January 2008 - Posts
The AIR Foundation committed to ‘accessibility is a right’
Orlando, Florida – January 31, 2008 – The AIR Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn. was announced today at a press conference held during the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) 2008 National Conference at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando, Florida. The mission of the foundation is to promote universal accessibility so that every blind and low-vision person in the world has access to digital information over the Internet and Worldwide Web.
The foundation’s executive director, Art Schreiber, also announced that the organization’s first offering will be free usage of a Web 2.0 accessible screen reader. The product is provided through an exclusive license in perpetuity granted to The AIR Foundation from Serotek Corporation, the leading provider of Internet and digital information accessibility software and services. The screen reader is called SA To Go and is powered by Serotek’s award-winning System Access software which provides immediate text to speech, magnified visual, and Braille access to digital information presented through the Web or other means, while the user is directly connected to the Internet. The software does not remain resident on the user’s computer when the connection to the Internet is interrupted or terminated. Users can obtain access to the free software by calling 877-369-0101 or visiting www.AccessibilityIsaRight.org.
“The basic tenet of The AIR Foundation is that accessibility is a fundamental human right, regardless of financial or geographic constraints” said Art Schreiber, executive director of The AIR Foundation, “by allowing the blind and visually impaired to have equal access to computer and Internet information through the free use of an advanced screen reader like SA To Go, we have already taken great strides toward our mission.”
The AIR Foundation will solicit funds and contract development of product enhancements including availability in other languages. The organization’s first priority is to make SA To Go available in Mandarin Chinese.
“SA To Go is highly intuitive and requires minimal training to use,” said Serotek CEO, Mike Calvo, “the user not only has access to information displayed on Web pages, but to Web-based applications such as Internet telephone service, and to applications resident on the host computer. The user can also access PDF files, fill out forms, and otherwise interact with information with the same facility as a sighted person.”
The AIR Foundation will operate through the generosity of organizations donating their time, expertise, and funds. It invites other nonprofits, assistive technology vendors, mainstream hardware and software companies and anyone interested in promoting accessibility as every person’s right, to align with the AIR team.
The AIR Foundation
The AIR Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advocate, teach, and deliver information accessibility tools. We focus on the accessibility needs of blind and low-vision people. Our mantra is “accessibility is a right” and we work with corporations and agencies worldwide to deliver free accessibility to all. For more information, call 877-369-0101 or visit www.AccessibilityIsaRight.org.
Glaser talks about how he used to be excited when he received a notification of a new action on Facebook -- a poke, a wall post, a message -- but more recently, all that has changed. "Now, my reaction to getting the same kinds of notifications has changed, and I dread clicking through to see what kind of spam or scam is coming my way," he writes.
What happened? Well, for one, the Facebook platform happened. The Facebook platform allowed application developers to flood the site with applications, both useful and not (by many accounts, mostly not), and because of the way it is set up, app developers were able to encourage, and sometimes force or trick, users into sending out mass invites, notifications, or new feed announcements about often times trivial matters. This increased the noise on the Facebook network ten fold, and decreased the enjoyment of the social networks for some people.
Users, though, are beginning to push back. In just over a month, more than 65,000 people have joined the No, I will NOT invite 20 friends just to add your application! group, which has spun off an ancillary group that catalogues the applications that require users to invite friends before even using the app. And over 4,200 people have signed a petition calling on Facebook to step in and stop developers from using the "forced invite" tactic to grow their apps virally.
Have Facebook Apps Peaked in Popularity? - BuzzYA!
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is looking to effectively end domain tasting with a proposal to start charging the annual ICANN fee on registrar domain registrations.
Domain tasting is the use of the Add Grace Period to test the profitability of a domain name registration. The AGP is a five-day period following the initial registration of a domain name when the registration may be deleted and a credit can be issued to a registrar.
"Domain tasting has been an issue for the Internet community and ICANN is offering this proposal as a way to stop tasting," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN’s President and CEO. "Charging the ICANN fee as soon as a domain name is registered would close the loophole used by tasters to test a domain name’s profitability for free."
Fergie's Tech Blog: ICANN Board Recommends Ending Domain Tasting
SupportSpace is a new tech-support network. It certifies independent tech experts and connects them with people in need. I'm unclear how this certification and rating works, but I imagine it's based partly on feedback from users. The company provides call connection, desktop-sharing services, and other utilities to its contractors.
More at: Do tech support in your underwear with SupportSpace | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone
Listen to Erik Saltwell and Nishant Kothary talk about user experience, why “designer” is an imprecise term, the aesthetics of markup, upcoming features in Expression Web, PHP IntelliSense and #includes, the WordPress and PHP session at MIX08, and Erik on customer intimacy (SFW).
It's almost 40 minutes long, but very enlightening and well worth your time. Really makes me wish I could go to MIX08, but it's just not in the cards for me this year.
RE: Fix it before we nix it
Ev/Biz, people are talking. This last "scheduled maintenance schedule for prime time i your prime market, got moved and when you finally did it, the end result was that things were more of a mess than they were before. Tweeters are talking mostly about Twitter and they are not singing praise. Some folks say you should be bought, bring in adult supervisors to manage things or that maybe a circle of friends should go give Pownce a try. I do know of such a case, but I'll wager that somewhere this week a couple of young entrepreneurs started working on a business plan to replace you.
The complete letter is on Shel's blog.
I've only been on Twitter for about three weeks or so, but it seems to be the most unstable system I've ever seen. Either the system takes a break, or you post a Tweet and it goes into the ether, or it goes non-responsive and you end up posting twice.
Hopefully things will clear up soon - Twitter is a great place to meet new peaple :-)
I don't think they really use a knife for arthroscopic surgery, but I really don't want to know. The first 3 days afterwards are really hazy, thanks to the pain meds. Friday night, the Cryo/Cuff came off, the ON-Q PainBuster came out and the bandages were changed - all by my daughter. She is a CNA and she really knows her stuff.
So far, I've taken a shower and slept in my own bed (instead of on the couch) for the last two nights. I am in much more pain now than I was before the surgery, but it is getting better every day. I go back to the doctor on Monday to get the stitches out and get my Physical Therapy schedule.
After one week, I am already bored by daytime television, but I don't have enough energy to get back to work full-time. I think I'll be reading some books that have been sitting on the shelf for a while.
My vacation is over and now it's time to move on to the shoulder surgery to remove the bone spur, fix the partially torn rotator cuff, torn cartilage, and remove the cyst. The surgery is scheduled for 10:15 Wednesday morning - I have to be there by 9:15. Nothing to eat after midnight Tuesday, no jewelry or contact lenses, and I should wear loose clothing.
There are times when I think - do I really want to have this done? It doesn't hurt all the time, only when I lift my arm up over my head. The short term discomfort (a.k.a. pain) is going to be really awful from what I've heard. I've already filled the prescription for the painkillers.
Long term, I know it's the right thing to do, if only to prevent further damage. But I am not looking forward to this at all.
At CircleID, there's a letter posted from Network Solutions that describes what they are doing and they try and justify it by saying they are trying to protect their customers.
Since when does using their site to do a search make you a customer? You haven't bought anything, you are just using there (supposedly) free search service.
They are not trying to protect their customers, they are trying to make YOU a customer.
I have blogged before about Network Solutions/Verisign and their capers - specifically Site Finder. Today I read that Network Solutions steals domain ideas when people check domain availability on the Network Solutions web site.
Does this surprise me? No.
The solution: use a different Whois - try Ultra Fast Whois and register your domain name with a company that you can trust - NameCheap.