Tom’s blog

For those of you with Verizon cellphones, did you know there’s a feature in your voicemail that allows you to send a voice message as easy as sending a txt?  Yeah its pretty cool, check this out.

If you call your voicemail box (your cell #), enter your password,  then press 2 to send
a message. Then it says “at the tone, please record your message, when you are finished
recording, press #” then record a voice message, press pound, then it will ask you for the destination mailbox, type in the destination 10 digit phone number, then it will say
“checking destination”, say to you the callers name, then it’ll say
“message sent”  or ” press * if  no more destinations”, for those
who want to send the same message to multiple recipients., you can press pound again to add another destination, so on and so forth.  My friend Chad actually uses this service, or a similar service only offered by Verizon I think, to send the same voicemail to multiple people in his contact list, you know to tell people where he will be doing his karaoke shows at that particular week.

pretty sweet eh?  Of course this only works between mobile to mobile, but I’m sure AT&T, and Centennial have a similar feature built into their voicemail box.  I’ve never used either of those carriers so I don’t know, but it is a nice feature that verizon wireless offers to their customers.

Another thing, if you call your voicemail from a land line phone,  instead of thru your cellphone, you won’t be charged airtime fees just for checking voicemail.   Us cheapo’s are always looking at stuff like that to save on airtime minutes.  lol   otherwise I’d probably be charged 100 minutes a month just in airtime fees to my voicemail box.  lol

written by tcoburn

In response to the following article, from the Inventor of the recaptcha

http://bit.ly/2PK9ez

Interesting article, but Blind users cannot read captchas! and even for partials who use Window Eyes, Zoomtext, or the open source alternative NVDA, recaptchas are still near impossible to read for us blind folk.

written by tcoburn

Bowling exploded in popularity in the late 1940s and participation among the blind and visually impaired was immediate. Institutions such as the Indiana School for the Blind made recreational bowling available to students, and the first national tournament for blind bowlers took place in 1949.

One reason for bowling’s popularity among the blind is that it needs only minor modifications to be made accessible and that many aspects of the sport, e.g. the heft of the ball and the sounds of its heavy roll and the splatter of pins, are experienced with equal satisfaction, regardless of sight.

Bowling is made accessible to the blind by the use of a guide rail  that help orient the bowlers on the lane to line up shots. The guide helps the bowler align their shot on the approach, replacing the arrows or other reference points sighted bowlers would use.

The guide rails blind bowlers use measure 12 feet and are made of wood or aluminum. They set up, break down, and store easily and do not damage lanes or interfere with alley operations. The rails (available from the ABBA) are set alongside the approach, extending back from the foul line, and are held in   place with bowling balls.

The guide rail lets bowlers know where the foul line is and where to line up their shots. Bowlers slide one hand along the rail’s surface and throw the ball with the  other hand. The rail runs straight along the first board outside the width of the lane, enabling bowlers to determine whether the ball is being released in the lane’s center or near one edge.

A sighted assistant is then needed to tell a blind bowler what pins have been knocked down or left standing by calling out the numbered locations of the pins — information that enables the bowler to adjust delivery of the second shot.

Beginners usually need assistance to learn where to stand in relation to the rail. Soon after, most bowlers develop their own positioning techniques.

Since the 1940s, the ABBA has enabled blind and visually impaired youths and adults to bowl alongside sighted friends and family. The development of special guide rails has made this possible.

The ABBA has over 2000 members in more than 125 leagues across the United States and Canada. ABBA sponsors blind bowling leagues for adults, an annual tournament, and publishes The Blind Bowler.

The Blind Bowler is distributed three times during the bowling season (October, January and April). Articles are submitted from leagues, secretaries and individuals involved in the ABBA. The content of these articles is to inform the membership of such things as ABBA business, tournament events and standings, etc.

The Blind bowling league I take part in every Tuesday, isn’t affiliated with the ABBA. The Workers for the Blind sponsors our league during the fall season, and The League for the Blind and Disabled, sponsors our league during the summer season. The Fall season is on Tuesday evenings from 6-8pm from the 3rd week of September, thru the end of May. The Summer season begins 3 weeks after that, on Thursday evenings from 6-8pm in June, thru mid-August, then we take another 3 week break and start back up again in September.

Our local Lions Club Association has been gracious enough to pick us up every week, give us sighted assistance during bowling matches, and take us home afterwords. Each Lions Club driver is assigned a lane to setup the rail for that lane, assist each bowler with telling them what pins we knocked down, and our scores, during game play. Its really a fun event, my friends and I enjoy it a great deal every week. Here in Fort Wayne, we have just over 30 regular bowlers, out of the 70 blind and visually impaired members of Fort Wayne’s chapter, so its quite a fun event for us.

written by tcoburn