Harit, in his own thoughts…

Here is an article/opinion about few softwares for computer screen magnification, for visually impaired. Many attempts have been made for such people, but I being one of them want to have another attempt, in case someone reads this and gets benefited.

December 16, 2007, Sunday

Sunday is considered to be a fun day after hectic week. And perhaps that’s Times Of India has a supplement titled TGIS (thank god, its sunday). The Sunday is a normal holiday since my final exams will be taking off from Monday!!

But, a thought sparked in my mind in afternoon. I heard about screen magnifying software. And; of course, tied before a year or two. I was not satisfied with the functionalities and performance. One of the reason might be my PC, that has the minimum configuration prescribed in that version. (I am sorry since I have forgotten the name of software).

The thought process leads me to re-search same softwares on Net. I googled out few keywords and found one very good link.

Here it is…

http://www.magnifiers.org/links/Download_Software/Screen_Magnifiers/Windows_Freeware_and_shareware/

I download few of freewares from that, but liked DesktopZoom most. It satisfied most of my requirements. Since it actually enlarges the current screen, the performance is bit poor. But I think its yet the best one. Very lightweight, and of course freeware!

It has rich set of functionalities and options to set hotkeys and magnifying level.I personally recommend going for such softwares instead of buying large sized licensed versions.

I also come to know about sourceforge.net initiative for the same. Here it goes…

http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/

Although I am not much satisfied with the functionalities of Virtual Magnifying Glass 3.3.1, I am mentioning here since I respect open source projects at most! I hope for project to complete (with newer version, of course) with great features.

Such softwares require practicing if someone wants to use in day to day life. Playing with mouse movements, screening the objects, understanding limitations with time. (some messages will not get captured in case they flash for few nanoseconds!!!!)

This opens a new window of thought to try something on Linux! Will share something if I will find something interesting!!