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Mod parent up.

We hosted an accessibility conference a few weeks ago and the iPhone was the clear winner as most usable device. Is it 100%? No, of course not. But it is far ahead of Android, though Google has been working on it.

Haptics would certainly make it even more awesome. Can you imagine using maps with haptics for elevation? For the blind, you could have different heights to represent different features (e.g., highways might be deeper than side roads), all with Braille labels. That would be sweet.

Anyhow, Knobility is an awesome organization. Check it out if you're into hacking the Web for non-standard users.

-l

If they had used valid HTML 4.01, this would already be in place - the alt attribute that provides a textual alternative to an image is mandatory in HTML 4.01.

The simple presence of an alt attibute does not necessarily help. Whether through inattention, or malicious compliance, many sites have alt attributes with such informative text as "img0573957.gif" or "1x1 transparent GIF". In the case of the former, it might be a critical image used to convey information. The latter is an example crying for use of alt="" for an image that conveys no meaning.

It's not really hard to get an accessible site. In a couple of days, a blog will be added to the Team Navanax web site to describe the efforts of a semi-random team of geeks to grok web site design, accessibility, and put up a new web site in 9 hours on October 2. This is part of an accessible web site competition put on several times a year in various locations by Knowbility

If they had used valid HTML 4.01, this would already be in place - the alt attribute that provides a textual alternative to an image is mandatory in HTML 4.01.

The simple presence of an alt attibute does not necessarily help. Whether through inattention, or malicious compliance, many sites have alt attributes with such informative text as "img0573957.gif" or "1x1 transparent GIF". In the case of the former, it might be a critical image used to convey information. The latter is an example crying for use of alt="" for an image that conveys no meaning.

It's not really hard to get an accessible site. In a couple of days, a blog will be added to the Team Navanax web site to describe the efforts of a semi-random team of geeks to grok web site design, accessibility, and put up a new web site in 9 hours on October 2. This is part of an accessible web site competition put on several times a year in various locations by Knowbility

This was also the South by Southwest Interactive Question of the day on December 23. They referenced the Wired article and asked for opinions from SXSW Interactive presenters.

I've been getting these in my email every day for a few weeks since I'm on a panel on accessible web navigation on behalf of Knowbility and Omniscient Turtle. Sadly, nobody gave me the iSight I wanted for Christmas (as published in the first question of the day), so I ordered one for myself.

That may be a fine excuse for people at large, or even medium, companies buying software or hardware from [fill in the blank], it doesn't explain why small business owners use PCs. It's not about getting fired - after all they own the business - it's about keeping the business running without getting lost on side issues.

Apple just put out a story about Sullivan Street Bakery chose to switch (back) to Macs. The reason they switched is one of the owners preferred Macs, had done FileMaker work in a prior career, and they were not satisifed with the PC software they used (and the monthly maintenance fee).

My experience is that small business owners are pretty pragmatic. If the cost of the solution is low enough and the advantages high enough (the applications are there), they will pick the software and hardware platform that works best. Macs have pretty low switching cost. There are thousands of small computer consulting firms ready to pitch Windows solutions. Linux is still hard for non-techies. It's not common to find places to purchase a machine preconfigured with Linux and some reasonable apps; Macs and PCs often come with almost everything they need (perhaps requiring a couple of easy to install applications).

I work with a small non-profit, which is finally converting to Linux this year. First barrier was a Windows server with hosting service had been donated. That barrier went down when the donation of hosting stopped and the expensive monthly fee kicked in. Second barrier was a boatload of ASP pages that had been donated by a local Windows consulting fir, That barrier went down when the lack of licenses for the tools made it impossible to keep the updates going; we switched to JSP running on Windows. The final barrier came down when we found a donor to host the 30-odd web sites that we were hosting for clients. The move is happening this month; it's my Christmas vacation project.

Here's what I think is needed to get small businesses on Linux:

• Machines with pre-installed Linux at local computer stores
• A handful of applications (a la Filemaker Pro I guess) installable from CDs, purchased at the same store as the computer
• Local, cheap, computer firms that promote Linux will do setup and troubleshooting

Rackspace does indeed rule. I run a machine for a non-profit called Knowbility, that hosts about 30 other non-profits. Rackspace is on the pricey side (which bothered me less when they were donating service in-kind, but is an impact on our budget now), but the support and uptime have been excellent. Every support call I've ever made, even the ones that were due to being moderately clueless (I picked up the site on short notice for a non-profit), has been solved rapidly and completely. Every question gets a complete answer on the first try. No ticket gets closed until I agree that the problem is solved.

We were running a remote event in California that involved building web sites that we were hosting at rackspace. While setting up the hosting late on a Friday night, one of our people managed to hose our VNC so we could no longer get in and also mess up the virtual hosting. Rackspace support walked us through fixing it so we could complete the competition without any major hassles.

Our current plan is to continue hosting there and convert our Windows server to Linux. Their charge for a basic Linux box is US$230/month with 30 GB (overage is US$3.50/GB).

Knowbility.org is a nonprofit org in Austin, Texas focused on providing tech education, access and career development to people with disabilities. Email them -- they could probably answer your question. Knowbility.org also hosts a fantastic one day web site building contest with volunteer programmers that both provides web sites to nonprofits and teaches programmers about accessiblity issues. The most famous is the annual eventin Austin, but they have them in other cities as well (and would love to have them in even more).

Knowbility.org is a nonprofit org in Austin, Texas focused on providing tech education, access and career development to people with disabilities. Email them -- they could probably answer your question. Knowbility.org also hosts a fantastic one day web site building contest with volunteer programmers that both provides web sites to nonprofits and teaches programmers about accessiblity issues. The most famous is the annual eventin Austin, but they have them in other cities as well (and would love to have them in even more).