A Progress Report.

Some good things have happened to Screenreader.net of late and I thought you might like to be briefly updated.

We now have an excellent range of Thunder downloads on this website and we are far from finished yet.

Version 3.43 is the latest Thunder and its worth you getting this on your computer or laptop. WebbIE too continues to grow and improve and, of course, you will update to the latest version as part of the thunder download. But its always worth a look at www.webbie.org.uk to keep abreast of things and make your suggestions and comments.

If you have been following the Thunder story over the past two years, you will know about our European connections and we are proud to say that Thunder is now up and running and available free of charge in French, German, Italian, Estonian and Slovak as well as our own English version. To enjoy all this, you need to go to www.screenreader4free.eu. We have high hopes of other languages coming along in the not too distant future and we thoroughly enjoyed working with our European partners over the past eighteen months. Speak as you find and the EU does good things for people with little or no sight, especially those of us who are not so wealthy.

Electronic Magnifiers or Closed Circuit TV Systems have occupied our thoughts for several years. There are excellent products on the market but few are affordable. We have joined forces with another UK Company, Bierley Ltd, who manufacture a range of electronic magnifiers for use with ordinary TV sets or the PC or Laptop. They also sell an excellent stand-alone model for around £650. Very soon you will see details of the Bierley products on our products website.

And this leads me to the final paragraph of this blog. We have always been thrilled that Thunder is free but we, as a business, have our modest bills to pay to make it all possible and if we go bust – well we cease being useful. So we must generate some covering income to balance the books.

We have set up another website: www.screenreader.co.uk as an online shop. At www.screenreader.co.uk you can purchase online or by telephone a range of reasonably priced products and accessories to use with your Thunder. There are superior sounding computer voices, advanced speech and or print enlargement software packages and, soon as just mentioned, the Bierley range of electronic magnifiers requiring no computer involvements. There is also some useful software for Braillists and those of you wanting to scan books or your post and listening to what comes to you in print. We even have software for people who can see well but struggle with reading and writing because of Dyslexic challenges.

And last of all: We do encourage you please, to make a donation towards the cost of implementing and updating the free software we provide. You don’t have to, of course; but every little helps and we are so proud of the fact that blind and visually impaired people all over the world can now enjoy the PC and all the benefits this can bring.