Greetings. I realize that my posting rate has slowed down drastically in the last month or two. I apologize for that. It seems that as things have gotten busier for me in my life, my blog posts have come less frequently. To be sure, I still have plenty to say, but finding the time to say it in when I get home, well, that’s another matter.
Currently at work, I am one of three full time instructors. We do have a forth, sort of, but he only teaches one class, so the lion’s share of the classes are mainly left to the three of us. Sure, we’ve hired a fifth person that will eventually teach a class or two. Since they’re still going through the initial training though, and probably won’t be done until May, things are tight for the moment. And, throw in the possibility of absences from time to time, or requests for covering classes for whatever reason, and things get even more stressful. Thankfully though, we should be having a sixth and final person start soon, which will eventually lighten the load and make things more manageable for everyone. I’ve thought of posting several times, but then I put it aside and think, “Oh, I’ll do it later.” And we all know where that thinking gets you.
Anyway, the tightness of the situation really hit home for me yesterday. I’m usually the one in my department to turn in the reports for new students early in the month, or at least in the middle. Due to the things I listed above, plus whatever else might come up, yesterday afternoon was the first time I was able to sit down and devote time to my 6 reports. And, I’m glad I did that. I at least got through 4 of them. Getting the other 2 done by the deadline won’t be any problem.
In my on and off posting here, some significant things have happened that haven’t made it to this space until now. First, on February 1, I observed and celebrated my one year anniversary at my current job. On that day, I couldn’t help but smile to myself when I was buzzing myself into the building, and when I walked down the hall toward my office. To add to these good feelings, I found myself in the position of paying off the remaining debt that I have—er, had, That was a good feeling as well. Not only did February2007 mark the one year point for me, but it also marked the point of freedom, where I was truly able to say, “I’m debt free!” I don’t know that I’ll be so bold as to say that I’ll be debt free forever, but at least I am until my next big purchase. Which looks like it will be technology, as in a new computer.
Another significant thing was on February 12, when the “new guy” started. Sure, he won’t be teaching classes for several months, but at least we’ve got him on board. I’ve enjoyed sharing information, building a working relationship with him, answering his questions, and helping to ease him in. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I was the “new guy,” and I certainly remember what a transition that was for me. Initially, I was reluctant to give up the title of new guy, but actually, its kind of nice not being the new guy. And being someone who helps the new guy get settled in.
I’ve paid my taxes for 2006. That’s a good feeling as well. I went to the same place I went to last year, but they had moved across the street, so it took a little longer to get there. I realize that not everyone knows everything about interacting with a blind person. However, I don’t expect them to. That said, much of this interaction I believe is pure common sense. As sometimes happens though, when some people see a blind person, they freeze up, kind of like the deer in the headlights, and think, “Oooh! Blind guy! What do I do?” And whatever they do or say is then filtered through this “freezing up” response. The result of which can be quite humorous. For instance, the woman who asked me, while we were walking at a brisk pace, “How do you get around campus without going up steps?” To which I responded, “Well, I guess I don’t.” Or, the person who asks me if I can go down steps when we’re standing at the top of a staircase, and then proceeds to gasp in utter awe that I can. Or, the clerk in the college bookstore who, excuses themselves so they can go to their boss and ask them if I can indeed go down steps. And all I hear is something like, “Yes, he can. I’ve seen him do it before..” All of these things have happened to me, along with countless others.
Why do I bring all this up after mentioning that I paid my taxes? Because, one of these types of people initially helped me in the tax preparation process. Let me state here that not everyone “freezes up” when they see me. But there is a certain level of this that goes on with people I don’t know or don’t know very well. And, occasionally with people I do know. Anyway, at the risk of putting you on the floor with all of the happenings with this woman at the tax place, I’ll just highlight a couple. For instance, when she said to me, “I don’t think that this is your W2 form..” When I asked why, after a pause, she goes on with, “Well, because, …, oh, there’s your name at the top. Never mind.” Or, one of my favorites, when she tells me that she needs to see my identification. I ask why and she says that she just needs to see it. I ask her if she needs the ID number, and that I could give it to her. She says, “No, I need the date of expiration.” To which I tell her when its set to expire, and her response remains, “Ok, well, I still need to see your ID.” I consent and then asked her for a phone to call my driver, since I didn’t bring my ID with me. I don’t remember needing it last year, but who knows; perhaps I did show it. Her response to my request is, “Oh, I’ll dial for you.” To which I reply, “Oh, I can dial the number, I do it all the time on my phone.” And her response: “Oh, well, we don’t have a phone near here.” I wonder to myself: *There’s no phone even though she just offered to dial for me*. I shrugged, and pulled out my own cell phone and start turning it on. The woman gasps and says, “You have your own phone?” “Sure, don’t you?” I ask.
When my driver and I returned, I quickly discovered that I had someone else that was going to help me with my taxes, to my great relief. As it happened though, when I mentioned that I had my ID to show him, the man who was now helping me asked, “Why? You don’t need it to file.” I don’t know if this was the woman’s first day on the job, but its incidents like that that remind me of the state of the average person in the world today with regards to how they view blind people. To be fair, the gentleman that helped me prepare the taxes was very good, taking time to read things to me and explain things. He completely made up for the first attempt. He even gave me his card so that I could use him again next year, which I hope to do. Its people like this gentleman that make things worthwhile.
That’s about all I have for now. I’ll try to post more often than I have been, but don’t be surprised if my posting stays at the twice a month level of late, at least for the next month or two. Until then.
Saturday, March 24
Thursday, March 8
More on Dadnab and other services
Greetings. Here is more information on Dadnab, which is taken from an email I sent to everyone in my department. This will hopefully give you a better idea of how to use the service. At the end, there are links and information for similar services in other locations. Enjoy.
Dadnab is a service that you can send text messages to in order to find out bus schedule information. There is a demonstration of the service on their site, with a combo box for selecting the city and then an edit field with preselected text in it. You can of course put
your own text in there. Currently, the service is in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle, how ever they are looking into adding several
other cities, including New York, Salt Lake City, and others. There's no charge for the service, aside from normal text messaging rates (provided you're
not already in a texting plan, in which case its free). This seems like a powerful service, and one that provides another option when waiting at the bus
stop.
Some examples of things you could query would be:
4 and Congress to 49 and Sunshine
4 and Congress to 49 and Sunshine by 8:00 pm
49 and Sunshine to Anderson and Foster by 7:30 am on Saturday
Or even "loc," without the quotes in the message of course, for location, and then an intersection. If there's lots of busses that go by that stop though, you'll get lots of messages back. They recommend
using an intersection verses a street address for best results. Provided that the city has a trip planner and its schedules online, the service can work
with them.
When texting, you will send the message to:
Cityname@dadnab.com
Where “city name” is the name of the city you want to search for schedules in. Then put the query in the text area. Refer to the site for instructions on specific numbers for different cell carriers. If you text Dadnab a lot, and
you have to put the email address in the message itself (which is necessary for a few carriers), you can setup a template with the address already in there.
Then you insert the template, and then you only have to write the query. Enjoy.
Addition: If you don’t live in a city served by Dadnab, then perhaps you might find the following services of interest. You can get schedule information from the site or by text messaging. Refer to the individual site for details.
Hop Stop,
offers bus and subway directions for Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
Google Transit
offers directions and information for cities in the following states: California, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. Only selected cities are listed so refer to the site for more details.
Dadnab is a service that you can send text messages to in order to find out bus schedule information. There is a demonstration of the service on their site, with a combo box for selecting the city and then an edit field with preselected text in it. You can of course put
your own text in there. Currently, the service is in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle, how ever they are looking into adding several
other cities, including New York, Salt Lake City, and others. There's no charge for the service, aside from normal text messaging rates (provided you're
not already in a texting plan, in which case its free). This seems like a powerful service, and one that provides another option when waiting at the bus
stop.
Some examples of things you could query would be:
4 and Congress to 49 and Sunshine
4 and Congress to 49 and Sunshine by 8:00 pm
49 and Sunshine to Anderson and Foster by 7:30 am on Saturday
Or even "loc," without the quotes in the message of course, for location, and then an intersection. If there's lots of busses that go by that stop though, you'll get lots of messages back. They recommend
using an intersection verses a street address for best results. Provided that the city has a trip planner and its schedules online, the service can work
with them.
When texting, you will send the message to:
Cityname@dadnab.com
Where “city name” is the name of the city you want to search for schedules in. Then put the query in the text area. Refer to the site for instructions on specific numbers for different cell carriers. If you text Dadnab a lot, and
you have to put the email address in the message itself (which is necessary for a few carriers), you can setup a template with the address already in there.
Then you insert the template, and then you only have to write the query. Enjoy.
Addition: If you don’t live in a city served by Dadnab, then perhaps you might find the following services of interest. You can get schedule information from the site or by text messaging. Refer to the individual site for details.
Hop Stop,
offers bus and subway directions for Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
Google Transit
offers directions and information for cities in the following states: California, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. Only selected cities are listed so refer to the site for more details.
Monday, March 5
Exciting service for getting transit information
Greetings. Dadnab is an exciting new service where you can obtain information about current or upcoming transit schedules via text message. The way it works is you message a certain address and then you can write in a number of things. For instance, in Austin, I can write "4th and Congress to 49 and Grover by 3:30," and after 45-60 seconds, I would get information on the next bus going that direction and appropriate times. The service is free, provided you're in a text messaging plan with your cell provider. Otherwise, normal rates apply, which are 10 cents per message you send or receive. There is a demonstration of the service on the Dadnab site. Currently, the service is in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle. I attended a meeting this afternoon at the transit authority of Austin (Capitol Metro), where all this was laid out.
This is a great idea. I can see definite uses for this, like for instance, you're at the bus stop and want to know the next time for a route, but don't want to fight through the voice response system or you don't want to wait on hold for who knows how long. Instead, you can simply pull out your cellphone and send a text message for the information. Though it is not in many cities yet, there are plans to expand to other parts of the country, such places in the Northeast. Aside from the cost of a text message, for a blind person, the only things necessary are a cellphone and the software to access the phone, like Talks or Mobile Speak.
The Dadnab site has more information, including special numbers or instructions based on what carrier you use. Check it out and enjoy.
This is a great idea. I can see definite uses for this, like for instance, you're at the bus stop and want to know the next time for a route, but don't want to fight through the voice response system or you don't want to wait on hold for who knows how long. Instead, you can simply pull out your cellphone and send a text message for the information. Though it is not in many cities yet, there are plans to expand to other parts of the country, such places in the Northeast. Aside from the cost of a text message, for a blind person, the only things necessary are a cellphone and the software to access the phone, like Talks or Mobile Speak.
The Dadnab site has more information, including special numbers or instructions based on what carrier you use. Check it out and enjoy.
Wednesday, February 28
An amusing but possible career for the blind
Greetings. I received the following from a coworker and thought it appropriate to put here. This is a career that I've thought of and believe could work, especially with today's technology in tow. Picture this: you're sitting at the bar, drinking your favorite brew, taking notes on your note taker, while casually listening to the conversation of the person down the bar from you, and maybe even recording it with the digital recorder in your note taker, so as to have a backup and physical evidence. Meanwhile, you're secure in the knowledge that you won't be spotted as eavesdropping because--you're blind. Read on and consider the possibilities. Enjoy.
The Herald (UK)
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
I spy an MI5 career as the blind invisible man
By IAN HAMILTON
Am I invisible? Well, some days it appears that I am. There is a strange
phenomenon going on which either has to be exploited or investigated.
Now I'm not a scientist, but there is an extraordinary correlation
between how poor someone's sight is and how much they can be seen by the
general public. It's weird. It's like the poorer your sight becomes, the
harder it is for anyone to see you. Very slowly you fade away to
nothing. There is, perhaps, at best, just a faint outline of a person
moving through the crowd. The guide dog can be seen clearly, but the
person is invisible.
Once, I was sitting in the executive departure lounge at Glasgow Airport
(now, I'm not saying that to show off but I was put in the elite waiting
room by one of the airport staff who thought it would be helpful -
actually, I think she was just getting me out of the way) and for some
time I was alone, till one other traveller appeared.
The lounge was quiet, with only the faint crunching sound of a blind man
and his dog gorging themselves on free biscuits. (I wonder who supplied
them?) The other passenger then made a call on his mobile. "Hi, I'm at
Glasgow Airport. Yes, I'm completely alone."
advertisement
I screamed, "No! no! I'm here. Ya-hoo! Yahoo!", while bouncing up and
down on my seat.
He continued. "Yes, yes, I can speak freely," he said in a booming
voice.
"No! No! You can't speak freely, I'm here - look, see," I said while
figuratively slapping him repeatedly around the face.
He then proceeded to go into great detail about what football players he
would be buying and selling for his club. "I'm thinking of buying Jo
Bloggs for around 200 thousand - um, yes, as long as he gives up the
drugs and alcohol. Obviously, it would be good if his foot would grow
back, then he'll be the player for us. Selling - well, who the hell
would buy one of ours?" It was a Scottish Premier League chairman.
He plumped himself down next to me and confessed to his life
My instinct was to run around the room naked, falling over chairs and
tap dancing on the tables while whistling Dixie. Obviously, I didn't do
any of these. I sat quietly taking mental notes. Well, it is my job. He
was so near I could have reached out and touched him with my left hand.
What was he thinking? He was sitting only feet from a journalist. But
because I was blind he just couldn't see me. Some people just have to be
protected from themselves. No, I'm not going to embarrass him by giving
his name.
So, here's my idea. Stick with me on this one, it's good. How about the
blind spy? According to a charity for the blind, four out of five blind
people of working age are unemployed. A shocking statistic, I know, but
perhaps this could be a good way to get many of them back to work by
using our so-called natural skills. Being invisible and, of course, our
extraordinary hearing. Although I'm not so sure about my hearing.
Sometimes I become very deaf, particularly at home, for some strange
reason. "Ian, you couldn't do the dishes?" Answer: "Sorry, what was
that?" Another yell comes from the kitchen. "Ian, the bin needs
emptying." Answer: "Sorry, I didn't catch that."
We've got all the technology now. Talking mobile phones with camera,
infra-red object detector, digital recorder, colour detectors and
blind-friendly global positioning systems. We've got so much kit that
when we plug it in at night to do the charging the street lights dim.
A couple of years ago MI5 was going through a recruitment campaign
looking for more agents. It should have started looking around the blind
colleges and training centres - not Oxford and Cambridge. Apart from
being invisible, for some reason, those of the public who have the
special powers that can see us tend to be the mad, bad, criminally
insane and deranged. These types always feel the need to off-load all
their darkest secrets, as if somehow a blind person knowing them just
doesn't count.
Many years ago, I was approached by a man in a bar. He plumped himself
down uninvited and started to confess to me about his life of crime.
Armed robbery, receiving stolen goods, almost everything apart from
murder. If only I'd had a modern phone with a camera, I could have
secretly taken his photo, recorded his confession with my miniature
digital recorder and scanned the colour of his clothes using my colour
detector. Then I could have called the police, giving my GPS
co-ordinates, and maybe scooped myself a large reward. The alternative
is to try to escape. It's not easy trying to squeeze yourself and a
labrador out of the window in a disabled toilet, particularly when you
don't know where you're landing.
Even when a blind person can be seen, normal rules of security don't
apply. Before the recent tightening of security at airports, being blind
didn't appear to constitute any threat. I could walk through customs
with 10 kilos of crack cocaine under one arm, a box marked "bomb" under
the other one, and dragging a case with "swag" printed across it. But as
long as I had a white stick or a guide dog, I had some kind of blind
diplomatic immunity. If only David Blunkett were still Home Secretary he
could have implemented my army of blind spies.
Ian Hamilton reports on disability issues for BBC Scotland.
The Herald (UK)
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
I spy an MI5 career as the blind invisible man
By IAN HAMILTON
Am I invisible? Well, some days it appears that I am. There is a strange
phenomenon going on which either has to be exploited or investigated.
Now I'm not a scientist, but there is an extraordinary correlation
between how poor someone's sight is and how much they can be seen by the
general public. It's weird. It's like the poorer your sight becomes, the
harder it is for anyone to see you. Very slowly you fade away to
nothing. There is, perhaps, at best, just a faint outline of a person
moving through the crowd. The guide dog can be seen clearly, but the
person is invisible.
Once, I was sitting in the executive departure lounge at Glasgow Airport
(now, I'm not saying that to show off but I was put in the elite waiting
room by one of the airport staff who thought it would be helpful -
actually, I think she was just getting me out of the way) and for some
time I was alone, till one other traveller appeared.
The lounge was quiet, with only the faint crunching sound of a blind man
and his dog gorging themselves on free biscuits. (I wonder who supplied
them?) The other passenger then made a call on his mobile. "Hi, I'm at
Glasgow Airport. Yes, I'm completely alone."
advertisement
I screamed, "No! no! I'm here. Ya-hoo! Yahoo!", while bouncing up and
down on my seat.
He continued. "Yes, yes, I can speak freely," he said in a booming
voice.
"No! No! You can't speak freely, I'm here - look, see," I said while
figuratively slapping him repeatedly around the face.
He then proceeded to go into great detail about what football players he
would be buying and selling for his club. "I'm thinking of buying Jo
Bloggs for around 200 thousand - um, yes, as long as he gives up the
drugs and alcohol. Obviously, it would be good if his foot would grow
back, then he'll be the player for us. Selling - well, who the hell
would buy one of ours?" It was a Scottish Premier League chairman.
He plumped himself down next to me and confessed to his life
My instinct was to run around the room naked, falling over chairs and
tap dancing on the tables while whistling Dixie. Obviously, I didn't do
any of these. I sat quietly taking mental notes. Well, it is my job. He
was so near I could have reached out and touched him with my left hand.
What was he thinking? He was sitting only feet from a journalist. But
because I was blind he just couldn't see me. Some people just have to be
protected from themselves. No, I'm not going to embarrass him by giving
his name.
So, here's my idea. Stick with me on this one, it's good. How about the
blind spy? According to a charity for the blind, four out of five blind
people of working age are unemployed. A shocking statistic, I know, but
perhaps this could be a good way to get many of them back to work by
using our so-called natural skills. Being invisible and, of course, our
extraordinary hearing. Although I'm not so sure about my hearing.
Sometimes I become very deaf, particularly at home, for some strange
reason. "Ian, you couldn't do the dishes?" Answer: "Sorry, what was
that?" Another yell comes from the kitchen. "Ian, the bin needs
emptying." Answer: "Sorry, I didn't catch that."
We've got all the technology now. Talking mobile phones with camera,
infra-red object detector, digital recorder, colour detectors and
blind-friendly global positioning systems. We've got so much kit that
when we plug it in at night to do the charging the street lights dim.
A couple of years ago MI5 was going through a recruitment campaign
looking for more agents. It should have started looking around the blind
colleges and training centres - not Oxford and Cambridge. Apart from
being invisible, for some reason, those of the public who have the
special powers that can see us tend to be the mad, bad, criminally
insane and deranged. These types always feel the need to off-load all
their darkest secrets, as if somehow a blind person knowing them just
doesn't count.
Many years ago, I was approached by a man in a bar. He plumped himself
down uninvited and started to confess to me about his life of crime.
Armed robbery, receiving stolen goods, almost everything apart from
murder. If only I'd had a modern phone with a camera, I could have
secretly taken his photo, recorded his confession with my miniature
digital recorder and scanned the colour of his clothes using my colour
detector. Then I could have called the police, giving my GPS
co-ordinates, and maybe scooped myself a large reward. The alternative
is to try to escape. It's not easy trying to squeeze yourself and a
labrador out of the window in a disabled toilet, particularly when you
don't know where you're landing.
Even when a blind person can be seen, normal rules of security don't
apply. Before the recent tightening of security at airports, being blind
didn't appear to constitute any threat. I could walk through customs
with 10 kilos of crack cocaine under one arm, a box marked "bomb" under
the other one, and dragging a case with "swag" printed across it. But as
long as I had a white stick or a guide dog, I had some kind of blind
diplomatic immunity. If only David Blunkett were still Home Secretary he
could have implemented my army of blind spies.
Ian Hamilton reports on disability issues for BBC Scotland.
JAWS and Vista update
Greetings. For those interested, FS today released a public beta version of the JAWS compatible version for Windows Vista. If you don't want to get Vista right now, which would be a smart move since both mainstream and adaptive software/hardware companies haven't fully gotten their support for it yet, then you can use this update as a final release on Windows XP. Refer to the JAWS Headquarters What's New area for full details on what's new with XP and this new JAWS update. For those brave souls that want to try JAWS on Vista, bare in mind that this update will probably be made available in several betas before FS makes it a final release. Remember, that if you want to run JAWS on Vista when the version becomes a final release, you need to have 8.0 as well as an up to date SMA count. You also need to have an authorization key available. To check whether or not you have a key available, go to FS Activate. Finally, remember, as with any beta software, things may not work properly and there likely won't be any technical support for it. Enjoy, and feel fre to report back your findings and how JFW is working for you.
Saturday, February 3
update to a free screen reader
Greetings. Here's an announcement of another free screen reader that is open-source, so anyone can modify or suggest changes to it. Try at your own risk, but have fun. Please pardon any formatting errors. Enjoy.
Today I posted revision 315 of NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) to the NVDA website:
http://www.kulgan.net/nvda/
NonVisual Desktop Access is an entirely free (and open-source) screen reader for Windows XP and Windows Vista.
It does much more than Microsoft's Narator (including support for Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Outlook Express, Dos console windows, and much more).
I'm sure there are still bugs, and support for some applications could be a little better, but I personally now use NVDA as my day-to-day screen reader, and I know of others who are now starting to do the same.
Of course the only way for NVDA to grow and become better is for people to use it, and report bugs and suggest new features. Also, I am always interested in help from other programmers who have skills in either the Python programming language, or skills in programming with MSAA and other accessibility APIs.
There have been many changes since revision 164 including:
*Much improved responsiveness for sapi5 synths.
*Much improved support for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
*The addition of easy-to use dialogs, to configure many settings such as voice, pitch, rate, key echo, mouse navigation, object presentation and more.
*A built-in quick-start guide right in the NVDA user interface.
*Massive improvements to the NVDA user interface as far as focus issues are concerned.
*Password protection by saying stars when typing in to protected edit fields.
*All objects are reviewable so you are able to check the spelling of things as you navigate around.
*NVDA can report the groupbox that the object with focus is in (example: advanced page in system dialog, control pannel).
*Beeps are now used to notify the user of changes on progress bars (such as when loading a page in Internet Explorer or Firefox, copying a large file in Windows Explorer, or checking for new email in Outlook Express etc).
*New wave sounds are now used to denote startup, errors, crashes and exit, in NVDA. Previously the PC speaker was used.
*insert+s used to turn speech on and off, but now it toggles between 3 speech modes: talk, beeps and off. Talk is just normal speech, off is off, but beeps, is an idea that came from the Dos screen reader, ASAP. This mode plays a 5ms 10000HZ tone (very high and very short) each time an item of speech is supposed to happen. It is very responsive, and it allows you to deal with the situation when you are doing something that is constantly changing the screen, as in millions of files are scrolling up a dos console, or perhaps you are running a setup program that is constantly telling you what file it is copying etc. If you switch to the beeps speech mode, you only have to wait until the flood of beeps stop and you know the task is finished. This is much faster than having to keep pressing control, or waiting for all the speech to finish.
*Reading of new text on Dos consoles has been much improved. Also NVDA no longer crashes when pressing control+c or exiting a dos console.
*Improved the reading of objects under the mouse more so that hopefully NVDA will not freeze if using the mouse to close a window.
*Improved responsiveness and memory management in some parts of NVDA. Most noticeably NVDA no longer will sometimes freeze up for a second or two when closing some applications.
*When leaving the menu bar or context menu of an application, NVDA now moves back to the correct place of focus and reports it.
*Removed the sapi4 driver because it was causing trouble on a lot of systems, plus it has to be rewritten to solve some problems to do with threading. Now NVDA only supports sapi5.
*Removed the Viavoice driver due to licencing issues.
*Added a say 'cap' before capitals option to NVDA. When on (check the checkbox in voice settings) the word 'cap' will be prepended to any single capital letter spoken. This means either when typing a capital letter with sayTypedCharacters on, or when arrowing on to a capital letter. This was added because some synthesizers may not support pitch and therefore have no way of denoting capital letters.
*Caps lock and Num lock now speak when being turned on and off.
*NVDA no longer hides its user interface on startup by default. If you want it to hide by default, check the "Hide user interface on startup" checkbox in the User Interface settings dialog on the preferences menu.
*Added an option to automatically save the current configuration on exit. (Found in the User Interface settings dialog)
*The NVDA interface now contains a navigatable text control in the main part of its window, which contains a quick-start document explaining how the User interface works, and also documents many useful NVDA key strokes.
*Added a script to report the title of the active window (insert+t). Like speak title in many other screen readers.
*The navigator where am I script (insert+numpadAdd) now starts from the object that is a parent to the current navigator object, rather than starting from the actual current navigator object. This is to make it quicker to find out where you are since you can already report the current navigator object with insert+numpad5. The script now also says the word 'in' before each object to separate the objects more clearly.
*Added a script to report the dimentions and location (in pixles)of the current navigator object (shift+insert+numpad5)
Today I posted revision 315 of NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) to the NVDA website:
http://www.kulgan.net/nvda/
NonVisual Desktop Access is an entirely free (and open-source) screen reader for Windows XP and Windows Vista.
It does much more than Microsoft's Narator (including support for Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Outlook Express, Dos console windows, and much more).
I'm sure there are still bugs, and support for some applications could be a little better, but I personally now use NVDA as my day-to-day screen reader, and I know of others who are now starting to do the same.
Of course the only way for NVDA to grow and become better is for people to use it, and report bugs and suggest new features. Also, I am always interested in help from other programmers who have skills in either the Python programming language, or skills in programming with MSAA and other accessibility APIs.
There have been many changes since revision 164 including:
*Much improved responsiveness for sapi5 synths.
*Much improved support for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
*The addition of easy-to use dialogs, to configure many settings such as voice, pitch, rate, key echo, mouse navigation, object presentation and more.
*A built-in quick-start guide right in the NVDA user interface.
*Massive improvements to the NVDA user interface as far as focus issues are concerned.
*Password protection by saying stars when typing in to protected edit fields.
*All objects are reviewable so you are able to check the spelling of things as you navigate around.
*NVDA can report the groupbox that the object with focus is in (example: advanced page in system dialog, control pannel).
*Beeps are now used to notify the user of changes on progress bars (such as when loading a page in Internet Explorer or Firefox, copying a large file in Windows Explorer, or checking for new email in Outlook Express etc).
*New wave sounds are now used to denote startup, errors, crashes and exit, in NVDA. Previously the PC speaker was used.
*insert+s used to turn speech on and off, but now it toggles between 3 speech modes: talk, beeps and off. Talk is just normal speech, off is off, but beeps, is an idea that came from the Dos screen reader, ASAP. This mode plays a 5ms 10000HZ tone (very high and very short) each time an item of speech is supposed to happen. It is very responsive, and it allows you to deal with the situation when you are doing something that is constantly changing the screen, as in millions of files are scrolling up a dos console, or perhaps you are running a setup program that is constantly telling you what file it is copying etc. If you switch to the beeps speech mode, you only have to wait until the flood of beeps stop and you know the task is finished. This is much faster than having to keep pressing control, or waiting for all the speech to finish.
*Reading of new text on Dos consoles has been much improved. Also NVDA no longer crashes when pressing control+c or exiting a dos console.
*Improved the reading of objects under the mouse more so that hopefully NVDA will not freeze if using the mouse to close a window.
*Improved responsiveness and memory management in some parts of NVDA. Most noticeably NVDA no longer will sometimes freeze up for a second or two when closing some applications.
*When leaving the menu bar or context menu of an application, NVDA now moves back to the correct place of focus and reports it.
*Removed the sapi4 driver because it was causing trouble on a lot of systems, plus it has to be rewritten to solve some problems to do with threading. Now NVDA only supports sapi5.
*Removed the Viavoice driver due to licencing issues.
*Added a say 'cap' before capitals option to NVDA. When on (check the checkbox in voice settings) the word 'cap' will be prepended to any single capital letter spoken. This means either when typing a capital letter with sayTypedCharacters on, or when arrowing on to a capital letter. This was added because some synthesizers may not support pitch and therefore have no way of denoting capital letters.
*Caps lock and Num lock now speak when being turned on and off.
*NVDA no longer hides its user interface on startup by default. If you want it to hide by default, check the "Hide user interface on startup" checkbox in the User Interface settings dialog on the preferences menu.
*Added an option to automatically save the current configuration on exit. (Found in the User Interface settings dialog)
*The NVDA interface now contains a navigatable text control in the main part of its window, which contains a quick-start document explaining how the User interface works, and also documents many useful NVDA key strokes.
*Added a script to report the title of the active window (insert+t). Like speak title in many other screen readers.
*The navigator where am I script (insert+numpadAdd) now starts from the object that is a parent to the current navigator object, rather than starting from the actual current navigator object. This is to make it quicker to find out where you are since you can already report the current navigator object with insert+numpad5. The script now also says the word 'in' before each object to separate the objects more clearly.
*Added a script to report the dimentions and location (in pixles)of the current navigator object (shift+insert+numpad5)
Wednesday, January 31
JAWS and Windows Vista
Greetings. For those interested in how JAWS is used with Windows Vista, then download or stream the following FS Cast episode 2: Windows Vista with JAWS. I've just downloaded it to my computer and its about 30 MB in size. I'm off to check it out. Enjoy.
Tuesday, January 30
Exciting offer from Book Share
Greetings. I was listening to a live broadcast for the National Association of Blind Students’ Student Seminar a couple of days ago, and heard an item that might interest some readers of this blog. Until March 1 I believe, Book Share is offering the waving of their $25 set up fee for new subscribers, provided you mention that you heard the offer at the NABS Student Seminar. This brings the first year cost down from $75 to $50, with the usual $50 fee each year. Simply
email support at BookShare dot org,
and tell them that you’re interested in becoming a new subscriber and want to take advantage of this offer.
To date, they have nearly 31,000 books ranging from best sellers, to self help, to technical, to textbooks, and all points in between. They also offer many of the newspapers from NFB Newsline in DAISY form. You need to have a program or product that will read DAISY files, but many of them do these days, such as FS Reader from Freedom Scientific, the Kurzweil 1000, and some of the portable reading devices such as the Book Port and Book Courier. In other words, now is a great time to join. Traditionally, they’ve only made this offer during the summer convention season in June and July, but don’t wait until then—jump on it now!
For more information on becoming a member of Book Share, refer to the page on individual memberships.
email support at BookShare dot org,
and tell them that you’re interested in becoming a new subscriber and want to take advantage of this offer.
To date, they have nearly 31,000 books ranging from best sellers, to self help, to technical, to textbooks, and all points in between. They also offer many of the newspapers from NFB Newsline in DAISY form. You need to have a program or product that will read DAISY files, but many of them do these days, such as FS Reader from Freedom Scientific, the Kurzweil 1000, and some of the portable reading devices such as the Book Port and Book Courier. In other words, now is a great time to join. Traditionally, they’ve only made this offer during the summer convention season in June and July, but don’t wait until then—jump on it now!
For more information on becoming a member of Book Share, refer to the page on individual memberships.
Sunday, January 28
The future of Windows
Greetings. Well, its almost here. Windows Vista has been slated for consumer release on January 30, which by my calendar is this Tuesday. If you are interested in such things, the weekly Internet show Main Menu, on ACB Radio, will be taking a comprehensive look at Vista. The program airs this Tuesday evening in the States at 7 CST and will be a rare 3 hour show. They will have guests from Microsoft, Serotek (makers of Freedom Box) and GW Micro (Window-Eyes), that will review Vista from an accessibility perspective. To listen, go to the
Mainstream page at ACB Radio,
and look under the Listen heading on that page. Then just click on the listen link for your player of choice. If you miss it, then you can catch the replay on the Mainstream channel next weekend. Or, after next Sunday, check out the
Main Menu On-Demand archives.
Incidentally, if you want to stay with XP Home or media Center for just a little while longer, Microsoft has said that they will still offer tech support for them until April of 2009. I believe the support for XP Professional extends until 2011. So, if you don’t want to rush out right away and grab Vista, then you’ve got some time.
If, on the other hand, you do want to get Vista soon, its probably a good bet to wait at least until the summer, in order to let all the initial bugs with your adaptive software to be worked out. Also, to let Microsoft patch anything from the start. From a piece I read earlier on a blog, it looks like Microsoft will be issuing some round of patches for Vista in March, aside from their normal monthly patches which has become known as “patch Tuesday.”
If you’re computer’s more than 2 years old, do yourself a favor and buy a new system. Think of it this way: which is more costly: buying a new computer, or spending lots of money trying to upgrade your old machine for a totally new operating system? Besides, if you buy a new one, you can eliminate some things you used to depend upon, like floppy drives.
Whenever you do get a new machine and want to transfer your data from the old to the new, check out the
Windows Easy Transfer utility for Vista.
It might make things easier for you.
It’s going to be interesting to watch the various media reports over the next few months on Vista. It will also be interesting to hear how Freedom Scientific plans to have JAWS support Vista. On the last big Main Menu show of a new operating system, which was Windows XP back in 2001, Freedom Scientific was part of it. This time though, for Vista, they are not. They have elected to put out their JAWS support for Vista in the form of their new podcast, called
FS Cast.
It will be different and kind of odd not to hear them on the Main Menu show this Tuesday. I’m not sure what to make of this decision by them. On one hand, its kind of exclusive for them to not put out their support in the public. After all, Main Menu has become one of the benchmark technology shows in the blindness community. If an Assistive Technology company has a new or an updated product, then they’re likely to use Main Menu as publicity for that product. Perhaps Freedom Scientific is waiting until CSUN in March, or the summer convention season in July, to publicly unveil their support for Vista.
Any way you slice it, the next few months will be interesting to watch, from a mainstream technology perspective as far as how well Vista will perform, to an assistive one. It should be fun.
Mainstream page at ACB Radio,
and look under the Listen heading on that page. Then just click on the listen link for your player of choice. If you miss it, then you can catch the replay on the Mainstream channel next weekend. Or, after next Sunday, check out the
Main Menu On-Demand archives.
Incidentally, if you want to stay with XP Home or media Center for just a little while longer, Microsoft has said that they will still offer tech support for them until April of 2009. I believe the support for XP Professional extends until 2011. So, if you don’t want to rush out right away and grab Vista, then you’ve got some time.
If, on the other hand, you do want to get Vista soon, its probably a good bet to wait at least until the summer, in order to let all the initial bugs with your adaptive software to be worked out. Also, to let Microsoft patch anything from the start. From a piece I read earlier on a blog, it looks like Microsoft will be issuing some round of patches for Vista in March, aside from their normal monthly patches which has become known as “patch Tuesday.”
If you’re computer’s more than 2 years old, do yourself a favor and buy a new system. Think of it this way: which is more costly: buying a new computer, or spending lots of money trying to upgrade your old machine for a totally new operating system? Besides, if you buy a new one, you can eliminate some things you used to depend upon, like floppy drives.
Whenever you do get a new machine and want to transfer your data from the old to the new, check out the
Windows Easy Transfer utility for Vista.
It might make things easier for you.
It’s going to be interesting to watch the various media reports over the next few months on Vista. It will also be interesting to hear how Freedom Scientific plans to have JAWS support Vista. On the last big Main Menu show of a new operating system, which was Windows XP back in 2001, Freedom Scientific was part of it. This time though, for Vista, they are not. They have elected to put out their JAWS support for Vista in the form of their new podcast, called
FS Cast.
It will be different and kind of odd not to hear them on the Main Menu show this Tuesday. I’m not sure what to make of this decision by them. On one hand, its kind of exclusive for them to not put out their support in the public. After all, Main Menu has become one of the benchmark technology shows in the blindness community. If an Assistive Technology company has a new or an updated product, then they’re likely to use Main Menu as publicity for that product. Perhaps Freedom Scientific is waiting until CSUN in March, or the summer convention season in July, to publicly unveil their support for Vista.
Any way you slice it, the next few months will be interesting to watch, from a mainstream technology perspective as far as how well Vista will perform, to an assistive one. It should be fun.
Wednesday, January 17
Austin weather update
Greetings. Well, its day 3 of the winter storm, and like yesterday and Monday, there’s no work. We’re done with the winter storm/freeze warning, but now there’s a winter advisory until 7, whatever that means. Basically, the roads are still icy in many places and its still cold. The temperature is supposed to get up to 35, so at least we can start melting away some of the ice. The problem though is that the city is running low, or has already run out, of the sand and other de-icing material they used in the last couple of days. In other words, anything that’s icy now or may get icy tonight, won’t be able to be de-iced until they get more materials in. I wonder, what are the chances that the very truck that’s bringing more sand to the Austin area for the roadways, ends up spinning out and crashing? Forgive the morbid thought, but that sounds like a possible Darwin award.
From my perspective, we were told that the state offices would open at 1 today. Upon checking the Capitol Metro (or transit service) website, I learned that the busses were running on a “reduced schedule,” but I couldn’t find any definition of what that meant. I tried calling the Cap Metro number, but got busy signals each time. Since this is my first real winter in Austin, I don’t yet know what “reduced schedules” are. Do they mean Saturday schedules? Sunday schedules? Or, in the words of one of my coworkers, does the bus just come once an hour? I have no idea. The Saturday and Sunday departure times for where I catch the bus are about 20 minutes apart. However, remember, we’re still talking about temps around 32 or 33. Who wants to stand outside for 20 or 30 minutes, or longer, in 32 degree weather? I sure don’t.
I talked to my boss about this and we wondered if I just go take that shot in the dark, banking on the fact that the bus would stop when it did come. However, if I missed it, after waiting who knows how long then do I wait for the next one which might be an hour away, or go home? It’s a perplexing problem. Times like these might make me wish I had a car that I could drive in, but then the issue would be icy roads and bridges. Fortunately though, I soon learned that the message on the phone line for weather closures, had been updated and all offices were closed for the day.
All this will probably be over by tomorrow, since the temp is supposed to get into the upper thirties. Then again, since there are no materials for de-icing, who knows.
One more question: since there’s a chance we might go back to work tomorrow and have at a least a day and a half or two days of classes for the week, will students still complain about going to class, or try to get out of going to class?
From my perspective, we were told that the state offices would open at 1 today. Upon checking the Capitol Metro (or transit service) website, I learned that the busses were running on a “reduced schedule,” but I couldn’t find any definition of what that meant. I tried calling the Cap Metro number, but got busy signals each time. Since this is my first real winter in Austin, I don’t yet know what “reduced schedules” are. Do they mean Saturday schedules? Sunday schedules? Or, in the words of one of my coworkers, does the bus just come once an hour? I have no idea. The Saturday and Sunday departure times for where I catch the bus are about 20 minutes apart. However, remember, we’re still talking about temps around 32 or 33. Who wants to stand outside for 20 or 30 minutes, or longer, in 32 degree weather? I sure don’t.
I talked to my boss about this and we wondered if I just go take that shot in the dark, banking on the fact that the bus would stop when it did come. However, if I missed it, after waiting who knows how long then do I wait for the next one which might be an hour away, or go home? It’s a perplexing problem. Times like these might make me wish I had a car that I could drive in, but then the issue would be icy roads and bridges. Fortunately though, I soon learned that the message on the phone line for weather closures, had been updated and all offices were closed for the day.
All this will probably be over by tomorrow, since the temp is supposed to get into the upper thirties. Then again, since there are no materials for de-icing, who knows.
One more question: since there’s a chance we might go back to work tomorrow and have at a least a day and a half or two days of classes for the week, will students still complain about going to class, or try to get out of going to class?
Tuesday, January 16
Ice and sleet in Austin?
Greetings. Well, its day 2 of the big Austin ice/freezing rain event. Word around town is that this doesn’t happen that often, like maybe once every few years. However, it has managed to shut down the city for 2 days running, and perhaps more according to the news. First Dallas got it (perhaps someone else had it before Dallas, but since I’m still very plugged into the major happenings in Dallas, that’s where I’m starting from), and now Austin and Central Texas has it. I still stand by the “10:00 back down theory” that I mentioned in December of 2005. Word of the pending bad weather started last Friday, and as we went through the weekend, I began to suspect that things would shut down come Monday. I didn’t figure that it would be for 2 or 3 days though., I don’t remember anything like this happening in Dallas, where the city was essentially shut down for several days. I do remember hearing of some ice or snow storms that hit in the mid or early eighties that shut things down though.
Anyway, everyone’s at home in their warm houses or apartments. The outside temperature is hovering around 32 or so, but its going to dip down below that point over night and word is that more freezing rain and sleet is coming. We’ve got a freeze or winter storm warning that currently goes through noon tomorrow.
Even though yesterday was a Holiday, we were supposed to go into work and have a semi-normal class day. However, those that did go in were sent home at 11. I find it funny and interesting that a majority of the blind staff were able to go into work, but there was a number of sighted staff that did not. Logic dictates that since the blind take busses, and thus have more reliable transit than the sighted who have to drive in this mess, some of whom come from areas with lots of icy roads. But its still funny.
Another aspect of this event that I find interesting is that the residential staff, or staff that handles activities inside the Center outside of business hours, are staying at the Center. I suppose that they were warned ahead of time and could plan accordingly. I guess all of this is standard stuff, but I’ve never had to deal with it before. Until now, I’ve simply not gone to work on bad weather days and that was it. I never thought of the implications in a rehab training environment, much less at a training center where all the students and even some staff stay on the premises.
I went outside a couple of hours ago to check things out and see how icy or snowy it was at my complex. There was some ice and sleet on the ground, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Though I’m not willing to chance that good fortune and go to much further with those other possible icy spots and patches. It was probably more icy this morning before cars got out and drove around.
It’s been nice having some days off, but I think that by the time this is over, I’ll be ready to go back to work and get back to normal. Until then, I’ve got a TV with digital Cable, a high speed Internet connection, and a warm apartment. If you’re in the Central Texas area, then stay warm. If not, then well, perhaps you’re lucky, :)
Anyway, everyone’s at home in their warm houses or apartments. The outside temperature is hovering around 32 or so, but its going to dip down below that point over night and word is that more freezing rain and sleet is coming. We’ve got a freeze or winter storm warning that currently goes through noon tomorrow.
Even though yesterday was a Holiday, we were supposed to go into work and have a semi-normal class day. However, those that did go in were sent home at 11. I find it funny and interesting that a majority of the blind staff were able to go into work, but there was a number of sighted staff that did not. Logic dictates that since the blind take busses, and thus have more reliable transit than the sighted who have to drive in this mess, some of whom come from areas with lots of icy roads. But its still funny.
Another aspect of this event that I find interesting is that the residential staff, or staff that handles activities inside the Center outside of business hours, are staying at the Center. I suppose that they were warned ahead of time and could plan accordingly. I guess all of this is standard stuff, but I’ve never had to deal with it before. Until now, I’ve simply not gone to work on bad weather days and that was it. I never thought of the implications in a rehab training environment, much less at a training center where all the students and even some staff stay on the premises.
I went outside a couple of hours ago to check things out and see how icy or snowy it was at my complex. There was some ice and sleet on the ground, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Though I’m not willing to chance that good fortune and go to much further with those other possible icy spots and patches. It was probably more icy this morning before cars got out and drove around.
It’s been nice having some days off, but I think that by the time this is over, I’ll be ready to go back to work and get back to normal. Until then, I’ve got a TV with digital Cable, a high speed Internet connection, and a warm apartment. If you’re in the Central Texas area, then stay warm. If not, then well, perhaps you’re lucky, :)
Friday, January 5
More Vista stories
Greetings. In going through the long list of month old New York Times Technology stories that appear on their RSS feed, I found two that are related to the upcoming consumer release of Windows Vista, and might be worth the read. Here they are:
Looks, Locks, and Lacks. Okay, so this isn't the name of the article. But it is a phrase the article uses and I liked the sound of it. This one covers some of the possible plusses and minuses of Windows Vista.
Vista is ready. Are you? This article covers some of the upgrade requirements if you want to upgrade to Vista on your current computer. If your system is 3 or 4 years old, it might be easier to buy a new computer, which is what I'm going to do most likely. Besides, if you have it custom made, as many manufacturers will do if you order the computer from them directly, then you can cut out things that you used to use, such as floppy drives.
Though this final entry is not directly related to Vista, it does cover a software suite that will likely be in your Vista computer. From Paul Thurrott, the same reviewer who did that multi-part review of Windows Vista, comes his review of Office 2007. Like the Vista review, this one has been divided into 5 parts and will likely have additional sections to them. He has just started this one, so bookmark it so you can check back on his progress. I'm guessing that he will fill in the gaps over the next few weeks.
Enjoy and happy reading.
Looks, Locks, and Lacks. Okay, so this isn't the name of the article. But it is a phrase the article uses and I liked the sound of it. This one covers some of the possible plusses and minuses of Windows Vista.
Vista is ready. Are you? This article covers some of the upgrade requirements if you want to upgrade to Vista on your current computer. If your system is 3 or 4 years old, it might be easier to buy a new computer, which is what I'm going to do most likely. Besides, if you have it custom made, as many manufacturers will do if you order the computer from them directly, then you can cut out things that you used to use, such as floppy drives.
Though this final entry is not directly related to Vista, it does cover a software suite that will likely be in your Vista computer. From Paul Thurrott, the same reviewer who did that multi-part review of Windows Vista, comes his review of Office 2007. Like the Vista review, this one has been divided into 5 parts and will likely have additional sections to them. He has just started this one, so bookmark it so you can check back on his progress. I'm guessing that he will fill in the gaps over the next few weeks.
Enjoy and happy reading.
Friday, December 22
Exciting news from NFB Newsline
Greetings. Here’s an exciting announcement regarding accessing TV listings on Newsline. Incidentally, the NFB is using the same TV listing service that I’ve just switched to, for whatever that’s worth. Anyway, the system is very easy to use and is customizable to offer information on specific channels. In addition, you can move forward and back through the time slots, in the usual sentence navigation way on Newsline. You can navigate as far as a full day or more later than the time you started with. Also, if you’re traveling and don’t want to change your home TV channel setup, then you can use a temporary setup, which is very cool. I’ll still look up listings on the computer, but perhaps not as much when I start using this method more and more. Enjoy.
Breakthrough Technology Provides TV Listings to the Blind
Wonderful new Technology!
Free, On-Demand Service Available to Millions
Baltimore, Maryland (December 20, 2006): The National Federation of the Blind has partnered with Tribune Media Services to add television listings to NFB-NEWSLINE®, the nation's largest on-demand news service for the blind. Beginning today, blind and visually impaired Americans will have independent access to their local TV listings, all in one place, only a telephone call away.
Eric Duffy, a Columbus, Ohio native and blind parent of two children, said: "It is so important to find quality television programming for young children. Now I can choose appropriate TV shows for my children, just like any other sighted parent."
Garrick Scott, of Atlanta, Georgia, hosts a weekly sports talk show. "Watching sports is a huge part of my life, and this new capability makes it infinitely easier to find what I want to watch," Scott said.
By simply entering the zip code, source of TV reception, and time zone, blind users will have quick and easy access to their local TV listings. The listings are interactive, as the user can navigate and choose between date, time, and/or channel listings. After a user enters the local zip code, he or she is presented with a list of cable and satellite providers in the area. The user can also indicate the use of a television antenna.
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind said: "The sheer volume of information that blind persons will now have access to is astonishing. Finally, blind television viewers can find out what's on any channel, at any time, and within seconds. "
Over 50,000 NFB-NEWSLINE® subscribers already enjoy the free electronic newspaper service which carries 242 newspapers and magazines to 41 states and the District of Columbia. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and AARP The Magazine are among the many national and local newspapers offered. Subscribers have access twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, through a local or toll-free telephone number.
NFB-NEWSLINE® uses the Zap2it television listings, a product of Tribune Media Services and the leading source of entertainment listings in the country.
Individuals who are unable to read print due to a physical disability are eligible for this free service. To register or to request more information, call the National Federation of the Blind at (866) 504-7300, or visit them online at
http://www.nfbnewsline.org/
Breakthrough Technology Provides TV Listings to the Blind
Wonderful new Technology!
Free, On-Demand Service Available to Millions
Baltimore, Maryland (December 20, 2006): The National Federation of the Blind has partnered with Tribune Media Services to add television listings to NFB-NEWSLINE®, the nation's largest on-demand news service for the blind. Beginning today, blind and visually impaired Americans will have independent access to their local TV listings, all in one place, only a telephone call away.
Eric Duffy, a Columbus, Ohio native and blind parent of two children, said: "It is so important to find quality television programming for young children. Now I can choose appropriate TV shows for my children, just like any other sighted parent."
Garrick Scott, of Atlanta, Georgia, hosts a weekly sports talk show. "Watching sports is a huge part of my life, and this new capability makes it infinitely easier to find what I want to watch," Scott said.
By simply entering the zip code, source of TV reception, and time zone, blind users will have quick and easy access to their local TV listings. The listings are interactive, as the user can navigate and choose between date, time, and/or channel listings. After a user enters the local zip code, he or she is presented with a list of cable and satellite providers in the area. The user can also indicate the use of a television antenna.
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind said: "The sheer volume of information that blind persons will now have access to is astonishing. Finally, blind television viewers can find out what's on any channel, at any time, and within seconds. "
Over 50,000 NFB-NEWSLINE® subscribers already enjoy the free electronic newspaper service which carries 242 newspapers and magazines to 41 states and the District of Columbia. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and AARP The Magazine are among the many national and local newspapers offered. Subscribers have access twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, through a local or toll-free telephone number.
NFB-NEWSLINE® uses the Zap2it television listings, a product of Tribune Media Services and the leading source of entertainment listings in the country.
Individuals who are unable to read print due to a physical disability are eligible for this free service. To register or to request more information, call the National Federation of the Blind at (866) 504-7300, or visit them online at
http://www.nfbnewsline.org/
Monday, December 18
Follow up on yesterday's review
Greetings. Another cool thing jumped to mind today about AVG Internet Security. I don't know if this is true for all of the AVG line of products, since I haven't used anything other than the Net security package, but it wouldn't surprise me. After updating itself with new virus or spyware definitions, AVG will do an automatic scan of the computer to make sure its not infected or afflicted by any of the new viruses or spyware. This is something that I'm pretty sure Norton never did, at least not in the regular home consumer edition. That helps me sleep better at night, to think that my security software is double checking the computer after updating itself. As a coworker of mine often says, "Wonderful!"
Sunday, December 17
Review of firewall and security software
Greetings again. Here’s a very raw and very brief review that I sent a friend on firewall and security software. I finally had had enough with Norton, and several weeks ago decided to try out some other software that I had heard of. Granted, this overview might not meet the qualities and standards for CNET or a computer magazine, but here it is anyway. Who knows, this might help someone else in the same circumstance. I’ll place links to the various software packages at the end. Enjoy.
Sure thing. Here are some additional thoughts based on what I've seen over the past few days. I've installed and uninstalled several different programs to see how well they would work and how I liked them. Granted, I didn't use the program for very long, since I was curious how the others looked and stacked up, but here's some initial impressions, along with my choice.
F-Secure. Having only read the review and with no other prior experience, I didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. I was able to get much of the information about the product's security controls, such as virus protection, firewall status, antispam status, etc. On the down side, much of the information was in list views. This was good since it was accessible to me. What I couldn't figure out was how to get in and make changes to preferences or settings for doing different things, like handling viruses, setting firewall levels, and so forth. For what it does, it looked like a great product, but the inability to change the preferences or settings lost a few points in my book.
Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare. Out of the programs I tested, this was by far the cheapest. If obtained from Microsoft it is $49.95, if obtained from Costco, it is $32.99, or through January 1, there's an additional $20 discount. Going into my evaluations, I figured that this might be the one I would go for since it was good on the pocketbook. As with F-Secure, OneCare was very accessible. It tended to use web page like environments, where you could tab between various links for different things, like antivirus, firewall, computer maintenance, and so forth. The settings were accessible in a dialog box, which was better than F-Secure, from my limited testing. Over all, I really liked this product, and if I was not looking for something with spam filtering, then OneCare might very well have been the one I would have gone with. However, since I can get around 150 or 200, or more, spam emails a day, I was really looking for something to filter those messages, or at least identify them. A friend told me that there very well might be a spam filter in OneCare somewhere (she initially got me interested in it since she uses it), however she didn't know where it was or how it could be accessed. There are times you can find some nifty features in products, software, or websites if you only dig around a little. Anyway, if not for the lack of spam filtering, I would have gone with OneCare. It also has a sweet of computer maintenance features to it, that will clean up, defrag, and otherwise maintain your hard drive about once a month. Though this isn't a must have for me, it was definitely cool to see in a product.
AVG Internet Security. This was the last program I tried. The interface is very accessible, presenting most things in a dialog box format but it also has a menu bar. The installation and initial configuration were very accessible too, keeping the same dialog box approach. AVG has everything I'm looking for, including virus protection, a firewall, regular system scans for viruses and updating itself automatically, and spam filtering. It also can detect and remove spyware in addition to viruses. I found this last nugget particularly interesting. I'll still run Add-Aware or Spybot regularly to keep my computer covered and free of spyware, but its interesting to see that included in a product. All of this is very accessible. There's a spot in AVG, called the control center I believe, where everything is presented in a list, and if you hit the applications key on an item, it brings up a context sensitive menu with specific options relating to that item. I'm only a couple of days into the trial for AVG, but it looks like it wins the battle of the security software. AVG is the most expensive among the programs I tried, priced at about $70, but then again, so was Norton's Net Security. And besides, one could argue that you get what you pay for.
I should say again that I'm probably not the best reviewer of software there is, and I probably didn't evaluate long enough to make me credible. However, I was concerned with accessibility and making sure the packages had what I was looking for. The one thing that Norton's Antispam had that I absolutely loved was that it put an item in the applications menu called Norton Antispam. If there was ever a message that was identified as spam and wasn't, or vise versa, I could go into that Antispam item on the application key, and correct Norton's mistake. None of these products had anything like this. However, after creating some specific filters from the AVG identification of messages that were spam or had a virus, all of my spam and virus messages go into their own folder now. This was a major thing for me in my search, since its disheartening to open your Inbox after a day or two of not checking it, and to know that 85% of the messages in the inbox itself are spam. I'd rather all those messages go into a separate folder.
Addition: Incidentally, I'm still using AVG's Internet Security since I first wrote this review, and I still love it as much as when I wrote the review. I was poking around in its Control Center this morning, and found that it had isolated over 400 viruses in its Virus Vault, and several pieces of spyware in a similar storage area. I never looked to see how many viruses Norton had isolated, mainly because it was too daunting and complicated. The fact that AVG is still working just as hard during a trial as if I had already bought the program is a great sign. Before I leave for the Christmas break, I'm going to go ahead and get that package.
Finally, all of the products I checked out have trial periods. For AVG and F-Secure, its 30 days, but for Windows Live OneCare, its 90 days. Incidentally, Microsoft has decided to put AVG's free antivirus solution in the upcoming Windows Vista release, if that tells you anything.
Here are links to the software mentioned in this review:
F-Secure
Windows Live OneCare
AVG Internet Security
Sure thing. Here are some additional thoughts based on what I've seen over the past few days. I've installed and uninstalled several different programs to see how well they would work and how I liked them. Granted, I didn't use the program for very long, since I was curious how the others looked and stacked up, but here's some initial impressions, along with my choice.
F-Secure. Having only read the review and with no other prior experience, I didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. I was able to get much of the information about the product's security controls, such as virus protection, firewall status, antispam status, etc. On the down side, much of the information was in list views. This was good since it was accessible to me. What I couldn't figure out was how to get in and make changes to preferences or settings for doing different things, like handling viruses, setting firewall levels, and so forth. For what it does, it looked like a great product, but the inability to change the preferences or settings lost a few points in my book.
Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare. Out of the programs I tested, this was by far the cheapest. If obtained from Microsoft it is $49.95, if obtained from Costco, it is $32.99, or through January 1, there's an additional $20 discount. Going into my evaluations, I figured that this might be the one I would go for since it was good on the pocketbook. As with F-Secure, OneCare was very accessible. It tended to use web page like environments, where you could tab between various links for different things, like antivirus, firewall, computer maintenance, and so forth. The settings were accessible in a dialog box, which was better than F-Secure, from my limited testing. Over all, I really liked this product, and if I was not looking for something with spam filtering, then OneCare might very well have been the one I would have gone with. However, since I can get around 150 or 200, or more, spam emails a day, I was really looking for something to filter those messages, or at least identify them. A friend told me that there very well might be a spam filter in OneCare somewhere (she initially got me interested in it since she uses it), however she didn't know where it was or how it could be accessed. There are times you can find some nifty features in products, software, or websites if you only dig around a little. Anyway, if not for the lack of spam filtering, I would have gone with OneCare. It also has a sweet of computer maintenance features to it, that will clean up, defrag, and otherwise maintain your hard drive about once a month. Though this isn't a must have for me, it was definitely cool to see in a product.
AVG Internet Security. This was the last program I tried. The interface is very accessible, presenting most things in a dialog box format but it also has a menu bar. The installation and initial configuration were very accessible too, keeping the same dialog box approach. AVG has everything I'm looking for, including virus protection, a firewall, regular system scans for viruses and updating itself automatically, and spam filtering. It also can detect and remove spyware in addition to viruses. I found this last nugget particularly interesting. I'll still run Add-Aware or Spybot regularly to keep my computer covered and free of spyware, but its interesting to see that included in a product. All of this is very accessible. There's a spot in AVG, called the control center I believe, where everything is presented in a list, and if you hit the applications key on an item, it brings up a context sensitive menu with specific options relating to that item. I'm only a couple of days into the trial for AVG, but it looks like it wins the battle of the security software. AVG is the most expensive among the programs I tried, priced at about $70, but then again, so was Norton's Net Security. And besides, one could argue that you get what you pay for.
I should say again that I'm probably not the best reviewer of software there is, and I probably didn't evaluate long enough to make me credible. However, I was concerned with accessibility and making sure the packages had what I was looking for. The one thing that Norton's Antispam had that I absolutely loved was that it put an item in the applications menu called Norton Antispam. If there was ever a message that was identified as spam and wasn't, or vise versa, I could go into that Antispam item on the application key, and correct Norton's mistake. None of these products had anything like this. However, after creating some specific filters from the AVG identification of messages that were spam or had a virus, all of my spam and virus messages go into their own folder now. This was a major thing for me in my search, since its disheartening to open your Inbox after a day or two of not checking it, and to know that 85% of the messages in the inbox itself are spam. I'd rather all those messages go into a separate folder.
Addition: Incidentally, I'm still using AVG's Internet Security since I first wrote this review, and I still love it as much as when I wrote the review. I was poking around in its Control Center this morning, and found that it had isolated over 400 viruses in its Virus Vault, and several pieces of spyware in a similar storage area. I never looked to see how many viruses Norton had isolated, mainly because it was too daunting and complicated. The fact that AVG is still working just as hard during a trial as if I had already bought the program is a great sign. Before I leave for the Christmas break, I'm going to go ahead and get that package.
Finally, all of the products I checked out have trial periods. For AVG and F-Secure, its 30 days, but for Windows Live OneCare, its 90 days. Incidentally, Microsoft has decided to put AVG's free antivirus solution in the upcoming Windows Vista release, if that tells you anything.
Here are links to the software mentioned in this review:
F-Secure
Windows Live OneCare
AVG Internet Security
Milestones
Greetings. I’ve been in a reflective mood this weekend, so as a result, this will be a reflective post. This will probably be my big annual look back post for 2006, so sit back and enjoy.
Its been quite a year. A lot has happened this year. Before I go over some of the highlights, or as I call them “snap shots,” for 2006 let’s rewind a little.
On November 1, 2005, the board of directors at the United Cerebral Palsy Association in Dallas, decided to close the agency that I was working at, and within a matter of a few days, everyone was laid off and in essence, locked out. On November 14 of 2005, I traveled to Austin for my big interview and demonstration for the technology instructor position. On December 15, I was given an offer which I gratefully accepted, and all of a sudden, I was employed again!
Now, for this year: in early January, my parents and I drove down to Austin to go apartment hunting. On January 20, we moved all of my stuff into my new apartment. And, on February 1, I started my new job at the state training center as a tech instructor.
I’ve thought about those dates often in the past month or so, thinking what happened on this or that day at certain times or where I was, and considering what I’m doing now. The new job of course, is perhaps the biggest highlight of this past year, and the one that most of the other highlights are tied to in some form or another.
Some other snap shots include the following, in no particular order: my time in immersion, or blindfold training; going tubing on the San Marcus river with other students and staff; the Louis Braille birthday party we had last February and hearing the center’s director do a Braille rap; the 2006 NFB convention in Dallas; observing and in the latter part of May, even co-teaching classes with another instructor; getting my own keyboarding class back in late March or early April; getting my first Windows class in August, and continuing to teach Windows until now; and more. I remember going to my first few meetings with a student, their counselor, and other staff, and how nervous I was the first few times when it came time to give my report. I’m better now, sort of, but I still get nervous from time to time, especially when I have to take someone out of a class. I hate denying anyone the opportunity to learn technology. I remember all the talks I’ve had with staff in the tech department about different topics, some relating to technology and students and some not so much. I remember the times I called some staff after hours, especially early on, when I wanted to ask them something or was worried about a particular situation. I remember back in April, when I went over to Geoff’s apartment to use his elliptical, and ended up talking with him for another couple of hours after the 15 minutes of doing exercises.
I remember going to pay my own taxes in April, and having the tax preparation person tell me when I was leaving, “See you next year.”
Though its not a pleasant thing to think about, considering how things ended, I remember Tony, my former guide dog. I enjoyed having Tony here with me from when we moved down to September 1 when he died. I remember when I was moving into the apartment, Tony was going around to the various parts of the place, checking things out, laying down in different spots, and then getting up to move on to another spot to try. My Mother reported at one point that Tony was in the closet and you could see only his head sticking out. I remember how Tony always greeted me when I came home from work. I always left the TV on for him, though he never did tell me what he learned from watching or listening to the different shows. He learned a lot though, since he watched Biography and the Texas Cable News channels. I remember getting Kathi to take care of Tony when I was in Dallas. I remember taking him over to her house, and letting him explore her backyard, which he did about 3 different times before he was satisfied. And, though its sad to think about, I remember that day—the day that Tony left me. Even over three months removed, I can still see how everything seemed to fit together that day, so that I was never alone for very long. Whether I was on the bus coming home, with Jack when we raced to the vet and later went to lunch, sitting in my apartment with my music going in the background, or talking with some people on the phone about what had happened. One of the hardest things I had to do that day was tell my Mom what had happened when Jack and I were at lunch. Up until then I was feeling okay about things. I knew what happened of course, but to have to put it into words for someone else is something totally different. I also remember Jack asking me how I felt, and then saying, “Never mind,” when he saw the look on my face. And, along with those things, I remember my parents coming down for the weekend to be with me. That really helped. I still think of Tony often, and even have been dreaming about him once or twice a month or more, but that first weekend with my parents here really helped me get a lot of that emotion out.
I remember going home for Thanksgiving and how much of a rest and recharging event that was. I had not thought a lot about vacations up until that point. After those few days where I could sleep in and relax, well, suddenly vacations don’t look so bad. Perhaps I’ll even take one next year at some point.
I remember going to the graduations for students that I had taught before and feeling proud of what they had accomplished. As it happens, there’s another graduation this Wednesday where at least seven out of the 12 or so graduates were my students at one time or another. This is the first time that I’ve had such a connection with that many students in a graduation ceremony before. It will be good to see them achieve their final goal of graduating. However, it will also be sad to see them leave, but such is the routine of the rehabilitation system: a constantly revolving door of people coming and going. I have thought a lot in the last few months of what I will have to say in about 5 years of watching this revolving door, and remembering the students, the struggles, the high points, and so forth.
I’m sure that there are things I’m missing from 2006, but those are the things that come immediately to mind. Its truly been an interesting year. There’s one more connection with this year that is truly remarkable: 20 years ago, I lost my sight. True, the loss of a sense may not be remarkable in itself, but what would my parents, friends, teachers, and least of all, me, say if someone had told anyone of them that I would be teaching computers at a state training center and where I’d be now, if they were told this back in the fall of 1986? I can’t speak for all the others, but my response would probably be something like, “What???”
So, cheers for a great 2006 and an even better 2007. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours. Everyone stay safe, make resolutions that you might keep, and we’ll see you in January, where who knows what will happen.
Its been quite a year. A lot has happened this year. Before I go over some of the highlights, or as I call them “snap shots,” for 2006 let’s rewind a little.
On November 1, 2005, the board of directors at the United Cerebral Palsy Association in Dallas, decided to close the agency that I was working at, and within a matter of a few days, everyone was laid off and in essence, locked out. On November 14 of 2005, I traveled to Austin for my big interview and demonstration for the technology instructor position. On December 15, I was given an offer which I gratefully accepted, and all of a sudden, I was employed again!
Now, for this year: in early January, my parents and I drove down to Austin to go apartment hunting. On January 20, we moved all of my stuff into my new apartment. And, on February 1, I started my new job at the state training center as a tech instructor.
I’ve thought about those dates often in the past month or so, thinking what happened on this or that day at certain times or where I was, and considering what I’m doing now. The new job of course, is perhaps the biggest highlight of this past year, and the one that most of the other highlights are tied to in some form or another.
Some other snap shots include the following, in no particular order: my time in immersion, or blindfold training; going tubing on the San Marcus river with other students and staff; the Louis Braille birthday party we had last February and hearing the center’s director do a Braille rap; the 2006 NFB convention in Dallas; observing and in the latter part of May, even co-teaching classes with another instructor; getting my own keyboarding class back in late March or early April; getting my first Windows class in August, and continuing to teach Windows until now; and more. I remember going to my first few meetings with a student, their counselor, and other staff, and how nervous I was the first few times when it came time to give my report. I’m better now, sort of, but I still get nervous from time to time, especially when I have to take someone out of a class. I hate denying anyone the opportunity to learn technology. I remember all the talks I’ve had with staff in the tech department about different topics, some relating to technology and students and some not so much. I remember the times I called some staff after hours, especially early on, when I wanted to ask them something or was worried about a particular situation. I remember back in April, when I went over to Geoff’s apartment to use his elliptical, and ended up talking with him for another couple of hours after the 15 minutes of doing exercises.
I remember going to pay my own taxes in April, and having the tax preparation person tell me when I was leaving, “See you next year.”
Though its not a pleasant thing to think about, considering how things ended, I remember Tony, my former guide dog. I enjoyed having Tony here with me from when we moved down to September 1 when he died. I remember when I was moving into the apartment, Tony was going around to the various parts of the place, checking things out, laying down in different spots, and then getting up to move on to another spot to try. My Mother reported at one point that Tony was in the closet and you could see only his head sticking out. I remember how Tony always greeted me when I came home from work. I always left the TV on for him, though he never did tell me what he learned from watching or listening to the different shows. He learned a lot though, since he watched Biography and the Texas Cable News channels. I remember getting Kathi to take care of Tony when I was in Dallas. I remember taking him over to her house, and letting him explore her backyard, which he did about 3 different times before he was satisfied. And, though its sad to think about, I remember that day—the day that Tony left me. Even over three months removed, I can still see how everything seemed to fit together that day, so that I was never alone for very long. Whether I was on the bus coming home, with Jack when we raced to the vet and later went to lunch, sitting in my apartment with my music going in the background, or talking with some people on the phone about what had happened. One of the hardest things I had to do that day was tell my Mom what had happened when Jack and I were at lunch. Up until then I was feeling okay about things. I knew what happened of course, but to have to put it into words for someone else is something totally different. I also remember Jack asking me how I felt, and then saying, “Never mind,” when he saw the look on my face. And, along with those things, I remember my parents coming down for the weekend to be with me. That really helped. I still think of Tony often, and even have been dreaming about him once or twice a month or more, but that first weekend with my parents here really helped me get a lot of that emotion out.
I remember going home for Thanksgiving and how much of a rest and recharging event that was. I had not thought a lot about vacations up until that point. After those few days where I could sleep in and relax, well, suddenly vacations don’t look so bad. Perhaps I’ll even take one next year at some point.
I remember going to the graduations for students that I had taught before and feeling proud of what they had accomplished. As it happens, there’s another graduation this Wednesday where at least seven out of the 12 or so graduates were my students at one time or another. This is the first time that I’ve had such a connection with that many students in a graduation ceremony before. It will be good to see them achieve their final goal of graduating. However, it will also be sad to see them leave, but such is the routine of the rehabilitation system: a constantly revolving door of people coming and going. I have thought a lot in the last few months of what I will have to say in about 5 years of watching this revolving door, and remembering the students, the struggles, the high points, and so forth.
I’m sure that there are things I’m missing from 2006, but those are the things that come immediately to mind. Its truly been an interesting year. There’s one more connection with this year that is truly remarkable: 20 years ago, I lost my sight. True, the loss of a sense may not be remarkable in itself, but what would my parents, friends, teachers, and least of all, me, say if someone had told anyone of them that I would be teaching computers at a state training center and where I’d be now, if they were told this back in the fall of 1986? I can’t speak for all the others, but my response would probably be something like, “What???”
So, cheers for a great 2006 and an even better 2007. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours. Everyone stay safe, make resolutions that you might keep, and we’ll see you in January, where who knows what will happen.
Sunday, November 26
Getting ready for Vista
Greetings. Here's an informative article from Kim Komando, in her November 11 weekly newsletter, on Getting ready for Windows Vista. And, for the more technically minded, Windows Vista 8-part review by Paul Thurrott. I initially saw this article linked from The Ranger Station blog. Its very long but very informative. I especially found the various comparison tables helpful in part 2. Enjoy.
A must read for anyone with a home network
Greetings. After reading this article I only hope the computer and software security companies are working on a solution. I also advise anyone who doesn't have any sort of security software for their home networks, to get them. Also make sure you lock down your wireless networks. On those notes, enjoy You're Not Alone from the New York Times.
Thursday, November 23
Possible pitfalls of online shopping
Greetings. I'm a huge fan of shopping online, as those who even glance at the types of posts I have here will figure out. However, the article Missing From Internet: Avid Shoppers’ Sharp Elbows points out, getting that great deal for added convenience may not be all its cracked up to be. Especially if you're looking at a highly popular item, such as a new gaming system, and wanting to get it before anyone else. This is one time when I might brave the trip to the store, if I were inclined to get a limited item like this. It also raises the question of what online retailers will do if these "limited time offers" continue. Online shoppers beware.
Wednesday, November 22
Cool cell phone tools
Greetings. Here's an article on some cool, and mostly free, cell phone tools, from the new York Times' Technology section: Free Services to Inspire Your Cellphone. Enjoy.
Thanksgiving message
Greetings. On this eve of Thanksgiving, I’d like to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. May we be thankful at all times of the year and not just on the forth Thursday in November. Also, may we avoid political correct speech, and actually say, “Happy Thanksgiving,” as opposed to the generic and bland, “Happy Holidays.” I understand why people may not say Merry Christmas, since they don’t want to offend anyone. However, on Thanksgiving, the only one that gets offended is the turkey. And finally, go Cowboys and Hook ‘em Horns!
Saturday, November 18
Tips for shopping this Holiday season
Greetings. Since the big Holiday shopping season is about to begin, if it hasn't already, here's an article from the New York Times on How to Find Those Gifts in a Flash. Specifically, the articles suggests many sites to check prices and availability from, or even the ability to check from your cell phone through a phone number or text messaging. Enjoy, and happy shopping.
Thursday, November 16
What's New in JAWS posted
Greetings. JAWS 8.0 is out, and Freedom Scientific has now posted the What's New in JAWS 8 document. This lists all the new and improved features, along with fixes for several programs. I expect that they will be shipping out all the JAWS 8 program CD's and Real Speak CD's out very soon, if they haven't already. I'm trying to wait till my JAWS package comes, so I can install the synthesizer voices, DAISY materials, and the new version all at once, rather than downloading JAWS now. Note that the new Real Speak voices won't be made available on the FS site, simply because they're too big. Also, I'm guessing that there are probably some licensing or copyright issues which prevent them from making them available online, but I don't know that for sure. Remember that you can get the new version either by downloading it, or obtaining it through the new "Check for updates" option from the JAWS Help menu. In any case, enjoy.
Sunday, November 12
Announcement about Marlaina program
Greetings. Here's interesting information about tonight's Marlaina program on ACB Radio Mainstream. This announcement was sent out via email last week, thus the refernce about next week. Enjoy.
Hello friends.
Because I think next week's Marlaina program, heard November 12 in NorthAmerica and 13 elsewhere, is so exciting I want you to have plenty of noticeso you can plan to join us.
My guest next week will be Jim Kutsch, President of The Seeing Eye. Jim isa guide dog handler, and is working with his sixth guide, Anthony.
Jim joined The Seeing Eye staff in September, 2006. As President, he isresponsible for the professional leadership of The Seeing Eye.
Jim has a very rich career history. Prior to his current position he wasvice president of strategic technology with Convergys. Beginning in 1979 healso served in various positions in the technology field with AT&T UniversalCard Services and AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Jim received his Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Illinois in1976 and was Assistant Professor of Computer Science at West VirginiaUniversity until 1979. He is currently serving as Vice President of theNational Industries for the Blind's Board of Directors as well as being amember of Freedom Scientific's Product Advisory Board.
I believe we will all benefit from spending time with Jim, and learning howhe developed his education and career at a time in society when adaptivetechnology was scarce and mostly a dream in the minds of a few brilliantpeople.
All this and more is up for grabs on the next Marlaina, heard on ACB RadioMainstream.
It all starts on Sunday night at 8 PM Eastern, 5 Pacific, which is Mondaymorning at 1 Universal. The program will replay for 24 hours, and ofcourse, is available via podcast from the ACB Radio replay page. As always,we'll take your calls at our toll-free number, 866 666 7926.
Please save this message and click the link below on Sunday at 8 PM Eastern,5 Pacific or Monday at 1 Universal to listen. I can't wait to spend timewith you there! Feel free to distribute this message to others whom youthink may be interested.
As always, thank you so much for your continued support of my ACB Radiowork!
Marlaina LiebergTo listen to the show, just click this linkhttp://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8&MMN_position=14:14
Saturday, November 11
HumanWare press release and thoughts
Greetings. Below is an announcement from humanWare about a new dictionary and thesaurus that they're making available for the BrailleNote family. While I'm pleased to see that they're expanding into other areas of education, I'm reminded of a conversation that I had with a HumanWare representative last year regarding the BrailleNote and possible add-ons that they could do for it. You can read the conversation with him in the archives, on the 7/19/05 entry. Anyway, the representative made clear that they couldn't support a piece of software without knowing that it would work. It appears that they've either turned around on that point, or have adapted the thesaurus and dictionary to work with their closed OS. I'm inclined to thik the latter, since the representative constantly mentioned this issue of what they would do if someone couldn't do something in an off the shelf program that they promised the customer would be able to do. It was an interesting debate. One more thing: in looking at the price that they're charging for this package, it makes me wonder if I could go out and buy a third party dictionary/thesaurus on Compact Flash card, or put them on a USB flash drive, for a fraction of that price, to use on my PAC Mate. I might even be able to find ones that are free. Anyway. here's what the pres release has to say. As always, enjoy, and please pardon any formatting errors.
For Immediate Release
Christchurch, New Zealand
November 7, 2006
HumanWare releases Concise Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus for BrailleNote
Family
Both children and adults who use HumanWare's industry-leading BrailleNote
family of products now have the option of the world's most popular
dictionary and thesaurus at their fingertips.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary on BrailleNote gives the meaning of a word,
speaks it aloud with correct pronunciation, and much more. It includes the
word's full definition of entries with additional advanced search features.
The Concise Oxford Thesaurus provides convenient lookup of synonyms and
antonyms. The Dictionary and Thesaurus combination is available in either
US English or UK English.
KeySoft is the software which powers all models of BrailleNote. From any
KeySoft application, whether you are in the KeyWeb Internet Browser, the
Book Reader or Word Processor, the Dictionary and Thesaurus are easily
accessed by one easy key stroke.
"Customers are very excited about the product," said Dominic Gagliano,
HumanWare's Vice President of Sales for Blindness in the US. "We've
received particularly positive feedback from educational and rehabilitation
customers. This release demonstrates our continued momentum in developing
software for our products for all segments of our market."
The Concise Oxford Dictionary is based on the largest language research
program in the world. Its up-to-date entries are backed by the unrivalled
new words research of Oxford University Press.
Running on the BrailleNote family of products, the Concise Oxford
Dictionary and Concise Oxford Thesaurus can be accessed by QWERTY keyboard
or Braille input, and read and heard by both Braille and auditory output.
The entire contents of the Concise Oxford Dictionary are automatically
integrated and expand the functionality of the KeySoft Spell Checker, from
which the user can easily reference the Dictionary.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary and Concise Oxford Thesaurus are available
today. They run on the latest version of HumanWare's industry-leading
software for the blind, KeySoft 7.2 Build 47, on BrailleNote mPower,
VoiceNote mPower or BrailleNote PK, as well as other BrailleNote Classic
models. The price is $195. To order, call 800-722-3393.
http://www.humanware.com/Products/Notetakers/ConciseOxfordForKeySoft.asp
For Immediate Release
Christchurch, New Zealand
November 7, 2006
HumanWare releases Concise Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus for BrailleNote
Family
Both children and adults who use HumanWare's industry-leading BrailleNote
family of products now have the option of the world's most popular
dictionary and thesaurus at their fingertips.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary on BrailleNote gives the meaning of a word,
speaks it aloud with correct pronunciation, and much more. It includes the
word's full definition of entries with additional advanced search features.
The Concise Oxford Thesaurus provides convenient lookup of synonyms and
antonyms. The Dictionary and Thesaurus combination is available in either
US English or UK English.
KeySoft is the software which powers all models of BrailleNote. From any
KeySoft application, whether you are in the KeyWeb Internet Browser, the
Book Reader or Word Processor, the Dictionary and Thesaurus are easily
accessed by one easy key stroke.
"Customers are very excited about the product," said Dominic Gagliano,
HumanWare's Vice President of Sales for Blindness in the US. "We've
received particularly positive feedback from educational and rehabilitation
customers. This release demonstrates our continued momentum in developing
software for our products for all segments of our market."
The Concise Oxford Dictionary is based on the largest language research
program in the world. Its up-to-date entries are backed by the unrivalled
new words research of Oxford University Press.
Running on the BrailleNote family of products, the Concise Oxford
Dictionary and Concise Oxford Thesaurus can be accessed by QWERTY keyboard
or Braille input, and read and heard by both Braille and auditory output.
The entire contents of the Concise Oxford Dictionary are automatically
integrated and expand the functionality of the KeySoft Spell Checker, from
which the user can easily reference the Dictionary.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary and Concise Oxford Thesaurus are available
today. They run on the latest version of HumanWare's industry-leading
software for the blind, KeySoft 7.2 Build 47, on BrailleNote mPower,
VoiceNote mPower or BrailleNote PK, as well as other BrailleNote Classic
models. The price is $195. To order, call 800-722-3393.
http://www.humanware.com/Products/Notetakers/ConciseOxfordForKeySoft.asp
What's New for JAWS 8?
Greetings. The What's New for JAWS 8 has now been posted to the JAWS Headquarters at the Freedom Scientific website. Note that this is an MP3 file where the new features of JAWS are demonstrated. The file is about 90 minutes in length and about 60 megabytes in size. As was noted in the Main Menu interview last month, they said that the What's New would go out about a week or two before the new version was released. In other words, its not long now. Enjoy.
Thursday, November 9
Exciting announcement from Book Share
Greetings. I received the following email in my Inbox and thought it worth sharing. Enjoy, and my humble apologies for any formatting errors.
Dear loyal and patient Bookshare.org volunteers,
The press announcement below was sent out for release this
morning. Many of you have done a tremendous amount of work in
building Bookshare.org, a library of accessible books that reflect
your interests. Congratulations on your achievement.
Thanks from everyone at Benetech.
BOOKSHARE.ORG PUTS 30,000 ACCESSIBLE BOOKS
ONLINE FOR DISABLED READERS
Thousands of Volunteers Select and Scan Bestsellers For the World's Largest
Accessible Online Library
Palo Alto, Calif., November 8, 2006 - Bookshare.org announced this
week that its network of volunteers has succeeded in scanning
30,000 books creating the world's largest accessible online
library. Thousands of Bookshare.org volunteers, including educators
and librarians, select their favorite books and legally convert
these texts to digital formats that can be used by people with
print disabilities such as dyslexia and visual impairment.
The entire Bookshare.org online library can be downloaded to
Braille printers, portable Braille devices and software that reads
aloud in a synthesized human voice. Among the titles are
bestsellers including Criss Cross, the 2006 Newbery Medal winner
for children's literature. Information about the latest titles can
be found at
http://www.bookshare.org.
"There are thousands of people who couldn't read this literature
without something like Bookshare.org, it opens up a whole new world
to them," says Bookshare.org volunteer Matthew Devcich, 16, of
Chantilly, Virginia. "You are helping people across the nation and
it's a great way to learn today's technology."
Devcich, who has a visual disability, created an Eagle Scout
leadership service project that organized 21 mostly teenage
volunteers to scan and proofread 24 books. Devcich listens to the
Bookshare.org ebooks which allow him to reduce eye strain while he
reads the text online in an enlarged font. "It helps me read a
great deal faster," says Devcich.
The subscription-based Bookshare.org digital library is the first
literacy program developed by Benetech, a nonprofit based in Palo
Alto, California. "It's people like Matthew who have made 30,000
books available at Bookshare.org today," said Janice Carter,
Director of Benetech's Literacy Programs. "Thanks to the ongoing
support of the Bookshare.org volunteer community, we continue to
add about 100 new books each week."
The Benetech literacy team will present their library of accessible
books and periodicals at the annual conference of The International
Dyslexia Association conference held at the Indiana Convention
Center in Indianapolis, Indiana from November 8-11.
Dear loyal and patient Bookshare.org volunteers,
The press announcement below was sent out for release this
morning. Many of you have done a tremendous amount of work in
building Bookshare.org, a library of accessible books that reflect
your interests. Congratulations on your achievement.
Thanks from everyone at Benetech.
BOOKSHARE.ORG PUTS 30,000 ACCESSIBLE BOOKS
ONLINE FOR DISABLED READERS
Thousands of Volunteers Select and Scan Bestsellers For the World's Largest
Accessible Online Library
Palo Alto, Calif., November 8, 2006 - Bookshare.org announced this
week that its network of volunteers has succeeded in scanning
30,000 books creating the world's largest accessible online
library. Thousands of Bookshare.org volunteers, including educators
and librarians, select their favorite books and legally convert
these texts to digital formats that can be used by people with
print disabilities such as dyslexia and visual impairment.
The entire Bookshare.org online library can be downloaded to
Braille printers, portable Braille devices and software that reads
aloud in a synthesized human voice. Among the titles are
bestsellers including Criss Cross, the 2006 Newbery Medal winner
for children's literature. Information about the latest titles can
be found at
http://www.bookshare.org.
"There are thousands of people who couldn't read this literature
without something like Bookshare.org, it opens up a whole new world
to them," says Bookshare.org volunteer Matthew Devcich, 16, of
Chantilly, Virginia. "You are helping people across the nation and
it's a great way to learn today's technology."
Devcich, who has a visual disability, created an Eagle Scout
leadership service project that organized 21 mostly teenage
volunteers to scan and proofread 24 books. Devcich listens to the
Bookshare.org ebooks which allow him to reduce eye strain while he
reads the text online in an enlarged font. "It helps me read a
great deal faster," says Devcich.
The subscription-based Bookshare.org digital library is the first
literacy program developed by Benetech, a nonprofit based in Palo
Alto, California. "It's people like Matthew who have made 30,000
books available at Bookshare.org today," said Janice Carter,
Director of Benetech's Literacy Programs. "Thanks to the ongoing
support of the Bookshare.org volunteer community, we continue to
add about 100 new books each week."
The Benetech literacy team will present their library of accessible
books and periodicals at the annual conference of The International
Dyslexia Association conference held at the Indiana Convention
Center in Indianapolis, Indiana from November 8-11.
Wednesday, November 8
New JAWS Update Available
Greetings. Freedom Scientific released the next JAWS 7.1 update today. Among other things, this update gives reliable access to Internet Explorer 7, as well as fixing a few notable bugs. JAWS 8.0 is still coming later this month, from the blogs and reports I'm hearing. I think this was simply a move to allow people to upgrade to the new IE 7 with no JAWS difficulties. Before, you could use 7.1 with IE 7, but were not able to use combo boxes. This new update solves that problem. Looks like I've got a new project this weekend that's just jumped to the top of my list: update Internet Explorer, and becoming familiar with the new look and feel. I'm particularly looking forward to the tabbed browsing feature. Incidentally, if you would like to know the new keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys for IE 7, you can find a link for them on my website, or if they're not there, then try the Computers Page of my site.
Also, in the updates category, I've learned that I'm now eligible to upgrade my Blogger account to the new look and feel of blogs on Blogger. For the reader, this means keywords on all my posts. That might be an ongoing project for me, but it might very well start this weekend as well. The layout and content of the blog will stay the same, so they say, so no worries there. Until later.
Also, in the updates category, I've learned that I'm now eligible to upgrade my Blogger account to the new look and feel of blogs on Blogger. For the reader, this means keywords on all my posts. That might be an ongoing project for me, but it might very well start this weekend as well. The layout and content of the blog will stay the same, so they say, so no worries there. Until later.
Monday, November 6
Accessible voting for all
Greetings. Since tomorrow is election day, I thought this was an appropriate post to make. If you're blind or vision impaired, and the voting place you visit does not have an accessible voting machine for you to use, then please report it to the NFB either tomorrow or Wednesday.
Blind Americans to Cast First Secret Ballot
National Federation of the Blind to Monitor Compliance
BALTIMORE, MD, October 24, 2006: The National
Federation of the Blind announced today that it
has created a hotline for blind and visually impaired voters
to report any difficulties in casting their
ballots both secretly and independently in the
upcoming election. The purpose of the hotline will be to monitor
compliance with the provisions of the Help
America Vote Act (HAVA) relating to nonvisual
access to the voting process for the blind.
James Gashel, Executive Director for Strategic
Initiatives at the National Federation of the
Blind, said: "This election is historic because it is the
first general election since the implementation
date for the accessibility provisions of the Help
America Vote Act. I was able to vote independently and
completely in private for the first time in the
Maryland primary election last month and look
forward to doing it again in November, when many blind voters
across the nation will cast a secret ballot for
the first time in their lives. The ability to
cast a secret ballot is not only thrilling for us as blind
voters, it protects our democracy by ensuring
that nobody exercises undue influence over us or
engages in outright fraud while pretending to help us vote.
A secret vote is just as important for blind
voters as it is for every other American."
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National
Federation of the Blind, said: "The National
Federation of the Blind led the effort to make it possible for
the blind to vote independently and in secret,
like all other Americans. We have been working
to help jurisdictions to comply with that statute by providing
educational and training materials through our
National Center for Nonvisual Election
Technology. Having worked so hard to achieve full and equal participation
by the blind in the voting process, it is our
duty to ensure that no blind American is denied
the right to cast a secret ballot, and we will take any action
that is necessary and appropriate to carry out that obligation."
The National Federation of the Blind HAVA
National Compliance Hotline will be available at
1-877-632-1940 from 7:00 AM-10:00 PM EST on Election Day (Tuesday,
November 7) and from 8:00 AM-5:00 PM on
Wednesday, November 8. Callers will be asked
where they are voting and whether they have been able to cast their
ballot with accessible equipment. The National
Federation of the Blind will analyze the data
collected and conduct any appropriate follow-up, including
assisting voters with actionable grievances in
filing complaints with the United States Department of Justice.
Passed in 2002, the Help America Vote Act was
intended to help states replace outdated voting
equipment such as the punch card machines that caused problems
during the 2000 presidential election. The law
mandates that every polling place in the nation
must have at least one voting station accessible to the
blind. As of January 1, 2006, jurisdictions
should be complying by using electronic voting
terminals, special ballot-marking devices, or vote-by-phone
systems. All of these methods use audio prompts
to read the ballot to a blind voter and allow the
voter to make ballot choices using a keypad. This technology
allows the blind to vote without the assistance
of a sighted poll worker. "Since many
jurisdictions will be using new voting equipment that is accessible
to the blind for the first time," Dr. Maurer
explained, "we feel that it is essential to
collect data on whether that equipment has been implemented and
works properly."
The National Federation of the Blind was
instrumental in advocating for the nonvisual
access language contained in the HAVA and received a grant under
that statute to ensure its implementation. The
National Center for Nonvisual Election Technology
(NCNET) was established by the Federation to carry out
the terms of the grant. The NCNET has developed
an on-line curriculum and a DVD to help make
election officials aware of the needs of blind voters and
to help jurisdictions select appropriate
equipment to provide nonvisual access to the blind at the polling place.
For more information about the National
Federation of the Blind and its work on access to
elections, visit
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/HAVA_intro.asp
Blind Americans to Cast First Secret Ballot
National Federation of the Blind to Monitor Compliance
BALTIMORE, MD, October 24, 2006: The National
Federation of the Blind announced today that it
has created a hotline for blind and visually impaired voters
to report any difficulties in casting their
ballots both secretly and independently in the
upcoming election. The purpose of the hotline will be to monitor
compliance with the provisions of the Help
America Vote Act (HAVA) relating to nonvisual
access to the voting process for the blind.
James Gashel, Executive Director for Strategic
Initiatives at the National Federation of the
Blind, said: "This election is historic because it is the
first general election since the implementation
date for the accessibility provisions of the Help
America Vote Act. I was able to vote independently and
completely in private for the first time in the
Maryland primary election last month and look
forward to doing it again in November, when many blind voters
across the nation will cast a secret ballot for
the first time in their lives. The ability to
cast a secret ballot is not only thrilling for us as blind
voters, it protects our democracy by ensuring
that nobody exercises undue influence over us or
engages in outright fraud while pretending to help us vote.
A secret vote is just as important for blind
voters as it is for every other American."
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National
Federation of the Blind, said: "The National
Federation of the Blind led the effort to make it possible for
the blind to vote independently and in secret,
like all other Americans. We have been working
to help jurisdictions to comply with that statute by providing
educational and training materials through our
National Center for Nonvisual Election
Technology. Having worked so hard to achieve full and equal participation
by the blind in the voting process, it is our
duty to ensure that no blind American is denied
the right to cast a secret ballot, and we will take any action
that is necessary and appropriate to carry out that obligation."
The National Federation of the Blind HAVA
National Compliance Hotline will be available at
1-877-632-1940 from 7:00 AM-10:00 PM EST on Election Day (Tuesday,
November 7) and from 8:00 AM-5:00 PM on
Wednesday, November 8. Callers will be asked
where they are voting and whether they have been able to cast their
ballot with accessible equipment. The National
Federation of the Blind will analyze the data
collected and conduct any appropriate follow-up, including
assisting voters with actionable grievances in
filing complaints with the United States Department of Justice.
Passed in 2002, the Help America Vote Act was
intended to help states replace outdated voting
equipment such as the punch card machines that caused problems
during the 2000 presidential election. The law
mandates that every polling place in the nation
must have at least one voting station accessible to the
blind. As of January 1, 2006, jurisdictions
should be complying by using electronic voting
terminals, special ballot-marking devices, or vote-by-phone
systems. All of these methods use audio prompts
to read the ballot to a blind voter and allow the
voter to make ballot choices using a keypad. This technology
allows the blind to vote without the assistance
of a sighted poll worker. "Since many
jurisdictions will be using new voting equipment that is accessible
to the blind for the first time," Dr. Maurer
explained, "we feel that it is essential to
collect data on whether that equipment has been implemented and
works properly."
The National Federation of the Blind was
instrumental in advocating for the nonvisual
access language contained in the HAVA and received a grant under
that statute to ensure its implementation. The
National Center for Nonvisual Election Technology
(NCNET) was established by the Federation to carry out
the terms of the grant. The NCNET has developed
an on-line curriculum and a DVD to help make
election officials aware of the needs of blind voters and
to help jurisdictions select appropriate
equipment to provide nonvisual access to the blind at the polling place.
For more information about the National
Federation of the Blind and its work on access to
elections, visit
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/HAVA_intro.asp
Web accessibility and online courses
Greetings. There's an informative and thought provoking editorial in today's New York Times that discusses whether or not web accessibility applies to online college courses and the systems they use. This is a follow up to the suit that the National Federation of the Blind brought against Target for their site not being accessible. However, it could carry over to online only areas, such as stores that only operate online (like Amazon), or online college distance learning systems, like Web CT or Black Board. Read the article Do the Rights of the Disabled Extend to the Blind on the Web? You can also find an informative post on the Voice of the Nation's Blind blog, on the 11/6/06 entry, from the NFB. Enjoy.
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