Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I want to thank you for this great and informative article, AccessWorld 2014 Holiday Gift Guide: Great High- and Low-Tech Ideas Under $100, by Deborah Kendrick, on affordable accessible gifts. I really appreciated reading it and finding the important companies and phone numbers.
Have a Happy Holiday,
Charles Petraske
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
Echo Sense Network Glasses: Remote Vision for the Blind is a fascinating article and one that shows the possibilities of new technologies and newer methods of teaching mobility. I could have used something like this in college years ago. Not all blind people are fabulous travelers, even with much training.
I hope the product is streamlined and improved. I think paying someone to be your eyes while using this software could be a neat job for someone looking for part-time employment. Volunteers are one way to go but not the only way.
Hope to hear more about this.
David F.
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I wish to congratulate Deborah Armstrong for her letter published in the December 2014 edition of AccessWorld.
I totally agree with her and strongly support her comments. I personally remember the DOS era where you could re-install a new DOS operating system by simply using a talking bootable floppy disk.
Although nowadays it is also possible to install a Windows based operating system using a similar method (but not without some struggle with things like Bios or UEFI configurations).
Although screen readers are continuously improving, …sometimes in a corporate environment you must use the software that particular company wants you to use. This third-party software is not always 100 percent accessible with screen readers. Worse than that, they do not you allow you to (for obvious security issues) install another alternative that does the same job.
Someone on an international level must push the governments around the world to impose on their software developer companies to make sure that the newly developed software must be accessible and provide use by keyboard and not only by the mouse. Maybe we need to teach mouse users a lesson by stealing their mice for one day, and then we will see if they are capable of working efficiently without a mouse!
One last thing, I wish to see more generic articles that appeal to everyone such as how to deal with the UEFI configuration and how to best access it with screen readers. Also…I wish to see a complete article on how we, the blind, can build, manage, and maintain a modern website by using commercial software similar to Dreamweaver. The method of building a website by writing all the code from scratch is too time-consuming.
I wish AccessWorld authors and readers a very prosperous 2015. Keep it up with this publication.
Kind regards,
Michael Micallef
Malta, Europe
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
Please note there has been a delay in launching the new Comcast accessibility features you announced in the December issue of AccessWorld. The November 12 Comcast announcement said the new accessibility features would be available within a few weeks, so I purchased the new X1 digital service at an additional cost. When I called their accessibility center over the Thanksgiving weekend, they said the launch was being delayed, but they expected it would be available beginning December 3. That did not occur, so on December 9 I sent them an inquiry and was told that once it is launched, it will still be in a beta testing phase.
While I applaud Comcast's investment in improved accessibility, they have not been transparent about the revised timeframe for launch. I asked that they escalate my inquiry so I could get an estimate of the new time frame, but have not yet received a substantive reply.
Thank you,
Bob Hartt
