The Idea Place Posts

As some blog readers know, Aimee is embarking on a five-week journey throughout Southeast Asia. I’ll post her travel dispatches on the blog as they are available.

 

This trip involves tours from two travel companies. She’s touring with Intrepid Travel and Myths & Mountains. Intrepid will take Aimee through Cambodia and Vietnam while Myths will take her through Nepal.

 

Photos and any audio/video will have to wait until Aimee’s return. Maybe I’ll convince her to travel with a computer on the next adventure.

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The Associated Press ran a story talking about a librarian in Utah trying to catalog many of the animal sounds found in the western U.S. At first browse, The Western Soundscape Archive seems quite intriguing and as a nice touch, the Flash used on the site seems to be of the accessible variety.

 

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Rattlesnakes aren’t to be trifled with, but if you’re trying to collect the sound of every creature in the West that slithers, hops, flies or flops, distance isn’t a luxury you can afford.

”You get yourself in some strange situations,” said Jeff Rice, a soft-spoken University of Utah research librarian who’s trying to create the first comprehensive — and free to the public — archive of natural sounds in the West.

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Obviously this is not, in the grand scheme of things, a huge deal. That said, for the curious try the following:

 

1. Navigate to http://www.house.gov.
2. Enter the zip 98052 in the box for locating a representative by zip.
3. Note the resulting page which indicates that 98052 is not enough info.

 

The 5 digit ZIP code 98052 was not enough information to determine your Representative. There are muiltiple Representatives who share this 5 digit ZIP code.

 

With the billions we all pay in taxes, you’d think our government could correctly spell the word multiple. I left feedback today to ask that this be corrected so we’ll see how long any correction takes.

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Today’s Seattle times has an article talking about how Amazon has created a map illustrating the political leaning of a state based on book book purchases from this state. I mention this heare because after trying the page, it could serve as a model of how to make an inaccessible web page. It seems like every rule about basic web accessibility was ignored.

 

Unable to see pictures, well you are out of luck. Need info conveyed with something other than color. To bad, so sad.

 

On Tuesday, the Seattle-based retailer introduced an interactive map of the U.S. showing which states are “red” or “blue” based on their online book purchases.

For now, 36 states are pink or red. Six are blue. And eight, including Washington and Oregon, are purple, meaning residents are virtually split in their political book purchases between Republican and Democratic viewpoints.

 

The map, available at http://www.amazon.com/election2008, and updated daily, is based on sales of books with a political perspective, as identified in promotional material and customer classifications.

 

Take a browse and try and determine anything meaningful from this page if you are using a screen reader. Even the book titles from the most popular categories seem to be missing meaningful text. You can read fun links named things like I/518RvzD1MOL._AA110_.

 

I’ve sent feedback to Amazon but if anyone has real contacts beyond feedback links on web pages it would be good to let Amazon know.

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Anyone who’s a football fan knows all to well the saga that’s played out over these past many months with Brett Favre and his retirement/unretirement. With the 2008 NFL season now underway, it definitely feels strange to see Favre playing for the Jets and tossing his 443^rd touchdown for a team other than the Packers. Only time will tell how it all works out for everyone involved and I guess it keeps things interesting.

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According to multiple news sources and the Google blog, Google is going to be releasing a web browser called Chrome on 9/2. Here’s the full Google blog posting.

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Aaron Leventhal, someone for whom I have immense respect and who has been instrumental in Firefox and ARIA accessibility among other things, has an interesting blog post talking about how to improve Firefox access on the Macintosh. The article is worth a read, even if you have no interest in Mac accessibility for some of the experiences and insights Aaron shares on how accessibility happens. You can read the article at http://accessgarage.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/firefox-and-os-xs-voiceover-reading-the-magic-8-ball.

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Earlier today I sent the below message to Saddleback Church.  Rick Warren and the church have been in the news of late due to Warren’s hosting of interviews with the two men running for U.S. President.

 

 

From: Kelly Ford [mailto:kelly@kellford.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 5:03 PM
To: ‘info@saddleback.com’
Subject: Please Add Alternative Text

 

Hello,

 

I happen to be blind and browse the web with what’s known as a screen reader.  I was reviewing your church’s web site as part of the focus it has obtained over the political coverage you are hosting with the presidential candidates.

 

I noticed that your web site fails to use alternative text for most images on your web pages.  Alternative text allows screen readers to insert words instead of pictures.

 

Below is how your web pages currently read with a screen reader.

 

References:

Alternative text – http://www.webaim.org/techniques/images/alt_text.php

Screen reader – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_readers

 

 

+++ Saddleback Church +++

 

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At Saddleback Church you’ll hear great music and a relevant, biblical message about the authentic truth for your life. To learn more, select from one of

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The American Foundation for the Blind has an important and thoughtful alert talking about the need for the public to comment on proposed updates to the regulations for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As you would expect, the alert highlights issues of interest to people who are blind or have low vision. The deadline for comments is August 18. Take a read of the alert and follow the instructions for commenting.

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Aimee and I were in San Francisco last weekend for a short break visiting a good friend. On Sunday the three of us opted to head out to the city with no real agenda beyond visiting Mission Dolores and then to see where Bay area transit and our feet would take us.

 

As we left the mission we started hearing some sort of announcements coming from loud speakers down the street. I’m drawn to these kinds of public sounds I guess because there’s a part of me that’s always curious about what’s going on.

 

As it turned out, this happened to be an annual event from the San Francisco Symphony where a free outdoor concert is put on in Dolores Park. What a great serendipitous discovery and quite the pleasant afternoon.

 

The first half of the concert featured a trumpet soloist by the name of Alison Balsom. Here’s a bit of the music we heard that afternoon.

 

I’m definitely going to have to hear more of this artist. I won’t claim to be any kind of expert but I really enjoyed Balsom’s interpretation on the music and found the way she coaxed a softer sound out of the trumpet particularly intriguing. You always hear the big bold brassy sounds from trumpet players with the rapid flourishes and such and Balsom handled those smoothly. I was really impressed with the way she softened the trumpet’s sound at times though and I’d like to hear more of her work.

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