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Good news - the missing puppy, Ingeborg, has been found! Within mere hours of us posting of her disappearance, we got word that she was back with her raisers, safe and sound. We don't have many details, but she is home - and that's all that matters! Thank you everyone for your help and your kind thoughts.

Techshare India 2010, will be held in New Delhi on February 15th and 16th, 2010 at the India Habitat Centre. Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Shilpi Kapoor, Managing Director, BarrierBreak Technologies, said “Techshare India 2010 will offer workshops and presentations on accessibility and draw upon the wisdom of people who have tremendous experience in the field. It will also bring awareness about various accessible technologies available in market for the people with disabilities.” "Today technology is playing a vital role in the life of people and has become a necessity but unfortunately it is not equally accessible to all – especially to people with disabilities,” she added.

Participants can learn more about DAISY by attending the "Affordable DAISY Players for Developing Countries" presentation by Prashant Ranjan Verma on February 16th, 2010. Avneesh Singh, Prashant Verma, and Dipendra Manocha will also run a workshop "Open Source Tools for Creating DAISY Books" on the same day. More information about Techshare India 2010 is available on the Techshare India 2010 website.

In this show I offer some intriguing news about an unknown musician; describe my laptop woes; muse on tech toys I definitely want as heard from audio of the Assistive Technology Industry Association; describe how I'm cracking the magical Braille code; offer an artistic tribute to Haiti; tell you what I’m reading now and, of course, offer some comedy to lighten the moment.

Please help us get the word out about a missing Guide Dog puppy named Ingeborg from Loomis, CA. The following is our all-points-bulletin media release; we're hoping you can help us with Ingeborg's safe return!
# # #
GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND NEEDS ASSITANCE IN FINDING LOST PUPPY LAST SEEN IN LOOMIS AREA
San Rafael, Calif. (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) - Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) is asking for your assistance in locating a lost puppy named Ingeborg. Ingeborg, a one-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever female, is a Guide Dog puppy-in-training for the GDB puppy raising program.
Although Ingeborg is still a puppy, she looks like an adult dog. Ingeborg was last seen near Rocklin Road / Barton Road.
Ingeborg is being raised by a volunteer puppy raising family in Loomis, Calif. The puppy raiser families teach puppies, like Ingeborg, to have excellent house manners and socialize them to the world by introducing them to new people, places and experiences.
Ingeborg, like other Guide Dog puppies-in-training, stays in their puppy raising homes until they are approximately 15 – 18 months old. At that time they begin their formal guide work training at GDB and are eventually matched with blind students enrolled at the school. Ingeborg has tattoos in both ears with her ID number. She was wearing a black collar with ID plate and a long cord leash was attached to the collar.
If you have any information about this lost puppy, please contact Celeste Butrym at 916-992-3999 or Guide Dogs for the Blind at 800-295-4050.

It could be de described as the biggest botched software release of the past five years. Oratio, Orator, or whatever they're calling it these days has finally been released by Humanware with a price tag of $449. Promised since 2007, the software brings access to Blackberry smart phones. Correction, make that one AT&T Blackberry smart phone. If you bought any Blackberry phones, including some we listed as deals last summer because of the planned screen reader compatibility, you can toss them right out the window. The Blackberry Curve 8520 from AT&T is the only currently-supported phone. The Verizon Wireless or Sprint 9630 Tour, or the T-Mobile 8520 Tour are not on the supported phones list. There's also some lively discussion over on the Accessible BB website about the lack of Humanware involvement in their mailing list. No official Blackberry mailing list is known to exist at this time, other than an announce-only update stream. Still interested? orders are being taken now. If you have comments or thoughts on Oratio for Blackberry, please post them. Here's a quote from a message on the Accessible Blackberry list from list owner Carlos Palomino: "No matter what has taken place from July until today, one thing has remained constant, and that is Humanware's shady business practices and abhorrent public relations methods. So, whether we waited patiently for news or attempted to gather info from the company itself, we were ignored. And being the largest collection of potential customers, it seems aweful inconsiderate and blatantly stupid to take such a stance against us." Other things to note about Oratio are after the jump.

Additions and corrections welcome.

• There is no free trial available. Talks and Mobile Speak both have free trials available.
• The registration process involves sending a license key to your dealer who will then return it. This process is not accessible without sighted assistance, because the phone is not talking at this point.
• The supported Blackberry Curve 8520 is only available on one network. This means that users in other countries besides the U.S. are out of luck for now.
• If you wish to move your device to a new phone, you must pay full price for a new license.

Post a commentA T Guys has the KNFB Reader Mobile
Buy with the Nokia N86, and save on Mobile Speak or Talks,. Share: | Twitter, Facebook, del.icio.us, Digg, Yahoo

The January 30th graduation ceremony at our Oregon campus had a bevy of VIP visitors on hand for the day: the Delta Gammas from Oregon State in Corvallis. The Delta Gammas were treated to a private tour (where they met up with retired guide Hector, who was in heaven!) prior to attending the standing-room-only graduation ceremony. Earlier in the month, the OSU Delta Gammas hosted their annual fund-raising event, The Anchor Splash, and designated GDB as the recipient for a significant portion of the proceeds. We’re grateful to Delta Gammas everywhere who have chosen GDB as a recipient of their fundraising efforts, and grateful that these lovely young women spent an afternoon with us to learn more about our mission. Thank you DGs!

• Pet Talk: Guide Dogs for the Blind graduates its first class of the year in an emotional ceremony (The Oregonian, January 26, 2010; photo above by Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian): First GDB class of the year graduating on the Oregon campus
• Puppy raiser becomes recipient of her good deed (San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2009): GDB career change-turned-hearing dog, Bounty, provides service to puppy raiser
• Brentwood woman succumbs to puppy love (Contra Costa Times, January 11, 2009): Featuring puppy raiser Renee Anderson
• Dog raised in Vancouver saving lives in Haiti (The Columbian, January 22, 2010): GDB career change-turned-search and rescue dog, Cadillac, saving lives in Haiti
• John and the Lynchburg Labrador (Lynchburg College website, Lynchburg, VA): A profile of student John Pastorius and his guide Houston).
• Guide Dogs on campus (The University of Montana website): A video feature

Looking for free Wi-Fi in your area? Are you preparing for a trip? Well MetroFreeFi.com MetroFreeFi.com offers a really nice service where you can choose states from a menu, and MetroFreeFi will generate a Notes file for your iPod or compatible notetaker. Drop the files on your iPod or notetaker and you're good to go!

I thought I knew most of the free Wi-Fi spots in Louisville, but the MFF file showed me about a dozen I was unaware of. Some of the notes even detail special procedures for getting a WEP key for particular locations.

It's a free service, and well worth the time. Click this link to find Wi-Fi hotspots in your area: http://www.MetroFreeFi.com. LaptopFriendlyCafes.com

“At LaptopFriendlyCafes.com you’ll find your local free wifi and power ready laptop spots. We have over 300 tried and tested cafes listed worldwide where you can power up your laptop, surf the web for free and enjoy a coffee.”

Click this link to visit http://www.LaptopFriendlyCafes.com.

Did you know that APH products have manuals available for immediate, free-of-charge download. Examples of downloadable manuals include Crafty Graphics, Let's See, and Basic Tactile Anatomy Atlas.

Manuals available for download.

The next time you have a new APH Instructional Products Catalog, look for the yellow & black book icon to find the manuals available for download. APH will add new manuals to the download page on an ongoing basis. We will announce additions in the APH News.

The following manuals were recently posted to our manual download page, www.aph.org/manuals/index.html

• Braille: A Different Approach Instructor's Manual, Braille: 5-16750-04
  
• Reach for the Stars, Planning for the Future: A Transition Process for Families of Young Children, Braille: 5-08410-01
  
• Parent Early Childhood Education Series, 1P, Braille: 5-96201-00
  
• Moving Ahead: Goin' on a Bear Hunt Reader's Guide only, Braille: 6-77907-00
  
• Reclaiming Independence: Braille Resource Guide, 2V, Braille: 5-30020-00
  
• Sense of Science: Animals, Guidebook, Braille: 5-08990-00
  
• Tactile Connections: Symbols for Communication Guidebook, Braille: 5-08837-00
  
• StackUps: Teacher's Guidebook, Braille -- 5-08960-00
  
• Beginner's Abacus Guidebook: 5-03180-00
  
• Basic Science Tactile Graphics: 5-08850-00
  
• Teaching Touch Manual: 5-08861-00

• Word Associations Print/Braille Labels Braille Manual: 6-39051-00
• U.S. Puzzle Map Braille Guide: 5-01140-00
• Braillewriting Dot by Dot, Teacher's Manual, Braille: 5-17401-00
• Crafty Graphics: Stencil Embossing Kit, Large Print Guidebook: 7-08844-00
• Crafty Graphics: Stencil Embossing Kit, Braille Guidebook: 5-08844-00
• IntelliTactiles: Pre-Braille Concepts User's Guide, Print: 7-08516-01
• IntelliTactiles: Standard Overlay, User's Guide, Braille: 5-08515-00
• IntelliTactiles: USB Overlay, User's Guide, Braille: 5-08513-00
• Let's See: Sensory Activities Kit, Braille Manual: 5-08141-00
• Let's see: Perceptual Activities Kit, Braille Manual: 5-08151-00
• Tactile Treasures : Math and Language Concepts for Young Children with Visual Impairments, Braille Guidebook: 5-08842-00
• Braille Connection: Mentoring Manual, Braille: 5-11102-00
• ENVISION I, Teacher's Instruction Manual, Braille, 10 and Younger: 5-08551-01
• ENVISION I, Teacher's Instruction Manual, Braille, 11 and Older: 5-08551-02
• ENVISION II, Teacher's Instruction Manual, Braille, 10 and Younger: 5-08552-01
• ENVISION II, Teacher's Instruction Manual, Braille, 11 and Older: 5-08552-02
• Sense of Science: Plants: Guidebook, Braille: 5-08980-00

You are free to print or emboss these manuals as needed. APH will continue to package hard copies of these manuals with their products. We will also continue to sell hard copy manuals as replacement items. If, however, the manual is posted as a free download, we will not carry inventory on the shelf for immediate delivery. If you order one of these manuals separately, delivery time will be 4-6 weeks for large print and 8-10 weeks for braille orders.

One thing I can't stand is a smelly trash can! It will stink up the entire house if not taken care of immediately.

If you have problems with a smelly trash can, try dropping a section of newspaper in the bottom. The newspaper is great for absorbing odor, and if anything spills, the newspaper will soak it up.

When the trash can is emptied, make sure all of the paper is discarded and place a new section in the bottom.

How to Make Artichoke Dip from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Artichoke dip is easy to make and it is generally a big hit at parties. This version is a hot dip, served directly from the oven to the table (be sure to warn your guests!) and it goes well with crackers or crudités. Ingredients

• 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 can artichoke hearts
• spinach (optional)

Steps

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF.
2. Mix together all the ingredients.
3. Bake the dip for 30 minutes, or until golden on top.
4. Serve with crackers, tortilla chips or crudités for dipping.

Video Tips

• A Pyrex pie plate is the best cooking pan for this dish - just spread the dip evenly around the pie plate.
• Crudités are raw vegetables cut into bite-sized pieces.

Warnings

• This will be very hot when it comes out of the oven - allow to cool slightly before serving, or at least warn your guests.

Things You'll Need

• Pyrex pie plate

Related wikiHows

• How to Make a Veggie Dip
• How to Make Onion Dip
• How to Make a 7 Layer Dip
• How to Make Crab Dip

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make Artichoke Dip. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Hello My Fellow Olympic Spectators,   Welcome to the Winter Olympics 2010 Vancouver Mobile Website. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are just a few days away, and NBC has launched some...

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CBS Television is rerunning the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie "Front of the Class" tonight at 8pm US eastern time. This story is about Brad Cohen, a boy with Tourette Syndrome who grows up to be the teacher he never had. After this movie aired the first time, I found Brad himself and invited him to appear with us on Books And Beyond. Because CBS is showing his movie again, we decided to air his appearance with us again this weekend.

read more

Shownotes

Enjoy this podcast of the Wednesday evening gathering meeting of the 2010 National Federation of the Blind Washington Seminar, where you may hear me make a fool of myself by trying to badly sing along to the old Federation songs I once knew years ago.

Download and Listen

An EBay seller has listed a BookSense XT with an opening bid of $320. With about $20 for shipping, that's over $100 less than the lowest price we know of for a new unit. The BookSense XT is GW Micro's portable media player. This model includes 4GB of included memory, an 8GB SD memory card, Bluetooth support, and an FM radio. Auction ends early on February 8.Post a commentA T Guys has the KNFB Reader Mobile
Buy with the Nokia N86, and save on Mobile Speak or Talks,. Share: | Twitter, Facebook, del.icio.us, Digg, Yahoo

It turns out that Adam Giambrone and the Toronto Transit Commission do more than set “policy.” They buy individual sheets of paper and specify what your shoes will touch at Union station

WebAIM's Screen Reader Survey a few months ago (October 2009) sure drew a lot of attention, and for good reason. It is a much needed and well written survey, performed by one of the leading organizations in web accessibility, WebAIM. Here are some articles written in response to the survey. If you know any others, please leave a comment and let us know!
Related Articles

• Screen reader software usage shifts on desktop and mobile (iheni)
• Results from WebAIM's screen October 2009 screen reader user survey (456 Berea St.)
• WebAIM screen reader users follow up survey (Less Fuss Design)
• WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey Results (evolt.org)
• WebAIM Study: Screenreaders and Javascript Co-Exist from Ajaxian
• WebAIM's previous Screen Reader Survey (January 2009)

My Observations Some of the more outstanding results of the survey I believe are:

• 75% of respondents said they do NOT have JavaScript turned off (most had it on).
• The most problematic items seem to be the same predictable items, unfortunately. The top 10 includes CAPTCHA, Flash, alternative text, forms, and headings.
• 42% surveyed said they didn't know ARIA Landmarks for navigation existed. I highly suspect this number will steadily decrease.
• Although over 66% of users reported JAWS as their primary screen reader, almost half said that free or low-cost screen readers (such as NVDA or VoiceOver) are currently viable alternatives.

This post is sponsored by: Web hosting at Hosting.com

When you’re driving streetcar 4225, don’t lie to the passenger (or call the “police”) on him. And if you’re his supervisor, don’t lie, either

By BlindChristian

Yesterday, I put out a request for ideas on how Gonz Blinko should behave on Twitter. More than a few people had been confused as to where the fictional Gonz ended and where he strayed into reality.

There's an interesting book of literary criticism called, "The Gang that Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, thompson, Didion and the New Journalism" (author name not remembered but it is available on bookshare.org). It starts with the New York Tribune in the fifties which may have had the greatest writing team in US journalism history. The Trib had Tome Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Jimmy Breslin and many more who would create the "new" journalism.

This "new" journalism searched for truth and not facts (read Gore Vidal's criticism of John Hersey's "Hiroshima") for an explanation of how facts can ruin truth.

After the Trib went bust, the gang started New York magazine and had most of the Trib gang plus people like Gale Sherry and others. It was in New York magazine where Wolfe would publish his now legendary "Radical Chic" article exposing the limousine liberals for all of their silliness. It was in NY where Thompson would first publish an article about the Hell's Angels which would lead to the really long pieces in The Nation which, in turn, would turn into the book that really launched his career.

Gonz Blinko is mostly based on a cross between Thompson and me. I would blend fact and fiction and add lots of absurd twists as Thompson did throughout his career. This worked pretty well in the blog format as it had enough space to make the absurdity of it all quite obvious (excepting to the truly humor impaired like FS's CEO Lee Hamilton). In the 140 character mode, sliding in and out of fact and fiction is much less obvious. Yesterday, I contemplated killing Twitter Gonz until a friend of mine suggested that we try to recruit other people to Twitter as fictional characters and play around purely in the absurd and silly and fictitious side of our worlds.

We will also look back at Gonz blog posts over history and use the fake names I used to describe companies, Freeman Scientology == Freedom Scientific as seen through the lens of real weird alternative universe play. We have names for real world human inspired characters as well and use them in appropriate context.

So, Gonz Blinko will be posting more absurd, flashback inspired tweets and BlindChristian will actually take the world mostly seriously. Readers should assume Gonz has gone over the top at all times and that BC may have fun now and then but will be far closer to the realm of reality.

Afterward

This transfer from Gonz to BC for real items will take place over the next few days. You can follow Gonz at www.twitter.com/gonz_blinko and BlindChristian at www.twitter.com/BlindChristian.

If you would like to have a fictitious character in the Gonz world, crate one and introduce yourself to Gonz so we know who is real or not as letting us guess may be fun as well. If you want to take on one of the characters already known from the blog, please write to me as they all have certain parameters.

-- EndSubscribe to the Blind Confidential RSS Feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ Blindconfidential