ACB Radio Blog

The following note has been posted to ACB Radio public mailing lists by
Chrissie Cochrane, the station's managing director. I appreciate her good
words below. You can all be sure that, from time to time, we will be
providing content and making guest appearances on the show as we are able.

Hi Folks

It is with considerable regret that I have to announce that both Jeff Bishop
and Darrell shandrow are relinquishing both their production and hosting of
the now famous Main Menu show due to a steep increase in their other work
commitments. The first thing I want to do is thank both of them for their
hard work in both producing and hosting the show which has gone from
strength to strength during their tenure.

I am also open to offers for anyone who is willing to take on the task of
hosting and/or preparing this prestigious show. We need people who have a
good grounding in access technology, and a knowledge of streaming on the
internet. If people are interested, and have the time and the inclination
to take on this work, please write to me at chrissie@acbradio.org. I am
very open to ideas for any changes anyone may have to the format of the
show, after all, these things do not necessarily have to stay the same from
year to year, so as I say, if you are interested in either hosting the show,
or wish to be involved in its production, please write to me at
chrissie@acbradio.org.

This is a chance for someone to make a name for themselves in the access
technology field, as during Jeff and Darrell's time with the show, the
listener figures have been increasing steadily, but don't let that put you
off. Of course they will be a hard double act to follow though I'm sure
there are people out there who have ideas and would like to see them put
into reality.

So, if you're interested, please write to me at chrissie@acbradio.org and
let's start yet another era of first-class Main Menu shows.

Chrissie

Hello Everyone,

All of the convention general sessions, the candidates forum and the banquet
are now available on-demand at
www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=66
They are also available on the convention podcast, which you can access
manually at
www.acbradio.org/conventions
or in your RSS/podcast receiver of choice at
feeds.feedburner.com/acbconventions

Please note that, as a result of a short power outage at the convention, our
recording of Thursday's general session is still incomplete. The outage
occurred at approximately 56 minutes through our broadcast, during the
discussion of the proposed amendment to section G of article 4 of the ACB
constitution. We are currently in liaison with the sound technicians at the
convention, who have a complete recording of this session, and we therefore
hope to be able to offer a complete archive in the near future; a message
will be posted to these lists when it becomes available.

As always, if you encounter any problems accessing the convention archives,
please don't hesitate to E-Mail me at
matthew (at) thehorspools.com
and I will endeavour to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

Regards,
Matthew Horspool,
Archives Manager,
ACB Radio:
Where Your Listening Is Our Business

Hello,

We've passed the midpoint of our convention coverage, but there's stil
plenty to hear.

Today on ACB Radio Mainstream, we will be covering the Wednesday general
session. The broadcast is set to begin at 12:15 Universal, that's 8:15 am
US Eastern time. The meeting will be called to order at 8:30 Eastern, and
the first half-hour or so will consist of formalities, announcements and ACB
business. From 9 we will hear from the executive director of the National
Association of Parents of Children with Visual Impairments, then we will
turn to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Entertainment is then the order
of the day, with the major focus being on books. We'll hear from the
National Library Service and The Library of Congress, and then after the
break, at 10:45 we'll hear from talking book narrator Mitzi Friedlander.
Next is a presentation on digital television, specifically on The Digital TV
Converter Box Program. Finally will be a presentation by Mike Calvo of
Serotek about the Accessibility Is A Right Foundation.

If you are unable to hear our session broadcast live, you can catch one of
the repeats which begin at 17 hours Universal (1 pm Eastern) and run till
tomorrow's broadcast begins.

To listen to the general sessions, visit www.acbradio.org/mainstream

We will also have continuing coverage from the exhibit hall on ACB Radio
Interactive from 15 Universal (11 am Eastern), including the somewhat
mysterious sounding Spin the Dolphin contest. Tune into the coverage for
more info on that one.

And don't forget that Dog Club Radio from Guide Dog Users Inc continues this
evening at 23 hours Universal (7 pm Eastern) on ACB Radio World
(www.acbradio.org/world).

We hope you are enjoying our coverage and we look forward to bringing you
today's coverage and having you with us on ACB Radio, the voice of the blind
community.

Hello everyone,

Once again, ACB Radio is proud to provide exclusive live coverage of the
Friends in Art showcase from the ACB Convention. Join Chrissie Cochrane and
a team of ACB Radio broadcasters as they bring you a night of performances
by blind and vision impaired performers, live on stage at the convention in
Louisville Kentucky. The broadcast will get underway at or around 23:45
Universal, that's 7:45 pm US Eastern, and will probably run for something
like 3 hours.

We have set up a separate stream for this year's showcase. You will be able
to listen from the acbradio.org website or by clicking one of the following
links:

Broadband stream for Winamp: acbradio.org/special.pls
Broadband stream for Real Player: acbradio.org/special.ram
Broadband stream for Windows Media player: acbradio.org/special.wax
Broadband stream for other players: acbradio.org/special.m3u

Modem stream for Winamp: acbradio.org/special-low.pls
Modem stream for Real PLayer: acbradio.org/special-low.ram
Modem stream for Windows Media PLayer: acbradio.org/special-low.wax
Modem stream for other players: acbradio.org/special-low.m3u

We hope you are enjoying our convention broadcasts and look forward to you
joining us for the Friends in Art Showcase, only on ACB Radio.

Hello everyone,

We're gearing up for our Tuesday coverage of the 47th ACB Convention on ACB
Radio, and what a day it is.

We kick off at 12:15 Universal, 8:15 am Eastern, with the Tuesday General
session. Highlights include the latest on the Accessible Money case, an
update from Bookshare, and a presentation on the available of accessible
recreation equipment. Also this morning will be a speech from Hon. Ben
Chandler, US House of Representatives, and presentation of ACB scholarships
which I always enjoy listening to.

Our live broadcast will finish some time after 16 Universal (Noon Eastern),
with our session replays starting at 17 Universal (1 pm Eastern) and running
until tomorrow morning's broadcast.

ACB Radio Interactive fires up its stream from the exhibit hall at 15 hours
Universal (11 am Eastern) today for another 6 hours of interviews, comment,
music and colour from the convention in Kentucky.

Tonight you will have two choices of live content, in addition to the
general session replays. on ACB Radio World, we will again have Dog Club
Radio from Guide Dog Users inc from 23 to 03:30 Universal (7 pm to 11:30 pm
Eastern). We thank GDUI for this content and you will also be able to hear
them tomorrow and Thursday nights.

Once again, ACB Radio is proud to be able to provide coverage of the Friends
in Art showcase from the ACB Convention. This year we will be setting up a
special stream to host this event. The broadcast will begin some time
around 23:45 Universal (7:45 pm Eastern). Links will be posted to the list
and appear on the acbradio.org website later in the day, so watch this
space.

We hope you will find something of interest today on our coverage and look
forward to you continuing to listen to ACB Radio, the voice of the Blind
community.

Hello,

We have decided to make a small change to our convention schedule for
Mainstream. Our coverage of sessions will now start at 12:15 Universal,
that's 8:15 am Eastern, rather than 15 minutes earlier. We felt that
starting so early was somewhat unnecessary and that people could hear 15
minutes more of the previous session instead.
Don't forget that today's session, which was very interesting, will start
airing from 17 Universal (1 pm Eastern) and run until 12:15 GMT tomorrow
(8:15 am Eastern), at which point we go live with tomorrow's session.

To listen, visit: www.acbradio.org/mainstream

This year's ACB convention begins this weekend, and ACB Radio will again air
the sessions on our mainstream channel, as well as broadcasting from the
exhibit hall on ACB Radio Interactive.
The first general session takes place Sunday night, but our coverage begins
Saturday on ACB Radio Interactive from the exhibit hall, where our team of
broadcasters will conduct interviews with exhibitors and convention
participants, and share their observations.
Be listening for the coverage Saturday from 17 to 21 UTC. Point your browser
to interactive.acbradio.org and hear what's happening as it happens.
We also plan to have extensive coverage from the exhibit hall Sunday as we
gear up for Mainstream's coverage of the convention.
The first general session begins at 7 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday night.
We'll keep you up-to-date on convention programming on the air, in the pages
of the ACB Radio Blog and on the ACB mailing lists.
The convention program and other details can be found on the web at
www.acb.org/convention/index.html

Hello Everyone,

Coming up on this week's Main Menu Live, we dedicate the two hour episode to
talk all about Window-Eyes 7.0. Doug and Aaron from GW Micro will be with
us as well as many beta testers from the Window-Eyes private beta team. We
will discuss the product and the many scripts that will be available on GW
Micro's Scripting Central web site found at:

www.gwmicro.com/Script_Central/

We had Doug and Aaron on Main Menu in the past and it is time to bring them
back to discuss the product and to get feedback from private beta users and
scripters on the new version. Jamal Mazrui has written a significant amount
of scripts for the 7.0 product and he will be here to talk about the many
things he has developed. I will discuss the newest refinements to the
Winamp scripts that will be available including features that could replace
the ACB Radio Tuner for Winamp users that use Window-Eyes as well as much
improved access to the Auto-Tagging capabilities of Winamp. Aaron and Doug
will talk all about the GW Toolkit scripting library, the AutoComplete
script, the progress indicator script, the VirtualView script, the Weather
or Not script, and much much more.

As of this writing, we are happy to report that Window-Eyes 7.0 Public Beta
1 is available at the following link:

www.gwmicro.com/beta

Here is how to participate in the show:

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333.
You may email your questions to: mainmenu@acbradio.org
You may also interact with the show via MSN (Windows Live) Messenger. The
MSN Messenger ID to add is: mainmenu@acbradio.org

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the
topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the
Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is:
main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu
Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu - www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu
Main Menu Live - www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

For this next week, only the Main Menu Live podcast feed will be updated.

Main Menu can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific,
and at 1 universal (GMT) on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream
channel.

Follow this link to listen to the show:

www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow
The Main Menu Production Team

Hello Everyone,

Coming up on this week's Main Menu Live, we dedicate the two hour episode to
talk all about Window-Eyes 7.0. Doug and Aaron from GW Micro will be with
us as well as many beta testers from the Window-Eyes private beta team. We
will discuss the product and the many scripts that will be available on GW
Micro's Scripting Central web site found at:

www.gwmicro.com/Script_Central/

We had Doug and Aaron on Main Menu in the past and it is time to bring them
back to discuss the product and to get feedback from private beta users and
scripters on the new version. Jamal Mazrui has written a significant amount
of scripts for the 7.0 product and he will be here to talk about the many
things he has developed. I will discuss the newest refinements to the
Winamp scripts that will be available including features that could replace
the ACB Radio Tuner for Winamp users that use Window-Eyes as well as much
improved access to the Auto-Tagging capabilities of Winamp. Aaron and Doug
will talk all about the GW Toolkit scripting library, the AutoComplete
script, the progress indicator script, the VirtualView script, the Weather
or Not script, and much much more.

As of this writing, Window-Eyes 7.0 is not publically available, but you
will be able to see it at the conventions this summer.

Here is how to participate in the show:

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333.
You may email your questions to: mainmenu@acbradio.org
You may also interact with the show via MSN (Windows Live) Messenger. The
MSN Messenger ID to add is: mainmenu@acbradio.org

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the
topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the
Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is:
main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu
Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu - www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu
Main Menu Live - www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

For this next week, only the Main Menu Live podcast feed will be updated.

Main Menu can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific,
and at 1 universal (GMT) on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream
channel.

Follow this link to listen to the show:

www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow
The Main Menu Production Team