Solona provides an image to text service for the visually impaired. Images are uploaded and a volunteer reads it and replies with a text translation. This is currently used for translating Captcha images when no audio is provided. Please see the Solona.Net website for account and information detail.
This page has download links for a utility for Mac users to easily upload screenshots and get responses without having to navigate through the Solona website. It was created at the request of one of my friends, and has been approved for use by the development team at Solona.
Solona Account
Mac OS X (tested on Snow Leopard)
Right click and save: solona.zip.
You may also skip using the bash script and just use the sendtosolona utility from the command line, providing username, password, and full path to the png file as arguments. Run sendtosolona with no arguments for help.
sendtosolona Version 1.1 - Command line program that takes username, password, and file path/name as arguments and sends these to Solona.Net. If a valid response is received, it is copied to the clipboard. One system beep means it worked. Two system beeps means there was an error.
configuration Version 1.0 - This is an optional shell script that stores the username, password, and the png file directory.
solona.sh Version 3.1 - This is an optional shell script that reads the configuration file and takes the most recently modified png file in that directory, confirms that this is the one you want to send, and then calls the sendtosolona program.
setup.sh Version 2.0 - This is an optional shell script that updates the configuration file.
Current Status: BETA
Change Log:
10/11/2010: Updated solona.sh to uncomment the actual send line which was left from my testing.
5/13/2010: Updated solona.sh to fix the "./configuration not found" error, particularly useful for the new automation process.
5/13/2010: Uploaded automation instructions provided by Nicolai Svendsen.
5/13/2010: Created a 32 bit compilation (sendtosolona386) for older Macs.
2/15/2010: Fixed an error (file not found, always, even if added) in solona.sh. If you've gotten this error, please download and reinstall the entire directory, removing all files and replacing them. Otherwise, you can just replace the solona.sh script in your directory.
2/14/2010: Added audio instructions: solona.mp3 (6.2 Mb)
2/14/2010: Fixed the setup.sh script (default user directory missing /), updated the solona.sh script (just some cleanup)
1/14/2010: User feedback update: Split the configuration into its own save file and created the setup.sh script.
1/13/2010: Changed login to work with updated Solona.Net login. sendtosolona Version 1.1.
1/7/2010: Uploaded Versions 1.0 for script and sendtosolona.
Don't use any special characters in your path/file name.
The sendtosolona command line tool expects you to provide the absolute path
to your file, so:
/Users/tford/Desktop/latest.png
instead of:
~/Desktop/latest.png
If you get a "Bad CPU Type" error, try replacing sendtosolona with sendtosolona386, which is the 32 bit version. You will need to rename it without the 386 for the script to work.
If you get a "./configuration file not found" error, upgrade to version 3.1 or higher for the solona.sh script.
Source code for the sendtosolona application (objective c) is available on request.