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Hello everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. In this entry I'd like to talk about a very exciting technological development which I just recently found out about. This only applies to the Mozilla Firefox web browser. There is now an extension to that browser that purports to solve those pesky CAPTCHA schemes, among other things. The extension is appropriately named Webvisum. I've not tried out Webvisum yet, and I don't even have Firefox. But I'm quite curious about the "CAPTCHA-solver" and hope I can get my hands on a copy of this extension very soon. I had Firefox on a previous computer and it worked great, and I hear support for Windows Vista is excellent. The website for this new Firefox extension is http://www.webvisum.com. For those of you language buffs out there, "visum" is Latin for "vision." This truly does appear to be a "web vision" for the future.

Hello everyone. I'd like to start off this entry by giving an update on the salmonella outbreak which appeared at first to only be linked to certain types of raw tomatoes. Sources now report that this outbreak has greatly expanded, and now we're being told tomatoes aren't the only likely culprit. This is beginning to get rather interesting. At least 100 residents of Illinois have been sickened, and the outbreak has expanded its territory. What I find interesting here is the number of ill people seems to be increasing by leaps and bounds, yet to this day nobody seems to have a clear-cut answer as to where this outbreak originated. That's right, not even the "experts" know much. The lawyers working on behalf of all the victims of this mass outbreak must really have their hands full! I'm no food-safety expert nor will I ever claim to be one, but I think something as large as this clearly demonstrates the need for better management within the food supply system. The other veggies implicated here are serrano and jalapeno peppers, cilantro and bulb onions and scallions. I personally don't care for any of these, so I don't think the likelihood of me falling ill is very good. But our government needs to step up their efforts in tracking down these kinds of things! Other than this mass outbreak I haven't been doing much. A cousin of mine is due to get married next weekend and I'm going to Indianapolis for the wedding. I've only been to Indy a couple of times, and both were for the Indy500. Those of you into NASCAR racing but haven't been there, this is a must-see event. At one point I even got my hands on one of the racecars. I attended the Indy500 both times with people from a previous job at a nonprofit organization. One of our board members was actually the driver of one of the racecars. In addition, I got to attend a few drag races where another of our board members was a team owner.

Hello everyone. Once again I am slightly behind on posting, but this time I have a legit excuse. I downloaded and installed the latest version of Mozilla Firefox so that I could try out Webvisum. Well, I was able to obtain the latest version of Firefox without any problems, but the same cannot be said for Webvisum. I found the download link okay and followed the instructions, but for whatever reason the confirmation code in the email I was sent didn't work. So I filled out the form on www.webvisum.com and submitted it and a representative did email me back, but he basically told me what I already knew, i.e., to install the add-on and then wait for a confirmation email and follow the steps from there. Needless to say I'm a bit befuddled by this and I'm going to follow up in due course. Other than that things have been going pretty well on my end. I'm getting another new neighbor next week. Actually CIF has done sort of a cool thing. The young man who had been living across the hall from me has moved into his own condo in one of the other CIF facilities, and someone from another one is going to move into his apartment. Actually she's not new to me. I've known her for a little while and she's great. We here at Center for Independent Futures really roll out the red carpet when it comes to new staff or new clients or whatever, and this is no exception. I think I speak for all of us when I say she'll be welcomed with arms wide open--if that hasn't happened already. The third recent event of significance was my cousin's wedding and it was a lot of fun. My dad had a birthday the next day and we threw a big brunch party. That was great fun and I think he thoroughly enjoyed himself. That's it from yours truly for this entry. Like I mentioned at the beginning I had a problem with Webvisum--the Firefox extension which boasts some great features--but my goal for the next entry is to have it successfully running on my system. I do believe the next version of Non-Visual Desktop Access was just released so I'm hoping to try that out as well. Stay tuned!

Hi folks. As I was doing some web surfing today I came across a rather disturbing post on the GW Micro blog. Apparently Freedom Scientific is very unhappy with the release of Window-Eyes version 7.0. Specifically FS is unhappy because the scripting feature in Window-Eyes 7.0 outperforms that of JAWS. In an attempt to be fair, I have used both these screen readers and they have their strengths and weaknesses. This is evidently the first time an adaptive technology company has sued one of its competitors over something as simple as a feature contained in its screen reader. Readers can get more information on this lawsuit by visiting GW Micro's blog at http://www.gwmicro.com/blog, and Darrell and Karen Shandrows' Blind Access Journal at http://www.blindaccessjournal.com . I recall not too long ago when Freedom sued Serotek--makers of the System Access line of products--for copyright violations by way of the Freedom Box Network. This has since been renamed the System Access Mobile Network. What I find interesting here is that all this hostility within the blindness community is still going on despite numerous technological advances, some of which will make it harder for those of us with vision impairments to participate as equals. An example of this can be seen with CAPTCHA. Nobody seems willing to stand up and fight for our rights to have accessible CAPTCHA'S wherever they exist in the first place. Darrell Shandrow is doing his part by discussing this issue on his website and elsewhere, but still there hasn't been much change. Even if Webvisum--the Firefox extension--proves to be a success, users of other web browsers will be SOL because Webvisum only works with Firefox. I think this is clearly a point when one asks why the heck our two blindness "advocacy" organizations haven't just grown up and put all ill will behind them.

Hi everyone! I'm typing this entry using Non-Visual Desktop Access Version 0.6P. The letter P in this case indicates a Preview, which is essentially a trial version. I'm very pleased to report great success with this version thus far. It is set up a little bit differently from previous versions of NVDA, but I like it nevertheless and it's still totally free! I highly recommend it for those screen reader users on a tight budget, or for those who simply want to try out a high-quality screen reader just to see what this technology is all about. I've been debating whether or not to start using NVDA as my default screen reader here at home and just stop using JAWS altogether, especially in lieu of the lawsuit frenzy in which Freedom Scientific and certain other unnamed members of the blindness community are participating. It's not that I dislike JAWS, but I find myself not wanting to spend my precious money on a company that will undoubtedly start duping it's customers if things don't get sorted out. Please refer to an earlier entry for more on this lawsuit debacle. The developers of NVDA have included some really neat features in this update. For those who want to avoid hearing the speech but who still want to get an idea of what screen readers are, there is a feature in this version which outputs all screen reader messages to the computer screen without speaking it. Go to http://www.nvda-project.org to check it out! Having said all that I'd like to talk a bit about the ADA. Today is the 18th birthday of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and celebrations are no doubt taking place around the world. However, I'm not really celebrating. While it is true that there has been change in a few areas, we still have a ways to go. There are still people out there with a very paternalistic attitude towards those of us with special needs, and one cannot forget the narrowing of various court decisions. Those of us with special needs are human too, and we therefore deserve to be treated as equals. I participated in a celebration in 2004 here in downtown Chicago. It was a lot of fun, but I think I've had enough of those ADA celebrations at least until people wake up.

Yes you did read that right, I have been given another volunteer opportunity. Yesterday I met with two staff members of Center for Independent Futures and a lady who is starting a website for the special-needs community. This website will be for people with special needs to tell their stories. One aspect of the site which I find really cool is that people with special needs will be able to relate our experiences--good or bad--with various places of business such as restaurants and stores. Those without special needs will of course be welcome too. I know a lot of people in this community who have had bad experiences at certain places, be that physical or attitudinal barriers. Fortunately though, that doesn't seem to happen much at least where I live. But when it does happen things need to be done in an attempt to correct the situation. I'm very much looking forward to this venture and I think a lot of good will come out of it.