BlindOnlineSuccessSystem.com

Watching Matt Gilman use his bike like a two-wheeled pogo stick, bouncing from giant wooden box to slightly smaller wooden box, your heart is in your throat waiting for a nasty
spill.

When he rears up on his back wheel on the highest box, like the Lone Ranger on Silver, you instinctively look away.

The ballet that Gilman dances on his bike requires strength and balance, but, apparently, not sight, because Gilman is a blind bike trials rider.

Gilman, 30, who grew up in Mount Washington and now lives in Reisterstown with his wife and son, was performing at Sunday’s annual BikeJam in Patterson
Park. The event drew 800 riders — from kids to pros — and thousands of spectators to raise money for Patterson Park and World Bicycle Relief, which provides
bikes for transportation in Africa.

Gilman lost his sight about six years ago as the result of Type I
diabetes
, but quickly threw aside his doctor’s orders to give up riding.

“I trip over my own two feet, but I feel like I can do anything on my bike,” said Gilman, exhausted after three stunt performances during a long, hot and
humid day in the park. Behind him, the sighted pro cyclists raced at terrific speeds.

“The first time I got on my bike after I lost my sight, I fell over instantly. I was like a child again,” said the former BMX rider. Gilman works at Joe’s
Bike Shop in Mount Washington, where he has taught himself the tricks and shortcuts he needs to repair bikes without vision.

Gilman performed before a noisy crowd, many of them youngsters who fancy themselves trick riders and who peppered him with questions as he waited to begin.

But his friend of 15 years, Gary Lessner, a pro trials rider from Parkville, went first. Wearing a blindfold. He stumbled with the bike and didn’t seem
to know where the obstacles were.

“It was very hard,” said a winded Lessner. “I have no idea how he does it.”

Gilman says he uses his hands and feet to place himself on the oversized wooden boxes. And he uses the tires like two more hands. He will “feel” his way
around a course before attacking it, but he can’t see the gaps or the drops once he begins.

His years as a BMX bike rider gave him a control of the bike that he employs now. “It was 16 years of banging around.”

His brother-in-law, Louis Gingher, who announces for him, will occasionally give him verbal cues to go left or right on the blocks and triangles. Gilman,
who is miked, tells the crowd what he will attempt next and asks for their encouragement.

During a demonstration for a diabetes research fundraiser, Gilman was so charged up by the cheers from the kids that he jumped from the top of a 5-foot-tall
box, skimmed past another box that was equally as wide and landed on the pavement. It was his first time for such a stunt.

“My mother didn’t look,” he said, laughing.

Gilman rides rocks and mountain trails, too, following a friend who puts a clicker on his wheel so Gilman can follow the sound. “That’s actually the scariest
thing I do.”

But the big news for this blind bike star is the birth seven weeks ago of his son, Evan, who will be getting his first bike, his father says, by the age
of two.

“As soon as he can walk,” said Gilman.

Blind people directing movies?  Is that really possible?

An innovative film crew in Jeruselam is working on a project that may possibly change the views of blind and visually impaired people playing the role of film director and camera man.

According to one of the film crew, whose sight is quite limited was always told that he shouldn’t film that somebody else would film because he couldn’t do it due to his bad vision.  He never dreamed that he could actuly do it because he felt that he and the camera were two different things and that it would not be plausable for him to work behind the camera.

However, with this special film crew, they’re making waves in the blind community, proving that just because you’re blind; doesn’t mean that you can’t make a film.

Sure they use adaptations to make things work for them, but the main thing is; is that they find a way to do the things that other people think are virtually impossible for them to do.  For example, the camera man said that he uses cues from the people that he is filming.  He uses sound to tell him where the people are in the presentation, and he simply aims the camera in their direction.  He also tells the actors to use certain sounds to give him other cues that he needs to control the camera.

Who knows, maybe a blind film crew just might put out the next blockbuster film in theatres soon.  It is all very possible and it can be done, and this special film crew is paving the way for this to be possible for anyone who is blind or visually impaired.

So if you have always wanted to direct, and film, then this just might be the ticket for your success as a filmmaker.  So don’t ever think that just because you can’t see doesn’t mean that you can’t do it because blind people from all over the world are proving otherwise.

Sure, it may take adaptations and innovation, but the fact is, if you have the desire to do something, don’t let the sighted world tell you any different.  Prove them all wrong by actually doing it and doing it with the means by which you’re able to use to make it happen.

It is not the process that really matters, it is the fact that you had set out to do it and you had accomplished your task, and done it with the tools, techniques and innovations that you need in order to make it happen.  Blind and visually impaired people have already proved that they can do a lot of things that the sighted world thought to be virtually impossible for them to do, and they did it with innovation, techniques and strategies that they themselves have invented, or have borrowed from other sources to make it work for them.  There’s always more than one way to skin a cat, so don’t let someone tell you any different.

Pretty soon, blind people will be driving cars, flying planes and a whole lot more.  Who knows what the future will bring to the blind and visually impaired community.  Technology has definitely paved the way in many situations for the blind and visually impaired, and it will prove itself again when we hear about yet another blind individual accomplishing something that is normally sight related.

So Hollywood; get ready to begin working with blind film crews and blind film directors and such.  They’re coming!

Webvisum is a Firefox plugin to help with Captcha images. It does far more than solving captias, to include allowing community lables of graphics. For example 1 person labels graphics on a page which can then be shared with all webvisum users and some OCR capabilities of images which are not captias, etc.

For more info visit www.webvisum.com

Captcha images are those images that are displayed on a website that a visitor must type into a box to show that they are "human". Many websites use these to prevent automated submissions for things like blog comments, account creation and a whole slew of instances.

Apparently these sites think that you have to have "normal vision" in order to be "human". These images can be a huge annoyance even if you do have "normal vision". But for people who are blind or visually impaired the can make the difference between being able to access the internet independently or not.

Some sites offer an audio option for people with vision impairment but these can be very difficult to understand. If you’re sighted and have never tried the audio captcha, try it sometime.

Now thanks to the folks at solona.net there’s another option available to people who are unable to read the captcha image.

Solona is a suite of Internet-based tools that empower visually impaired people to independently negotiate inaccessible objects. They enable people to overcome obstacles that are encountered on a regular basis due to
inaccessible images and web page design. Each tool within Solona is Human-Powered. In other words, everytime a user submits an image to be solved, a sighted human operator is on the other side to translate the image. By harnessing human power to solve inaccessible images, Solona can provide higher quality and more accurate
solutions than any fully automated program or service.

Solona is a non-profit corporation registered in Texas. There is no charge for using any of their services.

Visit solona.net today

A blind chef is cooking up a storm in an upscale Chicago Restaurant.

She wheelds a knife like a ninja as she cooks up her famous dishes at this upscale restaurant in Chicago.

She is not afraid of the knives, or the fire, and she proves that she can cook up a mean dish just like her sighted peers do.  She doesn’t let her blindness get in her way, and you can see that when you watch the video below.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6160732n&tag=mncol;lst;1

Blind Woman Sees With ‘Tooth-in-Eye’ Surgery

Doctors in Florida Restore Sharron Kay Thornton’s Vision by Implanting a Tooth in Her Eye

By LAUREN COX
ABC News Medical Unit

Sept. 17, 2009—

Forget about an eye for an eye — doctors in Florida have taken a
blind
woman’s tooth, and used it to help restore her vision.

A team of specialists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine announced Wednesday that they are
the first surgeons in the United States
to restore a person’s sight by using a tooth. The procedure is formally called modified osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis (or MOOKP).

Sharron “Kay” Thornton, 60,
went blind
nine years ago from a rare disorder called Stevens-Johnson syndrome. The disorder left the surface of her eyes so severely scarred she was legally blind.
But doctors determined the inside of her eyes were still functional enough that she might one day see with the help of MOOKP.

“This is a patient where the surface of the eye is totally damaged — no wetness, no tears,” said Dr. Victor L. Perez, the ophthalmologist at the Bascom
Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami who operated on Thornton. “So we kind of recreate the environment of the mouth in the eye.”

The three-phase operation started with University of Miami dentist, Dr. Yoh Sawatari, who removed a tooth from Thornton’s mouth and prepared an implant
of her own dental tissue for her
most severely damaged eye.
The tissue would be used to make a new cornea to replace the damaged one.

Doctors then removed a section of Thornton’s cheek that would become the soft, mucus tissue around her pupil. Finally, Perez and his team implanted the
modified tooth — which had a hole drilled through the center — to support a prosthetic lens.

“We use that tooth as a platform to put the optical cylinder into the eye,” explained Perez.

Perez said doctors often use less risky and less invasive techniques to replace corneas, but the damage from Thornton’s Stevens-Johnson syndrome ruled those
out.

Using a tooth might sound strange, but it also offers an advantage. Because doctors used Thornton’s own cheek and tooth tissue she faces less risk that
her immune system will attack the tooth and reject the transplant. Patients getting a cornea transplant from a deceased donor, on the other hand, face
chances that their immune system will reject the new tissue.

This Labor Day, Thornton was able
to take off the bandages
and she immediately saw the light.

Regaining Her Vision With Tooth in Eye Surgery

“From the first day, she’s been able to see 20/70,” said Perez. “She cannot drive legally (yet), but she can see her hands, see TV, see the sky, see the
clouds.”

At the moment, Thornton has nothing covering the cheek tissue on her eye, an aesthetic drawback MOOKP patients must face.

“Her eye looks different but, the goal is once she heals more we can put on a cosmetic eye shield,” said Perez.

The technique was developed in Italy in the early 1960s, but the original procedure has been modified over the years by doctors in Europe. Hundreds of people
in Japan, England and Italy have regained vision through the technique, but most eye specialists in the U.S. don’t foresee MOOKP catching on in America.

“It’s a complicated and rare procedure that a few people use in desperate situations [and] some patients benefit when the alternative is blindness,” said
Dr. Stanley Chang, an ophthalmologist at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

Why the Tooth and Eye Procedure Is Rare

While OOKP is used more often in Europe, doctors U.S. typically choose a less tedious technique called the Boston Keratoprosthesis, which is similar to
MOOKP but uses a prosthetic cornea instead of one grown from dental tissue and does not require cheek tissue to surround the implant.

The Boston technique, experts say, can save patients time and give them a more natural looking eye.

Doctors may use MOOKP for some uncommon situations — including people with Stevens-Johnson syndrome, or who were chemical burn victims — but not always.

“These conditions, although rare or uncommon, are still important because the patients may have little or no vision, and because there have not been very
effective treatments to restore their vision,” said Dr. James Chodosh, a cornea specialist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

However, Chodosh added, “The [MOOKP] procedure is unlikely to be very commonly used because of the difficulty, length, and invasiveness of the surgery and
the cosmetic appearance after surgery.”

Rare Procedures to Reverse Blindness Still Have Benefits

Dr. Uyen Tran, associate professor of ophthalmology at the Vanderbilt Eye Institute, agrees that “these types of patients are not common” and says that
“we probably see about 20 cases a year at our center.”

Yet, while the number of patients for MOOKP may never reach the number of patients getting the Boston Keratoprosthesis, Perez said he hopes to perform more
of these procedures for those in need.

“Absolutely there are a lot of patients like her (Thornton), and also patients with chemical burns& we also want to work with the Department of Defense
to help with soldiers who are scarred,” said Perez.

One of our members, Tracey Frost, is in the Medical field.  She has done medical transcription for a number of years now, and she has had lots of experience with the medical transcription field, as you will see in her story which has been posted on the following web site.

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=7&TopicID=267&SubTopicID=83&DocumentID=4888

As you have seen from the story from the link above, the medical transcription field is quite demanding and at times, quite intensive with little, or no breaks.  This is one of those jobs that you really have to love doing if you do decide to do it.

Some people would think that medical transcriptionists have gone nuts sitting at their computers all day long, but that’s what this job requires.  It requires dedication, focus and the willingness to help others in times of need.

Tracy frost is one of those people who loves helping others.  She is an outstanding BOSS member.  She has achieved a lot through her career as a medical transcriptionist and she continues to grow by being a valuable part of the BOSS program.  If you are blind and visually impaired, then you may want to join Tracy in making your dreams come true by becoming a part of our program.

Through our program, Tracy Frost has learned a great deal about marketing online, and she is on her way to developing her own medical site, wich will feature many of the things that she holds dear, and that will help other people in many different ways.

Besides being a medical transcriptionist, Tracy Frost is also a patient advocate which means that she is the link between you, the doctor and the medical facility.  All of this is part of her willingness to help others.  As a BOSS member, tracy has been instrumental in providing excellent ideas that will help the other members of the program.  She is definitely a very active part of the Blind Online Success System.  That is why she was added to the Blind Persons Achieving Success Section of this blog.

Congratulations to Tracy Frost for her outstanding achievements and commitment to the BOSS program

Amazon working to make the bestselling Kindle also a breakthrough device for
the blind

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kindle, the #1 bestselling product across all of
Amazon, has enabled many vision-impaired readers to enjoy books more easily
than
before, and has also helped dyslexic readers and those with learning
disabilities improve their reading skills. Vision impaired customers benefit
from
Kindle’s ability to change the font size – easily making any book a large
print edition. Dyslexic readers benefit from being able to listen with
Kindle’s
text-to-speech technology while simultaneously reading along with the
synchronized text. Today, Amazon announced that it is working on a new set
of features
that will make Kindle even better for these readers as well as a meaningful
breakthrough device for the blind.

"Kindle is for anyone who loves to read-in fact, we’ve heard from thousands
of vision-impaired customers and customers with learning disabilities over
the
past two years who have been helped tremendously by Kindle," said Ian Freed,
Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "With some key modifications, we believe
Kindle
can be a breakthrough device for the blind, and the team is excited about
making these enhancements."

Below are examples of emails sent to the Kindle team over the past two years
about the significance of these features:

"The other day I took my visually impaired friend to the eye doctor. I just
happened to take my Kindle out of my purse to show her the birthday gift I
had
received. Amazingly, she was able to read on it. How exciting; she had not
been able to read books for many years."

"I’ve always loved to read, but the last year or so vision problems have
hampered my reading. Reading small print was extremely difficult and caused
eye
strain. Fortunately, a dear friend gifted me with my Kindle 2 on my birthday
in September. Since that time, my Kindle has not left my side."

"I have an 11 year old daughter with cerebral palsy. She has very poor
vision and cannot turn pages in a book, so the kindle text to speech is a
blessing
for her. She loves books and will listen for hours!"

"I am an ophthalmologist specializing in rehabilitation of the visually
impaired. I have found the Kindle DX to be of tremendous value to my
patients. A
few modifications could increase its effectiveness."

[From teacher of students with learning disabilities] "One of my students
brought his mom’s Kindle to class this week and gave a little show and tell
for
two different classes. He is certainly a hard worker, but reading is not an
easy skill for him. He reports that the lack of back-lighting, the ability
to change font size and the ‘read-to’ features have been very helpful -
already he feels he has made great progress! The Kindle has really grabbed
the
attention of many of my students who have typically been turned off by
reading assignments."

To make Kindle more useful for the blind, the Kindle team is currently
working on an audible menuing system so blind and vision-impaired readers
can easily
navigate to books unassisted, in addition to listening to books as they can
already do today with Read To Me. In addition, a new super size font will be
added to Kindle, increasing the number of font sizes from six to seven. This
seventh font size will be twice the height and width of the current largest
font. These new features are scheduled for release by the summer of 2010.

The second meeting of the Beaumont Area Council of the Blind went smoothly, but after a rather rough start.  You see, our meeting was supposed to start promptly at 1:30 pm, but we didn’t start til sometime after 2:30 pm.  Nevertheless, we accomplished what we needed to accomplish and a bit more.

We read our constitution and bylaws, and then we voted on them and made them final. Then we actually had the chance to confirm our officer positions.  You see, we started with temporary positions.  The president, Vice president and the secretary were some of the positions that were deamed temporary until we had our second meeting.

Kenneth Semien SR. our President;  sent in our documentation regarding chaptership, so that means that sometime next month, we will recieve chaptership status, thus making BACB the 10th chapter in texas.  This is a  true milestone because when we recieve full chapter status, we can begin assisting educators, and other professional officials  in making the needed changes that our area needs to greatly improve the lives of those who are blind and visually impaired.

Since our officers have been confirmed, and all documentation has been submitted,  all that we need to wait on now is the final say by the board of directors at whether or not we’re a chapter.

I am the first vice president, and Kenneth is our president.  We also have a second vice president, Melinda.  I will be working close with Melinda to train her and to assist her in her duties as second vice president of our chapter.

My duties as first vice president is to back up the president should he not be able to attend the meetings.

This is really an exciting time for the Beaumont area blind and visually impaired because a chapter of ACB was very much needed in our area.  However, now that this is underway, now a much brighter future is in store for our local area as a direct result.

As Co-Founder of the BOSS program, I urge everyone to join either ACB, or NFB, or any other organization of their choice to help support the blind and visually impaired in whatever way possible.

These organizations have helped many blind and visually impaired people to live more independent lives.  They have brought hope and inspiration to those whithout hope and inspiration, and they have brought much needed education to where it is needed most.

So whether you join ACB, NFB, or even the Lions Club, or any other organization that supports the blind; it really doesn’t matter because we’re all working towards one great cause and that is the betterment and full independence of those who are blind and visually impaired.

After all, that is what the BOSS program does.  It helps to make those that are blind and visually impaired more independent by offering them skills that they can use the rest of their lives to build, run and manage a successful business on the Internet.  Combined with these organizations mentioned above, the skills and abilities that are achieved by each individual insures that individual a greater understanding of their place in society, as well as within a business setting.

It really doesn’t matter which organization that you’re a part of because all of these organizations do something to assist those that are blind or visually impaired in one way, or another.

Amazon’s Kindle can read books aloud, but if you’re blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will
shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.

The National Federation of the Blind announced Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University in New York won’t consider big
rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more accessible to visually impaired students.

Both schools have some Kindles that they bought for students to try this fall, but now they say they won’t look into buying more unless Amazon makes changes
to the device.

"These universities are saying, `Our policy is nondiscrimination, so we’re not going to adopt a technology we know for sure discriminates against blind
students,’" said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind.

Amazon.com
Inc. spokesman Drew Herdener said many visually impaired customers have asked Amazon to make the Kindle easier to navigate. The company is working on it,
he said.

According to the National Federation of the Blind, there are about 1.3 million legally blind people in the U.S. Many more people have other disabilities
such as dyslexia that make it difficult to read.

The Kindle could be promising for the visually impaired because of its read-aloud feature, which utters text in a robotic-sounding voice. For blind students
in particular, the Kindle could be an improvement over existing studying techniques — such as using audio books or scanning books page by page into a computer
so character-recognition software can translate it for a text-to-speech program.

But activating the Kindle’s audio feature probably requires a sighted helper, because the step involves manipulating buttons and navigating choices in menus
that appear on the Kindle’s screen.

The federation says the device should be able to speak the menu choices as well.

Electronic books still make up a small portion of the overall book market, but it’s a fast-growing segment. In hopes of getting even more people to try
the Kindle, Amazon released the $489 Kindle DX this year, which has a large screen and is geared toward textbook and newspaper readers. The company then
worked with several colleges to give out Kindles this fall with digital versions of their textbooks on them.

The Federation of the Blind sued one of the schools that participated in this pilot program — Arizona State University — in June, along with the American
Council of the Blind and a blind ASU student, arguing it was discriminating against blind students. That case is ongoing.

The group also filed complaints with the Department of Justice against five other schools that are participating in the Kindle trial with Amazon. Wisconsin
and Syracuse are not among those schools.

Ken Frazier, director of Wisconsin-Madison’s library system, said the library bought 20 Kindle DX devices for use in a history class this fall. Though he’s
not sure how many blind students are at his school, he said many students have difficulties reading texts for various reasons, such as learning disabilities.
"Our experience is that when you make technology accessible, everybody benefits," he said.

It is clearly stated that there’s a problem with the Kindle Ebook reader in regards to accessibility.  It seams that when a new technology such as this first arrives onto the scene, and it is equipped with accessible technology to aid the blind in one way or another, it usually means that in order to begin using that bit of technology requires someone who is sighted to navigate to the proper settings to make the device work for one who is blind, or visually impaired.

I strongly suggest that when you turn the device on, that it automatically defaults to the speaking option first so that when a blind person purchases the device and begins using it for the very first time, that it begin speaking immediately without having to use a sighted individual to locate the proper settings just to make the device speak.  The speach can always be turned off by a sighted individual by simply flipping some sort of toggle switch, or selecting that option from a very simple menu that instantly appears when the device is first turned on.

A blind or visually impaired person should never have to worry about navigating through numerous menu structures and even hidden menu structures just to get to what they need in order to use the device that they had just purchased.

It shouldn’t be all that difficult for Kindle to make these necessary changes.  They should also make all menus speak, including any sub menu structure, and any choices that that menu provides the user for input.  The blind and visually impaired should not be left in the dark over complicated menu structures.

For example, I have noticed that on some cell phones, some of the menu structure speaks, but not all of them.  If they’re going to add speech access to a device, then all of that device should be made accessible, not just certain parts of it.

After all, if you’re going to add speech to a device, then doesn’t it make perfect sense to make that speech navigation easy to get to and turn on?  It should never ever be burried under menu after menu after menu.  You should not have to navigate through numerous menu structures just to turn on  speech access for any device.

So whether it is the Kindle Ebook reader, or a plasma television, all electronic devices sold in the United states should all be made accessible.