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Hey everybody. I have some very good news. A job offer was recently given to me which I couldn't pass up, despite my somewhat limited mobility around the area in which I live. This is not a definite yet, but I think it will be. I have been given an opportunity to work at the office of Center for Independent Futures. They just recently relocated, and the office is actually closer than it was when they first got off the ground. It is now within walking distance of my building, and I can pretty much get there and back with no sighted assistance. There is a problem area with respect to me veering out into the street, but I am talking to some people and we're trying to come up with a solution to this problem. This morning after my life skills tutor and I got back from shopping, put away all my groceries for the week and I ate breakfast, he and I walked over to the C.I.F. office and handed in my completed job application. I'm not sure which staff person is in charge of these applications, but I am confident things will move forward at a good pace. So that was some good news. I love CIF, and I think it'll be a lot of fun working there. Everyone is terrific, and I'm told that a terrific employer makes for happy employees. I'll definitely post more about this in the coming days! But for now, get a nice cool beverage and relax and enjoy the summertime!

Hi everyone. Today I'd like to blog about a new piece of technology. Why am I doing this? I am doing it because I love technology--accessible technology, of course. What good is inaccessible technology if you're someone with a disability? Anyway, I found out about this new technological milestone on ACB Radio's technology program, "Main Menu" for this week. Although there were a few technical glitches, I did get to hear most of the show. This new piece of technology is a screen reader. Unlike the other screen readers that exist today, however, this one does not need to be installed. How then, I hear you ask, can it be used? Well, simply go to http://www.satogo.com and follow the spoken prompts. Those who have other adaptive technology running must unload it for this program to work. First-timers may sign up for a free trial of this program, and the trial lasts for an unlimited amount of time as far as I can tell. However, you must stay logged on and be using the program. Yesterday I stepped away from my computer for awhile and when I came back, I found out that I had been logged off of the software. The program is called System Access to Go, and it is still in beta form so some features may not work properly. System Access to Go is manufactured by Serotek. To visit this company online, go to http://www.serotek.com .

Hello everyone. In today's entry I'd like to discuss a service called Newsline. It is a service run by the National Federation of the Blind, with assistance provided by individual state sponsors. I love the concept, i.e., to provide a system by which people who are blind or visually-impaired can call in and have newspapers read to them by a computerized human voice. This service is free of charge, but one does have to sign up. One can sign up by calling toll-free from anywhere in the United States, 866-504-7300. The NFB claims that there is an online form to sign up as well, but the form appears to have been malfunctioning now for quite some time. Whether this will be fixed sometime in the near future is unclear, but I doubt it since the NFB seems very reluctant to act upon any type of user feedback. The actual service can be reached by dialing 888-882-1629. There are also local numbers which may be dialed from each area. The NFB has apparently done this to cut down on costs associated with the service. Once the user dials that number, they will hear a welcome message. This message cannot be bypassed until the log-in prompt. As I said I love the concept of NFB Newsline, but there are some longstanding technical glitches which have never gotten resolved. I feel this is very unfortunate, given the fact the NFB's claim to fame is "the nation's leading organization of the blind." One would think that the NFB could at least take care of a few technicalities here and there. But this is not the case. The first of these technicalities has to do with logging into Newsline. Experienced users of the service such as yours truly, should be given the option of bypassing that entire introductory message and just logging in. I've called numerous other places and there exists an option on the voicemail to bypass certain messages. So obviously, this would be a simple feature for the NFB to add in, but I guess they wanna bore the hell outa people or something. Another glitch has to do with exiting the system entirely. Actually this feature was available when Newsline first started, but somehow the feature has gone away. So no more pressing the Star key twice quickly to leave Newsline. Another feature which used to be available but isn't anymore is the ability to switch between two different speech synthesizers. The two choices were Eloquence, which is what I have and which is set as my default, and the Cepstral text-to-speech voices. Both these speech synths are excellent in my opinion. But some people prefer other voices which were never available on Newsline. One last problem with the service is that it mispronounces some things and there is no way to correct pronunciation, as in some programs such as JAWS for Windows. I would also like to see a feature that would allow users to add newspapers and magazines. But other than these problems, Newsline is a pretty darn good service.

Hello to all of you. Today's entry is going to be rather short, but it contains some very important information. Those of us who enjoy listening to Internet radio are in for a big blow unless we take action. The Copyright Royalty Board, or CRB, is threatening to silence all Internet radio stations. We the listeners need to take immediate action, if we want Internet radio to stay. I for one am a big fan of Internet radio, stations such as http://www.acbradio.org, http://www.tbrn.net, and many others. If you think this issue is important, please head on over to http://www.savenetradio.org and read and take appropriate action. The deadline is Sunday, July 15 2007.

Hi everyone. I mentioned a few entries back that I had a possible job. Well, this week most of the interviews were scheduled and mine took place this morning. I walked over to the office and had the interview. It went quite well, and afterwords I received some feedback on how I presented myself. This interview was a breeze! I kind of thought it would turn out that way, since VR was not involved in any way, shape, or form! Not that I wouldn't've at least tried to make a good impression even if someone or a group of people from VR were involved. VR just is not the answer in all cases, at least VR for those of us with a visual impairment. Whether this will change remains a mystery. If certain unnamed groups of people would just grow up and stop arguing amongst each other ad nauseam, I think we would see drastic improvement regarding these services. But until that happens, there will continue to be clients like myself, who just get left out in the cold with no shelter other than that provided by family and friends. That is not a pleasant feeling. I've been stranded in the cold before. Not for such extreme periods of time as to cause bodily harm, but still that is very unpleasant. Having said all that, today's interview was a clear example of how an interview should go. The interviewer did her thing, and I was very prepared. I will most likely hear back next week as to whether or not I got the job. I think it goes without saying that I will keep all readers up to speed.