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 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

In December 2007, NV Access was approved for another grant from the  Mozilla Foundation in order to hire James Teh (one of the core NVDA developers) on a full-time basis. James was previously working for an IT company and could only contribute to NVDA in his spare time after work and on weekends. This grant from the  Mozilla Foundation will enable him to leave his current employment and dedicate all his working hours to improving NVDA. You can read our  list of goals to see what we hope to achieve for NVDA with this new grant from Mozilla. The grant will cover all salary and any overheads associated with the management of this position as well as contribute to the general running costs of NV Access.

NV Access is also looking for organisations or interested parties to partially or fully match this funding in order to hire Michael Curran (the other core NVDA developer)to also work on some of these and other goals in order to continue to make NVDA a viable free screen reader solution for people around the world who are blind or vision impaired.

In early July, NV Access received a grant for a total of US$10000 from the  Mozilla Foundation to support a re-write of the current web access code for NVDA.

This grant will also allow the programmers to conduct research into determining the most appropriate design and method for NVDA to access web content. It will also enable NVDA to fully support  Mozilla FireFox and its implementation of IAccessible2.

For the NVDA user, the improved web access solution will mean a more usable and faster experience when browsing the web, including better access to the more dynamic content that has been emerging in recent times.

The grant is expected to run until mid 2008. By which time the design, code and initial testing of the new web access solution should be completed. If you would like to read about the technical progress of the grant work, you can visit the  Web Access blog for developers.

 NVDA, or NonVisual Desktop Access, is the first completely free and open-source screen reader for the Windows Operating System. The NVDA project developers have just released version 0.5 of the NVDA screen reader. The release can be downloaded as an installer or a portable ZIP file that can be extracted and run from your hard drive or a USB memory key. To read more about this release of NVDA or to download a copy, go to the  NVDA Project web site.

NV Access was created very recently, and at this point we have limited resources to support projects. We do not yet have a physical office and we are all volunteers working from home, working on our own equipment.

Our main goal for the rest of the year is to apply for funding from Australian philanthropic organisations and also to apply for project specific grants from international organisations such as the  Mozilla Foundation.

If you would like to contribute to our projects, then please visit the Projects? page for more information on our projects, and check out the Helping Out? page to see how you can help. If you wish to donate to NV Access, you can go straight to the Donate page.