Archive for October, 2004

Slides are up from the accessibility Conference at the University of Central Lancashire from 2004-06-23.

Speakers include:

Bob Regan - Macromedia Inc.
“Accessibility in Rich Media for the Web”
With the growing importance of rich media and multimedia on the web, it is important for educators to address issues of accessibility. This presentation looks at accessibility in the context of rich media, providing an overview of standards, common concerns and remedies to everyday issues. Real life examples will be used to provide a context for the issues presented.
Breeze Presentation + Slides

Jim Byrne - Making Connections Unit
“What is an accessible website?”
Examining common definitions of accessible web design, and discussing their practical implications for web ublishers/designers. By looking at accessible web design from the producers point of view (i.e., taking into account the reality of limited time and resources), and not just concentrating on consumer needs, we can derive some important practical lessons to help us in produce accessible sites. This approach leads to more flexibility, which (ironically) meets the needs of a greater number of end users.
Breeze Presentation (followed by Zoe Neumann) + Slides

Zoe Neumann - RNIB
“Is it legal? You decide…”
In this session, I will recap the requirements of SENDA and present some e-learning experiences students have described. The audience will consider the experiences and vote on the legality of the provision, how beneficial adjustments can be made and ponder “inclusion”.
Breeze Presentation (Preceded by Jim Byrne) + Slides + Transcript of slide 21

Everybody knows the race for President is close. Looking back over the last few months, it’s pretty much always been close. Or at least it seems that way.

I don’t fully understand the seemingly outdated Electoral College system, but it’s the only one that matters. Happily, Kerry has been having success in this area, and getting comfortable above the 270-vote threshold.

Looking at available Electoral projections from May 24th through today, October 19th - (143 days of data) - Kerry has lead in electorial votes exactly 100 times, or 69.9% of the time.

Over that same period, Kerry has gone above 300 a whopping 49 times, while Bush has only managed that level of success a sorry,-you’re-going-back-to-Texas 9 times. Kerry has surpassed 320 electoral votes 19 times, while Bush has only fooled that many people three times.

Unlike the popular vote outcomes which in 2000 Gore won by more than a half-million votes, the Electoral College number matters. To win the Presidency you need at least 270 Electoral College Votes (EVs).

Unfortunately for Bush, he has only reached that magic number 39 times in this campaign, while Kerry is comfortable in that world, having spend over three months there (92 days).

Open question: when will we do away with the Electoral College? Isn’t it time that American’s votes actually directly counted?

Kerry has peaked at 327 projected electorial votes eight times, while Bush has only managed to reach those heights twice.

“If you drive by the Google buildings in the evening,” said a person who has detailed knowledge of the company’s business, “the lights that are still on are the ones on the floor where they are working on the browser.”

from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/technology/18search.html

But there is something about this idea of local searching [friend and friend-of-a-friend personal recommendation databases] that I fear people will miss, and that’s the fact that it enables good service to count against good advertising. The general trend in local business development has been the proliferation of branded chains, and decimation of the local, unbranded treasures. Charleston has a fine lingerie shop on King Street, but just down the block looms a much larger Victoria’s Secret. Relying mostly on word-of-mouth, local restaurants, plumbers and mechanics cannot afford more than a small-print mention in print or online listings. Yelp! or something like it might blunt this insidious trend.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20041014.html

Hard Working George — it’s hard work.

From Gary Price, at the wonderful ResourceShelf: e67b3752262c8a6d8526c47482c351a0

It’s so much easier sometimes to the let the pros do the writing <wink>.