Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

Today I am busily working on my presentation entitled “How POUR is Your Blog” for SOBCon 09: Biz School for Bloggers. It is a long, tedious process.

One step in the process into convert my typed text into synthesized speech. I use the TextAloud software and the voice of Kate. For the most part, Kate is amazing – for a computerized voice.

But, there are times when I need to kate-ize the text. For example, for the past tense of “read”, I change the text to “red”. Recently I discovered “refreshable” needed to be “refrshble”; otherwise, Kate spoke it as “refreeshable”.

This morning Kate stumbled on “navigable”. With my speech impairment, I repeatedly said the word aloud, trying to determine the correct pronunciation. Kate just couldn’t get it!

I began laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of the situation that I couldn’t hear what Kate was saying anyway.

If Kate mangles a few words during my presentation, you’ll understand why.

Electronic books or ebooks are a great way to share your expertise and to generate an income. However, how many are sitting on computer hard drives around the world, unread? Your work and expertise wasted.

To minimize paper clutter, I rarely print ebooks. Instead, I prefer reading them on my computer. However, that typically means much scrolling from page to page, which requires fairly fine muscle control – and some days I don’t have it.

Even worst are ebook with column layouts as they require constantly scrolling up and down.

Many ebooks are sitting in my electronic library, unread. Who knows the gems of wisdom wasting away in there!

A few days ago I downloaded Milana Leshinsky’s Unlock Your Business Growth and immediately noticed a refreshing difference! The entire page was visible without needing to scroll. I read all 42 pages right then.

What was the difference? The page orientation was landscape, not portrait! I was amazed by how turning the page sideways made such a huge difference. Hitting the “next page” button was all that I had to do. It was so easy, so refreshing.

Portable Document Format (PDF) is the commonly used format for creating ebooks. However, for many individuals, PDF means Pretty Damn Frustrating. Creating accessible PDFs will be covered in a future Accessibility 100 post.

Accessibility 100 is a series of 100 easy-to-implement, free and inexpensive tips for improving accessibility for people with disabilities. This is a community project. Feel free to leave your comments, questions and ideas for future Accessibility 100 posts.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog by filling in the form in the upper right corner or by subscribing to the RSS feed.

“Middle Class Family Loses Everything” scream the headlines across the world.

Times are tough for many right now. People  are losing their jobs and their homes in record numbers. Uncertainty about what lies ahead looms.

Having lived through my parents’ struggle with the 18% mortgage interest rate in the mid-1980s and selling our home just before the bank foreclosed, I understand how stressing these times are for thousands of families.

But I take exception with statement that people “have lost everything”. They may have lost every possession, every thing. But they still have much. They still have their education, skills, knowledge, experience, expertise. They still have their grace, compassion, empathy and the capacity to love. Those things cannot be taken away or lost.

Stop reading for a moment and acknowledge all that you have right now: your heart is pumping blood, you are breathing, you have the ability to perceive and comprehend these words. What else do you have right now, in this moment? How wealthy do you feel, in this moment?

How you handle the next moment is your choice. You can choose to dwell on what you don’t have, on what is not going right in your life. Or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again, using your wealth on hand. The choice is yours. Which do you choose?

Chicago, here I come!

Last May, I announced my goal of attending SOBCon 09: Business School for Bloggers. I am going!

And…I am presenting! Even better, I will have the pleasure of presenting with my yet-to-meet-face-to-face friend Karen Putz. Our presentation will be on various aspects of web accessibility for bloggers. My portion will address the question, “How POUR is Your Blog?”

Please join us in Chicago for an amazing line up of speakers.

More details soon.

After feeling dead-butt tired for more than three weeks and after the sad death of actress Natasha Richardson following a minor bump to the head, I figured it was time to go to the doctor to make sure this tiredness is nothing serious.

I decided to go to the local clinic. Not the ideal choice, but getting an appointment with my family doctor can take a week. Besides, I haven’t seen him since he told me that bones don’t hurt; that the deep, stabbing pain I was experiencing then was due to my cerebral palsy, not due to the medication Fosamax for osteoporosis. (Funny how the pain completely disappeared as soon as I stopped taking the medication!) And, getting into the Access Clinic at BC Women’s Hospital could take several weeks, if not months. The only choice was the walk-in clinic with whatever doctor is on call.

Darrell and I wait in the exam room, with the door wide open. There’s no way to close it with both of large wheelchairs in the room. Thankfully, a personal procedure wasn’t required…

The doctor comes in and begins asking questions, looking to Darrell for the answers; not even trying to understand my speech. He quickly decides to send me for blood work. Yes, that was my main goal.

While he is completing the form, I ask him what he is testing for. Thyroid, liver, and blood sugar. Great.

I then ask, “Are you testing my hormones too?”

He asks, “Why hormones,“ while giving me and my chair a long, hard glance

I fire back, “Why NOT hormones,” trying to suppress the urge to smack him.

“Well, because of your condition, you aren’t sexually active.” What?! Then he looks at Darrell and asks, “Are you girlfriend-boyfriend?”

Darrell promptly tells him that we are married. His eyes spin around in his head, then notes “married to a man who also has cp” on my chart.

What does it matter what I do in the bedroom? I still have frickin’  hormones, I am 42 and changes are happening. Test my hormonal levels, damn it!