NV Access now offers phone-based support and training for users of NVDA in Australia for a flat rate of AU$59.95 per hour. Hours are prepaid so that once purchased, you can give us a call any week day to have your query answered. Whether its a specific question, or you want a thorough introduction to the basics (or more advanced features), we're only a phone call away. We can also offer face-to-face training for organisations or groups of individuals if needed; Please contact us if interested.

As anyone who has tried donating to NV Access over the last week and a half would have noticed,  PayPal was displaying a page saying that  we are currently unable to receive payments. We are happy to note that this issue has now been fixed, so you are again able to make donations to NV Access via PayPal. For those interested in why PayPal was blocking donations and have not read our original post, please continue reading on below. We wish to apologise to those who have been confused or inconvenienced with regard to being unable to donate. Thank you for your ongoing support of NV Access. We wish you all the best for the holiday season.

NV Access is currently undergoing an organization structure change from a Victorian Incorporated Association to  an Australian public company limited by guarantee. This new structure is much more understood legally and is now a much more appropriate choice for us as NV Access continues to grow. Note that we are still a charity under this new structure.

Of course, part of this transition involves notifying PayPal of the structure change. We did this and PayPal requested particular documentation as proof. Over the last few days, we have been back and forth with PayPal providing the correct documentation. We believe we have complied with all of their requests now regarding this.

It is understandable that PayPal would keep a new account limited before receiving suitable documentation, as was the case when we first opened the account in 2007. However, we feel it is very inappropriate for PayPal to limit our account just because we have submitted a request to change our details. It would make far more sense for them to simply keep the old details until all documents were received and then change the account over. If we had known this was going to occur, we would have probably created a new PayPal account instead.

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2011.3 of NVDA, the free, open source screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available. Highlights of this release include automatic speech language switching when reading documents with appropriate language information; support for 64 bit Java Runtime Environments; reporting of text formatting in browse mode in Mozilla applications; better handling of application crashes and freezes; and initial fixes for Windows 8. You can find out more or download a copy from  the NVDA web site.

Vision Australia has recently announced that it is now offering several of its computer training courses especially tailored for use with the NVDA screen reader. These courses, freely available to blind and vision impaired Australians in several states, focus on such skills as typing, email, word processing and browsing the web. Vision Australia has offered courses in computers for many years, and NV Access is excited that due to growing popularity of NVDA in Australia, there are now courses specific to those who use this screen reader. These courses are available in several formats and can be taken either as face to face or as distance learning. Please visit the  Vision Australia Adaptive Technology Course Outlines page or call Vision Australia on 1300 84 74 66 for more information about these courses with NVDA. Visit the  NVDA website for further information about the free NVDA screen reader.

NV Access is very proud to announce that it has received the award for Outstanding Disability Organisation, as a part of Queensland's Disability Action Week. The award was presented to Michael Curran and james Teh by The Honourable Curtis Pitt, Ministor for Disability Services at an action week dinner held in Cairns on Thursday night.

This award recognises our dedication to the ideal that access to technology should not incur an extra cost for blind and vision impaired computer users, through development of the freely available  NVDA screen reading software. We are very honoured to receive such recognition from a key Australian Government organisation and are pleased that our work is helping blind and vision impaired Queenslanders in their daily lives.  Minister Pitt said, "This award is well-earned recognition of NV Access’ positive contribution to people’s lives."

 Disability Action Week is held each year in Queensland to celebrate the achievements and contributions of people with a disability. This year, as part of Action Week, a disability conference was held at the Cairns Convention Centre, at which the awards were presented.

When we posted in January, we only had sufficient funding to survive until July this year. We're pleased to report that as well as the $21,200 in donations we have received from users (which includes the $9000 we mentioned in our last Donation Update), we have also acquired funding from several organisations.

 Adobe has contracted us to enhance NVDA's support for Adobe products and to provide consultation concerning accessibility implementation. NVDA improvements will include improved support for LiveCycle/XFA PDF documents, better support for UI Automation text controls such as the document area in Digital Editions and  automatic switching of synthesiser language in PDF and web documents. In addition, we will be working with Adobe to ensure that Digital Editions is accessible to NVDA users, as well as providing advice and feedback about the upcoming enhancements to Adobe Flash Player accessibility.

 Mozilla has  provided NV Access with a grant of US$80,000. This will enable us to improve our support for both  rich text editing and document browsing in Mozilla applications, including  reporting of textual formatting while browsing. We will also work closely with Mozilla to ensure that the renowned user experience for screen reader users continues as Firefox and other Mozilla applications rapidly move forward. Part of this grant will be used to support general NVDA development.

 Yahoo! has sponsored further enhancements to NVDA's support for ARIA. This includes  the ability to report the sorting of columns in tables, fixes to automatic focus mode switching for interactive controls such as grids, improved support for tab panels and  proper handling of web sites that include both application and document components. Primarily, this enables excellent access to the latest version of Yahoo! Mail, but will also benefit other web sites using this functionality.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to these companies for their continued belief in and support of the NVDA project. Our thanks also go to everyone who has donated to NV Access this year.

On a final note, while we now have sufficient funding to continue to develop NVDA for just over a year, there is no guarantee of any funding beyond that. If you want to see NVDA continue to improve into the future, please donate if you are able. Thanks!

NV Access is happy to announce that version 2011.2 of NVDA, the free and open source screen reader for Microsoft Windows is now available for download. Highlights of NVDA 2011.2 include major improvements concerning punctuation and symbols, including configurable levels, custom labelling and character descriptions; no pauses at the end of lines during say all; improved support for ARIA in Internet Explorer; better support for XFA/LiveCycle PDF documents in Adobe Reader; access to text written to the screen in more applications; and access to formatting and color information for text written to the screen. For more information and to download a copy, please visit the  NVDA website.

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2011.1 of NVDA, the free, open source screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available. Highlights of this release include automatic reporting of new text output in mIRC, PuTTY, Tera Term and SecureCRT; support for global plugins; announcement of bullets and numbering in Microsoft Word; additional key bindings for braille displays, including keys to move to the next and previous line; support for several Baum, HumanWare and APH braille displays; and reporting of colors for some controls, including IBM Lotus Symphony text controls. You can find out more or download a copy from  the NVDA web site.

NV Access will be attending the 26th Annual International & Persons with Disabilities Conference, otherwize known as  CSUN conference 2011. This conference is held from March 14 to 19 in San Diego California. If you wish to see a demonstration of NVDA, get mor information or just want to say hi, you can find us at the Mozilla booth. We look forward to seeing you at CSUN Conference 2011!

In the last week, NV Access has received a total of around AU$9,000 in donations. We would like to express a big thank you to all the people who have donated. Every donation means a great deal to us, but we would especially like to thank a particular individual who has donated a massive AU$1,000.

Although these donations have certainly given us some much needed breathing room, one week of donations is obviously not enough to guarantee long-term sustainability. Over the last few months, we have also been setting some important organisational changes in motion which should improve our public image and increase our fundraising potential. These include a new logo, a presence on Twitter and Facebook, a structural change to accept tax deductable gifts in Australia, and a clearer request for donations (even within the NVDA product itself). We hope that this will better place us to procure further grants and contract work from those organisations who rely on NVDA for testing and development or wish their software to work with NVDA, thus keeping NVDA free for the average blind user. In addition, being able to receive tax deductable gifts within Australia will allow us to pursue funding from Australian philanthropic organisations.

Finally, rest assured that NVDA is still free, open source software. All donations are very much appreciated and help to ensure that NVDA will continue to improve. However, if you cannot afford or are otherwise disinclined to donate, you can continue to download and use NVDA for free.

Thank you for your support of NV Access and the NVDA project.

As you are all aware, NV Access, the organisation which develops NVDA, is a non-profit organisation which is predicated on making software for the blind that requires no extra cost than the purchase of a computer. What you may not know, however, is that to do this, we must seek grants or donations from larger organisations to survive. Unfortunately, the present financial climate has meant that these grants are much less forthcoming than in the past, despite the accolades that NVDA has received over the past couple of years.

Jamie and Mick, the core developers of NVDA, are essentially paid minimum wage for their experience, knowledge and skills, which they are prepared to accept because they love the fact that they are making a positive contribution to the blind community and the accessibility industry more generally. Despite their willingness to carry on, however, there will be no money to pay them after July 2011 unless we receive some financial assistance. Rest assured, we will be seeking grants from and alliances with other companies, but the stark reality is that these may not come to fruition in time to save NVDA. In short, we desperately need your help.

For the last release of NVDA, our records indicate that there were 50,000 downloads. Even if we discount 20,000 for those who may have downloaded NVDA multiple times, we are left with 30,000 individual users. If every user donated $10 today, we would have $300,000 that we could use to pay Jamie and Mick to continue to develop NVDA full time for the foreseeable future.

We are very proud that we provide a free and open source screen reader for our community and for the accessibility industry to use. The principles that underlie the decision to make NVDA free and open source are as important to the committee of NV Access now as they were when Mick first envisaged the potential of NVDA. However, for NVDA to be developed in the way that you have become accustomed, we need your help. We are not being greedy or exploitative, merely pragmatic and honest. Please think of how NVDA might have helped you, or may help others, and donate today.

We sincerely thank you for any contribution you can make.

The NV Access Committee

NV Access wishes to add support for Multi-touch devices such as tablet PCs into the NVDA screen reader. Please read the  related NVDA blog post for more information. Please consider making a donation to NV Access to help with this endeavor.

The latest version of NVDA, NV Access's free and open source Screen Reader for Windows, is now available. This release focuses primarily on bug fixes and improvements to the user experience, including some significant stability fixes. You can find out more information, or download a copy from  the NVDA website.

NV Access is happy to announce the availability of NVDA 2009.1, the latest version of the NVDA free and open source Screen Reader for Windows. Please visit  www.nvda-project.org to download a copy. Major highlights of NVDA 2009.1 include support for 64 bit editions of Windows; greatly improved support for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader documents; support for Windows 7; reading of the Windows logon, control+alt+delete and User Account Control (UAC) screens; and the ability to interact with Adobe Flash and Sun Java content on web pages. There have also been several significant stability fixes and improvements to the general user experience.

We are pleased and grateful to announce that  Adobe have provided a grant to NV Access to support NVDA development. This grant will enable us to  improve support for Adobe Reader and  add support for Adobe flash embedded in browsers. This is great news for NVDA users given the increasing regularity of PDF documents and Flash content. This will also help users access content and applications developed with Adobe Flex and interactive forms developed with Adobe LiveCycle.

We would like to thank the Mozilla Foundation for providing NV Access with another grant allowing  the NVDA screen reader to continue and grow. Initially this grant will allow development of much more proper and complete support for ARIA live regions in NVDA. Specifically this work will firstly consist of redesigning NVDA's in-process code, making it less specific to virtual buffers and more generalized so that it will be much easier to add code for such things as live regions. I have started this work already. Secondly support for live regions will be designed within the new in-process framework so that NVDA will be able to appropriately announce changes in live regions found in web documents and applications. Examples of live regions are the message history of a chat application, a value on a score board, or even perhaps subtitles, audio description text, or captions on a video streamed over the web.

We're pleased to announce a formal partnership with  Yahoo! to support the  NVDA project. Their first funding contribution will enable us to implement  enhanced table navigation and reporting in virtual buffers,  ARIA land marks,  ARIA drag and drop and  other ARIA improvements in NVDA over the next couple of months. This will greatly improve the experience on the web for NVDA users for both web pages and advanced web applications. We'd like to thank Yahoo! for their support and hope to continue this partnership into the future.

NV Access is very pleased to have received a  Making A Difference Award presented by  Vision Australia as part of its 2009 Making A Difference Campaign.

For the past four years Vision Australia has been presenting  Making A Difference awards to individuals, community groups and organisations who have shown outstanding support for people who are blind or have low vision in their community.

NV Access was recognised especially for the support and development of the  NVDA screen reader which allows blind and low vision users access to the Microsoft Windows Operating System for no more cost than their sighted peers. We would like to acknowledge that NVDA's success is thanks to many more people than just NV Access. We would like to thank NVDA's user community for providing great feedback, NVDA's volunteer developer community (including our many translators), organisations who have provided us with funding, and the many individuals who have donated to us.

We look forward to working with everyone further into the future, to make sure that we can continue to maintain and grow NVDA.

The  Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference, hosted by California State University, Northridge (and thus usually known simply as the CSUN conference), is perhaps the world's largest conference on assistive technology. Thanks to the generocity and support of the  Mozilla Foundation, Mick attended CSUN 2007 and both Mick and I attended CSUN 2008. We gained a great deal from these conferences, as they enabled us to meet and share information and ideas with prominent figures in the industry, as well as giving us a fantastic opportunity to spread the word about NVDA. For CSUN 2009, given the positive response from users and the industry as a whole, we decided to take a step forward and run our own presentation about NVDA. We are pleased to announce that our submission was accepted. We are very much looking forward to the conference and are keen to once again spread the word about open accessibility technology from the Mozilla booth. CSUN 2009 will be held from 16-21 March at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott & Renaissance Montura Hotels.

Please see the  post on the NVDA blog for the abstract of the presentation.

Microsoft has recently decided to support NV Access and the  NVDA screen reader project by providing funding and support that will allow NV Access to improve NVDA in two key areas:

• Allowing NVDA to support Microsoft's UI Automation API in Windows 7 (the next Microsoft Windows Operating System); and
• Improving NVDA's support for Microsoft Internet Explorer and other related applications.

Supporting UI Automation means that NVDA gains access to applications built on top of Microsoft's .net and Silverlight 2 platforms. UI Automation massivly improves upon Microsoft's older accessibility API (MSAA) by providing greater access to textual and other rich data.

Improved support for Microsoft Internet Explorer is a much requested feature of NVDA by its users. Improvements will include rapid speed ups of page loads due to in-process virtual buffers and an improved user interaction model (including the ability to select text and access a list of links) which users of NVDA have been enjoying already in its support for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

Not only do the improvements help support for Internet Explorer, but also Windows CHM viewer, Windows Help and Support centre, Windows Mail / Outlook Express and any other application that makes use of the Internet Explorer engine.

This funding from Microsoft has enabled NV Access to employ me full-time along side James Teh to work on the core development of NVDA. The funding will also help to sustain NV Access into the near future.