CEEK Technology AT and Mainstream Product Updates

Mobile Eyes, Basic and Professional, a Product that Combines 9 Functions-In-One Product, Will be Demonstrated During Tek Talk Monday, July 28, 2008.

The Accessible World News Wire, Indianapolis, Indiana USA

If you are looking for a portable device that is a hand-held Optical Character Recognition scanner, an organizer, media player, notes recorder, electronic magnifier, barcode reader, and more, you definitely will want to be in the virtual audience when Assistive Technology Center LLC of Sacramento, California demonstrates the many features of Mobile Eyes, Basic and Professional. Performing the functions of nine different devices and counting, for less than half the cost and at fraction of the weight, MobilEyes has become one of the most innovative and established values in technology today for both blind and partially sighted. .

As usual, plenty of time will be available for questions and answers about this unique product.

Contact: Connie Leblond, Assistive Technology Center LLC, Sacramento, California.

Phone:  916-381-5011 or 888-723-5011 Ext. 3

Web:  http://www.atechcenter.net

Email: connie@atechcenter.net

Date:          Monday, July 28, 2008

Time:                   5:00 p.m. Pacific, 6:00 p.m. Mountain, 7:00 p.m. Central, 8:00 p.m. Eastern and elsewhere in the world Tuesday 0:00 GMT.

Where:                TekTalk Conference Room at: http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2

Or, alternatively,

http://www.accessibleworld.org. Select the TekTalk room, enter your first and last names on the sign-in screen.

All Tech Talk training events are recorded so if you are unable to participate live at the above times then you may download the presentation or podcast from the Tech Talk archives on our website at http://www.accessibleworld.org.

All online interactive programs require no password, are free of charge, and open to anyone worldwide having an Internet connection, a computer, speakers, and a sound card. Those with microphones can interact audibly with the presenters and others in the virtual audience.

If you are a first-time user of the Talking Communities online conferencing software, there is a small, safe software program that you need to download and then run.  A link to the software is available on every entry screen to the Accessible World online rooms.

Sign up information for all Accessible World News Wires and discussion lists are also available at our website: http://www.accessibleworld.org.

Media Contacts:

Robert Acosta, Chair, Planning Committee

818-998-0044

Email: boacosta@pacbell.net

Web:   http://www.helpinghands4theblind.com

Pat Price, Founder and Events Coordinator

The Accessible World Symposiums

Vision Worldwide, Inc.

317-254-1185

Email: pat@patprice.org

Web:   http://www.accessibleworld.org

The Accessible World, a division of Vision Worldwide, Inc. (a 501 (c( (3) not-for-profit organization,  seeks to educate the general public, the disabled community and the professionals who serve them by providing highly relevant information about new products, services, and training opportunities designed specifically to eliminate geographic and access barriers that adversely affect them.

Sent to you by Chris McMillan, Federal Marketing Manager via Google Reader:

Outlook vs. Gmail—The Definitive Comparison

Lifehacker offers up an excellent comparison of Microsoft Outlook (traditional desktop email application) and Gmail (cloud computing Web-based email service):

Being digital vagabonds without an Exchange server, we Lifehacker writers use online apps like Gmail and Google Calendar to get things done. But can an Outlook user make the switch without losing out? Guest contributor Jared Goralnick's here today to take a look.

This is exactly the move I made a year ago, so yeah, it can be done. But hopefully this guide will serve as an interesting push for those who are still on the fence. I feel very strongly that, while Outlook is excellent software for what it is, it is also the way things used to be done. The world is moving on, and Gmail is a pointer to that future.

Gmail launched in 2004 and has matured each year, but Microsoft Outlook (with Exchange) is still the most popular tool for accessing email. Comparing the two side by side, is it time to jump ship from either platform? Let's find out.

Outlook and Gmail are very different approaches to email organization. Over time, Google has begun to add more features and Microsoft has improved its search and scaled-down complex features. They have very different and very apparent roots, but things are changing.

I personally use Outlook for business correspondence and managing responsibilities, and Gmail for social media and most web activities. Some people combine their activities and choose just one email application, and that's fine, too.

If one thing is clear, it's that Gmail has become an increasingly mature product that can be used for business. With the Postini acquisition, Google is beginning to offer enterprise-level services (like compliance archiving, service level agreements, and more comprehensive spam policies). I foresee the addition of tasks and integration with the Google Search Appliance positioning Google squarely against Microsoft.

Agreed. If you can get over the presumed "AOL-ness" of a Web mail solution, and you should, you'll be surprised by how good Gmail is.

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Sent to you by Chris McMillan, Federal Marketing Manager via Google Reader:

The MobileMe disaster continues: Now it's not 'Exchange for the rest of us' anymore

I just received the following note that Apple sent to its sales force. In it, the company says that it will no longer use the "Exchange for the rest of us" slogan because MobileMe, unlike Exchange, does not really use push technology. This whole thing is unbelievable to me:

MobileMe Messaging Update

MobileMe messaging is being updated effective immediately. In order to set appropriate expectations with our customers, focus your sales discussion on "automatic sync" rather than "push." Additionally, we will no longer describe MobileMe as "Exchange for the rest of us."

When discussing the sync features of MobileMe, you may tell a customer that:

• Updates between me.com and iPhone or iPod touch will occur in a matter of seconds.
• Updates between me.com and Macs running Mac OS X Leopard and Windows PCs may take up to 15 minutes when MobileMe is set to sync automatically (Macs running Mac OS X Tiger may experience longer sync times).

As I noted previously, the distinction between "automatic sync" and "push" is sort of subtle and unlikely to affect most people. But Apple has a history of over-promising and under-delivering (Leopard's secret features, anyone?) and they get a total pass on this with the press. I don't get it, not now that the company is selling to a mass market. Microsoft would be skewered endlessly for doing something like this.

Exchange for the rest of us? More like "half-baked, partially-realized sync service that works better on Macs than it does on PCs, even though most  iPhone users have PCs." Granted, that's not much of a marketing slogan.

BTW ... speaking of the press and Apple, here's a great example of what I'm talking about. The New York Times' David Pogue, who, from what I can tell, writes an occasional column about digital cameras on the off weeks in which there's nothing Apple-related to discuss, appears to provide a well-rounded "review" of MobileMe in today's edition. But look at what's really happening here:

The magic is impressive. Make a change on your Mac, watch it appear on your iPhone and your PC. Add a new friend to the address book in Outlook Express on your Windows XP machine, and watch it appear in Windows Contacts on your Vista PC. Change an appointment in iCal on the kitchen Mac, and know that it will wirelessly sprout onto your traveling spouse’s iPhone four states away. And your Web bookmarks are the same everywhere.

OK, now let's pick it apart.

The magic is impressive. Make a change on your Mac, watch it appear on your iPhone and your PC ...

... up to fifteen minutes later. It's magic!

Add a new friend to the address book in Outlook Express on your Windows XP machine, and watch it appear in Windows Contacts on your Vista PC ...

... Again, up to fifteen minutes later.

Change an appointment in iCal on the kitchen Mac, and know that it will wirelessly sprout onto your traveling spouse’s iPhone four states away.

Notice that he switched from Windows to Mac on this one. There's a reason: On Windows, you have to pay at least $100 before you can sync calendars at all. There are only two Windows-compatible calendar syncing options available, despite the fact that Microsoft includes a free iCal clone in Windows Vista called Windows Calendar. Those two expensive options include Apple's own MobileMe service ($100 a year) and Microsoft Outlook ($110).

Now, granted, this is a MobileMe review, so he's talking about the very service you might be paying for anyway. But in carefully choosing his sync points above, Pogue is, in fact, also very carefully masking a huge problem with the iPhone and iPhone 3G: You can't sync calendars on Windows unless you pay extra for something else. This is why the phrase "Apple apologist" comes up with people like this. It's the appearance of fairness couched in what is really a promotion of all things Apple. Ignoring faults is a lie. Unless of course it's just ignorance. Which may be worse.

And your Web bookmarks are the same everywhere.

Are they now?

You want to know the truth about MobileMe on Windows? Here it is: Roughly 75 percent of all Windows users use Internet Explorer. And, sure enough, MobileMe syncs IE (and, cough, Safari) bookmarks. Neat. But the MobileMe Web interface—you know, the only way a Windows user can actually access the service's photo gallery, iDisk (without getting help), and help interfaces—doesn't work with IE, the browser that's used by most people on earth. In fact, Apple actually tosses up a nasty message when you try to use IE:

Cute, eh?

See, MobileMe only works with non-Microsoft browsers like Firefox and Safari. But get this: MobileMe won't sync your Firefox bookmarks at all. Crazy, right?

Kids, welcome to the halfway house that is Apple software running on Windows. You will never get the full meal deal unless you make the switch. And that, folks, is the unapologetic truth. The truth that reviewers like Pogue will never, ever mention, either because they don't know (i.e. they don't really use the systems that most of their readers use) or because they don't care (they're promoting Apple and its products).

Read it again:

And your Web bookmarks are the same everywhere.

So they're the same everywhere, if you use IE, in which case you can't access MobileMe. Or they're not the same everywhere because you use Firefox to access MobileMe and it doesn't support Firefox bookmark syncing. Curious that Mr. Pogue doesn't mention this. What does work, of course, is Safari: If you use only Apple products, everything works just fine. He does mention this:

Beware, though: you need the latest version of Firefox or Apple’s Safari Web browser to exploit all the features.

Except, of course, for bookmark sync. That won't work with Firefox.

Pogue even includes this insane little rah-rah sentence to explain away the IE stuff:

After all those years of being treated like an oppressed minority, it must give Apple some satisfaction to exclude Internet Explorer because it “has known compatibility issues with modern Web standards.”

Weird that every other Web site/application/service has no problem with IE 7. Weird.

Apple apologists will say I'm picking nits. But I'm not a Mac user, or a Windows apologist, I'm a Windows user. As, incidentally, are most iPhone users. As, incidentally, will be most MobileMe users. And when I discuss things like the iPhone and MobileMe, I do so from the position of someone who is part of the majority. And I'd like to know why it's OK for Apple to continually insult this majority crowd of its customers. Calendaring sync has been broken on Windows since the iPhone launched. It's still broken, unless you pay Apple $100 a year to fix it or happen to own Outlook.

Seriously, where is the outrage?

The magic is impressive. That's really all I'm saying here.

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New tab switching added for Firefox 3.1

Mozilla Links reports on an interesting new feature for Firefox 3.1:

As announced before, tab switching is getting a dramatic update for Firefox 3.1 in both visual and behavior.

Press Ctrl + Tab (or Shift + Ctrl + Tab) and you are presented with tab thumbnails and titles with the most recently visited ones first so you can more easily determine which tab you want to go, have the one you most probably want to go closer, and as a result get to it faster. Hold Ctrl pressed and keep pressing Tab to see the thumbnails smoothly scroll to the left while the status bar displays the tab web address.

 

Ctrl-Tab, a Firefox extension developed by Dao Gotwald, that has served as a prototype for this change is available from Mozilla Add-ons.

Thanks Sebastian.

Related: Firefox 3.1 (Shiretoko) planned features draft

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The July issue of AccessWorld is now available on our web site.

This issue features:

• Rootbound Thinking in an Anemic Low Vision Industry, by Jim Halliday--An assistive technology pioneer critiques the CCTV industry
• Now Playing: A Review of the Accessibility of Digital Audio Players, Part 1, by Darren Burton--We determine the accessibility of off-the-shelf players, including ones from Apple, Microsoft, Creative Labs, Sony, and more
• The Sky's the Limit: Accessible In-flight Entertainment and Information Systems May Be on the Way, by Lee Huffman--Fasten your seatbelts for a preview of a system offering selectable fonts, video description, talking menus, and more
• A Pocketful of Sound by Anna Dresner, Reviewed by Deborah Kendrick--We review a valuable how-to guide on audio players
• Online Learning: What Works, What Doesn't, by Amy Salmon--We feature a source of free, accessible online courses
• Editor's Page
• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  
• AccessWorld News
• Calendar

Jay Leventhal
Editor-in-Chief

AccessWorld®, is the American Foundation for the Blind's technology magazine.

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