tabulas.com

Hello everyone, and to those in the US and Canada a very happy Labor Day though it was two days ago. First off as usual, I bring you a few updates. I may have a volunteer job in addition to my work at Center for Independent Futures. A while back my mother informed me of a volunteer opportunity through a local senior center. So I called and spoke with the senior center's volunteer manager to find out more about this position. It involves transcribing oral histories which are recorded on cassette tapes. The volunteer manager and I worked out some of the details and she sent me a practice tape, and I transcribed it. I have done work like this before, and I must say it is quite interesting. When I was in high school I transcribed some tapes about the school's early days. I also transcribed some bits from the school's FM radio station. That was particularly fascinating to me. Not too long ago I transcribed a whole book about a friend of mine who is a Holocaust survivor. This book had been translated from Hebrew, none of which I know, into English. My friend even paid me for that, which was great! I do still have the CIF job. My next work day, believe it or not, is September 11 of this year. I'm sure by now all of you know what major event took place on that day. But life does go on despite that most terrible of tragedies. I'm not sure what I will do this time at work, but I did go over to the office this afternoon and install one of the screen readers. I made the decision to go with Non-Visual Desktop Access. I chose this particular screen reader because it is totally free and can be installed on more than one computer at a time, and I didn't want to end up in any kind of trouble. As wonderful and awesome as JFW is, Freedom Scientific has had to really beef up security due to issues of piracy. Sad but true. Anyway, I ended up installing NVDA on two of CIF's desktop computers, which evidently are their only sound-enabled computers. Both installations went as expected. To visit the home of NVDA and download it, please head on over to http://www.nvda-project.org . If you go to the website I mentioned in an earlier entry, you will simply be redirected to the new site. NVDA works on both Windows XP and Windows VISTA, but it won't work on anything prior to XP. I haven't tried out Windows VISTA, but I'm told it is compatible with NVDA. To find out what else Michael Curran--the lead developer of NVDA--has been up to, visit his personal website at http://www.kulgan.net . Finally, I'd like to bring up an issue that was brought to my attention only a few days ago. That is, the ADA Restoration Act of 2007. This is an Act that would essentially restore the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was passed on July 26, 1990, to its original intents and purposes. Please head on over to http://www.reunifygally.wordpress.com . There you will find tons of information on this very important piece of legislation. That website includes links to a letter which you can edit as you want and then send to local legislators. I have not signed on yet but plan to do so in the coming days. Also on Reunify Gally is a link to a letter written by the Chamber of Commerce, which paints this piece of legislation in a very negative light.

Hi folks. Well, it seems that Tabulas has undergone some renovations, and I am very happy to report that the site is actually even more accessible than when I first registered with the service. So a big thank you goes out to Roy and the other folks at Tabulas. A few things here and there are still broken, but I'm going to contact the website team about that. One of my entries seems to be in the wrong place but that's okay. I may or may not try to do some editing and see if I can put that one back in its original place. There now appears to be a new control panel, which is in the beta stage of testing. But personally I like to use the other control panel. Now for some updates from my end. This afternoon my mom and I went through an apartment upstairs in my complex which has become vacant and into which I am going to move. We did this with a CIF staff person, and everything looks to be in relatively decent order. There's some work to be done in an attempt to get the apartment all ready for me, and my stuff of course has to be moved up there. But I'm very much looking forward to the move, as is everybody else here. This is a single-occupancy apartment, but it will allow for greater independence which is the reason I chose it. As for my roommate, I will still see him and talk to him a lot, and we will remain friends.

Hey everyone. Happy Rosh Hashanah to those of you who celebrate it. I suppose it might be appropriate for me to wish you a Happy New Year too. Having said that, let's get on with the show. I'd first like to bring up a rather interesting discovery I made this morning. I subscribe to a magazine entitled "The Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind," and have done so for many years and really have enjoyed it. I used to receive this magazine in Braille, but in an effort to save our environment I switched to the email subscription. This magazine is provided free of charge to subscribers. So I received this month's email edition, which contained a link to the magazine's website. Being the avid web surfer that I am, I decided to pay a visit to their website and see what was all in store for me. The website includes links to current and archived issues of the magazine, a very in-depth and very interesting history of the magazine, and they have recently added a blog and podcast. So I clicked on a link to read the current issue, and something quite interesting happened. A dialogue immediately popped up, which of course was read aloud by my trusty screen reader JFW. This dialogue said something to the effect of, by clicking this link I certify that I am legally blind. One has to wonder what the purpose of such a message is. I mean, aren't people with perfect vision allowed to read this magazine, or people whose diagnosis is beyond legally blind? Very interesting! The website is  http://www.zieglermag.org . The archives only appear to be for the current year, but hopefully more will be added in the near future. Finally, I had another shift as an admin assistant for CIF earlier this week and it went very well. I worked with a job coach, but this time it was someone else because my first job coach has gone off to college or is about to do so. This second job coach is someone whom I have known for several years. I ended up making some phone calls for CIF, and NVDA proved quite helpful in this respect. The contact information for all these people was contained in a list, which I navigated with the arrow keys. Once I read each name and phone number, I picked up a cordless phone which was sitting near me and went to work.

Hello everyone. In a prior entry I briefly mentioned audio description and some people's apparent dislike for it. I also mentioned how I, along with someone else, were thrown off an email list just at the mention of audio description. This entry is not just directed at the group of people who are blind who oppose this service, but it is also for those who are curious. I recently heard an archived show on www.acbradio.org, about the court's decision to overturn the FCC's mandate concerning audio description. The National Federation of the Blind, in particular, is one very curious bunch of people. They have continuously opposed audio description for entertainment purposes. I for one have a very difficult time understanding the NFB's logic--or lack thereof--concerning a number of access issues. But I'd like to pay particular attention in this entry to audio description. According to somebody with whom I have very close ties, the Federation's reason for opposing video description for entertainment purposes is that there are more important things. This may be true, but a lot of people who are visually-impaired, myself included, really enjoy taking in a movie or two, be it at a theater or at our very own homes. As with anything, it is up to each individual to decide whether to listen to the audio descriptions or to do something else. I for one have enjoyed many audio-described films, both at home with family and elsewhere with friends. As a matter of fact I wouldn't have it any other way. I once saw "The Brothers Grimm" with a friend shortly after my birthday not too long ago. The film was not audio-described, and my neighbor had to tell me what was going on throughout the movie. Although he did a very good job, I think it would have been better with audio narration via the movie itself. So to those Federationists and others who oppose this service, I have this to say. Please think twice about what this service is offering those of us who cannot see well or who cannot see at all, before adopting legislation like this.

Hi folks. Not much to write about today. It's not that I'm feeling rotten or that I don't want to share anything with you, I just haven't got any big news to report. I am still in my old apartment. The move is most likely taking place next week but nothing is set in stone. Having said that today's entry is going to focus on visual verification, better known as CAPTCHA. But just what is CAPTCHA? CAPTCHA is an acronym for Completely Automated Person Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The idea behind CAPTCHA is to prevent spammers from accessing websites. When accessing many websites, users often encounter a string of characters that has to be typed into a box. This is done in an attempt to lock out spammers. But what these visual CAPTCHAs also do is lock out people with assistive technology such as screen readers. I'm not sure if visual verification also locks out people with screen magnification software because I have never tried that. We are not spammers, or at least the majority of us are not spammers, and we need a solution to this ongoing problem. So some websites have developed audio CAPTCHA, whereby users are asked to type in a string of auditory characters. A petition is at http://www.blindwebaccess.com

Hey everyone. Well I think it's almost upon me! I am of course referring to moving day, a.k.a. the day when I will move upstairs in my building. I cannot wait to have my own bathroom again! Other than the fact that I'll have my very own bathroom, it will feel great being more independent. The carpet in the apartment has to be removed--presumably because it doesn't look nice--and my furniture needs to be moved in. Then I'm pretty sure I can move in there. There's some painting that also needs to be done, but I can be in the apartment for that. I'm getting some new furniture and keeping some I already have. My computer will of course be moved up there. What I'd do without my computer is totally beyond me or anyone else at this point. Actually, I am reading the last in the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling. Those of you who haven't yet read this series or listened to it on CD, or watched any of the movies, are in for a real treat. I've read all of the Harry Potter books and I highly recommend them to anyone. Anyway, I might actually end up getting a new computer if I want to use Windows VISTA--Microsoft's latest release. Many people have told me that installing VISTA on a computer over four years old will most likely produce undesirable results. I've heard this not only from Windows users, but also from a few unnamed Mac users. JAWS for Windows is said to work quite well with VISTA, and the good folks at Freedom Scientific have been hard at work on the next release of JFW. I will admit, though, to being rather curious about VoiceOver--the Mac screen reader. I've actually heard it demonstrated a little bit on a couple podcast episodes and it doesn't sound at all bad. I guess I'm not as biased as some people I know. In other news...I along with all other residents in my building who participated won our marathon! I just found this out today at a cookout and awards ceremony. Earlier this year several CIF residents and staff participated in a marathon of sorts to raise money for the organization.