...And those of you who know me know what that means: the frighteningly rapid approach of the course which shan't be named.

Given the lack of public transportation in New Hampshire and my rather ADHD personality, waiting around for a bus to fling myself in front of doesn't seem like a viable option. Do you think it's possible that the Maya sucked at math?? I mean it's almost 2012, and they didn't have calculators back then....

Words - Missing Persons

Do you hear me
Do you care
Do you hear me
Do you care

My lips are moving and the sound's coming out
The words are audible but I have my doubts
That you realize what has been said

You look at me as if you're in a daze
It's like the feeling at the end of the page
when you realize you don't know what you just read

What are words for when no one listens anymore
What are words for when no one listens
What are words for when no one listens it's no use talkin at all

I might as well go up and talk to a wall
'cause all the words are having no effect at all
It's a funny thing am I all alone

Something has to happen to change the direction
What little filters through is giving you the wrong impression
It's a sorry state I say to myself

What are words for when no one listens anymore
What are words for when no one listens
What are words for when no one listens it's no use talkin at all

Do you hear me
Do you care
Do you hear me
Do you care

Let me get by
Over your dead body
Hope to see you soon
When will I know
Doors three feet wide with no locks open
Walking always backwards in the faces of strangers
Time could be my friend
But it's less than nowhere now
less than nowhere now
less than nowhere now
now
ow ow ow

Pursue it further and another thing you'll find
Not only are they deaf and dumb they could be going blind and no one notices
I think I'll dye my hair blue

Media overload bombarding you with action
It's getting near impossible to cause distraction
Someone answer me before I pull out the plug

What are words for when no one listens anymore
What are words for when no one listens
What are words for when no one listens it's no use talkin at all

What are words for when no one listens anymore
What are words for when no one listens
What are words for when no one listens it's no use talkin at all

Do you hear me
Do you care
Do you hear me
Do you care
tell me what are words for
Do you hear me
tell me what are words for
Do you care
tell me what are words for
Do you hear me
so tell me what are words for
Do you care
so tell me what are words for
Do you hear me
tell me what are words for
so tell me what are words for
Do you care
so tell me what are words for
Do you hear me
tell me what are words for
so tell me what are words for
Do you care
so tell me what are words for

(Lyrics provided by leoslyrics.com via Rhythmbox)

Dave Winer says:

We all hope our houses don't catch fire, but when they do, we're damned happy we don't get an argument when we call 911. Why should cancer, diabetes and heart disease be any different? I don't get it.

Indeed. And I don't get it either.

Dave said a bunch more than that though (read his full entry).

BOSTON, Mass—February 27, 2008 — The GNOME Foundation is running an accessibility outreach program, offering USD$50,000 to be split among individuals. This program will promote software accessibility awareness among the GNOME community as well as harden and improve the overall quality of the GNOME accessibility offering.

The program is sponsored by GNOME Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Google™'s Open Source Program Office, Canonical, and Novell. This is the second in a series of outreach programs coordinated and run by the GNOME Foundation.

"I'm excited about the GNOME accessibility outreach program because it continues the promotion of compelling accessible design as part of the mainstream developer culture. We believe the set of tangible and achievable tasks outlined will help improve the already good accessibility offering of the GNOME desktop," said Willie Walker, Senior Staff Engineer of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

GNOME Outreach Program: Accessibility starts accepting applications on March 1st and will run towards the end of the year. There will be two tracks to the program: In the first track accepted individuals will work towards accomplishing one of the major projects nominated for the program, earning US$6,000 and can take up to six months to complete the task. The second track will reward contributors US$1,000 for fixing five bugs out of a pool of accessibility bugs nominated by the program judges.

Individuals interested in participating in the program should check out www.gnome.org/projects/outreach/a11y. More information about the program may be found at the same location.

Read the full announcement at:
http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/gop-a11y.html

Will thinks that if we write the developers of websites whose content is inaccessible (or a challenge to access), those developers will fix their problems. I used to believe that as well. It may take a village to raise a child, but unfortunately it seems to take lawsuit in federal court to raise awareness. But seeing as how Will is Orca project lead whereas I am a humble community contributor, and seeing as how I have taken to mumbling the words "crappy markup" in Will's general direction as I continue my work on Orca's support for Firefox, I suppose the very least I can do is give his idea a shot.

Today's note went to Safeway.com via their online suggestion form:

Dear Safeway.com:

I'd like to bring to your attention the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. There you will find a number of resources which you can take advantage of when evaluating your site's content for accessibility. In particular, please see Guideline 1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.

1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ascii art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and video. [Priority 1]

For example, in HTML:

• Use "alt" for the IMG, INPUT, and APPLET elements, or provide a text equivalent in the content of the OBJECT and APPLET elements.
• For complex content (e.g., a chart) where the "alt" text does not provide a complete text equivalent, provide an additional description using, for example, "longdesc" with IMG or FRAME, a link inside an OBJECT element, or a description link.
• For image maps, either use the "alt" attribute with AREA, or use the MAP element with A elements (and other text) as content.

At the bottom of your site you have an imagemap:

<map name="links">
<area alt="" coords="0,0,48,28" href="javascript:loadframesetpages('','http://www.vons.com','0','','')">
<area alt="" coords="48,30,124,0" href="javascript:loadframesetpages('','http://www.dominicks.com','0','','')">
<area alt="" coords="193,0,124,33" href="javascript:loadframesetpages('','http://www.randalls.com','0','','')">
[...]
</map>

Because your alternative text is an empty string, the items within your imagemap are inaccessible to users who are blind. Providing the name of the store (alt="Vons") should resolve this problem.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter!

Here's to hoping...

• Hello Kitty Online (via Webware)
• Why Dogs Bite People (via Rich)
• Death by Frozen Poop

I've been an on-again/off-again member of AER (Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired) for a decade or so. The reason for my fickle membership has been that I just don't see much benefit from being a member, especially now that my focus is 100% on assistive technology -- an area which should be much more of a focus in AER given that AER is basically THE organization of the profession and that one's ability to live and work independently as a person who is blind depends significantly on having access to and skills in the use of AT.

As a result, I tend to renew my membership when doing so will get me discounts on conferences I need to attend or a reduction in fees when I'm applying for re-certification. At least that was before I received this "AER-GRAM":

***URGENT! CANCELLATION NOTICE!***
***IMMEDIATE REPLY REQUESTED!***

THE AER BOARD OF DIRECTORS, IN COMPLIANCE WITH OUR ORGANIZATIONAL BYLAWS, MUST TAKE FINAL ACTION CANCELLING YOUR MEMBERSHIP UNLESS THE MEMBERSHIP DUES BALANCE SHOWN BELOW IS RECEIVED PRIOR TO JANUARY 31, 2008. FAILURE TO MAKE PAYMENT OF YOUR AER MEMBERSHIP DUES WILL PROMPT US TO REMOVE YOU FROM AER'S MEMBERSHIP ROSTER.

WE URGE YOU TO GIVE THIS MATTER YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. PLEASE REMIT THE ENTIRE BALANCE DUE IN THE ENVELOPE PROVIDED. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS LETTER, PLEASE CONTACT AER AT (877) 492-2708, EXT. 202.

Any lingering questions I did have about the value of being a member were just answered.

Or rather my photo of the Nansen-Ski-Jump has been. That is soooo cool. Thanks to Danlev for the heads up!

A very wise man once said that "it is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes." 'Tis true, 'tis true: You also need gravy.

The problem with gravy is that it's not vegetarian. The possibility of a vegetarian gravy that tastes like gravy has periodically crossed my mind, but I've always immediately dismissed it. Some things are inherently "meaty," and gravy is one of those things. As a result, I don't believe I've had mashed potatoes in over twelve years.

I am an idiot.

If you're looking for a vegetarian gravy, give this recipe a try. For the "2 1/2 cups water or vegetable broth," go with the vegetable broth. I used the Better Than Bouillon Organic Vegetable Base, adding a little extra for good measure. I also left out the balsamic vinegar and mushrooms, and used red wine rather than red wine vinegar. The end result sure tasted like honest-to-goodness gravy to me. It looked like honest-to-goodness gravy too.

If you're not vegan, pour your gravy atop some blue cheese mashed potatoes. They are simply fabulous. And if you're looking for a blue cheese that does not contain animal rennet, try Maytag's.

Will just announced the release of Orca 2.21.4.

I just need to repeat how amazed I am at how much work we got done this release. The last release was only 2 weeks ago, yet we accomplished a lot in the areas of performance, bugs, magnification, and Firefox. It's difficult for me to choose any one of these as being the highlight of this release [...]

Agreed on all counts! The Orca team is awesome. And we really did accomplish a huge amount in the past couple of weeks, all of which is detailed in Will's announcement.

I'm not normally one to toot my own horn, preferring instead to be just "another member of the team." Besides, I don't own a horn.... But I feel the need to toot... something... just this once because... well... I worked awfully darn hard the past couple of weeks. When I wasn't doing my "day job" or sleeping, I was working on the magnification features for this release. Given that several times I woke up with an idea or a solution for implementing a feature, I apparently was even working while sleeping. And I am still cleaning crumbs out of my keyboard. Phew!

I'm also not normally one to toot the horn of others, but I'm going to make an exception there as well because the herculean effort that went into the new magnification features was only half my doing. It was a tag-team effort with the other half being done by Rich who, I might add, has the patience and tolerance of a saint ("Rich, I know it's Sunday evening, but I'm adding new features and I need....").

I thought tag-teaming might be challenging with really large patches going back and forth, and trying to keep all of the changes straight, but it all happened quite smoothly -- aside from one minor mishap where I inadvertently converted an enormous Glade file from the version the team is using (2) to a version it's not (3). Oops.... And then checked it in. D'oh!

Anyhoo, with no further ado, Orca's new magnification features:

• Support "live updating" when setting various magnification features

  Changes made to the zoomer in the Orca Preferences now update in real time: it is no longer necessary to press the Apply button to see if the option you've chosen works for you and then undo it or adjust it if it doesn't. Note that you must still press the Apply or the OK button to make your changes permanent.

• Bug #452316 - should have a "fullscreen" checkbox

  We've added a Position combo box so that it's easy to select the position of the zoomer. The options are full screen, left half, right half, top half, bottom half, and custom. Choosing custom allows you to specify the location of each edge of the zoomer. The new default zoomer position is full screen if full screen magnification is possible. Otherwise, the right half of the screen will be used by default.

• Bug #463881 - Evaluate other gnome-mag features for inclusion in Orca prefs

  You can now adjust the brightness and contrast levels and use the colorblind filters from libcolorblind. Basic brightness and contrast levels can be adjusted through the spin buttons on the Magnifier pane of the Orca Preferences dialog. If you press the Advanced Settings button at the bottom of that pane, you'll be placed in a dialog box where you can customize the red, green, and blue brightness levels and contrast levels individually. The Advanced Settings dialog is also where you can choose a color filter. These options should enable you to create the color scheme that works best for you.

  You can also add a border to your zoomer to help separate it from the non-magnified area. The border size and color are customizable. We've also separated the cursor color from the cross-hair color so you no longer have to find the one color that works best for both.

• Bug #464705 - Provide option to keep caret in center of magnifier region of interest

  We've added individual tracking and alignment settings for controls and the text cursor: each can have an alignment of centered or push (move the magnifier window the least). In addition, you can now specify an edge margin for the text cursor. This margin is how close the caret should be allowed to get to the edge of the screen before it's time to "push." The margin can range from 0 to 50%, with 50% being the equivalent of choosing centering. These options should make it easier to keep track of your location on the screen and ensure that you can always see the area around your point of focus.

• Bug #501414 - Orca should have (unbound) keybindings for quickly changing magnification settings

  We've added the following new commands:

  • Toggle color enhancements
  • Toggle mouse enhancements
  • Increase magnification level
  • Decrease magnification level
  • Cycle to the next magnifier position
  • Toggle magnifier on/off

  These should help you quickly change the zoomer to best access what you're working on. These commands are "unbound," meaning they do not have a keystroke assigned to them. You can define the keystrokes you would like to use on the Key Bindings pane of the Orca Preferences dialog: locate each command you wish to define a keystroke for, move to the Key Binding column, and press Return. You'll be prompted for the new key. Press it (rather than type it out) and then press Return. Note that these commands do not permanently change the settings; they merely alter them "on the fly."

• Bug #503965 - Orca should provide support for the pointer following focus and the zoomer

  If you're using the keyboard to perform a task and then move the mouse pointer, the zoomer would move away from your task and to the location of the mouse pointer. We've added two options for dealing with this:

  • Pointer follows zoomer (enabled by default): If the mouse pointer is not on the screen when you initially move the mouse, it will be moved into the zoomer so that you can continue to see what you were working on. If your preferred mouse tracking mode is centered, the pointer will be moved to the center; otherwise it will be moved to the item with focus.
  • Pointer follows focus (disabled by default): If this option is enabled, the mouse pointer will follow you as you arrow through menu items and move among controls in dialog boxes.

We've still got a ways to go with our magnification support: bugs to fix, performance to improve, more gnome-mag features to implement, and support for Compiz eZoom. Still, what we accomplished in this release is huge I think. Thanks Rich!!