Greater Access to San Francisco: Tweeting Complaints
June 2, 2009
San Francisco continues to keep up its uber-geek credo: it will now accept complaints from people via Twitter. Just follow @SF311. Can even post photos via TwitPic.
Damn. This is terrific for deaf folks living in or visiting San Francisco. Hope Frederick, Maryland will do the same soon. I do know that several city and county commissioners in and around Frederick, MD are tweeting via Twitter. But an official Twitter account like @SF311? Priceless.
Any other towns / cities / counties accepting complaints via Twitter?
(Thanks, TechCrunch)
VPAD+ Accessories
February 23, 2009
Now you’ve got your uber-cool VPAD+ from Viable. Now you’ve got to put it someplace!
Clear View Innovations — otherwise known as CVI Gear — has three mounts and stands for the VPAD+ which may help you decide. All three are useful for freeing up space on your desk or counter, and for raising the VPAD+ to eye level.
The CVI Flexarm Mount is a doo-hickey that clamps to the edge of a kitchen counter or desk, and has a flexible arm that can be bent one way or another.
The CVI Pivot Mount is similar to the Flexarm Mount in that it clamps to the edge of your kitchen counter or desk. It has a longer and straight arm that has a 360 degrees pivot for eye-level communications.
The CVI Table Stand can be put onto a table without having to clamp it to an edge. And you can quickly move the VPAD+ and stand to another location.
All three products are made to order. So if you want to hang your VPAD+ from up high, say from the top edge of your armoire or bookshelf, the manufacturer can make a “reverse” mount to make this easier for you. All three products are $99.99.
Speak Starbucks-speak!
June 10, 2008
If you’re like me, you have to write down your Starbucks order. Luckily, just about every Starbucks barista has been trained to press the “feed” key on the receipt printer and give me a slip of paper and pen even before I need to ask for it. But then I spend what feels like a minute scrawling down my entire order. Even more time when I’m ordering for several people. And then I see the barista scribble the entire order into a few letters on each cup.
I’ve always wanted to learn the Starbucks language. And now, thanks to Adam, here’s a list of the symbols, letters, and numbers that Starbucks baristas use when writing down your order — and that means you and I can just jot these down and give the barista our order.
“Venti iced X 2 TN N WC(with slash) M” — ahhh, that felt sooo good.
When using letters / numbers from this list, I’ve noticed that baristas tend to follow a particular order: first, let them know the size (venti etc), then whether it’s iced, then decaf, then shots, then syrup, then milk, then custom, then finally the drink itself.
I’ll update this list as I get more information, and/or move this to a separate page.
Happy imbibing! And tell me in the comments what your favorite drink is, in Starbucks-speak.
DECAF:
(none) – regular strength
X – decaf
1/2 – half / half
SHOTS:
(none) – the standard
1 – single
2 – double
3 – triple
4 – quad
5 – 5 shots
6 – 6 shots
SYRUP:
(none) – none for me
V – vanilla
H – hazelnut
TN – toffee nut
C – caramel
P – peppermint
A – almond
R – raspberry
SFC – sugar free caramel
SFH – sugar free hazelnut
SFV – sugar free vanilla
1PV – one pump vanilla (you can add 1P in front of any of these syrups like 1PR, 1PSFH)
2PV – two pump vanilla (you can add 2P in front of any of these syrups like 2PA, 1PSFV)
MILK:
(none) – the standard
2% – 2% milk
1% – 1% milk
N – nonfat
S – soy
O – organic
B – breve
CUSTOM:
(none) – none
R – room (space on top for you to add milk yourself)
R (with slash thru it) – no room
WC (with slash thru it) – no whipped cream
WC – with whipped cream
XH – extra hot
XF – extra foam
F (with slash thru it) – no foam
D – dry
W – wet
XD – extra dry
CR – with caramel sauce
2/3 full – 2/3 full
DRINK:
L – latte
M – mocha
A – caffe americano
BC – brewed coffee
PM – peppermint mocha
WM – white chocolate mocha
C – cappuccino
E – espresso
CH – Tazo chai tea latte
HC – hot chocolate
WHC – white hot chocolate
PHC – peppermint hot chocolate
CM – caramel macchiato
EM – espresso macchiato
CDL – cinnamon dolce latte
GL – gingerbread latte
SFGL – gingerbread latte with sugarfree syrup
SFCDL – cinnamon dolce latte with sugarfree syrup
PSL – pumpkin spice latte
CAS – caramel apple spice
VCR – vanilla crème
BT – iced black tea
PT – iced passion tea
GT – iced green tea
PTL – Passion iced tea lemonade
GTL – Tazo green tea latte
CF – coffee Frappuccino blended coffee
CRF – caramel Frappuccino blended coffee
MF – mocha Frappuccino blended coffee
STCF – strawberries and crème Frappuccino blended crème
VBF – vanilla bean Frappuccino blended crème
CFL – coffee light Frappuccino light blended coffee
CRFL – caramel light Frappuccino light blended coffee
EGF – eggnog Frappuccino blended coffee
PMF – peppermint mocha Frappuccino blended coffee
CHCF – Tazo chai tea Frappuccino blended crème
DCCF – double chocolate chip Frappuccino blended crème
JCF – java chip Frappuccino blended crème
VBFL – vanilla bean light Frappuccino light blended creme
SnapVRS / Ojo Also Offers 9-1-1 Calling
June 3, 2008
Since May 19, SnapVRS has been making it possible for callers to be connected to 9-1-1 just by dialing “911″ on their Ojo videophones. Sorenson began doing that last year, and Viable just yesterday. Good move, SnapVRS, even if it’s being mandated by FCC!
Callers would have to provide the address where emergency services are needed. I find it interesting that Sorenson has paired with another company to trace your IP address to where you are calling from. I wonder how accurate that is — and whether that company has access to more detailed information that makes it possible to link IP addresses to actual street addresses or if (like SnapVRS and Viable) the caller still must provide his/her address.
Most deaf folks I know haven’t used a TTY in years — rather, they just use videophones as well as text-based relay services through the Internet or via their pagers. But they still kept a “landline” phone line with a TTY next to it. For for? Ah, for emergencies! They needed a way to call 9-1-1, and having the TTY and phone ready was a way to make sure they’d get an ambulance or police over whenever they needed it. (Now, if only these 9-1-1 emergency providers will always respond to TTY calls …)
Viable VRS will soon be able to connect you to your local 9-1-1 emergency service provider. All you would need to do is dial “911″ on ViableVision or your VPAD and click on “VRS.” If you’re using a different videophone, you would be able to dial the full address as following — please be sure to save this at the top of your contacts list!
- Dialing 911 or 911.ViableVRS.tv via Viable Vision and the VPAD
- Dialing 911.ViableVRS.tv via D-Link DVC-1000, Sorenson VP-100, or the Ojo
- Dialing ecall.ViableVRS.tv via Sorenson VP-200
NOTE: This 9-1-1 emergency service is not yet “live” — I’ll let you know when Viable begins providing this service.
I previously blogged about Sorenson providing 9-1-1 services a year ago. Good to see another VRS provider getting into the game, even if it’s being mandated by FCC. I’ll also let you know when other VRS providers begin providing 9-1-1 services as well.
Now, my question is: if you’ve got high-speed Internet and a videophone (or several videophones!) at home, do you even need a landline phone line installed in your home nowadays?
EDIT (6/3/2008): Viable just released a video explaining this new service. Carla Mathers is featured in this video — good job, dear Carla!
Yahoo Mail re-designed to work with screenreaders
November 23, 2007
I work with several people with visual impairments, and it has been an eye-opening experience (weak pun intended) for me to watch them work on computers. The things I take for granted — quickly steering the mouse to the exact button and then clicking on it — becomes a labor for some of them. One uses a screen-reader, and tabs from button to button or from text to text and listens until she finds the right button she needs (assuming, of course, the button has text on it with exactly what the button does, rather than just a mysterious “Click Here”). Websites I’m totally used to suddenly becomes a mysterious landscape when viewed through screen-readers or magnified 10 times.
And so it’s encouraging when I read that Yahoo Mail has made its classic interface (not the new AJAX-y drag-n-drop interface) more accessible to people who use screen-readers. I have not figured out yet exactly what has been changed, but it may be that frames (long the bane of screen-readers) have been eliminated in favor of columns that can more easily be scanned by screen-readers.
Good for you, Yahoo! Gmail, when will you do this?
(Thanks, DownloadSquad!)
Voice messages to text — for free
October 31, 2007
I’ve previously blogged about options for voice messages to be converted to text to be emailed or SMS’ed to you. (See my reviews or mentions of SimulScribe, Spinvox, and Jott.) But this one, folks, is free.
CallWave provides a suite of “outside the phone” services, and the one that’s of most interest to me (as a deaf person) is its free service transcribing voice messages to text. You can then read the voice message either via email, via a text message, or via a “PhonePage” — your own customized Internet page where you can go through and sort voice messages much like you would like an email inbox.
CallWave even provides a widget that you can put onto your iGoogle, Yahoo, Vista Sidebar, or Apple Dashboard showing your list of voice messages (that you should have already transcribed to text, right?). Very useful, very convenient. And for free. Waitamin, I just caught something — it’s free during its beta period. Ohhhh.
CallWave provides several other services — some at a low monthly fee — like virtual faxes and voice mail on your computer.
Easiest way to subtitle and show your videos: Overstream + Google Video
September 17, 2007
(EDIT 8/28/2008: YouTube now supports the ability to import .srt and .sub files as well.)
Heads up: a new subtitled bonus video at the end of this blog post — this time, of my younger daughter walking for the first time!
Four months ago, I told you about Overstream, a website where you can easily add subtitles / captions to your videos. Several of you (including myself) mentioned that while this website was wonderful, there wasn’t a way to move your captioned videos from one site to another.
I’m happy to tell you that Overstream now has made it easy to export your captions / subtitles to other video-hosting websites.
Max, the creator of Overstream, recently added a feature where you can save your subtitles as a “.srt” file. An SRT file pretty much just contains your subtitles and the times in hundreds of seconds that they are to appear (and then disappear) in your video. I believe SRT files are similar to what is being used by major television and movie producers, but I could be wrong. And I also believe this is similar to what rather complex subtitling computer programs create — like Subtitle Workshop and MAGpie.
Anyhow, on Overstream, after you’re finished creating your subtitles, you can then click on “Tools” to see an option for exporting current subtitles as SRT. Click on that option, and then you’ll get an option to save the subtitles as a file on your computer or copy all the subtitles (and time codes) to your clipboard. (Hey Max, yet another suggestion: can you add buttons to allow the user to move the current video frame back or fro a half second, a second, and five seconds? I found myself constantly re-positioning the arrow showing the current video frame.)
Last July, I told you how Google had added a feature where you can upload “.srt” files which is used to add captions / subtitles to videos. This is where you can import the SRT file you created with Overstream, or even paste the subtitles into a special text box.
And thus, I was able to easily subtitle my 21-second Google video of my younger daughter walking for the first time! Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how I did this:
- Upload my video to Google Video
- Go to Overstream.net and create a new Overstream (series of subtitles) using my new Google Video as the base video
- Export the subtitles (via the Tools button on the Overstream Subtitles editing screen) to a SRT file on my computer
- Go back to Google Video, and view my “Uploaded Videos“
- Click on the “Add” button next to “Captions / Subtitles” for that video
- Upload my SRT file to Google Video
- … and hey presto, the video is now subtitled!
A huge benefit of using Google Video and an uploaded SRT file is that the subtitles can be turned on or off (!!!) using the “CC” button at the bottom of the video screen. The subtitles appear just below the video itself. Doubling the size of the video or making it full-screen still makes the subtitles look sharp — the subtitles aren’t stretched and distorted, but rather the font size is increased by Google Video. Very nice. When the video is embedded on another website, like what I’m doing below, the captions seem a bit small — but that seems to be a Google Video issue and not Overstream’s.
The SRT export functionality brings the Overstream – Google Video duo to the top of my list of recommended sites to use to caption your video. Thanks, Max, for listening to us and adding this super-duper-terrific functionality! Makes me think — it’s not easy for a sitemaster like Max to allow users who create media on his site to take this media elsewhere, so I really appreciate the new Export SRT file feature that Max added.
What’s that? You want me to shut up now and show you the video? Ok, ok! Without further ado, here’s the video of my younger daughter walking for the first time!
iBOT: new type of wheelchair
August 24, 2007
For people who use wheelchairs, even the tiniest bump or step can seem like an imposing barrier. Curbs without a curb ramp? Forget it. A step along the sidewalk? Impossible. A walk along a trail that has some bumps and dips? May as well scale Mt. Everest. High service counters? Neck-crick time.
Perhaps not anymore. There’s a new type of power wheelchair designed to give persons with disabilities yet more independence — the Independence iBOT 4000 Mobility System.
With the iBOT 4000, persons who use wheelchairs would be able to:
- Easily raise yourself to reach high shelves and countertops.
- Safely travel at eye level.
- Go up or down steps and stairs.
- Travel over uneven terrain.
- Climb curbs up to 5 inches high.
- Travel indoors and outdoors much like a conventional standard power wheelchair.
- Using remote control, maneuver the iBOT® Mobility System up a ramp and into a vehicle for unoccupied transportation.
Impressive list of features. At 289 pounds (unladen), it’s not exactly lightweight stuff. But with remote control and its ability to transverse uneven terrains and steps, that seems to be a fair trade-off.
I should note that the stair-climbing feature has some limitations. The person using it would need to have at least one railing to hold on if using this independently to climb stairs, or have a person assist. I took several snapshots of a video showing how this stair-climbing feature works:
Thoughts? Concerns? Observations? Share with us in the comments, willya!
