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April 2010 Newsletter
### Edited by Joel Obuchowski
Articles and ideas for future newsletters? Please e-mail them to Joel Obuchowski jobuchow@ins.state.ny.us and Estelle Council ecouncil@parole.state.ny.us
NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING
- Thursday, April 8, 2010, from 2:30pm to 4pm.
- Forum Offices, 24 Aviation Road, Colonie
- If you are unable to attend in person, and wish to participate via teleconference, here's the call-in information:
- Phone #: 888-387-8686
- Conference ID: 4435001#
Directions? Please e-mail Joel Obuchowski jobuchow@ins.state.ny.us or Estelle Council ecouncil@parole.state.ny.us
AGENDA
- CIO/OFT/Forum Discussions
- NYS Validation Tool - update
- Interactions with Other Forum Work Groups
- Agency Consulting
- Upcoming Events
- In progress
- Review of Projected Initiatives
- Future Presentation Ideas
- 508 Policy Update
- Miscellaneous/Other Topics
UPCOMING EVENTS
Creating Accessible PDFs - new date!
We have rescheduled this event for May 12, 2010. The event now appears on the Events Calendar of the Forum Web site.
More information on the event and registration details will be appearing on the listserv in the next couple weeks.
Search Engine Optimization
Scheduling in progress - more information later this Spring.
RECENT NEWS
Adobe Announces Flash and Flex Accessibility for Mac March 24, 2010
Today, Adobe Systems announced their intention to support accessibility with their Flash and Flex tools on multiple OS platforms, including Mac OS X.
The full article is available at this address:
www.lioncourt.com/2010/03/24/adobe-announces-flash-and-flex-accessibility-for-mac
Electroactive Polymer Design Opens Door To 'Full Screen' Displays For The Blind
March 29, 2010
Imagine if your computer only allowed you to see one line at a time, no matter what you were doing - reading e-mail, looking at a Web site, doing research. That's the challenge facing blind computer users today. But new research from North Carolina State University is moving us closer to the development of a display system that would allow the blind to take full advantage of the Web and other computer applications.
Links to full article:
Information Update on Section 508 Activities
Submitted by Deborah Buck
Executive Director
Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs (ATAP)
The US Access Board released an advance notice of proposed rulemaking for the Section 508, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities; Telecommunications Act Accessibility Guidelines; Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards. The Access Board is soliciting public comment on the draft. Comments received will be incorporated followed by the issuance of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in accordance with federal requirements. The public will have the opportunity to comment again when the NPRM is issued. Those comments will ultimately be reviewed and a final rule on the standards will be issued.
Opportunity to Comment:
Comments on the advance draft must be received by June 21, 2010.
The statewide AT Act Programs and the Developmental Disabilities Planning Councils are the only federally funded grant programs that are statutorily required to conform to Section 508 so the standards and the opportunity to offer comments should be of great interest to you. In addition, many of the Statewide AT Programs have a key role within their state to assist in the implementation of state 508 statutes and other policies. ATAP was fortunate to have 3 ATAP affiliated individuals sit on the TEITAC work group that was convened to make recommendations for changes to the standards. Debbie Cook, WA; Diane Golden, MO and I were all members of the TEITAC. ATAP will submit comments and will convene a workgroup comprised of AT Program staff and other interested persons to generate our comments. If you are interested in participating in the workgroup, please let me know.
{{{ NOTE: TEITAC stands for "Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee. For more information , please see: http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/about.htm }}}
Public Meetings on the Draft:
The Access Board held a public meeting on the draft standards last week at the CSUN conference. Access Board staff indicated that another public hearing will be hosted in a few months on the east coast - they did not identify the location for the hearing.
Access to Key Documents:
- Notice of Release of Draft:
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/notice.htm - Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Draft Guidelines & Standards: http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/draft-rule.htm
FEATURE ARTICLE
"JAWS and Facebook"
This article was originally sent as an e-mail on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 by Daniel Keogh, who works for Quantum Technology based in Australia (Quantum Technology Home: www.quantumtechnology.com.au)
The article pertains to questions about JAWS and Facebook.
Hi All,
There have been a few questions over the last couple of weeks on this list regarding JAWS and FaceBook. I'll see if I can clarify a couple of things here and also suggest a couple of ways to make FaceBook work a bit better. I won't be telling you how to use FaceBook since there are a lot of aspects of it I haven't even looked at myself and probably never will.
This information assumes you're using JAWS version 11. Jaws 10 may work ok but FaceBook is using technology it doesn't work with very well. Also you'll probably have issues if you're not yet running Internet Explorer 8. I have been told that you can access it using Firefox but have not tested this myself.
The standard FaceBook page is accessible. You do not need to use the Mobile version although you can if you wish to. Navigating the standard one however is actually easier since it uses headings to separate each section of the page. The mobile version does not do this which makes it harder to get around. FaceBook's pages don't have too much clutter so it's not hard to skip things you don't want to look at.
Learn your JAWS navigation keys for the web especially heading navigation. Pressing h will skip you forward through headings and Shift h will move you back up the page. If you reach the last heading and press h again it will wrap around to the top again.
Learn how to use Place Markers. These can be extremely useful on a lot of sites. JAWS Place Markers can be anchored to text so even if that part of the page moves you will still find it.
Finally I strongly suggest you make a change to your JAWS configuration. This will allow some of the links that don't read properly to work.
- Go to www.facebook.com.
Press JawsKey Shift V. this will set up a configuration for FaceBook only. Anything you change in here won't affect other web sites. You can do this for any web site and it will override the default settings.
Press L until you hear JAWS say "Links Options". Arrow down to "Text Links". This is most likely set to "show - using screen text". Press the space bar until you hear JAWS say "show - using title". Now press enter.
That should allow some of the links at the top of the FaceBook page that may not be reading properly to work as they should.
Regards,
Danny Keogh
RESOURCES
provided by Mike Hritcko, NYS Insurance Fund
"Accessible Forms for the Visually Impaired"
http://dev.aol.com/blog/cblouch/08262008
"AEGIS (Open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards) Open Accessibility Framework"
http://www.aegis-project.eu/
"Coblis - Color Blindness Simulator"
http://www.colblindor.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/
"eCommerce Accessibility Reports"
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/white-papers/ecommerce-accessibility-2010.shtml
"Flash Player and Flex Support for IAccessible2 and WAI-ARIA"
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/2010/03/flash_player_and_flex_support.html
"IAccessible2 in Adobe Reader and Access to PDF Portfolios"
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/2010/03/iaccessible2_in_adobe_reader_a.html
"Voluntary Product Accessibility Template"
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/vpat-3.html
"Yahoo lab looks to put disabilities top of mind"
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14698496