size:
• 4.33 MB

• Support Version:

7/2008/Vista/2003/XP (32-bit & 64-bit)

Multiple Languages Auslogics Disk Defrag is available in German, English, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese and Russian languages.

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/

Can't afford WinZip? Here's a program that will "unzip" archived files for free. I use it and it works great on my computer!

Zipeg is an ultimate tool for opening ZIP and RAR files on Mac and Windows.

(think of it as a free little brother of WinZip, WinRar, StuffIt family)

Zipeg supports:
Formats: ZIP, RAR, 7z, ARJ, LHA, TGZ, TAR and many many more.
nd Photos - preview them instantly or open in external application.

Filenames in your national alphabet.

Windows: XP, Vista and Windows 7 Mac OS X: Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard.

More free or low-cost assistive technology programs are available on the Internet - to find them search the Internet with these or similar words - free assistive technology software freeware shareware open source 

*See Wikipedia's, the free encyclopedia, definition of o
pen-source software:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_software

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