[stylist] Announcing www.nfb-writers-division.net Version 2.0!!

[Peter Donahue]

Good evening everyone!

    I am pleased to announce the relaunch of the National Federation of the 
Blind Writers' Division World-Wide Web Site Version 2.0! There are several 
exciting site enhancements and new capabilities that were not available in 
the previous version. They include:

1. The National Federation of the blind Writers' Division Blog. Now members 
will be able to share content with other site visitors and the writing 
community via this new component. There is currently an introductory post 
and a response to give you an idea of how the blog will work when it is 
fully up and running. Members will be able to post content in various media 
types. Visitors can leave comments, search blog entries by keywords and 
categories, subscribe via RSS feeds and much more.

    The blog also demonstrates an exciting feature that will protect site 
forms from spam bots without the use of captchas removing the accessibility 
issues they create for blind and deaf-blind Web surfers. The process this 
plug-in uses to control spam bots is totally invisible to the user. As more 
Web forms are added to the site this technology will be implamented there as 
well to control spam without creating accessibility hurdles for our 
visitors.

2. The National Federation of the Blind Writers' Division "Writers Education 
Station."

Have you ever wanted to know how to create effective press releases, know 
who uses technical writing, how to write poetry, how to market and publish 
your works, The ins and outs of memoir writing,etct, our Writers Education 
Station is the place to find answers. Articles, presentations, telepone 
gatherings, and other content related to a particular aspect of writing and 
publishing will be categorized and made available via this new resource on 
our Web site. This site area is expected to grow fast so check it often.

3. Site cleanup:

    Every effort was made to clean up problem pages, fix broken links and 
other site maintenance.

4. Aria Landmarks on all site pages:
    Our first incarnation of our Web site only contained Aria landmarks on 
certain pages. These allow screen reader users whose screen access product 
supports them to easily jump from particular portions of a Web page 
eliminating teedious content searches contained on specific areas of the 
page.

 4. Use of the ColdFusion Markup Language:
    We now have access to Adobe's ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) Version 
9.0 Enterprise edition. This markup language extends the capability of 
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to allow exciting site conponents such as 
blogs, databases, wikis, and other functionality we may find useful to be 
added in the future.

    Available recordings of all past telephone gatherings are now in the 
"Telephone Gatherings" archive. The "Conventions" area has been reorganized 
so all division activity pages are uniform. There are many other fixes and 
enhancements that were undertaken during the crafting of Version 2.0. To see 
for yourselves visit:
http://www.nfb-writers-division.net

    We want this to be a valuable resource to the blind authoring community 
and are committed to growing our Web presence in the months and years to 
come. See you all in Orlando.

Peter Donahue
Webmaster, National Federation of the Blind Writers' Division