Don't forget to vote today.

That is all.

I know It's not even December yet, let alone Thanksgiving. I thought I'd post this link anyhow to a funny story that's sort of related to christmas. Elves who stayed on, now in modern times, going to an academy where they learn to be Christmas Elves. Sort of. LOTR people may like it. :)) I liked it so much I am re-reading it.

http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterlistview.asp?SID=6388

Today we went to the Philadelphia Zoo. I love going to the zoo. My favorite animals are the big cats. I can't see them, but once in a while I will hear a lion roar. Besides, I can always imagine what they look like.

Today we also went to feed some lorikeets, and I had so much fun this time around. Last year I was too nervous and I couldn't properly enjoy it. I was so tense that a keeper called a bird over and coaxed it onto my arm to eat. This time, a lorikeet hopped over on its own and it ate out of the cup. well, drank, but still, it got fed. The claws on that bird were so soft--our cat has sharper claws than that! I got audio of the lorikeet encounter and I also got audio of lorikeets talking. It is so beautiful to listen to! Thank goodness for the BookSense.

So that was fun, and learning about the cats and all the endangered species was fun.

But there is one animal at the zoo I simply cannot stand. It is other humans. Other humans at the zoo bring out the worst in all of us, even me. Humans at zoos are the pushiest, loudest, irritating, rule-breaking people, and I am sick of it.

Just once, I would love it if we could go to a zoo, just me and Eric and our daughter, with only the other animals and the zookeepers, forget other humans, and take a good long look at all the animals. It would be so nice.

I think, sometimes, that the ones who need to be in cages at the zoo aren't the animals, it's us, the visitors. Zoo animals are more civilized than we are.

Read the following:

http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/campus/in-focus-frats-sororities-must-make-expensive-accessibility-upgrades-or-risk-losing-their-houses-1.2464028

Discuss. This is a public entry.

I want to send a well-reasoned intelligent response to this article.

That's right, folks. I have finally seen an iPad!!! I managed to get my hands on one for about ten minutes today. We didn't go to an Apple store, but we did get to a Best Buy where there wer a few on display for playing with. Lucky for me, I always have my iPod Shufle whenever I leave the house, so I had a pair of earbuds with me.

Eric, with the help of the friendly person looking at the iPad next to us, figured out how to get VoiceOver running for me. (The guy did it first, and I was thrilled that he got it going on his model.) Then Eric turned me loose after turning it on on the model I was working with. I think it was in the wrong orientation, because the home button was on the right, but no matter.

Here are my first impressions as someone who has never owned an iPod Touch (though I want one!), nor an iPhone (because I can't afford to switch to AT&T!). Once Eric got me into the area to practice gestures, I caught on fairly quickly. four-fingerd-swipe? No problem. Double and tripple-tap? No big deal. flicking up and down, easy enough in there. So was the single and double tap with just one finger. My biggest hangup at first was how in the heck I was supposed to close whatever I was in, but then I figured to heck with it, there's that home button and it gets you back to something-or-other, that was what the guy next to me said. And it worked.

So once I got comfortable with that notion, I explored the screen. I found the status bar by mistake, but that was actually kind of cool! I mean, you touch the top left of the screen? Samantha says in this cheerful tone, "It's 9:21 AM!" OK, so the time was wrong but who gives a darn? It *spoke* it whenever I put my finger there! I mean right at that spot; I knew with a certainty I could always check the time by touching that exact spot on the screen!

It took me a little bit to figure out all the other applications were *below* that bar at the very top of the screen. A few lines down, actually. Well, if you're thinking in Braille like I was, it's a few Braille lines down. And I slowly explored that area of the screen. Slowly because while the gestures were easy in practice mode, it's a little different when you are trying to use them on the screen for real. I accidentally opened the calendar and heard the date and had to exit several times with the Home button. Then I got curious. I knew iPod and iTunes and Safari were on the dock on the bottom, that's what other blind people had said, so I just touched the bottom of the screen, or near enough, and found the dock area with Safari and Mail and iTunes and iPod. I forget the exact order, actually. Well, after a few tries I managed to double-tap correctly on Safari to open it.

Trouble! Trouble! Trouble! I found a keyboard, and I managed to input several letters by mistake, but I couldn't figure out how to delete them. I never could get to a web address, or not that I knew of. Then more trouble, if you want to call it that; the iPad started playing a song, I don't even know which one. It annoyed me at first--how do I *stop* the darned thing!? But then I got to kind of liking the music in the background while I worked with navigating the screens. Samantha and the music worked nicely together; neither drowned out the other. The music was lowered just enough that I could hear it and VoiceOver. It never faded away so low I couldn't hear it at all, and the words Samantha spoke were always distinguishable.

I didn't have enough time to really try to delve into things--to work more with the keyboard, for instance. That reminds me that I really like it when the voice says "keyboard" when you leave the area and come back to it. :) Anyhow, I didn't have enough time to really get into all the iPad could do, but I was impressed just by the little I did manage to accomplish. I guess just navigating around the main screen or whatever you call it and accidentally opening apps doesn't seem like a lot, but, oh, what a difference it was for me! For the first time ever, I saw what the screen looks like. Does that make sense at all? I mean I could see ih my head where stuff was on the screen, and I was learning how to find items again. They weren't moving around. And it seems that the iPad remembered exactly where I was if I closed out of an application and came back to it.

Just playing with it for ten minutes today has convinced me that I must have one, and the 64GB model at that, otherwise it would be a waste of money. I think Eric wants one, too, though he couldn't play with it very long; we had gone there at my request, and he had to keep an eye on our daughter. :)

For someone who's never owned an iPod Touch or iPhone, it's going to take some getting used to, but it's worth it--oh, it is so worth it! Or will be! Just seeing what's under your fingertips makes so many things make much more sense. Did for me, anyhow. :)

Foxtrot Romeo Oscar Mike
rabidsamfan

India Foxtrot Yankee Oscar Uniform Charlie Alpha November Uniform November Delta Echo Romeo Sierra Tango Alpha November Delta Tango Hotel India Sierra, Charlie Oscar Papa Yankee Alpha November Delta Papa Alpha Sierra Tango Echo India Tango Tango Oscar Yankee Oscar Uniform Romeo Lima India Victor Echo Juliet Oscar Uniform Romeo November Alpha Lima.:)

For those who celebrate Christmas, here are three links to free Christmas music. This year's album:

http://www.garritan.com/xmas_2009.html

Previous albums:

http://www.garritan.com/xmas_previous.html

Links courtesy of filkertom.

There's still more. You can listen to the entire Nutcracker score, if I understand right (no download, though, darn it!) at:

http://www.garritan.com/Nutcracker.html

Yesterday morning I got on the 8:30 trolley to go to work. I usually listen to my iPod Shuffle. I pulled out the headphones--I thought--to listen. I heard a clunk, and looked to see what had happened to the Shuffle. It had fallen under the seat. A couple of the passengers tried to fish it out with their keys or some other objects, but weren't successful. At 49Th, the driver came back to see what the trouble was. So we told him.

The driver said, "It's wedged in there. This trolley has to go to the shop anyhow, we'll just remove the seat and get it out for you."

I figured at that point they'd get it out and tell me to come get it, or maybe mail it. Nope. At 40Th, a SEPTA manager came on the trolley and took down my name, number, and address. He promised he'd have it delivered around 5:30--when I expected to be home.

He did better than that. He took it to the house at 10:10 AM and left it with talvinamarich

I've gotten good service from SEPTA in the past, and I always try to thank them. I most especially want to today. I'm pleased to have my shuffle back so quickly. :)

I plan on knitting *something*. Anyone else want to?

Click the link below for more information.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7894474.stm

Well, today I decided to start playing around with System Access To Go.
It's a web version of System Access. It's a screen reader that lets me
navigate the computer and use Windows applications for much less than JAWS.

It's very interesting. It's playing nicely with Outlook 2003, iTunes,
Internet explorer. I still have to test it--really test it!--with
PowerPoint and Excel and Word.

At the moment, I don't see real differences between it and Jaws but it it
something definitely worth considering purchasing at some point.

How many companies offer a screen reader that you can use for free, if you
get connected to the Internet at first? How many actually offer adaptive
tech at one price, and then no more software maintenance agreements? I
don't know of any except Serotek.

If you're using Windows and are curious about System Access to go you can
play with it at
www.satogo.com

If youre curious in general about this screen reader but don't want to play
with it, check out
www.serotek.com

Ironically, I am using the JAWS Realspeak voice to run System Access To Go.
I find the DecTalk voice to be ... well kind of boring. Useful, but I have
to really decide if it's worth getting if that's my choice. The main good
thing about that voice is it's more responsive than this voice I am
currently using. I like Jill, but I have to be patient to use it.