Jared Rimer’s Technology blog and podcast

Hi.
Firstly I searched the net, and aparently some user somewhere has tried google brouser and even though its got limited keyboard support there is no basic accessability features, and not all info needed is revealed to screenreader software, this person tried with window eyes and I think nvda.
Ironically I found this on google search.
Now the security thing.
Yeah this rfid stuff is scary but so is everything else security related, we will just have to watch out.
One way to be semi safe is to make note where you are going.
It probably will not always save you but if you keep a regular rout you will generally be safe.
I have several sites I go to and mostly stay in those bounds, not a garantee but I know where I am.
A friend of mine always gets viruses on his system, The main reason is that he romes round not necessarily knowing where he is going which is fine except that you don’t know where you are.
And if you say so what, well there are 2 concidderations one must take in to account.
1. security well I don’t know where I am going, I’ll just drive round the net.
Ok, Oh I got a virus, where from?
um, I don’t know, beter reformat.
Really thats the basics of it you don’t know and often you just drive round the net and don’t care you don’t know.
2. this is people related.
Even if you don’t care about security and like to drive round what about if you get some bit of info to pass round.
I got this, where from, I don’t know, somewhere.
So you miss on things.

On the what did happen when we did not have all the tech we used to have.
I did something on louis bralle once, think he did stuff in 1830.
In that time you only lived to 30 years old, thats everyone.
We didn’t have a longer lifespand then 46 or something.
Aparently you could read and write with big letters in tactile but it costed loads of cash.
I have no idea what happened before tech came out, but probably it happened that all the disabled were put away out of sight of others, we probably did not have any rights and in fact there are still people that still say the disabled that are born should be killed and disabled people sould be abborted before that, so without technology we wouldn’t even live or if we did it would be boring.
So I think we should concidder ourselves as people in general lucky to even be here.
Ok its not perfect but what is? This is not a disabled/handycapped thing but in general life/humanity thing.
nothing will be perfect its what we make of it, and we can try.
Yeah this thing where people don’t use computers at some work places is also an annoyance for our able boddied counterparts to not just us.

I can remember what happened in the 1980s.
I was born 1982.
At that time blind people were only just going out of instatutions here in new zealand, I think I was one of the first to mainstream.
Interestingly after I left school things started happening fast, sertainly the way math and other such things were done back then wouldn’t be done now, we know more, but thats always the case isn’t it.
We always know more after we have done something and wish we could have done it differently then.
As a result of this time I don’t actually know math, well I do know simple stuff but advanced stuff is a bunch of junk to me.
I also can’t write a really good essay with a word count of say 100-200 words, because I run out of ideas, etc.
Back to the tech side.
The only computers at the time were big and clunky.
at least laptops for the blind were.
The first thing I did with the computers we got at home in 1991 was to turn them on and off, on and off, on and off till I was told off.
In 1993 I got my first system, for thee day the toshiba 1850 was quite high quality.
with 4mb ram an 81.2mb hard drive, a 600kb mono display which I made colour to use its memmory for my own.
I also had braille ofcause, using perkins stuff.
I had dos 5, wordperfect 5.1 mastertouch 1.32 and keysoft 1.33f installed.
I was given little training, and even then All I could use was the internal keysoft ap.
in 1995 the net came along.
At the time all I was able to do was play games of disks, and though I had friends who had the net all I did was play with games from disks etc.
By this time I was able to modify some stuff but not much.
It was around early 96 that due to me not positioning the laptop right I dropped it on my foot.
This broke loads of things.
And kicked me off to what i would later do in life.
Stuff was fixed but cost me a load, I went through 2 hard drives, the keyboard motherboard, 2 floppy drives and a screen.
also a power board and 2 modules.
The computer was back but with a difference.
For some time software would have to be installed by the org I got the pc from and well they decided not to do this anymore.
I managed to get my system loaded by a friend of my dad’s that did unix programming and he got things going, This in itself was not a problem however through the course he would talk thinking i knew more things than I did, I was supprisingly able to understand him some what.
And this got me thinking, what is outside my small box.
Heck whats round.
I started fiddling with stuff, and within a couple months of reformats had the system prity much under control.
At this time I was entering high school in 1997 it soon became aparent that the system itself was not really going to be trusted, I had after all dropped it and besides, 1 task for things is not the gratest although I could play games in the library with my internet running computer friends.
I had not got the net yet.
The next system I got was a toshiba 310cds satelite.
For its time it was quite good, a pentium 300 with 2gb hard drive space 32mb ram and a 1.5mb graphics card and hello? a yamaha opl3 sax sound chip.
and external pc card speech synth.
No internal?
At that time there were still internals being manufactured.
I wish I had been more vocal and requested one of those because things may have been a bit better for me.
the system had win95 on it, osr2 and office 97.
It did what i asked of it however everything was largely still on floppy disk.
if you downloaded things from the net you had to redownload them after formatting.
Believe me I had a load of time to crash and doodle the system.
in 1999 I updated the system to win 98 a thing the system was not designed for, I also got a xircom cm256 pc card for net access which I used for a couple years till it died.
In 2001 I went flatting, and a year after I came back.
Once again the system was showing its age, having a system it was not designed for loaded, plus the fact games and such were getting better and better, and taking space, I decided to get another system, I was going to university, and needed a new system.
The next system was the nec versa premium it had a 20gb drive 128mb ram and a 2mb video card.
well maby up to 64mb card on shared memmory.
it ran win xp home.
And it was a rotwiler of a thing to run.
It bit me every 2 weeks and even though I did fix this issue after a couple reformats it still would bite me.
In fact it was a question if I turned it on if it would work, I suspected a fan issue but never was able to prove it.
After that I got a new system, well the old one had failed at weird times and after a bios update, on the way to get fixed dad left it on in the car rendering it a smoking wreck.
My current system is a toshiba, well the one after the nec was also a toshiba.
an a 10 which I still have as a replacement box and as backup.
I did have a small backup box a p100 with win98se on it with 128mb ram, for linux and uni but that was not for much else.
The satelite a10 was and is the best system I have had, compaired to the other systems I had it was relitavely stable, crashing without fail once every 2 years and needing formats from 6 months to 2 years apart.
It runs xp pro and has a 40gb drive 512mb ram and a 128mb video card in it and a crappy soundmax audio chipset.
This system served me as a standard system to jaunary 2008 and is still a faithfull partner.
it started with office xp but has 2003 on it.
It is my backup workhorse although its showing its age the lid is loose and its getting a bit crashy now.
The current system is a tecra a9, a top business system, which I got in june before the xp licences came to an end
as a result this is a vista xp hybrid.
It can have 1 system on it either vista or xp pro it runs xp pro now.
it has 2gb ram and a 160gb hard drive.
its also got wireless network connects and bluetooth.
it runs quite nicely.

I have now 2 external drives to keep stuff safe a 320gb drive which I don’t use much now since something in the case is wrecked, and a 500gb drive which I use loads.
I also have a cell phone now a 5700 xpress with talks.
I have a dvd writer, on my desk and an old external drive in my cupboard that came with the nec versa.
And I have loads of usb devices, etc.

In the computer rooms here we have a new p4 dulecore 2.20ghz, my system is only 2.02ghz the one in the second room has 320gb hard drive and a load of power, 128mb vid card intel as my current system has.
Its also got realtech hidef like this current system has to and runs xp pro and office xp since everyone else runs 2003.
The server that controls the hp 500 mono, cannon 2100 backup bjc and the hp 810c colour printers plus shares file has 512mb ram on it xp home and is one of the new amd athlon 64k processers, one of the first and is the only running single core in here. apart from the a 10.

Previous systems that exist.
Where did all the machines that were passed their used buy dates go?
Its a question I get asked loads.
The a 10 is backup system.
the p600 thing is at my uncle’s place being used as a work laptop. the p200 toshiba i did have I traded for some mp3 cds.
The 1850 is rotting under my desk.
the nec is junk I hope.
In the computer room the 733 system that ran 98 and xp as well as office 97 having 128mb ram and a 128mb video after crashing loads due to a possible bung board is now a backup unit.
a further p300 I have as the first family system has been retired to grandpa’s as an email station on a dialup network.
It spends most of its time offline and only gets turned on for mail, the fan has about had it anyway.

thats about that.
NOt sure what I would do without technology to be honest.
But it would be different if I didn’t have have any.
hmm I may just have not existed.
See you all next week