This post is just BADD for the disabled

I was trying to think of what to write for BADD 2007. I’ve been trying really hard to avoid some trite comments from the Accessibility advocate that I am.

Then it occurred to me that my dyslexia is a disability as real as any other. It’s certainly something that gets a few laughs in the office. Lots of people talk about having a dyslexic moment as if it’s something you can turn on and off. While I don’t really find that bothers me it’s still an interesting idea that it propagates. It’s almost like that offhand comment implies that dyslexia is just about taking a lack of care.

It isn’t entirely far from the truth. Most people don’t realise I am dyslexic, I’m pretty smart, literate, and I read faster than a lot of people I know. I’m also great at Maths. I don’t sound very dyslexic yet do I? However the more tired I am the more noticeable it gets. I think my brain is compensating pretty well most of the time, but tired robs it off enough ‘cycles’ that it has to let slip just so I can function at all.

I can’t actually read long words, or I find it very difficult. When I was in primary school they thought I just was a normal kid doing normal kid reading. In fact I was doing what I’ve always done, I guessed long words from the first and last couple of letter based on context. It turns out I find it really hard to break a word down and then assemble it from it’s pieces. Strange eh?

I think the point I’d like to make is even very capable people (if I can call myself one) may be disabled in some way. Disability is not about how much you are able to do something benchmarked against the rest of humankind, it’s about how much of your potential is being restricted from you. Many, many ‘disabled’ people live full and wonderful lives. What we need to do is make sure people look to remove barriers so that people can reach whatever their potential is, and enjoy their many varied capabilities.

For more info on Blogging Against Disablism Day see the post on Diary of a Goldfish.

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badd, badd2007, disability, bloggingagainstdisablismday

This is how the Web version 2.0 is built

It’s all about data. Seriously. I wrote a script today that takes a barcode number and if it’s a DVD looks it up on Yahoo! shopping. This was made possible by the database I talked about yesterday. Without the Yahoo! Shopping API and the UPC Database RPC interface I couldn’t have hooked them together without a lot more work.

Why not check out the barcode script yourself? You will need a PHP install with Curl and RPC compiled (unfortunately it’s not compiled on my web host).

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yahoo, upc, ucc, database, web20, data, xmlrpc, shopping

Free Creative Commons UPC/UCC Barcode Database

I found yet another awesome resource today. This time it’s a user generated database of barcode information. It’s all creative commons licensed. It also has an XML-RPC interface which is awesome. Head on over to UPC Database and check it out.

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barcode, upc, ucc, isbn, creativecommons, database, free

Great PyS60 tutorial resource

I love finding stuff like this. Jurgen Scheible has put together an awesome set of PyS60 tutorial examples. There are loads of snippets covering a heap of topics which are really easy to read. It’s been a while since I did anything with PyS60 but with my N95 on the way I thought I would brush up again and build a few things.

I really want to get to grips with PyS60 and Cocoa so I can build bluetooth based apps which talk. Let’s see if I get there!

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Mac, Productivity, pys60, python, s60, nokia, bluetooth

BADD 2007: Blogging Against Disablism Day

Diary of a Goldfish has a post about BADD 2007. BADD is happening on the 1st May which is next Monday. The general idea is to write about the discrimination faced by people with disabilities in the community.

I think ideas like this are excellent. Getting bloggers to raise awareness is the key to removing some of the stigma around supporting accessibility. By highlighting the troubles that people with disabilities face on a day to day basis we can help people understand why accessibility is so important.

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Accessibility, badd, badd2007, disability

Marco? Polo; MarcoPolo tells you where you are

Mac OS X has had locations for a long time. These are sets of preferences based on a ‘location’. However there has never been an official way to automatically switch between locations.

Applications like Location X have gone some of the way to solving this problem by allowing you to switch location based on the wifi access point you are connected to. You can run scripts or actions based on where you are switching to from where. This would allow you to stop your Torrent client in the office but then restart it automatically when you get home, for example.

However access point name is not the most indicative thing. We use Be Internet at home and their hardware refuses to be renamed from ‘BeBox’. If any of my friends also had a ‘BeBox’ access point my laptop would run my home settings at their house as well.

MarcoPolo attempts to address these issues by using ‘hints’ to guess your location. For example if you have a USB mouse you keep on your desk at work, then having it plugged in means you are at your desk, at work (duh!). By building up sets of hints instead of hard rules MarcoPolo attempts to switch your location (and run scripts) in a smarter way. I have to say I love the idea. Not least because it’s free and the developer David Symonds has said he is going to release it under the GPL.

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Productivity, mac, locationx, marcopolo, locationswitching

Automagically restart Quicksilver without using the keyboard

As much as I hate to admit it Macs and Mac apps sometimes crash. However there is a great way to automatically restart applications without touching that mouse (bleh!). An article on Macworld looks at automatically restarting crashed programs. It uses standard OS X UNIX stuff like Launchd via the FOSS Lingon.

I just banished my Quicksilver dock icon (and yes I used to restart Quicksilver without a mouse anyway). You might want to do the same.

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osx, mac, lingon, quicksilver, crash, launchd

Powerpoint Karaoke, Chicken chicken chicken

OMG! I have not laughed that hard in a long time. We had so much fun tonight there I was in real danger of wetting myself; not something a grown man will often admit.

Powerpoint Karaoke is the practice of talking through a set of random slide which aren’t yours. These were real slides from real presentation harvested via Google. We covered topics from Time Travel to the onslaught of Sony Aibo rising up against their human masters, to Cobras, to how to set be a Pimp while keeping a good SEO ranking. Pure magic.

Oh and I got to present a set of slides with only the word ‘chicken’ on them for the finale. That was just silliness, funny funny silliness. Thanks to Ian for organising it.

Update: Also blogged by Neil and Chris.

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Humour, powerpointkaraoke, geekdinner, ianforrester

Flash Accessibility Checking

I asked the totally awesome Niqui Merret about how to check the basic accessibility of some Flash without using a screen reader. She pointed me to the Microsoft Active Accessibility 2.0 SDK Tools. These allow you to interact with the Flash plugin and find out what Accessibility features have been enabled for the movie.

While I know this isn’t exactly a demo, it is a starting place. Hopefully I’ll find time to write up a tutorial or do a screencast in the near future.

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Web Development, Accessibility, Screen Readers, flash, microsoft, niquimerret

This is the kind of insanity you might find in my office

…especially if I get a chance to trick persuade people to do it.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger on Vimeo. One of the best videos I’ve seen in a good while.

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video, lipsync, flagpolesitta, harveydanger