[Nfbmo] DO YOURSELF A FAVOR!!!

[Gary Wunder]

I too want this access and am willing to work for it. I have always thought 
it would require being a customer or potential customer to have an impact 
but I am willing to try a letter to these folks.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "fred olver" <goodfolks at charter.net>
To: "Fred Olver" <goodfolks at charter.net>; <Blindad at babel-fish.us>; "NFB of 
Missouri Mailing List" <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>; <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>; "NFB 
Chapter Presidents discussion list" <chapter-presidents at nfbnet.org>; "John 
Glass" <john_glass at att.net>
Cc: <msb-alumni at googlegroups.com>; "Happy Ruth" <happyruth at earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 4:29 PM
Subject: [Nfbmo] DO YOURSELF A FAVOR!!!


When I was 12, I won a set of encyclopedias for asking a question, of course 
they were in print.

When I was in college I had to endure the readings of older women on boring 
subjects on reels of tape which I could speed up to twice the original 
recorded speed and still absorb the information.

By the time I was 31, I was working for one of the first companies to 
develop talking software, and if you didn't mind the electronic voice of the 
Echo II synthesizer, you could actually create and make use of printed 
documents.

By the time I was 41, Windows was a reality, and although I didn't care much 
for the idea, I eventually made the switch. By the time I was 51, portable 
terminals with either speech output or Braille output were a reality and 
although the operating systems were different than my desktop or laptop 
computer, there was access of portable devices which I carried to meetings 
and and appointments.

Now I am 56, and in my mind there is no plausable excuse for inaccessability 
of just about anything you'd care to name. There are $1,500.00 camera phones 
which will read to you menus in restaurants or newspapers, there are 
$1,000.00 speech programs which will open up the internet and many other 
software programs for our use, yet, TV stations can't seem or rather, 
producers of infomercials can't seem, to vocalize a phone number at the end 
of infomercials and one phone producer can't seem to go beyond the first 
level of most of their menus on their phones in order to make them 
accessible for blind folks when making use of speech, or should I say unless 
they want to, say in their contacts area.

News-letters by a satellite radio provider have links with random letters 
and numbers rather than text-links and although one, that's right, one, 
might complain it doesn't seem to make a difference, so I was wondering, 
what if ten, or 50 or 100 people went up to some of these sites, or called 
their 800 numbers and complained what their reaction would be? So, I'm going 
to give each of you that opportunity, to make a difference, or to send a 
message of need, to providers of services or items which we might use better 
if we had access.

LG phones are most prevelant in the market, my last three phones which I 
have purchased each had the capability of speaking the first level of menus. 
I called them last week to ask them why their phones were not accessible, 
say to set the alarm, or to do other things beyond reading a phone number or 
tell me the name of a menu, only to tap the OK key and have the menu beep at 
me when I tried to move up or down through it.

LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A, Inc. Corporate Headquarters
10101 Old Grove Road
San Diego, CA 92131
Contact by Telephone Toll Free: 1 (800) 793-8896

This is their customer service number, however they are supposed to get back 
in touch with you in 24-48 hours.

Do you have an XM or SIRIUS receiver, do you subscribe to their 
news-letters? Can you read the links? I can't, and so I'm giving you another 
chance if you are a SIRIUS listener/user to make a difference. If we remain 
complacent we will get no where. I have made it my goal, each time I get a 
news-letter from them where the links are not readable to call them and ask 
why or let them know that they need to consider making these links 
accessible and you can too.

Here is the contact information for SIRIUS.

SIRIUS® Radio
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.sirius.com
SIRIUS Customer Care: 1-888-539-SIRIUS

Do you watch infomercials, well I do, and some of them sound like fun. 
Sometimes I do searches on the internet, and yesterday I called the hotel 
where a seminar was to be held as well as the TV station where the 
information was coming from. This morning the TV station called me back and 
gave me the number I wanted and I called them to make my reservation, but 
what if it's a cable channel and there is no place to be called, what then? 
We can only hope, but if we do nothing, make no attempt to stem the tide of 
video placement and no audio then nothing will change. So I urge you, if 
there is an infomercial on a local channel call the TV station at that 
moment or the next day to get the information you want, then if the company 
who is doing the infomercial has a website, go to it and to to the "contact 
us" link and send them a note or call them on the phone. IF we do nothing we 
are doomed to fail. If we do something and enough of us do the very same 
thing we might just succeed.

It doesn't matter whether you are in the NFB, the ACB or the BVA, or the A S 
P C A, the fact is doing these things can make a difference for everyone, 
besides, it only takes five minutes to make a phone call.

Fred Olver  goodfolks at charter.net

P.S., the more people we get to do this, the more of a chance it will get 
done so pass it on, to your affiliate, to your chapter members, to your 
friends and why not your relatives. If we do not raise the awareness of 
those around us we have no one to blame for what we don't have access to.
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