Back in 1999 I had a friend tell me how cool it was to be blind, walk into a retail bookstore, buy a book from the top 20 and then come home and read it that night via OCR/Scanner. Since then I have always thought that electronic media and electronic distribution was a fantastic idea for some forms of information and entertainment. Well except for iTunes. That just blows chunkcs and we all know how I feel about Apple in general.

The thing is that on January 30th we the blind won't have to go out into the cold cruel world, stand in line with the unwashed masses at Fry's or Best Buy if we wish to have Windows Vista on day of release. Mind you if this is your plan you better own a copy of Freedom Box or Window Eyes for Screen Access, however, it's still do-able if you want to be the first on your block with Vista.

What's even cooler is that if you were given that ugly Holiday sweater known as Windows Vista Home Basic as a gift from a non technical friend or relation you can pony up a few dollars and turn that ugly duckling into the beautiful swan known as Windows Ultimate without ever leaving the comfort of home.

In Vista Microsoft has set up a way to upgrade from version to higher version via a credit card, a product ID and your existing copy of Vista DVD. The disc contains all retail versions on one DVD, and like JAWS, the product ID [or PID] unlocks which version you can have access to in that particular install.

So how much does this jump from version to version cost? Check the link below to learn more. Also read that bit about Family Discounts. I will blab about that tomorrow.

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/arc...