THE BLOND - a Blind Blog

Carers at Breaking Point - yes, we know...

2009-06-08T01:53:51Z

For anyone who doubts that being an "informal" carer is stressful, I'd recommend this article.

Carers UK calls for radical overhaul of benefits and care system to prevent carers reaching breaking point

http://www.carersuk.org/Newsandcampaigns/News/1244212361?dm_i=74C,16Q8,PEUIO,3DDP,0

Unpaid carers save the Government 87 billion pounds a year, equivalent to the costs of a major spending ministry.

Successive Governments have been quite happy to leave this issue alone, as it's much less convenient to change the lousy system we all work in.

Approach any politician about this, and you are likely to hear all kinds of blah blah about how wonderful and vital carers are, and saying that some undefined change may happen in the future sometime or other, can't say what or when.

Meanwhile, the world seems to be full of dozy social workers and others who are supposed to be there to offer support services who don't have the slightest clue about what's involved in caring for another person. If we all downed tools and these idiots had some work to do for a change, we'd probably be able to make our point a great deal louder, but then of course we'd face a torrent of emotional blackmail about walking out on our various situations.

I agree with the points the article raises about the lamentable lack of funding for carers. Most people don't get carer's allowance, which is anyway a derisory amount of money for the few who get it. It was about £53 a week last time I knew about it. That's for a role that can keep you up 24 hours a day, and there are no minimum wages or holiday entitlements. There aren't even any weekends or evenings out if you are anything like me, so where, given all the discouragements, is my motivation supposed to come from?

My requirements are actually pretty simple. Being able to survive financially is helpful, but what I'm mainly asking for is.....

GUILT-FREE TIME OFF !!!!!!

Which of those words is hard to understand I don't know, but they seem to be beyond the comprehension of the aforementioned dozy social workers, care agencies and the benefits system.

For any menaingful change to take place, the benefits system needs to change, yes, but much harder for dim politicians to understand, the exploitative culture has to change.

I suggest a national carers' 1-day strike. OK, we'd have to ensure that our "loved ones" (Evelyn Waugh, where are you?) knew how to contact the emergency services, and we could all nominate someone in the ahem caring professions to be the buddy for the day for our "loved ones". They'd have the duty of care for that day (and I mean a period of 24 hours), and would be told, possibly for the first time in their lives, what to do in a crisis. It would be hard work getting this to happen, but what isn't?

The BAT!

Speakon - a free, accessible media player

2009-06-07T21:12:31Z

Not for the first time, I'm pleased to carry an announcement for the new version of SpeakOn, which Isaac Porat, the author, continues to develop.

Please feel free to distribute this information to other sites.

Hello All,

A new features release of SpeakOn 2.2, 6 June 2009 is now available.

The highlight of this version are new features making SpeakOn an ideal player for listening to both Live and 'On demand' radio. Thanks to RadioTimes for their excellent co-operation. The ability to browse, search and preset thousands of stations and shows has been available for a while. With this version, station schedules for 7 days ahead are available for main stations including the BBC. You can navigate seamlessly from any show (known as programmes in the UK) and play the station if broadcasting live or any archive if available in either podcast or BBC 'Listen again' formats. You can quickly skip content within a stream. Station recommendations, error reporting and direct links to stations' websites are also available.

Other new features in this version include improved and consistent information across all media types, efficiency features and the ability to scrobble your own music to Last.FM.

For those who are new to SpeakOn, it is a self-voicing software environment for finding, retrieving and playing audio and text media. All media local to your computer or remote on the internet is presented in the same simple tree-like structure. You can navigate to the media you want, select it and it is automatically downloaded or streamed and played in the same SpeakOn player which handles both audio and text. Common audio formats are supported including MP3, WMA and Real. You can either operate SpeakOn using a standard keyboard or an external low cost numerical keypad using one hand from the comfort of your armchair. SpeakOn has a low footprint (the installer is only 3.8 Mb) and it is highly efficient making it ideal for use with Netbooks.

SpeakOn is available free from: www.a-technic.net/speakon.htm

This page contains information about SpeakOn, the types of media it supports, links to the download page, manual and mailing list.

The new radio features are explained here: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn-s-0016.htm

Media information is explained here: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn-r-0127.htm

Efficiency features are explained here: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn-r-0134.htm

Scrobbling your own music to Last.FM is explained here: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn-r-0132.htm

The 'What's new' page is at: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn-r-0079.htm

Instructions for upgrading from an older version are at: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn-r-0103.htm

The download page for new users is at: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn-r-0016.htm

If you experience slow download, this is probably because of demand for this new version so you may like to try again in a day or so.

The manual is at: http://www.a-technic.net/SpeakOn/docs/SpeakOn/ht/SpeakOn.htm

Enjoy - and if you like SpeakOn, please forward this announcement to any mailing lists, blogs or bulletin boards you feel are relevant.

Regards,
Isaac

Isaac Porat
SpeakOn's author
email: speakon@a-technic.net
Website: http://www.a-technic.net/speakon.htm

Build your own MP!

2009-06-03T01:50:04Z

In world first, Chinese researchers create pig stem cells

The pig's ear, I understand, is a particularly productive source of cells. Forget elections - build your own MP!

The BAT!

Don't pandemic! Don't pandemic!

2009-05-01T01:42:41Z

Clearly, the outbreak of so-called swine 'flu in Mexico has revealed to the world the existence of an extremely nasty and dangerous disease.

It's dangerous because it's jumped species, and has now been passed from human to human, including some who have not visited Mexico.

The way the press have handled this story has me puzzled. I had never heard of this disease until last weekend, and now we have Level 5 warnings about a world-wide pandemic. Did this bug just come out of nowhere to panic the world?

Perhaps our news media should be more alert to events outside the Anglo-American nexus. If any such thing had started in New York, you can bet your bottom dollar we'd never have heard the last of it.

Didn't the first woman to die of "swine 'flu" die nearly 3 weeks ago? What happened to that story? Well, it did make it into the mainstream, rather late in the day.

In a country such as the UK, there is probably less need to panic than in less fortunate countries. It does appear that everyone in the UK is to receive a leaflet giving advice about what to do in case of swine 'flu, and there seem to be good stocks of the anti-viral drugs, such as Tamiflu and Relenza, that can successfully treat it. Apart from phoning for advice if the worst happens, it seems ordinary measures such as washing your hands frequently and using a tissue if you cough or sneeze and then binning it are useful hygiene steps that everyone can take. So is staying indoors and not spreading it around. Wearing a face mask won't apparently stop you getting the bug, but again it will reduce the risk of you spreading it to others.

As far as I know, there is no risk from pork products. So long as people cook their food thoroughly, there doesn't seem to be much connection between this bug and the consumption of pork. You're more in danger from other humans.

Hope these links will be useful if you're at all worried about this:-

Swine flue alert clears old stocks of Tamiflu
http://www.wddty.com/03363800372785950688/swine-flu-alert-clears-old-stock-of-tamiflu.html

Swine flu advice for UK homes
http://www.hc2d.co.uk/content.php?contentId=11192

2009 swine flu outbreak - Wikipedia (being updated often)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak

Swine 'flu advice from NHS Direct
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/article.aspx?name=swinefluQA

Help Rename the Swine Flu! - misleading to link it to pork, industry says
http://www.reuters.com/article/bigMoney/idUS68802868220090430

Invasion of the Barboids

2009-05-01T00:35:24Z

It comes to something when the ENVIRONMENT Editor of the Independent puts up a headline like this.....

Get your barbie ready – we're in for a sizzler

What the article is driving at is that this coming summer can't be as nasty as the two summers just gone. Well, I could have told you that. Unless climate change really has set in, this summer could hardly be any worse than those dire seasons.

But why, as soon as there is any mention of good weather in the media, do we get forecasters and journos urging people to assault the air with their barbecuse?

I don't want to be a killjoy. I was only too happy to make the most of one glorious sunny day last week. I took some rare time out to walk in the woods and photograph the emerging bluebells. It was a life-saver slice of quality time. At that point, Joy was my middle name.

Feeling very mellow, back in my house with the doors and windows open enjoying the early evening sun, as ever, some moron struck up the barbie. I sat in my own living room with my eyes streaming from the burning fat, or the burning firelighters, or whatever it was that made the air so toxic. This onslaught certainly killed my joy on what was otherwise a marvellous day. My other half has asthma, and does very badly when people indulge in this act of chain-smoking. I just find it plain revolting.

We have what seems to be a world-wide ban on smoking (tobacco) in public places, and This is probably quite right, if some way over the top.

I am not allowed to have a useful pesticidal bonfire in my garden. Bit anti-social, I suppose, especially when the neighbours want to leave their washing out all the time.

So, considerable efforts and bigotry have gone into giving us cleaner air. What's the point, then of letting any number of people light up smoke-bombs in their backyards? If passive smoking of tobacco is suddenly such a health hazard, how dangerous is barbecue smoke? I bet it leaves tobacco as a non-starter in the danger league.

True, that one barbie only went on for a couple of hours. But if we are really in for better weather, the usual outcome in my part of the world is that dozens of morons will light up at once, and it will be hard to escape this smoke-screen.

So, if this is to go on, the least our esteemed Government can do is rescind the smoking ban and let me chain-smoke in the pub or when I'm going past the deli counter in Sainsbury's. I'm sure it will give a nicely barbecued overtone to the turkey slices.

And, please, media people, stop inciting people to violate the air.

NVDA, the free screen reader

2009-02-22T19:42:15Z

If you're trying to use a speech program to get access to your computer, I can imagine the state you're in. You find it harder than you thought to follow the speech, it's not the same as reading by sight at all, if you ever have done, and the costs of these programs, if you order the real thing, are horrendous. OK, it's a limited market, takes a lot of R&D, etc etc. But that doesn't help you.

You can at least tackle the cost problem, now that there are a number of free and cheap screen readers in existence. The problems of making a transition to a screen reader are not something I can do anything about, although I would just say "Don't despair, it gets easier with time."

The best of the free screen readers, in my opinion, is NVDA (Non-Visual Desktop Access).

I've been using NVDA for a couple of years now, and believe me I wouldn't have done that if it didn't meet my needs for computer and Web accessibility. It does exactly that 99% of the time. The other 1% is made up of objects that just don't allow screen readers to read them. These objects include software programs, badly slung-together PDF files and Flash items that don't use the accessibility features.

NVDA is free of charge and open source. Open source means that if you have the programming skills, you could take part in developing the project. It also means that those who are developing other programs can see NVDA's code and fathom how screen readers work..

There's a very active mailing list for users and another one for developers, which provide very useful support.

NVDA can be installed in the normal way on any Windows PC running a recent version of Windows, and can also be installed on a pen drive. It doesn't make registry calls, nor does it use video hooks, and so it is wonderfully portable, unlike many other screen readers.

Now that there's a new, relatively stable version of the program, there's never been a better time to try it. Version 0.6p3 is only a few days old, and is maybe the best choice for most people at present. If you feel like chancing your arm a little more, you could try snapshot versions, which usually come out on a daily basis.

Useful links:-

NVDA web site

Download NVDA - look for the stable release, version 0.6p3

NVDA v0.6p3 User Guide

NVDA Users' Mailing list - to receive messages directly in your e-mail, subscribe by sending a blank mail to
nvda-request@freelists.org, with the word subscribe as the subject line.

NVDA Developers' Mailing list - to receive messages directly in your e-mail, subscribe by sending a blank mail to
nvda-dev-request@freelists.org, with the word subscribe as the subject line.

The BAT!

National Trust offer Allotment Plots

2009-02-21T01:13:52Z

National Trust land for allotments - the UK Trust is offering to share land with would-be allotment gardeners. TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has set up a landshare web site where gardeners can be matched up to plots of land. Community groups may also apply for plots, or groups of plots, in their area.

There are more references to allotments on my Blind Gardening Page.

Vince's Parallax has moved

2009-02-08T01:11:02Z

Please go to www.freewebs.com/batfromhell for the current version of Vince's Parallax.

I don't know if this is temporary or permanent, but at least we're up and running.

There are bound to be some things I haven't fixed yet, such as pointers to web rings or missing graphics files, but I'm going to be working on it.

Apologies for the disruption, but I am sorry to say it's beyond my control.

The BAT!

Vince's Parallax is Offline

2009-02-06T22:25:56Z

Sorry to anyone who's tried to get to my web site over the last 24 hours.

Vince's Parallax, http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/ is inexplicably inaccessible to me as well as everyone else. I guess you'd call it a hosting problem.

anyway, I'll investigate as soon as I can and get the site on the road again.

The BAT!

Happy Birthday, Louis Braille!

2009-01-04T17:48:32Z

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille.

Peter White's radio programme, "The Story of Braille" is a good listen.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20090102-1005b.mp3

The BAT!

Don't take Microsoft to the party!

2009-01-01T19:55:38Z

Miserable New Year's Eve party-goers might have regretted taking their Microsoft Zune players to provide the music. It is being widely reported that the players curled up and died yesterday.

Evidently, this was a timer/calendar bug triggered by 2008 being a leap year.

You see, kids, it works like this. To make up for the earth's not-quite regular motions in the cosmos, you need to add an extra day every 4 years. Those years are the ones that divide exactly by 4. We call these years leap years.

2008 divided by 4, if I can remember my primary school sums, is approximately 502, remainder 0. Yes, it divides exactly by 4. I have a vague memory that century years like 2000 may be an exception, but hell I don't work for an over-inflated software house, so it doesn't matter.

35 years in the software business, and they can't get the calendar right??? This is frankly amateurish.

The Zune continues to have problems competing with Apple iPods. This won't exactly help. Remember those ruined parties, and you'll not be too keen to go over to Microsoft!

Blind Tandem riders' chance to meet pilots

2008-12-31T23:28:12Z

Have you ever fancied trying or getting back to cycling, but can't because you're visually impaired or blind?

If so, take a look at the latest entry on my
Blind Tandem Page. It goes like this.

Tandem Pilots and Blind/Visually Impaired Riders Wanted - British Cycling disability Co-ordinator is offering to match pilots and blind stokers. Please contact Phil Godfrey at disability@britishcycling.org.uk or phone 0161 274 2021.

This looks like a brilliant opportunity to get on the road, fell the breeze and get fit. Sign me up please!

And if you have been reading this in 2008, please keep on doing the same in 2009. And a very happy and insightful New Year to you!

The BAT!

Blind Photographers step forward please

2008-12-13T21:06:45Z

At one time, the idea of blind photography belonged to the Weird News category, or would get the kind of "Yay-LOL-that's so gay" vote on the average message board.

I'm sure that kind of reaction still goes on, but I'm glad to say that it's more than counterbalanced these days by intelligent and curious discussions.

A couple of years ago, I started a blind photography links page on my website...

http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/blindphotography.html

I had no idea where it would go, and for a while it seemed there were a few brilliant artists involved in the field, and a few people who were pushing the boat out to enable blind people to get involved in photography. It was good stuff, but was a pretty small world.

Now, I'm getting more reaction to that page than anything else I've done on the Internet. Every week there are new sites to read, groups to join or e-mails to answer on the subject of blind photographers. I have to say that the whole thing started innocently enough, but has become something of a passion!

One person who recently contacted me is a third-year photography student in Bristol who is looking for participants in a blind photography project. Please respond if you can.

The project involves answering a short survey, though you might find it thought provoking enough to make it not so short! and a self-portrait that you take yourself and then describe.

"I've been doing a lot of different things inspired by the concept of blind photography, but one aspect of it that I haven't touched upon yet is that of portraiture. I know there is a massive span in the differences between levels of visual impairment; from only seeing shapes to complete darkness.
And I think that this relates therefore to mental visualisation. What I am keen on is how people visualise themselves. And I am going to use not just VI people, also people with 'perfect' vision.
The idea is basically to compare an actual photograph with the image that people have in their heads. This could be done with anything, but I think self portraiture is the most intriguing. So the subject would photograph themselves (however they want), and then as well as this image, a description in words of how they think it looks. I hope this makes sense!".

If you want to take part, please send an e-mail to Moonh Leaf at this e-mail address:-

poonstermoon@hotmail.com

The BAT!

WebVisum really works!

2008-11-04T17:19:02Z

WebVisum is a Firefox add-on that solves a couple of major web annoyances for us blind people. For one thing, you can label unexplained graphics on web pages (like those that look like menu buttons and don't have any tooltips to talk to your screen reader, so how the devil are you supposed to know what they are). When you next go back to the page where you've left some labels, they will still be there. Magic!

And, maybe even more impressively, you can solve many of those CAPTCHAs that stop you getting into web sites. You know the things I mean - for example, if you want to join Yahoo or MySpace, you are presented with some graphic or other without much explanation, and what it contains is a bunch of distorted characters that are hard to unpick even with sight. Some sites give you an audio alternative, but many still don't. In any case, you might have problems deciphering the audio too - what if you're deaf-blind? or elderly and getting a bit hard of hearing?

Well, I've tried WebVisum on several web sites, such as Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter, and it's done an amazingly good job of deciphering the graphics. Your screen reader will pick up when the solution is available and WebVisum will place the solution on to your clipboard, so that you can just paste it wherever it's needed.

Fantastic, and a very enabling piece of software.

You can get more info here:-
http://www.webvisum.com/

The BAT!

PDF SchmEE DF

2008-10-10T16:57:43Z

One frequently asked question on blind mailing lists and forums is "Why can't I read PDF files with my screen reader?".

Well, of course, there are many PDF files that are perfectly readable with most screen readers, not to mention the built-in accessibility features in most versions of Adobe Reader that give you some sort of text-to-speech facility.

The problem is that people outside the blind world are not conscious of needing to make these files accessible. So often, someone will make a PDF file any old how, without the proper structure and without caring whether the text is, in fact, text. Text embedded in a graphic, as far as a screenreader is concerned, is just a graphic, or, as I call it, a blob.

Now that there are so many file converters available, and you can save as PDF from some word processors, there seems to be an epidemic of rubbish PDF files on the loose.

It doesn't help when you get programs such as the following available on Giveaway Of The Day (free inaccessible software daily). By the way, the program is not really called Bla-bla, but otherwise this is a direct quotation.

Start of quoted text.
Bla-bla is a powerful and easy-to-use image to PDF converter. Using this image to PDF converter, you can batch convert JPEG (JPEG2000), TIFF, BMP, GIF and PNG to PDF on the fly. With Bla-bla, you can convert your favorite images, photos, pictures and scanned images of text documents to PDF files with password protection, make your own PDF e-books, PDF photo albums, PDF presentation and PDF slide shows with easy and pleasure, and share your PDF files with others without worry about the security of the PDF files.

End of quoted text.

And when you've done all those things, your PDF files will be completely meaningless to a blind user. I very much hope that one day PDF files will be made to a standard in the same way that web pages can be. OK, there may be problems with the standards too, but they're a good starting point, even if most developers ignore them at this time in history.

Is there an equivalent of Alt text in PDF files? That's the text on web pages that pops up a little explanation of the graphic or other item being labelled. That's if the writer has bothered to use alt text, of course, but the page won't validate properly without this small item.

If anyone's business depends on customers receiving these duff PDF files, just consider that you could be discriminating against those who depend on access technology, and that could land you in court. Even Target in the USA have had to clean up their act to some extent, having persistently refused to play ball.

Maybe some day we'll all be able to enjoy our life on the comp uter "with easy and pleasure"!!

Introducing EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)

2008-07-25T20:25:11Z

So what's this got to do with blindness? Well, not a lot. But I came across someone this week who practices EFT, and my interest was immediately hooked.

I'd never heard of EFT before, but to put you straight into the picture, it's a form of therapy or healing that involves tapping with fingertips on acupressure points. It's used for all kinds of health problems, including, please note, improving people's sight. I can't say I can vouch for any results, especially that one, but the whole thing deserves a look. More regular uses are to tackle stress, weight loss, stopping smoking, and other things that may indicate a life out of balance.

Sounded good enough to me, so I milked the Internet the other night for any information I could. The result is a somewhat off-topic page on my web site.

http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/eft.htm

The page isn't linked to the rest of my pages, but there are several pages linking to it already, including, of course, this one.

I've put up a bookmark on del.icio.us pointing to the EFT page, and have put about 36 feeds into a swicki, one of those custom search engines that have a narrowly defined field such as this.

On my page, you'll find the swicki, the news feeds, a way of downloading the feeds all at once from an OPML file, and something like 600 links. The links are just sorted alphabetically at the moment, which is nonsense, but I promise they'll be better organised before too long.

I was looking for emotional freedom technique audio tonight, and found my page was 7th entry in Google already! It's only been up on the site for 24 hours, if that, so good on you, Google. Such great taste in web pages!

More importantly, I hope this material is useful to people whatever their situation. It seems EFT is a simple technique to learn, and you can download a free manual on how to do it. Can't say fairer than that.

Happy tapping,

The BAT!

Share your life at the Experience Project

2008-06-30T22:54:45Z

It seems there is a slightly different kind of social network site appearing at the moment, and the theme I would characterise as 'aspirational'. One example is 43things.com, where you compile a list (and of course, share it with your thousands of friends and blog about it, then turn it into a TV channel..... ) Well, anyway, it's not such a terrible idea. 43 things to do before you die, that sort of thing. Maybe a couple of hundred things to do after you die would be even more interesting.

I've been having some fun with a similar site called the Experience Project.

On the site, you can share any kind of experience you've had in life, and get others to comment or form groups around these experiences. If you haven't had the experience, you can find out what it's like and intend to have it. And say so, comment, blog, and turn yourself into a TV channel. I jest, but only a bit.

I've found the site very easy to use, and have actually had responses to some of the things I've written about, and it feels a bit more grown-up than many such sites I could name. I didn't even have to solve a CAPTCHA, if I remember rightly, so I'm more than happy with that.

Links to the Experience Project are below.

The BAT!

Unified English Braille - Have Your Say

2008-06-20T23:13:53Z

The UK Braille Authority is taking part in a consultation to find out people's views on the issue of Unified English Braille. While there are subtly different versions ofbraille in different English-speaking countries, it may make more sense to align all the different codes. This will unify not only regular and literary Braille, but specialist forms such as maths and music as well.

If you're interested, please have a look at the booklet that's available on the web site listed below, and make your opinions known.

http://www.bauk.org.uk/current.htm#consult

vip_uc @ 2008-05-30T20:06:00

2008-05-30T19:06:40Z

I'm delightedto report that the swicki.com site is working again, so the Blind World Swicki is once again available.

You can use the Blind World Swicki (a specialist search engine) from most of the pages on Vince's Parallax....

http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/

or you can go directly to the Blind World Swicki page at

http://blind-world-swicki.eurekster.com/

Blind World Swicki - apologies

2008-05-21T19:45:28Z

Apologies for anyone using my site, Vince's Parallax, who may have tried to use, or even grab, the Blind World Swicki. This was an attempt to put together a blindness search engine.

However, "the best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley”, and it seems that the swicki site is offline altogether, or just taking a nap. Assuming it comes back within a reasonable time, the service to my site should resume automatically.

Possibly you're listening to this post on the audio feed....

http://www.talkr.com/app/cast_pods.app?feed_id=29369

and if so, that shows it's working again, which it wasn't a few weeks ago.

It's just the way the seething cauldron of the Web works.

The BAT!

The Price of FreedomBox

2008-02-01T16:06:04Z

I'm as ill-tempered as any blind person about the huge costs of assistive technology, where every item in the shop seems to cost a thousand dollars, or several thousand.

But credit goes where it's due. Recently we've had major contributions in the screen reader field from Thunder (screenreader.net) and NVDA (http://www.nvda-project.org/).

There is now also a competent screen magnifier available over the Web. Called iZoom Web, it's much better than all those programs that just blow up an area around the mouse pointer. You can find iZoom Web at the Issist web site (www.issist.ca)

But there's more.

An organisation called the AIR Foundation (Accessibility Is a Right) has dropped something of a bombshell by announcing that blind people will be able to use a free screen-reading program thanks to the generosity of the Serotek Corporation in making System access To Go available free to all.

All the blind user needs to do is to navigate to this web site:

http://www.accessibilityisaright.org/

and follow the simple instructions. System Access To Go will then work while the person's Internet connection is still alive. Windows only, and English only at the moment, but the AIR Foundation will be working on other projects to extend this idea of universal accessibility.

The press announcement from the AIR Foundation is at

http://www.accessibilityisaright.org/NonprofitLaunchedtoBringFreeAccessibilityWorldwide.html

American elections - Shut Up Already!!!

2008-01-07T21:44:37Z

Yes, we all know there are elections forthcoming in the USA. Now shut up.

Our UK media are obviously going to be unbearable all year covering every jot and tittle of these American parish pump issues.

Yes, I know America's an important ally and all that - what would be do without them in Iraq, for instance? But I feel I only need to know the end result, and need the obsessive coverage we're about to get on our media like a hole in the head.

I must admit I followed last week's events in Iowa with some interest, and hearing this sort of thing once has some sort of curiosity value. But please, I don't want to go through every darned state hearing it all week after week, month after month.

What really bothers me is that while the BBC in particular has its usual feeding frenzy on something American, there are 200-odd countries in the world not being adequately covered. When China becomes top nation in a few years' time, I wonder what they're all going to do? Take no notice, more than likely.

Thank goodness for Internet radio and pick-your-own RSS news feeds!

The BAT!

Who Cares? Raio 4 examines social care in the UK

2008-01-07T21:23:18Z

If you're a carer in the UK, whether paid or unpaid, you'll be interested in this month's offerings from BBC Radio 4 about the UK's system of social care.

The Radio 4 web page to start from is

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/careintheuk/index.shtml

From here, you can listen again to the radio programmes, take part in the message board and pick up plenty of background information.

The BAT!

Vince's Parallax: a site about blindness

2007-12-15T13:05:44Z

You may have com across my humble web site - several dozen happy visitors already have!

Called Vince's Parallax, it's now on its own domain, which is:-

http://www.batfromhell.co.uk

I won't update the old Freewebs version from now on, and the pages expire for the search engines on 31st December, so please update your links if you link to my site. Meanwhile, I'll busy myself updating all those social bookmarks, etc, that point to the old site.

Direct links to some of my pages....

Introductory page
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/index.html

Blind Gardening
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/blindgardening.html

Blind Photography
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/blindphotography.html

Blind Podcasts and Online Audio
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/blindpodcasts.html

Blind Blogs
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/blogs.html

Kinetic Art
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/kineticart.html

Macular Degeneration: A Personal Snapshot
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/md.html

Blind Music
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/music.html

Podcast Miscellany
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/podcasts.html

Space Audio Page
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/spaceaudio.html

Aspects of Visual Impairment
http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/vi.html

The BAT!

Visual Verification: do you want the good news or the bad news?

2007-11-15T02:25:01Z

As I'm sure every blind Internet inhabitant knows, accessibility is problematic for us visually impaired people on many web sites, thanks to the proliferation of visual-only CAPTCHAs. These are the distorted characters you have to copy to get into some web sites. The reason for their use is understandable enough. These sites are trying to stop spammers using automated systems to put rubbish on to their sites. I'm sure that's a sentiment we can all go along with. The problem is the way the sites implement the CAPTCHAs. Usually they are visual only, though some sites are now providing a sound alternative. Not that all of the audio alternatives are easy to use, but it's a step in the right direction when major providers such as Google implement audio CAPTCHAs.

Well, today I've come across several obstacles, and one site that was a delight to use. Let's start with the good news.

Being a busy screen reader user, I wanted to try something a little less wearing than the default Microsoft voices in Windows XP. I tried the Acapela web site, which has several high-quality voices for download.

http://www.acapela-group.com/demos/desktop.asp

To get any voices to download, yes you have to pass a CAPTCHA, but the version they have there has an audio alternative, and that audio alternative is spoken in a high-quality voice, very easy to hear. Their DVDs containing software are also Brailled, incidentally, so they are clearly doing their best to be accessible.

Well, that's the good news. I was very disappointed when trying to join the VLC Media Player Forum to find a visual-only CAPTCHA preventing me from getting in. Having a little residual sight, I tried to fathom out the CAPTCHA, but all attempts failed. Considering what a wonderfully accessible program VLC Media Player is, it was a nasty surprise to discover that they had an inaccessible forum.

http://forum.videolan.org/viewforum.php

The other bad news doesn't come from my own experience, but was mentioned by someone on a mailing list I belong to. This person said tat when trying to reply to an e-mail from someone in inbox.com, he had to pass the same kind of visual verification in order to be able to reply.

http://www.inbox.com/

They are not the only web-mail service that puts up such a barrier by any means, but it is disappointing to discover more of them!

Update 29th November 07. The latest in my Rogues' Gallery of inaccessible sites is JLC's Internet TV Forum. A CAPTCHA again that I thought I could crack, but I couldn't get it right. They offer an email contact for visually impaired people, at least but I'm waiting for a reply, and don't know how long it's going to take. Hear my claws drumming on the table??

Update, Jan 1st, 2008. Well, I still haven't had that helpful e-mail from JLC Internet TV Forum. Happy New Year, guys.

The BAT!