Firefox 1.5 released today

If you have not yet climbed about the Firefox train - now might be the time to do so. I have been using Firefox for a while now [I tend to switch back and forth between it and IE depending upon what I am doing] and rather like it. The one upgrade we have been expecting is Accessibility:

Firefox 1.5 delivers easier navigation for everyone, including those who are visually or motor-impaired. Firefox is now the first browser to support DHTML, which enables Web content to be read aloud - even new kinds of graphics-rich content. Users may navigate with keystrokes rather than mouse clicks, reducing the tabbing required to navigate documents such as spreadsheets. Firefox 1.5 is also the first browser to meet government requirements that software be easily accessible to users with physical impairments.

And while you are at it - may I also recommend adding the del.icio.us Firefox Extension while you are at it. This has become one of my new favorite tools for IE as well.

As yet another webenabled service - the basic premise is to use del.icio.us in place of [or as a supplement to] your 'favorites' folder. This is especially nice if, like me, you are blessed [or cursed] with multiple computers at your disposal. I tend to save my favorites folder onto my flash drive and carry it around, but it never fails that I forget to back this up on a Friday before a weekend I need to remember some site I surfed the previous week. I have also found that eMailing myself reminders works some of the time - provided I can remember which eMail I sent it to. I have also been known to draft a site within blogger for later perusal - then never get back to them.

Squinting Computer Users Blink Less

Courtesy of The Wired Campus blog:

If you spend hours a day squinting at computer screens, you might be improving your skills at staring competitions. But you could end up hurting your eyes more than you realize, according to researchers at Ohio State University. Even slight squinting, the researchers say, cuts a computer user's blink rate in half -- and insufficient blinking can make for dry, irritated eyes.

Of a more practical nature ...

Todays lesson is courtesy of Tom's Hardware Guide. PC Interfaces 101.

Summary: You, of course, have a flawless understanding of SATA, AGP, IDE and PCI-E or any other PC interface. But for those of you who are afraid to admit even minor lapses in your standards knowledge base, THG details which connectors go where and what they do.

C'mon - admit it - you've had someone in your department look to you as the PC expert or tried to help a student with something [or will try to show off your technology expertise by hooking up that new DVD player you are gonna get for the holidays] only to find yourself stumped by some cable and weren't quite sure where [or how] it's supposed to go. It is so easy to overlook how lazy USB has made us. I'll start the support group - I did not even know Ethernet cable connections had a name - RJ45 for Lan & ISDN - I would have missed that one on the quiz.

O.K. - who's next?

ATHEN e-Journal Call for Papers

The ATHEN e-Journal invites submissions for its upcoming edition on the topic of Electronic Text.

Professionals working in the fields of disability services, alternative format production, higher education, publishing, or related fields are invited to submit papers to be considered for publication.

Questions about this CFP or submissions may be directed to:
Teresa Wells Haven
tlwells@uark.edu
University of Arkansas
Center for Students with Disabilities

Papers should be submitted electronically - preferred formats being

• RTF
• MSWord
• WordPerfect
• OpenOffice

Submission deadline: 31 January 2005

Open Document and Accessibility

I have previously posted on the topic of accessibility within Linux - or more accurately Open Source environments. While chatting with Ron Stewart last week at AHG, I mentioned a presentation proposal I submitted for AHEAD 2006 to discuss this very topic. What I said to Ron was that it's only a matter of time before students start showing up on my campus with Linux laptops in need of accessibility. Not surprisingly, Ron told me that his campus is already seeing this. Which, of course, makes the topic even more topical. My goal for next year will be to keep track of open source access issues and boil them down for the AHEAD crowd - basic knowledge for the administrator types. Having the first big fight over this issue happing right in my front yard is an added bonus.

As posted on SlashDot -

The strongest push-back against Massachusetts' effort to institute open, non-proprietary document formats has come from the accessibility community, who claim that Open-Source desktop software lags behind Windows; and thus that a transition to Open Document will amount to discrimination against the blind and those with other disabilities. This is serious stuff. Peter Korn, who's an Accessibility Architect at Sun, has written a massive piece that provides a general introduction to the subject, a discussion of how Open Source is doing on the the accessibility front (things could be worse, but they could be a lot better), and finally, a detailed look at the (interesting) history and (uncertain) future of these issues in Massachusetts. Anyone in Open Source who thinks they can ignore accessibility issues is probably wrong.

However, before reading this lengthy [but excellent] article by Peter Korn, I recommend starting with an equally excellent article posted last week on SearchOpenSource.com. “The real story behind the Massachusetts ODF flap” [by Bernard Golden] truly boils down this multifaceted issue for the masses. For a marketplace association, he reaches back a few years and compares the OpenDocumentFormat [hence ODF] issue to the fight between Token Ring and TCPIP/Ethernet. And I think we all know how that one turned out.

Keep in mind one thing that Bernard overlooks – Massachusetts and Microsoft are still pretty annoyed at each other over last year’s antitrust case. You may recall that the Bay State fought Microsoft to the bitter end as the lone holdout and ultimately had its appeal for more stringent antitrust sanctions denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Yippee -- I think the fun is just beginning!

8 Basic Steps of Image Editing

Anything dealing with scanning has gotta be of interest to this group --- right?

WSJ.com - Building an Online Library, One Volume at a Time

As per the post a few days ago on foot soldiers in the scan-wars - an article from the Wall Street Journal on the daze (er...days) in the lives of scanners for the Internet Archive Million Book Project. Read the article for yourself and then ...

1. thank your lucky stars that we can de-spine our projects
2. assume none of us would likely have this equipment is it cost THIS much
3. ask yourself if we come off as being this -- unique -- to our professional peers?
4. know that the Internet Archive* proves - once again - to be the coolest site on the internet! [check out video of the Book Scanning Robot in action]

Now, if we could only figure out a way to easily convert these files to a useable format [at least uesable in our world]. Some are already somewhat accessible in that the text comes in a variety of flavors [see FAQ page and randomly check a book for yourself]. Those that have .rtf /.tif files are candidates for access but such availability seems almost random. Hopefully one of our members can take the time to explore further and make sense of the system.

Keep in mind that this is not the same as the Google Print Project. Google's unrelated book-scanning efforts have come under fire because some publishers and authors say the search giant is violating copyright law. But the Open Content Alliance has sidestepped legal troubles by focusing on books published before 1923--and therefore out of copyright in the U.S.--as well as some newer books publishers have allowed it to scan. [University Business Magazine]

Could this and other articles be the start of making our profession (part of it anyway) cool to the masses? Doubtful - but how often do you read something in the WSJ that you can actually relate to on a personal level?

*If you have not already done so go immediately to the Live Music Archive [you can thank me later].

AHG Day #4

Day four of AHG and I am finally finding my way around the hotel.

Janice Carter did a nice presentation on Bookshare.org. Much of the information was old news to me but there were enough newbies in the crowd to make it worth their while and there was even some new info of interest to those who have been around for a while. Big news is that some publishers are coming around to the Benetech model and providing eText to Bookshare. O'Really is providing XML versions of their books under an agreement that has apparently been around for a couple of years and is now coming to fruition. Janice mentioned another publisher who has recently come aboard - but until they start producing books the name is under wraps.

I also sat in on one of the EASI Track panels "Current Trends in Electronic Books". It was very informative to hear from some of the top people in the field for a snapshot of where they think we are and where they think we are going.

My presentation "Geeklopedia: from blog to wiki - a primer of digital terminology" went quite well [thank you...]. It was as much fun to present as it was to produce and I plan to keep my slides up to date for the possibility of presenting again sometime.

A note on meals - for those who are interested - both yesterday and today lunch was buffet at the conference. The Keynote speaker was Henry Claypool. I'd heard of him before this but knew little of his work. I must say I am now a fan. Dinner last night with the ATHEN crew at a local watering hole.

Overall a very worthwhile week in Boulder. I very much look forward to attending again next year [and hopefully for years into the future]. Cheers to the AHG staff!

AHG Day #3

Good day today at Accessing Higher Ground. So far the conference has been everything it has been billed to be [and more]. It is great to be among fellow techies and not just on the side of activities [as some of us feel at much larger/comprehensive conferences]. As an example of how techie things are here - the conference ran low out of Wi-Fi bandwidth. Even the hotel was having trouble keeping up with the number of wireless devices and laptops.

Keep in mind these are just my reviews and impression from the conference. I hope to see other ATHEN members post their thoughts as well. I know Sean Keegan is planning to post some items to the blog section of the new ATHEN website.

This morning I attended a presentation on ADA, Title II and IT. Ken Nakata of BayFirst Solutions LLC gave a brief but worthwhile overview of how these two + Title III and Section 508 fit into the compliance puzzle. especially interesting was a query about what is meant by "place" when we are talking about the internet. When an entity has both a "brick" component and a "click" it can be difficult to ascertain where one ends and the other begins [provided the two sides even communicate]. Unfortunately Ken ran out of time - this is one topic that may be better suited to a longer pre-conference slot.

One thing I did get out of the presentation was an introduction to a new software program [new to me anyway]. MindManager 6 is very cool! It reminds me of a cross between Powerpoint and Inspiration. Wikked cool! With luck, his presentation [and all of them from the conference] will be posted on the AHG website soon.

Later on I attended "Beyond the Text: Accessible Multimedia within eBooks" presented by Geoff Freed of the National Center for Accessible Media @ WGBH. For some reason about half-way through the presentation the following question popped into my head - given all of this new technology and the resulting copyright concerns they inspire - who, ultimately, has more rights? The author or the reader? I may never get a satisfactory answer to this query - but it will provide something to mentally chew on for a while.

The ATHEN meeting took place from 6:30 till 8:00 pm. As soon as I can decipher my chicken scratch and coordinate the minutes I took with those of Sean we will pass them by Ron before making them available to the members. [This will at least give me something to do during my 3.5 hour layover in Chicago tomorrow!]

What it's like to be a book scanner?

Very many good things to post about the AHG conference and, of course, the ATHEN meeting. Minutes will be posted as soon as I can decipher my chicken scratch and pass 'em by Ron. In the meantime here is an interesting item to share ...

... Sorry about the teaser folks - the Wall Street Journal link [that was apparently free for 24 hours] now appears to need a subscription. Here is the first part of the article courtesy of BoingBoing!

What it's like to be a book scanner Vauhini Vara, a writer for the Wall Street Journal co-wrote a story with David Kesmodel in today's Wall Street Journal called, "Building an Online Library, One Volume at a Time." She says: "Liz Ridolfo is a foot soldier in the massive undertaking to digitize the world's books. She is one of about a dozen scanners employed by the Internet Archive, a San Francisco nonprofit group that is spearheading the Open Content Alliance, which aims to build an online library of millions of old books and hopes to make a big batch accessible through Web searches as early as next year."

It takes Ms. Ridolfo and the other scanners about one hour to scan a 500-page book. If a book is in poor condition -- if pages are hanging by a thread, for instance -- it can take several hours. The Toronto group, which is responsible for the bulk of the books scanned so far by the project, has digitized books from the Library and Archives of Canada, the University of Ottawa and St. Mary's College in California. The oldest book scanned was a 1475 title, "The City of God," by St. Augustine. The books can be searched on a page for books from Canadian libraries.

Ms. Ridolfo finished her shift by scanning two books by Mr. Chesterton and most of a third -- bringing her total to almost five books in five hours. She has scanned about 125 books for the project.

She said the job is one of the best she has ever had. She has worked other repetitive jobs, including stocking shelves at a grocery store and working in a beer-nut factory. Before she started book scanning, she took a temp job stapling sample sticks of chewing gum to fliers handed out at Toronto nightclubs. "It was akin to hell," she said.She's paid about $10.15 an hour to scan the books ...

Article continues at the Wall Street Journal.

AHG Day #2 - AHEAD eText "Production Techniques"

Before we begin today's class - we are going to make sure our workspace is nice and clean. Now that we can see what we are doing, turn your attention to the front of the room and listen to Gaeir [those of you checking eMail when you should be paying attention should beware of Ron patrolling the perimeter - ]

Important hi-lights of the day [not included in the handouts]:

• Just because you get a book in electronic format [from a publisher] does not mean it is accessible eText. This is especially true of Quark, PageMaker, InDesign, etc. (but your campus publications can probably translate it to something useable - bring them cookies)
• .pdf was originally meant to be a transportable format between platforms. Over time we have asked [forced] it to do things it was not designed to do.
• Dots Per Inch [DPI] - like lawn fertilizer - more is not necessarily better!
• Hire graphic arts students to do your scanning - they are probably already familiar with scanners and scanning procedures].
• Clean your scanners! Every 3k-5k pages. Paper is dirty and binding glue is nasty stuff!
• Dryer sheets work wonders to reduce scanner static that leads to jams. Small room humidifiers running in the lab are also an option.
• After removing spines - separate the pages into piles one at a time by a good 6+ inches.
• Again - binding glue is tuff stuff.
• Watch your name lengths when creating folders & files. 23 characters seems to be the limit and names may be truncated when being moved from workstation to server and back.
• Use the native software that came with the scanner for .tiff's. This software and the scanner have been designed to work together.
• When checking .tiff - make use of the Windows Imaging Software that comes as part of
• Windows-XP. DO NOT, however, use this program for OCR.
• The better your scan-job :: the less time you will have to spend editing.
• DO NOT use the Wizards in Abbyy [especially in v.8]

Words of wisdom from Ron regarding a software crash - "Ahhh technology -95% of the time it works fine - and the other 5% of the time you try to run a workshop ..."
Save Everything! Gaeir says "storage space is cheap - my time is not!"

P.S. - Breakfast at the hotel buffet and lunch back at The Buff - as I post this I am at the hotel bar with a few folks [who may not wish to have such information posted on-line] and waiting to head out for dinner.

AHG Day #1 - afternoon

Nice plug from fellow ATHEN Sean Keegan - check out the ATHEN homepage at http://athenpro.org. Several ATHEN members will be posting messages at the ATHEN Blog as well as on the ATHEN site as to the different presentations we attend.

I will say that Part I of the AHEAD eText institute on policies and procedures was quite excellent this afternoon. I attended the first institute at AHEAD 2005 back in August and this one was even better - more advanced. Besides Ron and Gaeir being better practiced- having done it once already- it definitely helped me that I had been through it once already. I am one of those folks who has to hear something a couple of times before it sinks in - I was also better able to attend to the information details since they were not all new.

The other attendees I spoke with during the break and afterward were also very impressed - though most of our heads wer spinning with the sheer amount of information thrown at us. Fortunately the handouts are really good [these will be posted on-line very soon - check back for details]. In the meantime - for those of you who could not be there - a good bit of this information is available on the new AHEAD E-text Solutions Group webpage.*

The conference audience also helps. At AHEAD, most of the audience were administrators and newbies to this technology. AHG is kept small on purpose (less than 200 attendees) and we all seem to be techies of one sort or another. There are even a couple of other folks who are producing DAISY in-house. I am very much looking forward to the hand-on lab portion taking place all day Wednesday. One of the items we installed Monday evening was the new Dolphin Producer - essentially a pared down version of EasePublisher designed to work directly with MS-Word.

I also had a chance to chat with Caroline of Dolphin. If you do not know Caroline I recommend introducing yourself if the opportunity comes about - she is a computer linguist by trade and quite lovely to chat with no matter the topic.


*Correction to this page - the Boston University eText page has been updated with a new link - http://www.bu.edu/disability/policies/specific-textbooks.html - After this afternoon I may have a few tweaks to make in our policies & procedures - I am proud of our system - but there is always room for improvement.

AHG Day #1 - morning

Breakfast at The Buff [and a new T-shirt to sport back home]. Excellent Huevos Rancheros and coffee with Ron, Gaeir, Dan Comden [of the Do-It program].

Greetings from Boulder, CO

This week we will be posting from the Accessing Higher Ground pre/conference from Boulder, Colorado [where the speed limit is 70 and the buffets are huge!]. Ron, Gaeir, Howard, and I spent this afternoon -> evening loading software and making sure the workstations for the two-day AHEAD eText production workshops are up and running.

Don't forget that EASI will be broadcasting several presentations "live" [and free] from the conference [check conference website for schedule]:

• Accessibility of Online Resources in Academic Libraries, Axel Schmetzke, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
• Panel: Current Trends in Electronic Books, Norm Coombs, Judith Dixon, Janice Carter, Steve Noble
• Library e-Journal Accessibility A Usability Study, Ron Stewart, Oregon State University

Using RSS Readers - AFB's Blog

If you have not guessed by now - I am a fan of RSS [my feed list fluxuates but is up around 100 at present]. Accessiblilty a concern? Not to fear - Webbie is here.

A new era in publishing... - AFB's Blog

Perhaps this is what we need - an example of of possibilities. I like the idea of users being able to create their own libraries and maintan them on-line. ATHEN wants a goal - here's one for ya... find and promote a campus (or campuses) that provides all eText in a server based system. Students log in to this library and have full access to their texts from any internet connected site ... anywhere.

Of course -- who really has that kind of campus connectivity.

Stanford Embraced Podcasting

It's almost starting to become old news - but not quite yet. I am still excited to see schools hopping aboard the PodCast wagon.

Here is a story about elementary schools using iPods and podcasts to get younger students motivated:
Schools using iPods, MP3 players as learning tools

Podcasting is just one of the interactive technologies, like blogging and hand-held computers, being used to motivate students nationwide. A survey of 470 high school students released this month by analysts with Piper Jaffray & Co. found that 61 percent of students had some kind of MP3 player, up from 40 percent in their spring survey.

Here is another:

The Savannah College of Art and Design announced today the introduction of video podcasts on iTunes. Traditionally the college's videos are available for viewing at http://www.scad.edu/ and http://www.scadondemand.com/. With this year's Savannah Film Festival, SCAD is introducing daily video podcasting on iTunes making film festival activities available to iTunes users everywhere.

And this one seems almost too perfet of a fit - Teaching Music Appreciation with Podcasting.