Over the years, Audible.com has made some changes to its site. SOmetimes these changes have improved accessibility. Sometimes, they have not. One of the changes in the last couple of years was to change the sample clips of their audio books to play in an Adobe Flash Player plugin. It is, sadly, not accessible.

Here’s a way to work around this problem with VoiceOver. It isn’t the most elegant solution, but it works.

• Search for the audio book you wish to sample at Audible.com
• Navigate with b>VoiceOver to the "Listen" text within the search result entry for the audio book of your choice.
• Press VO-Command-F5 to move the mouse to the VoiceOver cursor.
• Turn off cursor tracking with VO-Shift-F3. THis is not required, but will eliminate some potential problems.
• Turn on control-option lock with VO-Semicolon. This is not required, but will make the next step much easier.
• Using the physical mouse or the operating system’s Mouse Keys feature, slowly move the mouse to the left, checking your progress with the VO-F5 command. If control-option lock is on, you need only press F5.
• Repeat the previous step until VoiceOver announces "Scroll Area". This takes a little practice, but is easy once you have the hang of it. If using a MacBook trackpad, use the top edge of the mouse button to insure you are moving straight to the left and not wandering slightly up or down. You do not need to move far to reach the Scroll Area.
• Press and hold the Control key, and click the physical mouse, or press the center key of the numeric keypad if using Mouse Keys.
• A menu will appear with many options. Choose the "Play" option to start the playback. Remember if Control-Option Lock is on, you will need to press space to activate that menu option.

We hope this helps you use Audible.com more effectively with VoiceOver.

Assistiveware has released Keystrokes 4.1, an update to their onscreen keyboard application for Mac OS X. Keystrokes is intended to assist persons with physical impairments type using an onscreen keyboard with a mouse or stylus.

Keystrokes 4.1 is a Universal binary and includes support for Spaces, and automatic layout switching through the Input menu. It is a free upgrade for licensed users of Keystrokes 4.0.

Keystrokes 4.1 is available from Assistiveware for $299.00 US.

The popular Opera web browser has been updated to version 9.5, and includes VoiceOver support. Our initial findings show some areas where Opera excels, but several problems as well

The first positives are the fact that Opera appears to be able to move focus to any item on the page, presumably eliminating the Safari issue that causes focus to jump back on a page as Voiceover reads further down. The way in which tables on web sites are handled is spectacular, borrowing from the table views we’re used to in applications like iTunes or Mail. Apple, are you listening? THis is how tables should be done.

But there are some show-stopping problems.

Using Group mode to navigate HTML content seems to change very little in Opera aside from scrambling the order of the elements, a huge drawback to those who depend on VoiceOver’s ability to group elements on a page. Even in DOM mode, elements are not always in the order you would expect them to appear.

Popup buttons, (AKA drop down menus), do not read properly with VoiceOver either. THere is no way we can determine to select an item from one of these common elements.

Still, Opera has clearly put a lot of effort into accessibility, and the browser could be a very powerful alternative to Safari for VOiceOver users once the kinks are worked out.

Apple announced that they will be replacing their aging .Mac service with a shiny new MobileMe service, starting in July. This service includes an easy way to synch your address book, mail, calendar, and more across multiple devices, as well as 20GB of storage space online. The question is, of course, will it be accessible to VoiceOver users. We’ve contacted Apple on this point, and are awaiting a reply. We’ll update as soon as we know anything.