Tweet Weekly Rollup: April 20th Edition

I’m going to take the old “random Goodness” and “Quick News” formats and roll them up into this new post. Twitter has become my default way of posting information for things I don’t want to expand on but feel like they should get some attention on the blog. I’ll go back over the week and summarize the best of the best each Monday.

Mono vs. Stereo: A neat article on how some believe that the original Beatles mono recordings are better than the remixed stereo ones.

http://digg.com/d1oy32

IT Power Up Myths: Should you power cycle your system to save energy or is it better in the long run to leave your system on for hard drive safety? This link gives more information on this and other IT Pro Myths.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/16/1819206

Attack Of The Zombie Macs!: Take that Apple marketing..

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/04/evidence-suggests-first-zombie-mac-botnet-is-active.ars

Office 14 Is Now Office 2010: Paul at the Windows Super Site has updated his Office 14 FAQ to reflect all the news that came out this week about the next version of MS Office Suites.

http://www.winsupersite.com/office/office2010_faq.asp

Office 2007 SP2: Word is that the date for the next Service Pack for Office 07 is April 28th.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/04/confirmed-office-2010-will-come-in-32-bit-and-64-bit.ars

Firefox Looks Forward: XP support may fade in the next generation version of Firefox that is in early development.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9131576

Follow me on Twitter if you would like to see more information like this in real time. Or review the Tweets whenever you want at..

http://twitter.com/RangerStation

Poll Results And April’s Mini Poll Added

Bet you thought I forgot about the poll eh? Quite the opposite really. More on that in a second. When you see a delay in the poll results, and I know that happens more often than not, it is chiefly due to my inability to think up a good question for the following month. Sometimes they strike like lightning and sometimes they come to me like a snail going uphill. For April the snail won by a wide margin. But there were no wide margins in our poll results on IE8. Take a look below..

March’s Poll Question: Are You Going To Update Your Internet Explorer To Version 8?

Yes   8 (38%)
  No   2 (9%)
  I'll Wait For The Service Pack   6 (28%)
  Internet Explorer.. Never!    5 (23%)

I’m shocked to see that the “haves” beat the “have nots” on this one. Frankly so many people on the web bash Internet Explorer so often that I kind of think of it as a darkhorse in the Browser Wars instead of the market leader. I like IE8. I didn’t like the pre releases at all and I was fully prepared to drop this release like a hot rock at the first signs of odd behavior. Then the safety features kicked in on a couple of BBC and Sun websites.. and I thought to myself that this was a good thing because the page elements that were blocked or detected were very very bad. And I haven’t looked back since.

I’m not downing Firefox by any means but I’m not sold on the maturity of version 3 with all the AT programs yet. So I have it, it is installed and I do use it for testing. However, I’ve had great luck with IE8 for most of my work needs. It has become my default browser at home while my office computer is the test bench for IE7.. for now [he says ominously].

I have also adopted a little more than Internet Explorer 8 recently. You might have read the post about my slow moving self taking on a more Social Networking track a few weeks ago. Or you may have seen the Twitter and Facebook elements added to the sidebar. In either case, thanks to a particular person, I’ve jumped in and I’m doing a lot of Tweeting. Around “Follower” 24 this new poll question came to me.

April’s Poll Question: Where Do You Get The Most News About Assistive Technology?

Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook, Friend Feed, etc

Surfing A Company's Website

Email Lists

Podcasts

Word Of Mouth: Friends, Coworkers, etc

I do all of the above to some extent. But I work in the Industry and I kinda have to read up on these things. But I’m interested to see what all of you think is the big avenue for you in how you get your news on the products you use. I’ll roll this one into early May. Oh, I do have a May poll question already in mind. We may actually go back to a real monthly schedule! .. probably not though knowing me.

Feb’s Poll Results And March’s Mini Poll Added

This month’s poll question came about from the simple fact that five people I know at work have bought various types of Netbooks since the first of the year. All said that they had open keys for their AT programs of choice and it seemed stilly to them to go for a note taker without a Braille Display option for simple things like surfing the web or taking notes. And it looks like the worm has also turned for those who voted in the poll as well. Check out the votes..

Feb's Poll Question Of The Month: Would You Buy A Netbook Running An Assistive Technology Program Or A Traditional Blindness Related Note Taker If Given Half The Chance?

I would buy the Netbook AT Program Combo Meal   12 (50%)
I would buy a Blindness Related Note Taker   0 (0%)
I gotta have my Braille input or Braille output Note Taker   6 (25%)
  Whatever, I use a laptop for all things in portable computing    6 (25%)

I do caution some people to do the research before you buy if you are going for a Netbook. Not all systems are created equal. And hardware configurations are a plenty. Also, and this gets a lot of people, a Netbook is not a laptop. So don’t expect smooth sailing if you are one of those people who have 7 windows open at a time while streaming media. Moreover, with most of these systems coming in at such a low price .. we may have entered the new world of disposable computing. New from Bic, the disposable Netbook Lighter combo! Now available at Right Aid, 7-11 and Fry’s. And then there will eventually be the recycling bits. Green for paper, yellow for glass and purple for those dead Netbooks. And we will all have flying cars and dogs that will talk too. Okay maybe not that last part.  Rutt’ro Roorge!

I’m scarce for poll questions at the moment, however, this one seems timely. 

March’s Mini Poll Question: Are You Going To Update Your Internet Explorer To Version 8?

Yes
  No
  I'll Wait For The Service Pack
  Internet Explorer.. Never!

I’ve got a guess how this might go. So we will do a mini poll this time around and go with something else in a few weeks.

Poll: August’s Results And New! October Poll Added

Let us take a look at the now vintage poll from August shall we?

August’s Poll Question: Which Public Beta Will You Download And Install This Month?

JAWS 10.0 16 (69%)
Window Eyes 7.0 5 (21%)
Windows Live Mesh 0 (0%)
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 (8%)

I guess this wasn’t as much as a barn burner as I had originally thought. The response to the new Window Eyes has been good. I haven’t delved into it too much but I plan to learn more about it in the next few months. I’ve been playing with Live mesh and I like what I have seen so far. If you didn’t do a search on that one I recommend that you might want to if you like the idea of a remote desktop via a web interface. Speaking of remotes, Eric at Freedom Scientific spoke to a group I cobbled together this week and he said that Tandem has already seen over 1,000 connections. It seems that we all have some good stuff ahead of us in the upcoming year no matter which product[s] you use.

But enough about the past poll. Lets jump to this month’s question. As we approach the Xmas season I thought we might see what some would like to ask Santa for if Santa was real and made of obscene amounts of cash.

October’s Poll Question: All I Want For Xmas Is ...

An Upgrade For My Screen Reader/Magnifier/OCR
A Note Taker Like a PAC Mate, Voice Note, Icon Or Braille Sense
A Victor Reader Stream
A New Video Magnifier/Hand Held CCTV
Starbucks, iTunes Or Other Online Gift Cards
Money, Because It Goes With Everything I Already Own

Since Wal Mart decided to put their Holiday paraphernalia up this week to attract sales, I thought we could look ahead as well. It just feels so wrong to see this stuff before “The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” airs. And now that makes me thing of Dolly Madison’s cupcakes and pies and doughnuts and .. darn you childhood advertisers!

Random Goodness: Smart Contacts, 78s and Snowl

Smart Contact Lens: I’m all about the tech, however, I put the brakes on when we get to Wetware. Too much reading of Bruce Sterling and William Gibson I think. Well for glaucoma patients this contact lens may just be the thing to catch those pesky eye pressure spikes.

http://thefutureofthings.com/news/1278/smart-contact-lenses.html

Before LPs There Were 78s: We have reached an age where if you discuss Vinyl with younger people they think you are talking about clothes instead of the long playing record variety that so many of us grew up with prior to the MP3 generation. This article talks about one man’s crusade to digitize as many 78s as possible.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/08/one-mans-quest.html

And if that doesn’t take you back you can read this about albums being reissued on Reel to Reel.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/28/albums-reissued-on-r.html

Snowl: I’ve been hearing about this Firefox extension that lets you read your messages within the browser. I don’t have the time to play with this now but I think I might come back to it later. Here is a Windows Super Site blog entry on Snowl.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/08/12/introducing-snowl-an-experiment-with-messaging-in-the-browser.aspx

Quick News: Dragon, Firefox And Window Eyes Beta

Here are some quick bits for a Friday afternoon.

Dragon 10: So if this is coming and J-Say just updated to JFW9 and JFW 10 is coming.. umf!

http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/resources/pressreleases/20080807_DNS10Launch.asp

Firefox 3: This awesome FAQ for Screen Readers has been making the rounds on the blog scene. And I thought it was good to follow SUIT.

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+3+with+Screen+Readers+FAQ

Window Eyes 7b2: The same goes with providing the link to the updated Window eyes Beta 2 release of the upcoming 7.0 line.

http://www.gwmicro.com/Window-Eyes/Beta/

Poll: July’s Mini Poll Results And Full On August Poll Posted

I want to thank the 19 of you who played along with the mini poll for July. And I want to apologize for not having Tuna as an option. I have no idea what I was thinking. So maybe come the holidays we will do another mini poll with a wider range of menu items. For now let us gaze at the results of Kitchen Stadiums’ “Battle Sandwich”.

Poll: What Sandwich Sounds Good Right About Now?

Ham 1 (5%)
Turkey 1 (5%)
BLT 6 (31%)
Rubin 4 (21%)
Meatball Sub 5 (26%)
Veggie Delight 2 (10%)

For about a week it looked like Meatball was going to run away with things. Then BLT came out of nowhere and stole it on the last two days of voting. Personally I was in the mood for a Rubin when I wrote that. And today I brought Spaghetti. Therefore I would fall into the Meatball camp I guess. Either way Veggie did its best to topple the carnivores. And Turkey sat at 0 for the longest time before someone voted for that option. I know this wasn’t as topical as some of the other polls but, for me, it was fun to have something crazy up there. And again I thank all who played along.

Alas, I went back to the traditional poll question for August. Less you think I have gone all culinary.

August's Poll: Which Public Beta Will You Download And Install This Month?

JAWS 10.0
Window Eyes 7.0
Windows Live Mesh
Firefox 3.1 Alpha

I highly suggest you take a look at Live Mesh if you are into the Cloud or really wanting a more user friendly Remote Desktop/Sync solution. And it looks like Firefox 3.1 will have some interesting changes as well. And the web is a blaze about the other two public betas. So this one should be fun to watch.

Random Goodness: User Interface By Ability, Firefox Tabs And A Blind Watchmaker.. Sort Of..

Ability Based User Interfaces: I confess to liking me some bad Sci Fi movies. “Demolition Man” and “Judge Dread” are high on my list of lows in SF moviedom. This article from Ars Technica that I link to below reminds me of the scene in “Demolition Man” where the unfrozen Sly Stalone goes to drive a car and the car adapts its self to his height, visual acuity and other physical parameters before it will let him drive. Imagine that for a User Interface? Well someone already has and this article discusses that idea.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080717-tweaking-user-interfaces-to-match-abilities-disabilities.html

Windows Flip For Firefox 3.1?: Wow this sounds familiar. Take the Control Tab hotkey you know now and add some Vista Flip 3D like functionality and presto! A neat new idea for tab browsing in Firefox 3.1.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/07/16/new-tab-switching-added-for-firefox-3-1.aspx

Blind Watchmaker: Here’s where viewing Google by keywords can take you down a rabbit hole. Still this is kinda interesting.

http://physics.syr.edu/courses/mirror/biomorph/

Firefox 3.0 Now Free To Roam The Internet

Today’s the big day where Mozilla is hoping to break the world’s record for the most downloads in one day. I’ve done my part and if you too want Firefox 3.0 go here..

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?from=getfirefox

Ars Technica has a nicer overview of what was, what is and what will be soon on the way with Firefox. Check out that article at the link below.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080617-igniting-an-open-revolution-firefox-3-officially-released.html

Quick News: Access World, Firefox And Macs

Access World: This issue focuses on CSUN, Electronic Audio and the Sense View’s Hand Writing camera accessory.

http://www.afb.org/aw/main.asp

Firefox 3 RC1: Ars has a look at what seems to be a great update to Mozilla’s Flagship product.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080519-atantalizing-taste-of-firefox-3-release-candidate-1.html

Apple: The world is a scary place when you can buy a Windows based computer with your Assistive Technology of choice for the same price as a Macbook. Fortune notes in the article below that Apple is selling 66% of the computers/notebooks in the +$1,000 category.

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/19/report-apples-market-share-of-pcs-over-1000-hits-66/?source=yahoo_quote

More Information On Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3

Those crazy old internets are a changin’ rapidly. I posted some info the other day about the Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 . I want to highlight on the main page a comment from the renowned Kelly Ford. He has some tips for those of us who leap before we look. Or in other words, we use betas for fun. I believe the term bandied about is “Enthusiast”. Sounds better than “Masochist” eh? Anyway here is Kelly’s comment..

Kelly
Ford [MSFT] said... Hello Everyone,This is Kelly Ford from the IE team at
Microsoft. IE8 beta 1 is definitely out. If you do opt to take it for a test
spin, please take note of the assistive technology section of the release notes.
They talk about two reg keys you will likely need to set to avoid some
compatibility issues we are working on with various assistive technology
vendors. The release notes can be found at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949787. There's a heading titled Assistive
technology that goes into more detail.You can read the blog post talking about
IE8 from the IE team blog at
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/internet-explorer-8-beta-1-for-developers-now-available.aspx
and a post talking about various feedback options at
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/ie8-beta-feedback.aspx.On the
technical side you can read about some of the accessibility changes at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc304059(VS.85).aspx. Perhaps most
notably is that IE8 beta 1 contains our initial support for Web ARIA. This is a
way to make web applications more accessible. You can learn more about ARIA at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-aria-20080204/.Finally, if you are interested
in an exciting career opportunity to join the IE team and help with our
accessibility testing, you can read about an open position we have at http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx?JobID=EDC85083-8FD9-4E16-BE2B-1B736C30E3AC.

f you do decide to take the plunge then you can expect an install shield very much like those found in IE7. I like that there are a few more options with checkboxes offered to customize IE8 during the install. One of the things I wasn’t thrilled about with IE7 was that you had to go to that opening page to make selections on some particular browser options. With IE8, so far, this isn’t as big deal for me. Low vision users may not be totally thrilled with the default layout of the toolbars. You have your standard File menu, the address bar, the Tabs and now a Favorites bar. If you have ever met someone who has 5 million add ons or gadgets for Firefox in the menu areas then you already know what a nightmare it can be to make a precise and accurate mouse clic on a small unrecognizable icon for a sea of small unrecognizable icons. Speech users won’t notice this much unless you tab a lot out of the address bar during web navigation. Not to worry though as all of the bars can be customized. Just a heads up on the current defaults in case anyone is interested.

Speaking of Firefox.. Here is a link to the latest version, Beta 4, of Firefox 3.0. This is also another “Downloader Beware” kind of thing. But I bet you already knew that before I said it right? http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Web Stuff: Firefox 3 Beta 2 And IE8

Matt Campbell has reminded me that I haven't been keeping up with posting news about Mozilla's latest. He is, as usual, right on target. Here's a link to the Firefox pages touting the public release of Firefox 3 Beta 2.

http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2007/12/18/firefox-3-beta-2-released/

IE 8: Ars Technica has a good look at what is coming in Internet Explorer 8. There is a short bit in there about W3C compliance and the battle in the EU with Opera too. And it looks like we will see a beta for IE8 in the first half of 2008.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071219-ie8-goes-on-an-acid2-trip-beta-due-in-first-half-of-2008.html

November's Poll Results And December's Poll Added

When I came up with last month's poll I thought that we might have a close race. Boy was I ever wrong. Take a look at the final tally.

Poll Question: If Stuck On A Deserted Island With Only One Web Browser I Would Choose?

Internet Explorer 6 - 2 (6%)

Internet Explorer 7 - 7 (21%)

Any Version Of Firefox - 21 (65%)

Opera - 1 (3%)

Safari - 1 (3%)

So out of 32 people an large majority of you are Firefox fans. Hmm, now I have to look and see how this page looks on IE, FF and mobile browsers. Sigh.. and here I thought it was all WYSIWYG.

Well this month's poll continues our look at die hard fans of a particular platform.

Poll Of The Month: My Next System Will Sport Which Processor?

Intel Based System

AMD Based System

It will be one of those OLPC or other Linux styled boxes

"Other" like Transmeda and the like

Let's see where this takes us this month. And feel free to throw comments or poll question suggestions in the section below..

Follow Up: Firefox 3.0

I should have mentioned what Matt Campbell mentions in the comments of the earlier post on Firefox. He is right of course that this isn't an "official" release. Just a post of the nightly builds that Mozilla does on an regular basis.

Quote From Matt

Matt Campbell said...

The Digg post to which you link is premature and misleading. It doesn't point to an official beta; there is none on the mozilla.org FTP site. Instead, it points to the directory containing Firefox nightly builds. I would ignore any announcements of a Firefox beta unless they come directly from the Mozilla Corporation.

Thank you sir!

Firefox 3.0 Beta 1 Released

If you are following the poll for this month on the right side of the page you will see that there are some Firefox fans on the world wide webs. No doubt these fans will now have some divided opinions on some of the new looks and directions of FF3. To nab the beta and read what some at Digg are saying about it hit the link below.

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Released_Firefox_3_Beta_1

Quick News: Windows XP SP3, Multicores Will Rule The World And Firefox Hacks I Used 5 Years Ago

This vacation thing is cool. I really need to take one more often. I have caught up on so many things. This blog being one of them of course. My sad sad humble apologies to all for having to be kind of under the radar for a while. But enough about that let's look at some news.

Windows XP SP3: Paul on the Windows Weekly Podcast, via twit.tv, mentioned that the once set for 2008 Service Pack may now be coming out sooner than previously thought. If you thought Server 2008 [once known as Longhorn Server], Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Home Server was just too much for Q4 of 2007 well then be even more perplexed because Paul says that is exactly when XP SP3 is set for release. Seems that the networking additions to the kernel will trickle down to XP users as well making interoperability a *snap*. hold back the loads of applause please. So be prepared to burn backups and carry patches on USB drives this Holiday Season gang.

Vista's Standard User Interface: Speaking of Paul's wonderful site and podcasts.. The Super Site for Windows has a really nice and detailed look at the UI used in Vista Basic. I have assisted in a few Vista trainings in the last two months and this description would have been helpful in explaining the options with AERO Glass and the like. Oh and one of our attendees told me that Paul's book "Vista Secrets" is already scanned in at Bookshare.org. Well worth the read for anyone thinking or already using Vista I tell you. Here's the link to the Vista Standard UI article.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_ff_std_ux.asp

Multicores: Imagine a world where you have computers with 64 cores running in a 64 bit operating system with 2 TB of RAM? It's going to happen and it could happen with Vista or the next version of Windows. This Ars Technica article discusses some of the futuretech already built into Windows.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070529-microsoft-exec-next-version-of-windows-to-be-fundamentally-redesigned.html

Firefox: I have been using tweaks to about.cfg for a long time. But many new comers to Firefox don't know about simple and easy to do mods to FF that should be a basic tool on the Geek utility belt. This Computerworld article compiles a good number of these classic tweaks and it's one worth bookmarking.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9020880

The link below is semi factual and a bit speculative, however, there are a few phrases that you are going to hear in "buzz" blogs for a while. "Best of Breed", "Microformats" and a few other choice words are littered within this link. And the concept of a computer running many browsers for specific application needs just thrilled me to say the least. Can you imagine? It's like having a Metric and a US standard tool box. I need to look up something on books I already bought. Guess I will fire up the Amazon browser. Now I will just go to my Yahoo Groups. Let's just bring up the Yahoo browser. Mmmm... .

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/firefox_3_pla...

Quick News: JFW 7.1 Vs. IE7, Dolphin and Firefox 2.0

JFW 7.1 and IE7: Well everyone else has posted this already but consider me just giving in to peer pressures at this stage. Courtesy of the Desert Skies.

http://jeffbishop.com/archive/2006/11/02/internet-explorer-7-0-patch-coming-for-jaws-7-1.aspx

Dolphin: If you happen to be running a 7.0x version of HAL, Lunar or Supernova then you may or may not have noticed the flury of updates recently. If you are set to Automatic Update you may have missed that Excel, Word and like 18 other Maps have been updated. There's one coming for IE7 as well but no date or time frame has been mentioned yet.

Third Party cookies in Firefox: Patrolling Digg today netted me this little morsel on Firefox 2.0 tracking and just how you can go about with disabeling some cookies that can be tracked.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=478545&sid=dc67fdf31128b1926968063cd7f6247f

Oh and Mozilla comes out to give their side of the security flaw issue in 2.0 as well.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6129663.html