1. Annual Review - The Best of 2008

The TechnoDys Awards 2008 - or Ten things I most want to tell my dyslexic friends about (actually its 22!)

It is difficult to choose what items to include in a review of the year, and harder to find a title. Do I go for “Best” – but what does that mean? What about “Things I find most useful” – but are they useful for others? And how do I choose the categories?

But My Top Three for 2008 are:
1. SearchMe (6 October) A visual web browser
2. DimDim (19 December 2008) Full sharing of the electronic space.
3. Soshiku (20 October) Reminders

I have tried to keep the rest of this entry short. However, full descriptions of each entry can be found by scrolling to each, or clicking on the entry.

Writing - Bitstrips (30 December 2008) Creative cartoon.

Sharing - DimDim (19 December 2008) Full sharing of the electronic space.

Concept Maps
1. (With speech-to-text) Voxenable for MindManager 8 (12 December) Brings speech to text to concept mapping.
2. (Mobile) Mindmaker (13 November)Concept mapping on an iPhone.
3. (Online) Mindmeister (15 October) Online collaborative concept mapping

Text-to-speech
1. (Online) iSpeech (29 November) Upload files to download audio files.
2. (Mobile) Nokia (21 November) Reads out files on the mobile.
3. (For Blogs) Blogbard (11 October) For listening to blogs.
4. (Embedded) Adobe Acrobat Read Out Loud (22 September) Text-to-speech build into the document.

Speech-to-text Search the web by voice on your iPhone (19 November)

Preferences
1. (Visual Browser) SearchMe (6 October) A visual web browser
2. (Options) Reading Survey (31 December) Allows you to discover your preferences
3. (Design) Create with Content Report (18 November) A very dyslexia-friendly layout.

Memory
1. (Reminders) Soshiku (20 October) Organiser and sends email and SMS (USA only) reminders
2. (Visual Reminders) Stickies / Post Its / Desktop notes (12 September)
3. (Back-up) Dropbox (15 September) Store, Sync and Share files online.
4. (Passwords) KeePass (28 August) A single store to hold everything (which can also be stored on a USB memory stick).

Foreign Languages
1. (Translation and speaking) IM Translator (16 October) - Translation and text to speech in many languages, with talking avatars.
2. (The future) Emimie (3 August) The "No Pain" way to speak a foreign language, an amazing idea if it lives up to the claim!

Miscellaneous Life Savers
1. (Collections) Portable Assistive Technology Suite (PATS) (26 October) Take your software anywhere on a USB memory stick.
2. (Plagiarism) Plagiarism 2 (24 October) Several entries which can be a real life saver to check everything is your own work.
3. (Recovery) Undelete Plus (4 September) For recovery of deleted files.
4. (Synopsis) Sinope (27 August) For cutting down reading by making synopses.

Now let's see what 2009 will bring!