Dave Williams

As a child I listened to the Housemartins Happy Hour relentlessly. Subsequently the beautiful South became a band responsible for several catchy tunes with the odd quirky lyric which stayed with me throughout my teenage years. Their songs seemed to have a strangely addictive quality some would describe as irritating. For what it is worth, I liked them although I guess like a lot of people the Beautiful South kind of dropped off the radar a bit and it is probably a good thing that they have decided to move on.

It has long been the dream of many blind people that we should be able to have comprehensive access to main stream technologies available at the same time and at the same cost as everyone else. Anything which falls short of this fundamental REQUEST IS NOTHING LESS THAN discriminatory, reducing the ability of blind people to be productive, competitive and most importantly considered as equal participants in this technological age.

By their very nature many technologies are intrinsically inaccessible and history has shown that it is unrealistic to expect that main stream market forces guided by legislation will always foster the specialist expertise required to deliver accessibility for all. It would appear that Microsoft recognise that they cannot be all things to all people in this area, consequently Microsoft promote an ecosystem of private companies and individuals who have made a business out of taking on the responsibility to make sure that people who are disabled have the information and tools required to: learn, work, play and communicate using main stream technology.

Many believe the assistive technology industry which makes a living by producing and marketing products for clients who are disabled and those working on our behalf, has an ethical and moral responsibility to create and inform the disabled community about appropriate solutions which enhance the accessibility of main stream technological innovations. If for no other reason than this is in the financial interests of the AT industry itself. So when a major PC operating system is launched, it is to be expected that people with disabilities look to the AT companies for access solutions. This is exactly what I did on Tuesday following the launch of Windows Vista.

It is reassuring to know that along with most screen reader developers, my employer dolphin computer Access had publicly announced their commitment to Windows Vista by the time the new OS made a consumer launch. Users of Dolphin screen reading and screen magnification software can expect vista support during the second quarter. This will be a free update for customers of dolphin version 7 software.

Labels: Technology

A perennial problem faced by blind concert-goers the world over. Thankfully this was a question I did not have to ask on Friday when my sister and I visited the Manchester Evening News Arena to witness Kylie performing her Showgirl Homecoming tour. I did not miss a single second, which is just as well because Kylie was simply sensational!

We arrived early at the M.E.N. taking a moment to locate the essentials including seats, bar and WC. As usual the arena stewards were on hand to assist with direction as and when required. As a blind concert-goer Spending a moment doing a little orientation before a gig usually turns out to be a worthwhile investment. One is then able to independently enjoy the rest of the evening without the nagging uncertainty that should one wish to leave one’s seat for any reason during the performance, one may never find it again amongst a crowd of fifteen thousand people! The alternative is to be made to feel like a child asking someone in a yellow jacket if they would be so good as to take you to the loo! What independent adult would accept that indignity? I guess whatever works for you. However, I am very much a fan of the “get there early and figure out where everything is” method, in order that one can be self-sufficient throughout the rest of the show.

I know several blind people who have become masters in the art of refusing to answer the call of nature, because of the chance of not making it back to their seat afterwards. Some blind people with particularly weak bladders run the risk of serious dehydration at concerts as they simply refuse to take onboard any liquid for hours before and during important gigs in order to avoid going for a piss. So knowing where the basics are at concerts can seriously impact one’s enjoyment of what should be a really special occasion.

Generally the staff at the M.E.N. provide an reliable and friendly service especially when compared with their counterparts at a number of other high-profile venues throughout the UK. The stewards at the M.E.N. genuinely want you to have a good night out, and were all set to provide a little orientation pre-Kylie. Save for a bit of faffing around trying to find someone prepared to point us in the direction of a taxi rank at the end of the gig, I am delighted to be able to report that once again we received an exemplary service from the staff in Manchester on Friday. Thank you. It is a travesty that these people only get paid £5.50 per hour when ticket costs average five or ten times this. Having said that, Friday was worth every penny!

There is little I can add to the glowing reviews Kylie’s Showgirl Homecoming tour concerts have already received. When a coquettish charismatic Kylie is bobbing around on stage belting out cheesy pop songs, all seems right with the world. Like millions of other fans I have followed Kylie’s career with interest for nearly twenty years and was stunned in 2005 when reports started coming in of her having been diagnosed with breast cancer. Clearly the choice of Better the Devil You Know as an opener was calculated to be poignant and we were prepared to be moved. And yes when the princess of pop took to the stage many members of Kylie’s audience shed the odd tear of joy.

Labels: Opinion

Took the words out of my mouth.

This piece and associated comments speaks volumes about how far the blind community has to go in demonstrating the value of universal access to technology.

Although in Apples favour they did have a crack at including a credible screen reader with the OSX operating system, all be it 5 or 10 years too late for many.

Labels: Technology

This is an important development. Those of us who want to use our mobiles overseas usually get fleeced with many types of calls being charged over a pound per minute. Hopefully this announcement from Three will be the first of many from the other cellular operators.

There now appears to be some doubt over whether we will get to see The Return of Kylie live in Manchester next Friday. I have had my tickets for around a month, and was encouraged by positive reviews of Kylie Minogue at the M.E.N. Arena the night before last.

While I was warming up for next week's performance with the Showgirl Homecoming Tour on Channel 4 it would seem that the diminutive deva ran out of energy and an Ill Kylie canceled show on Saturday. Will just have to keep an eye on the M.E.N Arena website for further news. Clearly the most important thing is that Kylie is feeling well soon. And if the gig on the 19th has to be canceled for health reasons. Then so be it.

Great to see lots more people signing the Money for All accessible US currency petition over the weekend. If you have ever been to the US, or ever plan to use the US dollar, or you want to show support for your brothers and sisters across the pond who have to put up with inaccessible currency. Please hop on over to:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mfaacp/

And lend them your support. I signed on Friday.

I regularly travel from the UK to the US on business or to visit friends. As an independent blind adult I find that not being able to independently identify US bills makes my visits much more problematic than they need to be. For example, I would rather carry my own luggage than not know how much I was tipping a bellman, or stand around and suffer the public indignity of someone telling me, and presumably everyone else in ear shot, what bills I have. Accessible currency is as much a personal security issue as anything else.

Labels: Opinion

A little sad to see Pegasus Mail go. Although I guess I am as responsible as the next man as I have not used the email client in quite a few years. I guess Pmail was the first email application I really used on a regular basis in the early 1990s. I flirted briefly with Eudora, and have tried one or two others. But for the most part I have been reasonably content with various versions of Outlook since 98. Outlook does most of what I need it to do, and it synchronises well with my various mobile devices.

I appear to have satisfied my thirst for trivia, and become a regular at a weekly pub quiz hear in Worcester. These are not particularly competitive events, more about socialising and drinking as much as answering actual questions. I used to enjoy a good pub quiz up in Preston and I am glad to have found one in Worcester. In early December dolphin were joined by some of our colleagues from the US and Sweden. It would have been rude not to drag them along to a the great British pub quiz which is something of an institution! We were slightly mortified with our final score of 21 out of 40 until we learned that the winning score was 23 out of 40. I guess the questions were pretty tough that night.

But then just yesterday evening, our much depleted team managed the same score 21 out of 40. So did we really need the extra team members? Or was last night's winning team with a victorious 32 out of 40 especially switched on? There is really no science to it at all. And it just serves to highlight how farcical quizzes and tests really are at measuring anything. That's not to even mention the social and cultural bias of the examiner.

Anyway, more importantly we had a decent enough evening.

That's the spicy stuff with Indian subcontinent influences, not the VJ and Podcaster Adam.

A couple of weeks before Christmas I ticked off another Worcester curry house. Ashley's on the Tything is in my opinion just the tiniest bit soulless. It was all hard floors and European ambient music. I have nothing against a curry house trying to be modern. It doesn't have to be flop wall paper, thick table cloths and carpets to have character. Staff with a bit more personality wouldn't go a miss, and even if the music is modern, what's wrong with a touch of bhangra?

I can think of 3 excellent modern curry houses I've been to: Shere Khan Manchester, Akbar Leeds and Shimla Pinks in Birmingham who all deliver the authentic modern curry house experience.

Ashley's seems to fall between two stools, it seems like a curry house trying to be modern, but I was left wondering what it had been like before the refurb.

Anyway, a solid enough 6 out of 10 for me for not screwing anything up, oh and the excellent soft fluffy narn bread. But I don't want to be organised enough for B.Y.O. I wonder how well Ashley's would be doing were it not for Threshers with their healthy supply of Indian lager just across the street? And charging for poppadoms? What's that all about? Last time that happened to me I was in Australia of all places.

Apart from staying up to listen to England getting a comprehensive thrashing by the Ausies on Test Match Special over the past few weeks. My usually unstable sleep patterns are now pretty settled. When I was working at home for 3 years my sleep was all over the place. So I think the regular hours are suiting me nicely.

Disturbed sleeping patterns affect a lot of blind people. There has been significant research conducted in that area. Doesn't it have something to do with not getting enough daylight and unusually low levels of melatonin. Quite a few blind people I know take Melatonin supplements to help regulate their sleep patterns and the people who use Melatonin can't rate it highly enough.

I have a history of dodgy sleep patterns, but if I can possibly help it I prefer not to take anything to help me sleep. In fact I have to be pretty ill before I will start hitting the medication. I have had a drop of winter flu, but I think I'm in the process of kicking that into touch. And all things considered I am in pretty rude health thank you for asking.

Someone recently said to me that they were making up a cassette of tracks to listen to while on the train. This made me feel all nostalgic as making compilation tapes is something many of us did twenty years ago. I had no idea that people were still out there using cassettes. I guess while many of us are immersed in our own particular technology bubble there's a whole world out there getting on quite nicely without technology thank you very much.

I feel almost naked without at least a mobile phone. And I can't remember the last time I went on the train without a laptop. A few albums, podcasts, email etc can quickly see off a two or three hour train journey for me. I can't even remember when I last used a tape recorder. I'd feel really restricted now if I was stuck with a couple of C90s listening to the same songs in the same order and not being able to skip back and forward, and read the artist and title of every track. Many people now have large music collections stored on large hard drives so they can hear any track in a couple of seconds. I'd quite like to be able to get to that point with movies and TV series which I have on DVD, although that tmay take a bit longer to set up.

Anyway, if the tapes are meeting your mobile music requirements, take no notice of me. This is the bloke who has had more gadgets than hot dinners. But I wouldn't go back, especially not to a time witout Internet access.

It is difficult to dispute the assertion that access to the internet is one of the most significant developments to empower people who are blind since Braille itself. Many of us love being able to shop and bank online and read news and sports results on the day it's all published, and browse TV listings, and film reviews, and encyclopaedias, oh the list goes on. But to have a good slice of human knowledge and experience instantly available at one's fingertips makes many of the connected blind feel all liberated and independent. Sure, there is a lot of pap online too. The trick is to become proficient at filtering out the dross and focus in on whatever it is you're seeking.

Although, however clever we think we are, it is important to remind our selvs that technology and the skills to use it are only in the hands of a small minority. Hopefully that will not always be the case.

Labels: Opinion, Technology

The Assistive Technology Industry Association annual conference is held in Florida a the end of January and I will hopefully see some of you there. I am going to see Kylie in concert at the Manchester Evening News Arena first on the 19th though.

The Monty Python musical is called Spamelot and it is currently playing the west end. With any luck I will catch it some time in February.

March is the California State University conference on disability and yours truly should be there for the first time this year.

April will mark one year working for Dolphin and living in Worcester and this will be a time to reflect.

May is the end of the English football season and with any luck Liverpool will win something!

June is always a busy time with lots of birthdays in my Calendar.

In July as well as being at more conferences including Sight Village in Birmingham in the UK. I will be featured on a Microsoft Calendar that month.

August is a strange time as it is the height of the UK media silly season.

Either in August or September I will take some holiday. Two Pints Roberts over at www.mproberts.co.uk and I are kicking around the idea of going on a distillery tour in Scotland.
October is when the European Blind Union will be holding their general assembly and I would like to be involved in some capacity. Watch this space.

By the time November gets here I'll be 31!

And finally December brings us up to the top of the next year.

May your 2007 be heaven. Mine is shaping up to be a little belter!