Hello everyone!
I am gauging support for assistance in getting an amazing IOS tutorial into audio.
Recently, Michael Fear released a guide called "personal power". It's an amazing compendium of knowledge that will really help people get from start to finish in the world of using their IOS device. For those who haven't heard, the link is here:
http://michaelfeir.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-second-edition-of-personal-power.html
He has generously released this guide for free. It is available to anyone who would use it on the internet in several formats.
Unfortunately, none of these formats include audio. This is unfortunate because many people who may benefit from this knowledge may not be as familiar with how to use speech synthesizers, and would hugely benefit from a human recording of this guide.
A few notes before you read on:
1. This project is in no way affiliated with Michael. He has generously granted permission for anyone to redo the guide in any format to improve its accessibility, and I have corresponded with him yesterday and he has reaffirmed this.
2. Please take this down if it does not comply with appleVis guidelines. It was never my intention to break them.
I am currently working on a project to get this read. Although the person I am working with is not a professional voice, she has been a volunteer reader for me in the past and is very good at it.
Unfortunately, with a project of this size, financial compensation will be necessary. I am writing here to gauge interest to see who would be willing to contribute (financially or otherwise) to this project.
If you are interested, feel free to either comment on this thread, or if you do not feel comfortable, you can private message me through the AppleVis e-mail system.
I hope we can come together as a a community to make this resource available to even more people.
By techluver, 3 May, 2022
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Comments
Willing to volunteer
Hello,
My wife and I would be willing to volunteer to do this. I have a professional home recording studio, completely treated for recording, and professional microphones. My wife has done reading for college disability programs and other small audio books. Because of the size of the book, I'd estimate it will take us 3 to 4 weeks, but we are willing.
I don't want to step in your way however, if you'd prefer having your reader do it, but wanted to at least make the offer.
no!
I think the quickest we can get this started, the better. I have no monopoly on doing it lol, I just wanted to get the ball rolling.
Michael already gave permission for anyone to do it, so IMO you should just get started! Let me know if there's any support I can provide.
We'll get started right away!
We'll try to begin recording right away and hope to be able to get several sections done daily. I'll check in in a week to give a progress update.
thanks
Thanks.
Please don't feel beholden to me.
All Michael asked is that it's navigable at least to the level 2 headings. I think just splitting up the files will work well for that.
Again, I have no affiliation, I'm just the one that's putting the idea out there and lending support how ever I can.
Any update?
It's awesome Matt that you and your wife are willing and able to produce an audio version of the guide for others to enjoy and benefit from.
I appreciate that it must be a massive undertaking, but am keen to hear how you are getting on? I would love to hear an update on how the project is progressing. Thanks ☺️
renewing interest
Hello.
Just because I haven't heard anything about this: I'm re-gauging interest in such an undertaking from the community.
I believe I have a reader who could do it for apron. $600. If I could raise such funds from the community I'd be happy to coordinate getting it done.
If there is interest I can figure out a way to handle this.
interested in this
I would be interested in this.
Temporary fix: DAISY with synthetic speech
While I recognize it's not as good as a human reader, I Used Kurzweil 1000 to create a DAISY 2.0 book with Neospeech James as the voice. The rate is a bit slow, for beginners. If someone wants it faster, they can use their player's controls. Michael did put it up on the site as a zip file.
If you are interested
Hello.
If you are interested in doing this, and willing to fund a portion of it, please direct e-mail me and let me know how much you are willing to fund. Keep in mind this is not a professional reader, but she does have reading experience reading for blind people.
Don't send me any funds until I confirm how many people are interested and if there's enough. lol
Correction
Y'all.
Something truly miraculous happened.
I explained to the VO person what was needed, and she has agreed to do it for free.
Now, it might take a while, but we will have an audio version of this miracle book.
Thanks to Michael for allowing it to be transformed, and this reader is amazing. So donations will not be needed.