Introduction
If you are a user of either JAWS or Fusion I would suggest that Leasey from Hartgen Consultancy is a program that you might want to consider using. It adds over sixty additional features and functions to JAWS, making your screen reader even more powerful.
Leasey Basic
Users who are very new to using a computer or who may have cognitive challenges are sure to appreciate Leasey Basic which includes a consistent menu interface for accessing commonly used programs and tasks. Leasey Basic also includes friendly context- sensitive help. When using Leasey Basic the menus along with the context-sensitive help are spoken in a pleasant, human voice.
Leasey Advanced
Some of you may be thinking that you don’t require a basic interface. You may be wondering if Leasey has any features which will be appealing to intermediate or advanced computer users. For those who don’t require this basic interface the Leasey Advanced product includes an impressive set of features that adds even more power and flexibility to JAWS. These include multiple clipboard-like areas for copying and pasting text, text expanders, many search utilities, a flexible app for obtaining weather information, easier keyboard commands for selecting blocks of text, just to name a few.
More Information
In addition to being a user of the JAWS for Windows screen reader since the release of version 1.0 I have been a user of Leasey for nearly four years. Some of its functions have become an essential part of my work flow and I can no longer imagine using JAWS without Leasey running along with it. I have never hesitated to tell other JAWS users about Leasey and I’d like to let JAWS users know more about some of Leasey’s capabilities. To this end I have decided to launch a series of monthly workshops which I’m calling Learn About Leasey. My plan is to conduct one workshop per month with each workshop covering a specific feature of Leasey that I think will be of interest to many people. These workshops will be free of cost and will be conducted on the Zoom platform.
A Few Things to Note
First, I’m aware that Hartgen Consultancy has begun the relaunch of its LeaseyBites. These are short tutorials with each episode covering a specific feature of Leasey. Whether or not you attend any of my workshops I highly recommend that people who wish to learn more about Leasey listen to this series. My workshops in no way are meant to compete with these modules. In fact, I’ve been thinking about facilitating my own workshops before it was announced that LeaseyBites was being relaunched. Not only are my own workshops not meant to compete with Hartgen Consultancy’s LeaseyBites but I’m not intending to follow their structure or the order in which I present topics. Not only am I presenting topics in a totally different order but LeaseyBites will cover topics which I probably will never talk about. I fully admit that I don’t know the keystrokes for every Leasey feature and there are some Leasey features which I honestly don’t use. Examples are using Leasey with Facebook or Whatsapp as I don’t have a Whatsapp account and I chose to delete my personal Facebook account last October.
For these and other reasons it should be clear that my workshops are not intended to be full Leasey classes. Not only should they not be used as a substitute for LeaseyBites but the most complete resource for learning everything about Leasey is the Leasey documentation. It is extremely thorough, easy to read and is well-organized.
It should also be noted that I am not a Leasey product distributor and am not affiliated with Hartgen Consultancy other than being a customer who has purchased Leasey along with other software and training packages. I purchased these products at the same prices as any other customer and am receiving no compensation from the company for facilitating these workshops.
The First Session: Date, Time and Topic
The first Learn About Leasey session is scheduled for Friday, August 19 at 8:00 PM Eastern Time. We’ll provide an introduction to Leasey and talk about some of its features as well as where you can download a demonstration as well as how to purchase the software. If you want to download a trial version of the software or if you’d like to purchase Leasey there’s no need to wait for the workshop as visiting the previous links will allow you to do this.
We will also demonstrate the Leasey Select feature. This is an easy method for selecting and copying text and is faster and more efficient than the built-in keystrokes provided by Windows as well as JAWS.
You can join the meeting by accessing the following link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84552893611?pwd=c3cvWkZtUkdFbmprOU1oOHlCQnlmdz09
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David Goldfield,
Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist
JAWS Certified, 2022Subscribe to the Tech-VI announcement list to receive news, events and information regarding the blindness assistive technology field.
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Thoughts from David Goldfield 