DC Night Out

Show Notes For Tuesday September 27, 2005

This 45 minute podcast
comes to you from the capital hill location of the
Capital City Brewing Company.

Travel News
We briefly describe the recent Jetblue emergency landing in Los Angeles where passengers on the flight watched their own news story unfold on the carriers
DirectTV in seat satalite system. One passenger on the flight commented that it was “post modern” to be able to watch one’s own fait unfold on live television.
You can read more in these articles:
LA Times: Disabled Airliner Creates
a 3-Hour Drama in Skies and
NY Times:Plane Lands Safely in Los Angeles After Landing Gear Becomes
Stuck

In other travel news today marks the first day on paper that US Airways and target="_blank">America West are operating as a merged company on paper. However, most operational and procedure changes will take some months to
implement such as merging frequent flyer programs. You can read more on a company web site called US
Airways Infoor check the US Airways forum on Flyertalk.

Technology Notes

• Snapstream
  offers products and services related to recording tv programs on your computer providing functionality similar to a Tivo;
• We describe the
  Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference being held November 11 and 12th
  in Ontario, CA;
• What’s New in JAWS 7.0
• Window-Eyes 5.5 Beta 1 Has Been Released!
• Both updates to these screen readers support the Firefox browser. We discuss the
  advantages of surfing with Firefox. Also be sure to check with your screen reader vendor as to the exact version of Firefox that you may need to download
  for optimal compatibility particularly in the beginning stages of this browsers AT support;
• National Braille Press now offers immediate internet download of some of their books. However, I could
  not find any article describing the new technology on their web site. If a book is available for instant download that will be a choice when choosing
  a format during the purchassing process;

We highlighted the following internet blogs, resources, and lists:

• Flyertalk
  which has extensive discussions and information about travel including promotions and nuances you won’t read on travel providers own web sites;
• View From The Wing
  is a blog by Gary Leff (a long time Flyertalk contributor) about travel, loyalty programs, etc. The blog has a mix of commentary, as well as information
  about promotions and deals you might not otherwise easily find out about. You can subscribe to the blogs RSS feed, or get notified by email about new
  posts;
• The blindCasting email list, which discusses podcasting in general as well as accessibility issues, has moved. All current subscribers have been forwarded
  to the new list which is now at
  blindcasting@freelists.org
  if you send an email to that address you should get more information about how to subscribe if you are new to the list;
• The blind phones list has also moved, and you can subscribe by sending an email to:
  blindphones-subscribe@mosenexplosion.com
  The list covers a broad array of topics in the area of telecommunications and mobile phone accessibility, and is not specific to one network or hardware
  platform;

and

• Metroblogging
  is a site which contains numerous individual city blogs. Each individual city blog has multiple authors ensuring that a broad perspective and differing
  topics are covered. Check it out, and see if perhaps your city has a metroblog, or think about becoming a metroblogger.

Jamal Mazrui
describes three freely available software applications he has released over the summer. You can access Jamal’s personal web site target="_blank">The Empowerment Zone to learn more, and direct downloads for each described application are below:

• WinDig analyzes all open windows and applications running on a system and provides
  a wealth of technical information for end users, developers, and accessibility analysts;
• PDF To Text will convert a wide range of PDF files to text. The program can convert
  large numbers of files using wildcard searches, and runs exceptionally quickly;
• Jaws Script Exchange provides a way for script writers to package scripts in a
  .exe file, and allows end users a simple way to install packaged scripts or those found in a zip archive. Based on the version of Jaws running on the
  client pc, the program copies the script data files into the applicable Jaws settings folder location.

Here is the Best Of The Best OPML File from the Blind Cool Tech podcast.
This file was requested on the Blindcasting site, and I have placed it on my site because it appears to be unavailable from BCT at this time. Enjoy.

Show Notes For Tuesday September 20, 2005

Click To Listen
or download a podcatching client such as
Ipodder 2.1
which will automatically retrieve podcasts and download them to your computer. Using a podcatching client such as Ipodder you then subscribe to the syndicated
feed url which is:

http://www.dcnightout.com/index.xml

You can also click on the above XML link to learn more about RSS, feeds, podcasts, and podcatchers. It’ll all make sense after you read about it a bit,
trust me.

This was a regular BNO (Boys Night Out) happy hour and podcast. The links to items discussed or referenced are below:

• I discuss having joined a gym in Boston with in the last week which is the
  BYMCU Athletic Club
  which I found out about through some friends;
• I describe media reports about a 2004 government exercise dubbed “Hurricane pam,” which invisioned disaster in New Orelans if a major storm hit the
  big easy. The exercise brings in to question planning efforts at all levels regarding the storm. You can read more about this and obtain other links
  at the
  Think Progress Blog;
• I describe the
  Verizon Wireless Ringback Tones
  service which lets callers hear music of your choice instead of the phone ringing. I attempt to demonstrate the service on the podcast, but the cell phone
  is too far away from the microphone;
• Google Blog Search
  now offers the popular Google search technology in the blogosphere;
• I describe a book whose title sounded interesting, but which I don’t know anything else about yet called
  The
  Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors And Closing Deals Online
• I discuss an article about the
  RIAA
  trying to limit the quality and introduce antipiracy technologies for digital radio. However, I cannot find the article anymore. The RIAA is also responsible
  for litigation that substantially reduced the availability of television programs with
  Descriptive Video Service narration
• I describe an article called
  Fly The Chatty Skys
  regarding a company offering a service where passengers can use their own cell phones on airplanes. The company reports it will be more difficult to license
  the technology in the USA than other locations in the world;
• Register For Double Amtrak Guest Rewards points
  on Acela Express & Metroliner travel completed between 9/12/05 and 12/31/05;
• The RIDE Advocacy Project
  announced public meetings focussing on improving
  The Ride
  which is the Boston areas paratransit service for people with disabilities. One interesting and unique feature of this Massachusetts based service is that
  customers can book trips online by following links on the main The Ride portal page above. I find this is much faster and more efficient than having to
  call in;
• Don from Virtual Vision
  attended the BNO for the first time. Virtual Vision offers assistive technology and related consulting services;
• Google to launch its own branded version of a secure WIFI service which will encrypt customers traffic using the companys VPN technology. For more
  use the
  Google News Search
  on the topic;

We also discuss other favorite blogs and podcasts like:

• The Desert Skys; a technology podcast also about accessibility;
• Blind Cool Tech
• What’s New Now; a general technology oriented blog and podcast.

Finally as always comments are welcomed. Jamal mentioned that audience participation on DC Night Out has been lacking. You can comment by using the comment
link after each entry, by
Emailing The Editor
or by calling
(206) 202-3555

We also discuss future events including a possible Halloween Ghost Tour on Nantucket.

Finally we now have some email lists setup for people wishing to receive future event announcements and invitations for DC Night Out’s nationwide events.
Most events are happy hours which include creating a podcast, but there have been other types of forums from time to time as well. To subscribe to one
of these lists email the address shown below and type the word

subscribe
either in the body or the subject of the message:
Subscribe to the BNO (Boys Night Out) event announcement list
or
Subscribe to the general DC Night Out Events list.

Show Notes For: Tuesday September 6, 2005
September 6th Podcast

Jamal opened the show nominating three musical artists in some “best of,” categories:

• Best Of Hip Hop - Rap:
  Tupac Shakur
  
• Best individual or solo artist in western culture:
  Van Morrisson
  
• Best overall artist or group of all time:
  The Beatles

After Jamal presented these categories, there was some discussion and debate, as other nominations were made in the various categories. However, spelling
and appropriate web links for the other nominations are not available. You can listen to the podcast to get this information though.

A general news of the day was offered including:

• Hurricane Katrina;
• Whether the socio economic state of residence in the gulf coast impacted the speed and quality of post storm support operations; and
• The passing of Supreme Court justice Renquist.

You are invited to come to an upcoming happy hour in Washington as well. Also you can:
Email The Editor
or call:
(206) 202-3555
to leave a comment or get more information.