That's a good point. As a minor point of clarification, the Board of Governors in DC is part of the Federal Government (an agency within the US Treasury), whereas the reserve banks and branches are public-private corporations, as described. Since this happened at the New York reserve bank, your comment applies. I just wanted pipe up with that minor distinction.
I hate to say it, but that's the general consensus. And is it surprising that an expensive product put out by a software company is favored over an open-source alternative? The biggest problem with JAWS, from my perspective, is the whopping $1,000 price of admission for a target user group that has high unemployment problems already.
I have to give a shoutout to the NVDA project (http://www.nvda-project.org/), and would encourage your friend to give them a shot if he would like an open-source alternative to JAWS on Windows.
All of those are requirements for accessibility. You're right that being accessible is about more than just about blindness or low vision. This article, however, seems to be pretty specifically focused on the screen-reader issue of accessibility.
I'm happy to see this too and also hope that FF and others follow this cue. But I don't think it's for the reasons others are mentioning here. To me, this is a case of MS hoping to head off Government intervention in this area. Even the folks on Capitol Hill have come to realize that tracking in its current form is a problem. There was a bureaucrat the other day talking about needing to address the "Flash cookie problem" and saying they're working with Adobe on it. This is just like the major sport bike makers all suddenly agreeing that 180mph is fast enough for anyone - right about the time congress started making noise about limiting the top speed of bikes (after the Hayabusa approached 200mph).
I'm glad for what they're doing, though I'm not ready to trust them to implement this honestly.
I think you're talking about Section 508 of the American with Disabilities Act. And yes, it can apply to more than US Government web sites. Target found that out the hard way after refusing to provide alt tags and other accessible changes to their web site. After getting slammed with a $6 million judgement, no one else is bothering to refute what has become established case law.
I might also add that Section 508 covers much more than screen readers and javascript.
"Microsoft: if you want to beat Google, find a way to develop a completely open search ranking system."
And this to me is the most delicious irony in this stinky stew. I think MS is perfectly capable of developing such a thing, but they will invariably find a way to shoot themselves in the foot. I remember hearing a while back that searching for Linux with the MS search engine produced thousands of results while searching the same term on Google produced tens of millions of hits.
Once you've demonstrated that you are willing to sacrifice results and accuracy for market share, it's hard to earn back that trust. MS has stepped into this mess over and over and doesn't seem to learn from their mistake.
So yeah, I agree. MS just has to build a superior product to succeed. Too bad that seems to be the path less taken.
It's not like 508 is something new. They're just revising the guidelines that have been out there for years. I would think by now all Government agencies have gotten clued in as to how to satisfy 508 requirements. (Or they know how to get waivers approved.)
I agree completely. If you use a word like "microprocessor" in a sentence, then you've pretty much shot the RGL of that sentence unless you just have one or two other words in it. RGLs are meaningless in technical material, and not all of the web is commercial or entertainment sites.
There are lots of workarounds to make things accessible, like providing plain-text alternatives through a link to equivalent content. As I said in another post, Section 508 is only the law for (US) Government-procured systems and applications. You can even find workarounds for multimedia and Flash to make them compliant, though this is easier if you start out with accessibility in mind rather than trying to change a complex site or system that's already out there. The regulations also allow for "undue burden" exceptions where compliance is not always practical.
I agree with your last point about increasing the incentives for better product development. The devil hides in the details of how to get there, though.
I guess they're not worth your time and trouble as long as you can get to most of what you want. Nearly one in four Americans has some sort of disability, so savvy publishers who don't want to lose out on a big chunk of marketshare find it worthwhile to comply.
In the case of commerical sites, vendors find that disabled users are a loyal lot and will keep frequenting sites and businesses that support their needs. And they won't waste time struggling with a non-compliant site if the competition is compliant.
The argument that this puts undue burden on content providers is BS. The same thing was said about forcing car makers to include seat belts, and on and on. Like the cutouts in sidewalks, not just disabled people benefit from the efforts to accommodate their needs; the general public does, too.
Lastly, while it is well intentioned for general use, 508 applies only to things being provided to the (US) Government. If you didn't factor in the costs of accessibility into your bid, then too bad for you.
A lot of what 508 is striving for is just good design and usability, with accessibility being the foundation upon which usability is built. (If it's not accessible how can it be usable?) As you point out a lot of things that fail are just poorly designed or implemented.
"They also called for the Federal Reserve to be audited."
I see this said often, as though the Federal Reserve system has never been audited before. It's audited anuually by the GAO and each reserve bank is audited by independent outside firms. So if this is apparently not sufficient, who is good enough to do the audit and how would their results be different from the results of the existing auditors if they both use generally accepted accounting guidelines?
You've directly addressed why I think this article is bogus. I know a boatload of former COBOL programmers who would jump at a COBOL job offer. Too bad there aren't any. Most of those guys are either working in java or else have left programming entirely (to go to management or completely different fields).
Maybe you shouldn't count COBOL out in terms of it still being used in the business world, but I sure wouldn't base any career decisions around it.
My first thought on reading this was that I'm glad to be riding a motorcycle (though I typically drive a car more than ride). There's no mention of how all of this relates to motorcycles, but I guess that's a small enough percentage they're willing to overlook it.
"Sports is another thing, usually, but I'd even wager that I could win a debate regarding video versus audio in even live sporting events."
That's an interesting perspective, but you would lose that wager with me. I watch almost all sports with the sound off so I don't have to listen to the insipid drivel of the blathering announcers.
First, CL isn't an auction site like EBay. The tickets are for sale, and someone can buy them or not. Also, CL doesn't require any personally identifiable information when you list an item for sale, so I'm not sure what if anything CL had to reveal, which could well be why they didn't bother to show up in court.
My point being I don't think there's much precedent to worry about here, but I also don't think the academy has a legal leg to stand on, either.
You raise an interesting point. I've sold tickets on CL before, and the only thing you need to provide is an email address. If he's using gmail at a public library there's still little to no way they could track down who he is. I don't see how CL would even have any personal information to divulge.
Agreed. My first thought after reading the article is where's the meat of the article? There's no indication of whether those 300 "senior IT professionals" were all in one company, what their actual jobs or skill levels are, or any other information. Basically, this boils down to them saying, "Hey, our product is really valuable, and we just did a survey to prove it. Honest!"
You know, this is pretty clearly explained in the article. To quote: "Microsoft's advisory says that the vulnerability has to do with the way Windows handles desktop executables and recommends that Windows users "restrict use of Safari as a Web browser until an appropriate update is available from Microsoft and/or Apple."
So yes, IE is in fact autoloading executables from the desktop. It's Safari's vulnerability to carpet bombing that sets the stage, but it's IE and Windows that cause the big boom.
Don't be an ass. I've driven and owned both standard and automatic transmissions. Would I want a luxury car with a stick? Obviously not. Do elderly people and disabled have to drive a stick, or are they just stupid and lazy? And though I used to like driving with a stick, moving to the hills and traffic of San Francisco got me back to an automatic.
I would also say that any fuel advantages of a stick are probably often outweighed by the driving habits of the driver.
Lastly, not everyone has the luxury of buying their cars new. Some times you have to take your pick of what the best deal is at the time, and in some of those cases you might find yourself driving an automatic that still gets good mileage.
Of course, around here and the DC area, the big advantage to automatics is that commuters can still drive while reading the paper, applying makeup, etc., etc.
Yes, we always have limits, but the devil's in the details as they say. For example, do you think you can institute a rule like "undermines the national security" with any degree of agreement on what constitutes undermining? If posting these videos undermines the country, does not it also undermine the country to reveal corruption and illegal activities in our own government?
While I have sympathy for what you'd like to achieve, the freedoms involved are too fundamental to be manipulated like that. Suppressing opposing viewpoints only gives validity to the conspiracy theorists and the opposition.
The difference in your first question is that this company is asking you to submit personal information in the clear. I'm pretty sure that most of us would expect to use an https page for that and would not want to submit that information in the open. That was (one of the) big complaint(s) of the person in the article.
As for the second question, the difference I see is that Google puts ads on their search pages, while these guys are proposing to insert ads in *any* page you request.
Any customer who doesn't vote with their feet on this issue deserves what they get.
"If right and wrong are culturally defined (not just specific application, but the general principles), I would argue that they don't exist." - Nerdposeur
"There is nothing good or bad but that thinking makes it so." - Hamlet (well, Shakespeare but you know what I mean.)
I would argue that most things we regard as morals are entirely culturally based. We are just so thoroughly steeped in our Judeo-Christian roots that we don't see that any more. For example, homosexuality was accepted as natural in ancient Greece but is a moral and legal crime in the US until recently and still is in many places. I would also say that almost all cultures accept and glorify murder as long as it's done for that society's benefit, even if that is just entertainment. (Gladitorial Rome, for example.)As another example, we are horrified by a young woman being beaten to death by a crowd for being caught in a car with a man who is not her husband. But to the family members and villagers who killed her, this was an act of moral obligation. Personally, I find it sickening while they find it honorable.
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That's a good point. As a minor point of clarification, the Board of Governors in DC is part of the Federal Government (an agency within the US Treasury), whereas the reserve banks and branches are public-private corporations, as described. Since this happened at the New York reserve bank, your comment applies. I just wanted pipe up with that minor distinction.
I hate to say it, but that's the general consensus. And is it surprising that an expensive product put out by a software company is favored over an open-source alternative? The biggest problem with JAWS, from my perspective, is the whopping $1,000 price of admission for a target user group that has high unemployment problems already.
I have to give a shoutout to the NVDA project (http://www.nvda-project.org/), and would encourage your friend to give them a shot if he would like an open-source alternative to JAWS on Windows.
All of those are requirements for accessibility. You're right that being accessible is about more than just about blindness or low vision. This article, however, seems to be pretty specifically focused on the screen-reader issue of accessibility.
Unfortunately that's more what I was thinking was the MS motivation here.
I'm happy to see this too and also hope that FF and others follow this cue. But I don't think it's for the reasons others are mentioning here. To me, this is a case of MS hoping to head off Government intervention in this area. Even the folks on Capitol Hill have come to realize that tracking in its current form is a problem. There was a bureaucrat the other day talking about needing to address the "Flash cookie problem" and saying they're working with Adobe on it. This is just like the major sport bike makers all suddenly agreeing that 180mph is fast enough for anyone - right about the time congress started making noise about limiting the top speed of bikes (after the Hayabusa approached 200mph).
I'm glad for what they're doing, though I'm not ready to trust them to implement this honestly.
I think you're talking about Section 508 of the American with Disabilities Act. And yes, it can apply to more than US Government web sites. Target found that out the hard way after refusing to provide alt tags and other accessible changes to their web site. After getting slammed with a $6 million judgement, no one else is bothering to refute what has become established case law.
I might also add that Section 508 covers much more than screen readers and javascript.
"Microsoft: if you want to beat Google, find a way to develop a completely open search ranking system."
And this to me is the most delicious irony in this stinky stew. I think MS is perfectly capable of developing such a thing, but they will invariably find a way to shoot themselves in the foot. I remember hearing a while back that searching for Linux with the MS search engine produced thousands of results while searching the same term on Google produced tens of millions of hits.
Once you've demonstrated that you are willing to sacrifice results and accuracy for market share, it's hard to earn back that trust. MS has stepped into this mess over and over and doesn't seem to learn from their mistake.
So yeah, I agree. MS just has to build a superior product to succeed. Too bad that seems to be the path less taken.
It's not like 508 is something new. They're just revising the guidelines that have been out there for years. I would think by now all Government agencies have gotten clued in as to how to satisfy 508 requirements. (Or they know how to get waivers approved.)
I agree completely. If you use a word like "microprocessor" in a sentence, then you've pretty much shot the RGL of that sentence unless you just have one or two other words in it. RGLs are meaningless in technical material, and not all of the web is commercial or entertainment sites.
I agree with your last point about increasing the incentives for better product development. The devil hides in the details of how to get there, though.
I guess they're not worth your time and trouble as long as you can get to most of what you want. Nearly one in four Americans has some sort of disability, so savvy publishers who don't want to lose out on a big chunk of marketshare find it worthwhile to comply.
In the case of commerical sites, vendors find that disabled users are a loyal lot and will keep frequenting sites and businesses that support their needs. And they won't waste time struggling with a non-compliant site if the competition is compliant.
The argument that this puts undue burden on content providers is BS. The same thing was said about forcing car makers to include seat belts, and on and on. Like the cutouts in sidewalks, not just disabled people benefit from the efforts to accommodate their needs; the general public does, too.
Lastly, while it is well intentioned for general use, 508 applies only to things being provided to the (US) Government. If you didn't factor in the costs of accessibility into your bid, then too bad for you.
A lot of what 508 is striving for is just good design and usability, with accessibility being the foundation upon which usability is built. (If it's not accessible how can it be usable?) As you point out a lot of things that fail are just poorly designed or implemented.
I see this said often, as though the Federal Reserve system has never been audited before. It's audited anuually by the GAO and each reserve bank is audited by independent outside firms. So if this is apparently not sufficient, who is good enough to do the audit and how would their results be different from the results of the existing auditors if they both use generally accepted accounting guidelines?
Maybe you shouldn't count COBOL out in terms of it still being used in the business world, but I sure wouldn't base any career decisions around it.
My first thought on reading this was that I'm glad to be riding a motorcycle (though I typically drive a car more than ride). There's no mention of how all of this relates to motorcycles, but I guess that's a small enough percentage they're willing to overlook it.
Your word choice is impeccable. Your punctuation is not. Periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks.
(Then again, the guy might be a Brit, and I think they do things differently over there.)
That's an interesting perspective, but you would lose that wager with me. I watch almost all sports with the sound off so I don't have to listen to the insipid drivel of the blathering announcers.
My point being I don't think there's much precedent to worry about here, but I also don't think the academy has a legal leg to stand on, either.
You raise an interesting point. I've sold tickets on CL before, and the only thing you need to provide is an email address. If he's using gmail at a public library there's still little to no way they could track down who he is. I don't see how CL would even have any personal information to divulge.
Agreed. My first thought after reading the article is where's the meat of the article? There's no indication of whether those 300 "senior IT professionals" were all in one company, what their actual jobs or skill levels are, or any other information. Basically, this boils down to them saying, "Hey, our product is really valuable, and we just did a survey to prove it. Honest!"
So yes, IE is in fact autoloading executables from the desktop. It's Safari's vulnerability to carpet bombing that sets the stage, but it's IE and Windows that cause the big boom.
I would also say that any fuel advantages of a stick are probably often outweighed by the driving habits of the driver.
Lastly, not everyone has the luxury of buying their cars new. Some times you have to take your pick of what the best deal is at the time, and in some of those cases you might find yourself driving an automatic that still gets good mileage.
Of course, around here and the DC area, the big advantage to automatics is that commuters can still drive while reading the paper, applying makeup, etc., etc.
While I have sympathy for what you'd like to achieve, the freedoms involved are too fundamental to be manipulated like that. Suppressing opposing viewpoints only gives validity to the conspiracy theorists and the opposition.
As for the second question, the difference I see is that Google puts ads on their search pages, while these guys are proposing to insert ads in *any* page you request.
Any customer who doesn't vote with their feet on this issue deserves what they get.
"There is nothing good or bad but that thinking makes it so." - Hamlet (well, Shakespeare but you know what I mean.)
I would argue that most things we regard as morals are entirely culturally based. We are just so thoroughly steeped in our Judeo-Christian roots that we don't see that any more. For example, homosexuality was accepted as natural in ancient Greece but is a moral and legal crime in the US until recently and still is in many places. I would also say that almost all cultures accept and glorify murder as long as it's done for that society's benefit, even if that is just entertainment. (Gladitorial Rome, for example.)As another example, we are horrified by a young woman being beaten to death by a crowd for being caught in a car with a man who is not her husband. But to the family members and villagers who killed her, this was an act of moral obligation. Personally, I find it sickening while they find it honorable.