DC Night Out

Just got this a couple of days ago in the email, sounds interesting. I have not seen the product myself yet though.
I normally don’t provide plugs for products, but I just discovered one that you should know about for students and adults who usually use a back pack
for carrying books, etc.  This was developed by a physical therapist here in Oregon to reduce the strain that heavy back packs place upon the lower back
and shoulders.  This is designed as double side bags (like a briefcase) that distribute the weight evenly on the hips, allow easy access without removal,
encourage good posture, and I think would be very beneficial. I have met the inventor and
tried the BackTPack myself and was very impressed.  Each side bag will hold 2 large books, or a laptop, and there are side pockets for water bottle, cell phones, etc. 
The inventor has done some preliminary studies
through San Francisco State University that support the purported benefits.
  I encourage you to look at the website, and contact the inventor directly with any questions;

Released November 12, 2006
Below please find the latest version of the text editor and utility produced by Jamal Mazrui. I will attempt to have him describe the most compelling features of the utility on tonights podcast, though the new feature in the note below does sound interesting and time saving.

A new capability is batch downloading a list of files that are specified
as URLs in the current file. A list of URLs may be generated with the
Grab URLs command, Alt+Shift+G. It prompts for a web page to analyze,
defaulting to the address of the current page in Internet Explorer, if
open. The Web Download command, Alt+Shift+W, may then be used to retrieve
the URLs, putting each file in the “download” folder of the TextPal
program folder, and then opening that location in Windows Explorer.
Before downloading, the command prompts for the file extensions to
include, so you can limit the download by erasing extensions of files to
skip.
Note that the link below always points to the latest version so if you read this in 6 months you will get the then current most recent version. Handy, hah?
Download The Latest TextPal Version Here.

A couple of months ago I signed up for Amazon Prime
and while doing a search came across two interesting sites from the Amazon Web Services Blog:
Search For Amazon Prime Items
and
Search For Amazon Grocery Items
The above sites provide both a quick way to find either Amazon.com Prime eligible items, or Amazon Grocery items (which by the way are also available with free super saver shipping or Prime). Don’t forget to also use the code grocery3 for $10 off grocery items through 11/30 on orders of $49 or more. You can use this code on an unlimited number of grocery orders. It is best to enter in multiple orders as close to $49 as possible to maximize the number of $10 discounts you can get.

The two search sites are very accessible to users who are blind or have low vision with screen readers such as JAWS for Windows
I find that these two sites (unless trying to use features like lists and guides) are much quicker and more robust than either the native Amazon search pages, or Amazon’s attempt at an accessible search pages. I know of people who are blind who have largely abandoned Amazon because the pages are so busy, cluttered, and full of hundreds of links and other distracting items and form controls. At least it is good that Amazon opens up its application architecture to facilitate sites like this. I remember receiving an email about another similar site for use with Amazon data that I will try to retrieve and post here. Other than the main sites cluttered and too busy interface, I have always received good customer service from the service. Happy hsopping!

In this 24 minute podcast from Banana Cafe we catch up on various events happening in the last few weeks including:
Blind Americans to Cast First Secret Ballot — National Federation of the Blind to Monitor Compliance. Persons who are blind or visually impaired may call toll free (877) 632-1940 to report any issues in voting. Under the 2002 Help America Vote Act HAVA persons who are blind are supposed to be able to cast a secret ballot, however, there are numerous reports of HAVA violations in various areas of the country. In the podcast we discuss violations of HAVA that took place in Boston Massachusetts. We also interview the bartender, and have various other chatter including mention of an interview of the DC Night Out Editor on the
Blind Like Me show that is featured on ACB Radio. The show is rounded out with some quick travel stories, and a promise to post some past date programs which are not yet on the site. The next DC Night Happy Hour is scheduled for Monday November 20th at the M And S Grill in Washington.