browsing twitter, I ran across This article that annoys me. According to the article apple will be adding even more restrictions on their apps, in what they can access on the mac computers as of march 2012. Their calling it the “sandbox”. I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll soon be seing jailbroken mac OS lions soon to remove all these stupid restrictions, just like the iphone and IOS has.
We’ll soon see, but until then, sorry I’m not getting a mac, apple can ram it right up their asses.
I want complete, unrestricted access to my computer and it’s functions, and not be dictated to by a company on what my application or applications can or cannot access, thank you very freakin’ much.
I shouldn’t have to justify why I have to have access to the interfaces for the network cards, or the local folders to read and write to, it’s unnecessary and in my opinion uncalled for. Yes the app stores the only place people may go to get apps now, but just like the IOS app store, their will come out jailbroken versions of the OS that’ll remove the sandbox restrictions, and let non app store applications work again. In the beginning we won’t need it according to the article, because applications that aren’t in the mac app store will still work, but the sad fact is sooner or later apple will remove all ability to run applications not bought through the mac app store, and then it’ll be jailbreak time, kids. The comment boards await you.
Note to the appleheads, I don’t want to here wining that I don’t give mac’s a chance, I want constructive prooven with fact responses, not that I’m just a stupid windows user with absolutely no mac experience.

Popularity: 55%

Hello all;
All of you may have heard about the demise of the
qwitter
project developed and maintained by
christopher
If not. I’ll simply quote the
qwitter_hg
twitter accounts last post.

Qwitter Mercurial: Q: Closing up shop, it’s been fun.: 13 hours ago 9/19/2011 11:08:07 AM Qwitter Client

after reading that, I got curious and poked around Q’s timeline and the thoughts that ran through my head were mixed.
I was composing in my head a response I was going to put up here, outlining my thoughts and views, but
JonathanMosen
did a much better job of it then I could ever do. So I’ll simply quote his ressitation who’s original can be found
over here.

Billy Joel once said, “I once believed in causes too, and had my pointless point of view, but life when on no matter who was wrong or right”. I was mindful of this as I saw the considerable volume of tweets exchanged over the apparent halt to development of the Qwitter client, the Twitter client for Windows designed specifically for blind people. I say apparent, because this is in my recollection the third time such a threat has been made, so I suppose only time will tell if this one is real or not. Initially, I felt compelled to comment, then I decided there was no point, and now finally, I’ve felt moved to write an extended post about this subject because I think the conduct of a number of people in the latest Twitter drama represents a pattern that is all too typical in the on-line blind community.

Although I have been using Twitter since 2007, I actually was a late adopter of the Qwitter client, beginning to use it in around November of 2009. My reason for this was because I felt uncomfortable with the aggressive online behaviour of its lead developer. A friend of mine convinced me that it was appropriate to separate the behaviour of the developer from the quality of the application, and there’s absolutely no doubt that the software is first class. It is a feature-rich, efficient means of interacting with Twitter. Without Qwitter, I am sure much fewer blind people would be using Twitter so regularly. The award given to Chris by ACB this year recognises all of this, and that recognition is richly deserved.

I have, however, remained very disappointed by the extraordinary rudeness, even contempt, that Chris has shown to many users who have made suggestions or come to him for advice. I am mindful that I am making these comments with around 20 more years on the planet than him, and in this case I think that does make a difference. I hope that if Chris is unfortunate enough to be able to review some of his tweets in 20 years time, he will do so with genuine regret. What makes our world so diverse and interesting, is that we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Some people can write code, others conceptualise great user interfaces, others struggle with very basic computer concepts that just come naturally to some. Abrupt, rude, confrontational replies, many of which give the impression that the program’s author is somehow superior to or better than his fellow blind people are hardly going to remain unremarked upon.

Developing software is of course a very different skill from supporting it. Chris is obviously superb at the former. With a bit more good will towards people, I’m very confident the Qwitter Support account could have had a large number of volunteers, and Chris could have politely directed users to that account. We can wish that users would RTFM all we want, some simply will not, it is the reality of software development, and nothing is going to change that. Nor does the fact that the software is free make it any more acceptable to treat end users with rudeness.

Chris is, of course, absolutely right that there is a high proportion of blind Twitter users who are unemployed, may have difficulty getting out and about due to financial or transportation issues, and who therefore have plenty of time to generate Twitter drama. We do have a very high unemployment rate. Just as with sighted people, there are those who have never tried to find a job, those who in the current climate have become demoralised and have given up, those who spend hours every day looking for that big break. We seldom know each other’s stories, and it is sad when we choose to make very personal, sweeping assumptions. We do tend to sew what we reap. If we dish out confrontation on Twitter, chances are very high that confrontation will come right back at us. And it has been rather like watching a school bully crying when one little kid finally plucks up the courage to hit back, to see the lead Qwitter developer complaining when some of the hurt he has caused others comes back to him.

Does that make the behaviour of those who’ve responded in that way right or justified? Of course not. The best response to confrontation is often no response at all. Various Twitter characters in the blind community who’ve come and gone, have thrived on the fact that they know which buttons to push to get a reaction. Stop responding to them, and they’d have become bored and gone away long ago.

Then there is of course what we in New Zealand call the tall poppy syndrome. There is no doubt that Chris has considerable talent. In the blind community, we are good at building people up, to tear them down. Confrontational behaviour notwithstanding, there are some people who have sought to make his life a misery, almost as if they resent what he has been able to achieve. More than that, they are jealous of it.

Developing an app such as Qwitter obviously involves a very significant commitment of time. It has not completely been a labour of love, however. I haven’t taken the time to go back and do the sums, but I know I’ve personally donated at least US$100 to Qwitter, and that many others have donated what they can. I don’t regret doing so for a moment, nor do I expect that donations have created any kind of contract, expressed or implied, that Qwitter’s development would continue indefinitely. I raise this to simply point out that while a few users may have been vexatious, some provoked, some not, the project hasn’t been totally without its financial compensation.

Whether a piece of software is commercial or not, there is no guarantee that its development will continue forever. There are many examples of software used by a large number of people where development has simply stopped. Microsoft Money is a case in point. The issue I have is the point in the development cycle at which Qwitter development is apparently ceasing. It is in beta right now. Because it is beta software, there are problems, as one would expect. Does Chris have a legal obligation of any kind to tidy up the critical bugs? Of course not. He can walk away whenever he likes, and apparently has. The question is one of moral obligation, and of his personal brand. Would I be as willing to support any future project, commercial or otherwise, by a developer who leaves a user base in the lurch like this? No, I’d think twice, because I don’t believe that this is an ethical way to treat people. Anything we do online impacts on our personal brand. If we’re abusive, people make a mental note of that. If we walk away because a few people, again some provoked, some not, have been abusive, even though the majority of us have been supportive with our praise and with our wallets, then that leaves a sour taste and a reputation that is hard to recover.

Whether you volunteer or not should not make a difference to one’s conduct. I’ve volunteered over many years for a range of positions, including leading New Zealand’s blindness consumer organisation which would be the equivalent of NFB and ACB, serving on various committees, and of course managing Internet radio projects like Mushroom FM. In all of those cases, the work involved has been considerable. It’s involved a huge investment of time and effort. And there are times when circumstances require you to walk away. But if you have to do that, you should do so by tidying up as many of the loose ends as you possibly can.

I don’t begrudge for one second the fact that Chris may have concluded that he has better things to do with his life, that it’s just not rewarding anymore. If you are copping a lot of abuse, especially when you’re younger, it’s hard to shrug that off, and easy to say, why on earth am I bothering. My only issue is that I hope he will recognise how his own conduct as contributed in part to some of the grief that has come his way, and that to protect his reputation, he at least get Qwitter 5 to a production release and make it clear that that’s the end of the project. If he does not, then I fear the bad taste the half finished Qwitter project has left in so many mouths will continue to haunt him. That would be a pity when he is clearly such a gifted young man.

As for the rest of us, maybe there’s a good number of us who might like to think twice before joining in the flame war. Most of us in the blind community are online in such a way that our interactions are filtered to us through a mechanical sounding speech synthesiser. It is easy for us to forget that the tweet we send in a quick burst of anger or sarcasm may be the one that tips a real human being with feelings over the edge. We don’t know what else is going on in their lives, how they may be feeling. If we showed a little more on-line empathy, just empathy in general really, imagine how much of a peaceful place the online world would be.

I urge Chris to reconsider wrapping up the project in this stage in the cycle, but regardless, thank him sincerely for a very significant contribution to bringing blind people around the world closer together, and assisting us to interact with equal efficiency with our sighted peers.

A few final thoughts.
Is qwitter the only accessible client on windows?
No, it’s not.
Their are others like
TWInbox
that can do the basics.
Yes, not as feature rich, but qwitter’s development cycle ending isn’t the end all of twitter for the blind community.
Would I, like Jonathan, think twice about supporting another project, weather free or paid put out by this individual if he doesn’t at least take qwitter 5.0 to a stable release before shutting down?
Yes, I honestly would reconsider ever supporting future projects developed by him because of the way he handled qwitter and it’s closure.
I understand open source, but leaving those in the blind community with extremely buggy code because your being a nazi and don’t want to at least head for a final release before giving up is insane, and rediculous.
What are others thoughts and views.
I’d love to here what you have to say on this, spoken in a constructive, adult manner.
No childish bashing.
Constructive critisisms and pieceful debate are the name of the game.
See you on the comment boards.

Popularity: 67%

Well ok. My floor. Since I don’t have a desk to speak of at this current time. . You know, because give it a few days and I won’t have a place to live. But we already went over that earlier. So let’s just um, go down here, use my limited web design skills, and learn about what happens when stupid people/organizations do stupid things.

So, there’s this dude. You know, the guy who wrote this thinggy over here.

That guy who wrote that thing up there that’s used for the social network which shall not be named of which I may or may not be a member, goes to Florida State University.

Well, Florida State’s math department, you see, has this nasty little habit. They like to force their blind students to use inaccessible software for math courses.

Well, this dude doesn’t like this very much. You se, he, ladies and gentlemen, is blind, in the event you didn’t read that thing over there in your other browser tab. So what did Florida State do that pissed him off enough to get the NFB involved? Well, to refresh your memories, and mine, because it’s half past holy crap o’clock in the morning and I haven’t even had dinner yett, let’s play a li’l game. One of my favorites. it’s called Peel and Stick. It works, kinda like this, wherein I take a piece of that article in that other tab of mine and go… Well, let’s see what they did, now, shall we?

The suit alleges that FSU’s Department of Mathematics discriminated against Mr. Toth
and Ms. Principato by failing to provide them with proper accommodations so that
they could successfully complete required math courses for their respective degree
programs. The violations include requiring the students to use an inaccessible Web-based
application to complete homework assignments, tests, and quizzes; requiring the use
of clickers that cannot be used by a blind person to respond to in-class questions
and obtain bonus credit; failing to provide Braille versions of the required textbooks
in violation of agreed-upon accommodation plans; and engaging in retaliatory actions
when the students complained of these violations. In all cases, faculty members
in the Department of Mathematics were generally uncooperative, unhelpful, and even
hostile, and did not provide meaningful alternative methods for Mr. Toth and Ms.
Principato to successfully complete the required courses. As a result, both students
are currently unable to continue their degree programs and find their careers indefinitely
on hold.

Who are you, FSU math department, to deny these two blind students an education? And who are you, FSU disability services, for allowing the math department to treat students who *you* are supposed to be assisting, so poorly? And don’t even get me started. Inevitably, some fucktard’s gonna waltz on in here and say disability services could have known nothing about it. I’m calling bullshit. I’m calling bullshit based on the fact that other students in other state universities all across the country get treated like this daily. But you know what? As long as the books look pretty, it doesn’t matter how students are treated. Because nobody who works for a state university actually gives a fuck about the students. No. All they care about is their form letters and their handbooks and their rules. as long as it looks good on paper, nobody actually cares! Nope, because as long as their reports look pretty for whomever the hell they report to, they can just carry on treating people like garbage and get away with it.

You can’t rightfully sit here and tell me Florida State didn’t know about the treatment these two students were receiving. (In fact, I wish I could grab the one I have on my mesenger and ask him what disability services actually did about the situation, but unfortunately, right now, I can’t seem to find him.) Um, well, it is 1:26 AM. You normal people that are lucky an that have everything, you’re sleeping right now, wile I’m scrounging for a place to live. yeah. Especially you lucky sighties, who have jobs. And you all sat at home, in your normal houses, with your normal families, this evening, and did normal things. While I bounced around the state with a backpack, a duffel, a cane and a person guiding me, trying to find a place to crash this evening that wasn’t gonna get a friend of mine from high school evicted from her apartment, you people, probably some of the very ones I’m currently being persecuted and treated like a criminal by, get to live your lives like nothing’s wrong. You get to sleep in your own bed, in your own house, while I worry about whether my next move is to court so I dont get put in a group home by my insane mother, or worse, end up under her guardianship, and living in my house for the rest of my pathetic, broken, useless life. Hope you’re proud of yourselves, because I would rather like to start planning ways of getting rid of myself so you all have nothing to worry about anymore. Yeah. remember how someone told me I should kill myself? Suicidal ideations. again. thanks assholes. Just how I wanted to spend an evening in an unfamiliar place. and I thought I was gonna get away with not being a medicated zombie for the rest of my life? Well, guess I’m quite sure who to thank for that.

Popularity: 65%

Yarfing all over the blog again to prevent me using something as a projectile that I shouldn’t. Screen readers, wanna skip it? H to jump to the next heading is your happyfriend, sighties, use those mice like they were intended.

I have officially hit the point where “I can’t fucking take it any fucking more,” writes, publishes, and sells the book on exactly how I feel right now. You, person, can sit there and lah lah lah, I’m nooooot liiiiiiistening, while I complain for months and months and months, on end, about mold. Filth. Dirty living conditions. Disrespectful treatment of my family. Ok, maybe sometimes my mother deserves it. But my grandmother didn’t deserve to have a spray bottle yanked out of her hand last year, nor did she deserve to be screamed and yelled at by the student who was my roommate at that time.

Nobody deserves to be ignored when your job is to help them. Nobody deserves to sit there in the middle of February, freezing their tits off in the middle of the night, while you sleep at home in your nice cozy warm bed. Why was I freezing in the middle of the night in mid February? Because the mold smell in my room was so awful that I had to keep the window open 24/7 just so I didn’t throw up! But as long as you’re happy, nobody else has to be happy, right? Obviously, that’s how certain people think. I’m not saying anymore here, because I fear for my personal safety and mental health. I honestly thought briefly about checkin’ myself into a hospital and gettin’ some downers shoved down my face. Only reason I didn’t do it was because it’d get people involved who didn’t need to be involved and hopefully won’t need to. I’m sick of discrimination. I’m sick of favoritism. I’m sick of ass-covering, and I’m sick of people simply NOT DOING THEIR BLOODY JOBS! No. I can’t take it anymore. We thank Shane for not allowing me alcohol this evening because if I had my choice, I’d go get stupidly drunk, induce alcohol poisoning because I have no tolerance, and end myself up in the hospital. We also thank my friend Minh for allowing me to crash on her spare bed. We don’t thank certain officials for putting me in a precarious position. I lived in a precarious position all summer long. I didn’t really wanna have to live in a mentally unhealthy unstable environment for the rest of my life. Thanks, people, you’ve ruined me.

But no, you don’t care. Of course you don’t care. Especially certain individuals who can sit on their couch and eat ice cream while a blind student lives in an unhealthy, unsafe environment, and the people who are supposed to help her aren’t doing anything about it. You had plenty of opportunities. Is it simply the fact that you hate me because I needed your help? Do you not like your job? Are you that unhappy in your career that you won’t help someone who’s getting urinary tract infections because her roommate’s living habits are causing them? I believe you are. And I will be bringing that up at my earliest opportunity. You had all the opportunity in the world last year to prove you were on my side. Obviously, you weren’t. That, is called favoritism. You let someone else make me sick while you plugged your ears, turned away from me, and pretended I didn’t exist! You didn’t care! And now that someone called you out on it, all of a sudden, you want me as far out of your face as you can get me. Because to you, as long as it looks like you’re doing your job on the books, and you’re getting paid for it, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or how other people feel.

Oh god no. This place? Care? About their disabled students? Oh, I’m sorry, that’s too much work. You might have to pay someone to breathe instead of filling the positions with robots who are preprogrammed for only certain functions. I…dude…I’m simply at the point where I’m done giving a shit. The simple fact is that nobody cares. Nobody wants to help. It’s too much work. I’m too much work. if you couldn’t help me, who was supposed to? You were supposed to be the person who walked in and told her, “Enough is enough!” But you didn’t. You failed me. You failed me once and now you’re failing me again. My opinion of you is that you’re a malicious, malevolent and disgraceful human being who doesn’t actually care about his/her job. And you know what? I’m entitled to that opinion. I’m entitled to sit in this train station and write down what I think of you, because surely it’s better than drinking myself to death and ending up in the hospital.

I shouldn’t actively be thinking about getting drunk. Alcoholism runs in my family. My grandfather still struggles with it. I also shouldn’t be contemplating ways to sleep outside safely tonight because my friend’s building manager isn’t thrilled with me crashing with her. I can’t go home. I can’t go home because if I go home I’m going to end up locked in a mental institution because my mother is of the opinion that I belong in a group home or something or under her legal guardianship, which obviously I don’t.

I also thought I’d let ya know that I’ll be doing a mass cleanup of my social media the minute I hit a place where I have net access, as the MBTA car I’m currently sitting in…well…there wifi works about as well as my eyes. Which is to say, um, how bout not at all? things, are leaking. Things, are leaking, that should not, be leaking. And I’m gonna plug that leak if it’s the last damn thing I do on this earth. Noone. Has any right. To be digging into my locked shit, nor does anyone have the right to tell me that I should kill myself.

Yes, it happened. Someone told me I should end my life. Not a joke. I’m still breathing, I’m sitting in this car next to Shane right now because a frigging cat saved my life in 2003. Yes, you heard me, I said it publicly. Someone who will remain nameless told me I should kill myself. then, that same human being told me I should pretty much be locked away in a mental institution. Is that what people want? Would it make everyone happier if I just ended my life or got put away somewhere so I could never be a bother to anyone again? I know there are certain individuals who would be happier that way and the only reason they don’t get what they want, well, he’s sitting to my right, if you must know. Yeah, you saw that. I said it here. The reason I won’t end my otherwise miserable existence is because someone got through to my hard ass head that I was actually worth a shit.

Popularity: 100%

My brain officially aches. I have had the…what, almost 2 weeks? From hell. Naturally, this computer was the cause of it.

I woke up on the morning of the 5th to one hell of a mess. I restarted the machine, got tossed into a never-ending boot loop. I swore in all kinds of pretty and colorful ways, then I called Shane and explained the problem because at 7 PM on a Sunday evening when I finally got around to it, Lenovo technical support were the last people I wanted to talk to. His theory: My Windows install’s trashed. Well…Shit,

My next course of action, grab the 12-year old. “Here. Read this.”

“But why?”

“Because I asked you to, and this computer’s on crack. Now, read.”

So the child manages with my help to get Windows installed, but no drivers, because, well, going to hunt for those required an Ethernet cable that we didn’t have. So my mother gets it in her head that she’s gonna take it to our local fixit shop and they’re gonna wave their magic wand and make it all better. Yeah ok, smoke some more of that why don’t ya?

She takes the machine in on friday, the 12th, after loudly and screamily insisting that she could take it in by herself and me loudly and screamily insisting that no, I was going with her, it was my machine and she didn’t have to use it, I did. I didn’t care if she paid for repairs, but I wanted to speak to the person(s) fixing it. So grudgingly she took me with her, I suppose because I’m the only one who knew where my personal Windows CD was and well, they asked her to take it in with the machine.

So I walk in, described to the guy what the underlying issue was, what I did to fix it. Now I knew this guy was 1. an arrogant prick and 2. a stupid son of a bitch, because he’s standing in front of me saying he likes Lenovo, and that’s just not something you say to me after I get 2 phone calls within 3 months of each other saying that other students’ exact makes and models, same machine, had literally began smoking, in their faces. (Hi dead power supply nice to see you.)

So I tell the first dude, “We’re bringing this in for a software issue, but I want the hardware looked at too. I’ve suspected a dying hard drive since June.”

I get it back Friday night, hey, cool, it’s working, and they said the hard drive wasn’t dead. I wake up Saturday morning to discover I’m jammed in another endless boot loop! The word of the morning, at top volume, was “Son of a bitch!”

I leave for my grandparents’ place that day because I’m staring at this thing and I can’t fucking take it anymore. I was ready to overdraft my bank account and rush order myself a netbook even though I hate them on principle just because I needed a working computer, and my mother had just pissed $120 into this thing, having the Windows install fixed and putting a 2GB stick of ram in it. All I’d done the previous night was uninstall Open Office and VLC Media Player, which are two programs that are completely fucking useless with a Windows screen reader, and the next morning I wake up and it’s boot looping again.

So Tuesday, Mom drags it back down to the shop. The second ass-clown who worked on it was at least not a complete ass-clown, as he did discover the dead hard drive right away, even though his buddy over there swore to god that Lenovo hardware never failed, but now we have this other issue.

“Oh, she screwed up the hard drive by uninstalling software.”

What? What? As in, the fuck? Which is to say, are they smoking? Also, what kind of drugs are in the water over there? Uninstaling a piece of software should not fuck up the hard drive, unless the hard drive was already fucked over in the first place, which means that *somebody*, ain’t doin’ their job!

I blow up Shane’s phone again, and drop this cute little tidbit of bullshit on his desk. Naturally, he’s about as pleased as I am, but he’s got the net, he’s got a working computer and can do more than I could at the time. He busts out google, does a reverse lookup of their phone number which I had somehow managed to beg borrow and steal. Then, the Better Business Bureau gets involved.

I didn’t do it. During Shane’s conversation with whomever he spoke to over there, we found out that these twerps were operating under expired credentials. So not only were they doing this, but they were sticking inaccessible software on a disabled person’s computer, blaming said person’s removal of the software for their incompetence, then telling said person not to remove said software. Reportedly, someone from the state of Massachusetts paid them a visit yesterday evening. If we find out more, we’ll let you know.

So. that’s been, what, my last, 2 weeks? Freaking out over a broken computer, dealing with incompetent tools, freaking out because it’s broken a second time, sending it in, then finding out the retards who were supposed to have fixed it the first time blamed me for screwing it up, and finding that they were operating a repair business with expired credentials! And on top of all this, I start classes in 2 weeks! I almost didn’t have a working computer for college. Can we say heart attack? Can we say nervous breakdown? I can!

Popularity: 72%

as a fairly knew user of the iphone from Apple, I found myself looking for apps to replace those I used to use on simbian/windows mobile.
It has been a struggle, but you wouldn’t think so by the number of apps I have amassed since april of this year.
I was concerned because their weren’t demos. You have to buy before you can actually try said apps.
I found ways around this particular hurtle, I subscribed to the viphone list, and used other resources to find information on applications for the iphone.
I was inparticular, looking for a GPS app that could do a lot of what Mobile Geo, on windows mobile, and combine a lot of the sighted GPS features sighted users were used to.
I had heard a lot about apps from sendero, and others.
I also heard about navigon.
That one, at least. I had the pleasure of playing with on a friends iphone.
I wasn’t to impressed with it, especially it’s accessibility and lacking of monitoring features, etc.
I then heard a lot of talk about
ariadne gps
and how great it was, beating out the compitition for blind users right out of the gate.
Costing $2.99 and availabhle in both the US and canadian app stores, among others, I watched the discussion on the viphone list I’m on and today, finally decided to give it a wirl.
I purchased the app, it installed, and right from jump it was accessible, and no need to really tweek anything, it switched from wifi to 3G efortlessly, no need to stop and restart the program to make the change.
The map was accessible, I could explore things, and really get to know my surroundings with no trouble.
As a first time user I was really impressed.
A couple of things I’d like to see improved/features I’d like to see added.

• points of interest

a lot of the GPS apps for the blind, as well as GPS systems for sighted people contain a database full of points of interest from banks, to stores, to malls, etc.
I’d like to see ariadne do this either locally, or get it’s data from the remote servers.
If I remember correctly navigon has this type of information, via a local database, or remotely. hense the size being so huge.

• monitoring while locked or in the background.

It would be useful if when the application was in the gbackground, or the phone was locked, the information presented while monitoring was on would still be spoken.
This would allow, for example, the user to take a call and still keep moving on their route.
This would also allow for the user to toss the program into the backgroun out of the way.

I’m not sure about route planning, destination usage, etc. but I’m sure if it exists I’ll find or use it.
I’m also sure that readers of this blog will be happy to comment on their own experiences with this particular application.
All told, this application is totally worhth the $2.99.
Until next time, take care.

Popularity: 51%

Hey all;
So while plowing that thing that is twitter. I ran across
this article
That attempts to make light of why
microsoft
Bought
skype
For the wapping sum of 8.5 million dollars.
Reading that article, right near the end, it states

Skype doesn’t signal a big change in Microsoft’s M&A strategy either. The
company will continue to focus on the small acquisitions that it has in the
past — it really likes to find smaller bits of technology to “tuck in” to
existing products.

But as the Skype deal shows, it’s not afraid of bigger buys where they seem
to make sense.

How does purchasing skype

Make sense

Anyhow?
Someone explain?
I’ve been using skype since it’s 0.x days, and yeah it’s had it’s ups and
downs, but come on, in my opinion, microsoft, you don’t need it!
Morons!
Comment away!

Popularity: 18%

The last 4 days have been nothing but a fuck shit stack, with one quick break yesterday that lasted oh, an hour, maybe two? I’ll preface this by stating the obvious. I absolutely despise Fitchburg State University. Nope, not gonna lie. In fact if I still had this perspective legally blind freshman’s email anywhere in my files I’d email her from my personal account and tell her straight not to waste the state’s, or her parents’, money by coming to this hellhole. Someone decided on Monday they didn’t like my attitude. That’d be ok, if they, oh, I don’t know, *SAID SOMETHING TO ME ABOUT IT LIKE AN ADULT?* But nah. They bitch to disability services. Disability services bitches at me. Whatever. That’s over with. I refuse to deal with the individuals in question for a couple days because I was done with being treated differently and I damn near almost quit school right then and there. This causes a minor inconvenience to me, of course, but it’s not like I care, because in my mind I’d rather be inconvenienced than treated like an infant. So, whatever. Tuesday managed to go over without any kerfuckles, mainly because I stayed out of sight and literally only left my room to go to class, to the bathroom, and stepped outside once to pay a delivery guy. So yesterday I woke up feeling sort of like I’d been run over by a large vehicle. Ok, endocrine system, I get it, you suck, you hate me, stop telling me about it. this was quickly squelched with ibuprofen. Everything started out pretty nifty yesterday. I was all happy because Shane had thrown random surprises at me because he could, so I was bouncebouncebounce-ing off the walls for a good 3 hours or so. I sit down to do some homework and Blackboard decides it’d be nifty to pitch a major fit that included me metaphorically pounding my head against it for a good 3 more hours or so before all was said and done. I got out of my night class a whole hour and 15 minutes early, so everything was nifty. Nothing could go to hell from here, right? Of course it can! I walk back into the room… *sniff sniff, “Oh my god, what the fuck is that god awful smell?”* Sit back down and return to TeamTalk, because I’d left shane hangin’ there till I returned to class.

“I’m back, and something fucking stinks in here. A fucking gain.”

“Really? Like what this time?”

“Bad food again, I’m almost sure of it. I remember this particular brand of nasty from last time.”

So a few people walk in to visit the roommate, and I corner them and ask them if they think it smells in here. They of course answer yes, and the roommate tries to blame her boyfriend’s feet. It definitely was not foot odor. It was some kind of food product gone bad. Again. Keep in mind this is the same girl who left eggs in her fridge to rot for 6 weeks, had no clue, and tried to blame Shane, and say that he was unclean and didn’t shower. When that didn’t work she tried to say it was my rugs that stunk. Naturally this didn’t work too well for her either because I had someone come independently verify that there was nothing wrong with the rugs. This went on for 6 weeks, until we got back from spring break and she on a whim decides to clean out her fridge. Sure enough, rotten eggs, rotten food.

I complained to housing, who complained to disability services, nothing got done. Keep in mind this is after Shane and I complained to one of the RA’s while he was here that her belongings, which are spewing onto my side of the room, are creating a tripping hazard. So nothing gets done. Finally Shane busts the flip-a-shit-ometer last night, leaves a very pointed voicemail with the appropriate individuals that the room, once again, is smelly, nasty and disgusting. Little did I realize that he also had pictures that he took when he was here of the disaster that is this room. By this point, Shane’s boss has probably tanked the flip-a-shit-ometer himself. He’s followed us up through this whole disaster. I kinda feel bad for the poor dude, just another poor person that has to deal with this place and it’s rampant stupidity. But of course it doesn’t stop there. That’d be too damn easy. Because apparently somebody’s decided I’m responsible, 14 hours before a test, for them having the appropriate test materials and knowing how to use them. By this time all I wanna do is either strangle somebody or go to bed, which I don’t get to do until 2 AM because somebody decided that staying up till such time with the light on was the order of the day. So I get up this morning and I’m already apprehensive about dealing with disability services. They seem to have this inherent issue wherein, because I am reasonably competent with a computer, I’m supposed to be a walking, talking quick reference guide for any person who uses a screen reader who happens to need help. I stuff my face, I caffeinate, (twice mind you), and head over there. Our stats professor is literally loading the materials, which I had previously taken 15 extra minutes to go rechase and recompile onto a thumb drive for myself, (yes it did take that long, this computer’s a pain in the ass), onto the desktop, of the computer at disability services. I wanted to pound my head against the wall, but decided that sighing and rolling my eyes was a safer reaction and wouldn’t get me taken away in a straightjacket. Since when is it the professor’s responsibility to load the extra test materials onto the computer for us? And frankly, since when is it my responsibility to do Jaws training that I’m not certified, or paid, to do? A quick question here or there, I don’t mind. But a few short hours before a test, the individual in question should have already looked at, and figured out, the material days ago. I’m not a certified trainer, I’m not a notetaker, and I’m not getting paid to do either. So disability services, kindly stop expecting me to do those things. Shane left a very pointed voicemail with them about that, too.

I get out of my test, come back here, and find this wonderful email. You know, I was going to summarize it, but I think I’ll just press some buttons instead. and after that I think I’ll press another button or 3 and show you my response. So here we go.

Subject: MCB

Thu, May 5, 2011 at 11:19 AM
Show original
Hi Krista,
I was speaking with Cindy Hebert today and brought up the fact that you were working with a new counselor named Shane. Cindy let me know that you are in fact still working with her and that to her knowledge there is not a counselor at MCB named Shane. I am not sure who this Shane is that continues to call on your behalf, but I can no longer accept phone calls from him. Because of confidentiality I cannot speak to anyone that I do not have a waiver to speak with.
Thank you,
Julie.

Please keep in mind that I’d had quite enough of disability services’ crap this week already, and had Shane been on the grid I would’ve just whipped the message at his head before reading it. I almost quit on Monday, that’s how angry I was. Related sidenote: I am not 3. I do not need a straw put in my drink, especially if you’re not wearing gloves to do it. Anyway, my main bullshit filter was off the grid so I kinda borrowed James and he became my backup bullshit filter. Trust me, you didn’t want me to read the content of that message directly after a stats test while I was undercaffeinated. Some poor innocent fool may have died as a result. So at around 3:30 this afternoon, it was on. I tried to call her back, got one of the secretaries, said fmeep this noise, I want this in writing. And write, I did. More like beat over the head with a clue by 4, but my strengths are not with speaking, but with calculated writing. I cannot think fast enough to verbalize all I had to say here while processing being spoken to, so email was my happyfriend.

Thu, May 5, 2011 at 4:59 PM
Hi Julie,
Re: my alternate trainer, no, he does not work directly for or with
MCB. He is not being paid by them. He is not taking over Cindy’s job.
He is not a counselor, but an alternate trainer. Cindy Hebert is the
counselor, which essentially means she’s the one who pays the bills. I
send her my grades, MCB does their part. The alternate trainer is
there for the more day-to-day issues, (i.e., the fact that my laptop
charger has managed to die an hour before I finish this email), or, my
living environment is smelly and disgusting and it’s not my side of
the room because my side’s spotless and free of garbage. A similar
issue arose in February, and I later found out that the offending
party had eggs in her fridge for 6 weeks and they’d gone bad.) That
having been said, he does have my permission to contact you, and you
do have my permission to speak with him. If you need an official
looking piece of paper that says as much, one can be created upon
request.
Thank you for your time,
Krista

Needless to say, people have been, and will be, squished. You know what really pisses me off about this though? I can complain, whine, bitch, persist, irritate, annoy, advocate, generally jump down people’s throats while I’m living in a hazardous environment, and nobody does anything to help me. The moment someone whines to disability services that I took attitude with them, I get a slap on the wrist, and am basically told, “Bad child, go to your corner.” So I’m not allowed to be an imperfect human being and snap at somebody for treating me like an infant, yet it’s ok for my roommate, their workstudy student, to leave rotten eggs in her fridge and take over my side of the room. Can we say discrimination? Do we need to have another vocabulary lesson, children? I should hope not.

Popularity: 42%

Some tweets from this morning hit my radar almost 19 hours later, and I feel I need to say something publicly. Over the past few months, Christopher Toth has developed and distributed Hope, a third-party application that allows a Windows user using a screen reader to access the popular Pandora service. He charges $10 US for the program, which, considering he’s a student and is doing this in his spare time, is pretty damn fair. it’s even more so when before he stepped in, this demographic was unable to use Pandora unless they also used a Mac, or an iPod Touch or iPhone. anyone who doesn’t already own one will tell you that spending upwards of $200, so they may have access to Pandora via an iDevice, though it has many other uses, is out of their budget. I’m in a constant state of broke. I get broke, I live broke, I freakin’ electrical taped my laptop charger so I wouldn’t have to blow approximately $100 on a new one. Now, let’s be honest. You may not like the developer. You and he may have had a history in the past, you pissed each other off, had a fucking teenybopper snit, whatever. Maybe you have a hair across your ass because he told you to, oh my god, read the Qwitter Readme, (which, by the way, is common sense. Download software, read the documentation). But there is no excuse as to why you cannot pull $10 out of your tight asses, to buy this program. If I did it, anybody can. Maybe the registration scheme isn’t the niftiest, most awesome and most secure thing ever, yet. I get it. But there’s no reason to be a tool and steal a $10 piece of software. If you’re that much of a spoiled brat and need everything handed to you that badly, then you have some serious entitlement issues.

Yes, I’ve punked (legal) copies of software off Shane before. Four pieces of software on this machine are legally registered to him. They’re either there because I’ll need them eventually, because I needed them on the *BOUNCE*, meaning, I couldn’t wait any longer for the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind to stop scratching their asses long enough to actually do their jobs, because they were put here to help fix the broken that is this computer, or, in one case, because shane thought one particular piece of software would make this thing work a little less like a brick than the other. Also, as some of you know, I share a dropbox with shane. Why? Because he has tons of space and said I could share. The difference, folks, is that most everything he gave me, if not all of it, is way the hell out of my price range! However, everything on here that is his, is legally registered to him, and he knows I have it, because in 3 out of 4 cases, he’s slapped the software on this machine himself. In his words, per my conversation with him as I write, “You have my permission to use it, the company *is* aware that it’s on your system. As I was using your system for a time, and felt it wasn’t to anyone’s bennifit to clean up after myself, you still have access to that software.” In other words, it’s legal, shut up, keep it, and like it. also re: The one thing he didn’t put on here himself that he handed me from 400 miles away, it became a matter of, I need this, because if the university’s networking policies eventually force me to make a certain upgrade, certain stuff of mine will be out of date and quite useless. We made the decision that him handing me a particular authorization for a piece of software was, for now, the best way to put a BandAid on the issue. What else was I going to do, learn a new screen reader in 2 days? Pull money out of my ass? Wait for a moneytree to appear? How about not? Now, if it were $10 software, I could simply go and buy it. However, there are certain pieces of software that cost more than both my parents make in a week put together. if somebody hands me a legal license, because I need that software, I won’t be kickin’ a gift horse in the ass. I will, as Shane’s fond of jokingly telling me to do when he does something major to help me out, “shut up and like it.” But people. Seriously. Hope’s a $10 piece of software. I’ve probably spent $10 in the last 2 weeks on caffeine alone. the developer may not be your favorite person, but that’s no excuse to publicly ask for a free copy of his software on Twitter. Would you like someone to do the same to you? Think about it. A little common sense and courtesy might get some of you a little farther in life.

Popularity: 55%

so
amazon.
has launched this great knew service that allows it’s customer to store their music on their services for playing on multiple devices.
I took a look at it, and like the idea, a tad inaccessible, but what you gonna do, right?
Well now, amazon’s facing possible
legal
action because they don’t have the proper licensing.
small note to the record labels.
Your gonna be ass wholes, I’ll stick to my torrents, thanks.
Amazon’s already licensing enough content from you people, they shouldn’t have to buy more because they had the brains to put together a service that allows their customers to, oh my god, take their music with them on whatever device they happen to have hanging arouned.

Popularity: 27%

Yeah, I’m lazy.
Deal with it.
I’ve been back on this side of the boarder, for what, almost a month.
in list format, because I’m just to goddamn lazy, and expanding thoughts undercafinated is not how I roll, oh, and because I can.

• I returned from the states march 3, 2011.< relatively in tact, sanity not withstanding. Surf the blog in february for the few blog posts pertaining to it.
• Came back to more ODSP horseshit, that will see the light of day when I’m not lazy and can form a comprehensive blog post on the stupid. short version, hi questionaire that attempted to say
  james and I were married. um, how about, not. That reminds me, I need to sign that, scan it and get it the hell back to the office.
• More hospital related garbage, we think I’ve got a depression issue, but, that’s right, my health plan won’t cover meds to help me that don’t break my brain. now, where’d that money tree go?


• I’m attempting to figure out relationship related things, partially due to depression, and partially other shit, that multiple people got the result of spued all over their monitors, thanks
  simon
  Kyra
  for dealing with the majority of it. I know it probably made your computers explode, but that’s ok, their’s the money tree, right? um, no. lol.
• The hockey posts? knowing I haven’t posted a damn one since february 13, the short version, we suck, fuck off, and die, sums up the majority of those games. So, we’ll just forgo the spam that’ll happen if I attempt to catch up, k? sound like a good idea? yeah, that’s what I thought.
• james mother is still of the opinion I don’t need ibuprofen, as advol is the same, and my specialist really really wants to slap her upside the head with something blunt. as me, and you all, probably know, when my specialist, (or now nearly my full time doctor, but more on that in another entry, maybe.), says bounce, this is what you need, it probably means get it and STFU. their are certain parental figures that need to learn the art of your not my doctor, she is, either help me get what I need or get the goddamn hell outta my way, k?

that, in squished format, is me.
Now, where the hell’s the money tree, and the cafinated beverages.

Popularity: 51%

Once again, we here in canada proove we have a better handle on this digital thing than the united states.
We took the year by storm with
18% growth
over the united states impressive 1%.
Oh, wait, it gets better.
In 2009, our digital growth was 38%, and the united states was… what’s that? only 8%? sorry you suck, again.
It’s impressive to see that our digital and non digital markets rank the same, number 7 in the world.
Again, united states? RIAA/MPAA, head out of your asses, right the hell now.

Popularity: 29%

people always ask me, why won’t you buy a mac.
My simple answer, I’m happy with what I’ve got.
If I want to play in the mac environment I’ll crank it up in a VM.
Well, I’ve found another reason.
Reading RSS feeds, we see that an apple
service provider is
suing
a customer for complaining online.

An Apple authorized Service Provider called System Graph is suing a customer who complained online about poor service from them. The customer Dimitrios Papadimitriadis took his iMac to them because he was seeing gray spots on his LED panel.

The Greek company System Graph recommended a full interior cleaning of the iMac and performed the service for Dimitrios. He then got his iMac back and noticed moisture behind the screen and that it still did not work properly and took it back to the repair center. System Graph then told him that they needed to keep his iMac to replace the LED screen and he would be without it for another week.

Dimitrios was now angry and demanded that his iMac be replaced pursuant to Article 540 of the Civil Code and section 5 of Act 2251. System Graph refused saying they were not the original retailer that he purchased the iMac from.

Dimitros has posted the entire story on a forum (Google Translated) and is now being sued by System Graph for 200,000 euros which is approximately $267,000 USD for slandering their good name. He has already gotten a large amount of support on both twitter and the forum.

What I don’t understand is what the company System Graph expects to get out of this suit. They will not be clearing their name by suing a customer, and what will Apple think if one of their Authorized Service Provider is suing an Apple customer. With the explosion of this news all over the web it will undoubtedly bring more attention to the company than they ever wanted.

if that’s the level of service we get from authorized apple dealers? Thanks, but no thanks apple, I’ll stick with windows, even though it does suck.
I’d rather avoid getting sued, when I file a valid complaint.
Apple, time to clean house, k? get rid of that service provider and i *might* consider switching, unlikely, but it had to be said.

Popularity: 16%

so a couple of days ago, the
fitchburg state university
student network started having massive issues that were made of utter failure.
Packet loss, dropping us on the floor, horrid DNS resolution, etc. etc. etc.
We chocked it up to students on this router being bandwidth hogs, and generally a detriment to the ability for anyone to get anything done, in a timely manner, so we powered everything down, and crashed.
Yesterday, things were going fine, and krista decides to make dropbox her bitch to move over 30Gigs of shit from one machine to the other, so we can have her on one machine instead of bouncing between a netbook and a laptop depending on the task she needs to perform.
The speeds are absolutely disgusting, and believe me when I say disgusting, I mean, We’re used to, at peak hours, things flying at 775KB/sec upstream, and off hours, welcome to 1500KB/sec bitches.
No, not yesterday.
We saw maybe 200KB/sec, if that, when it decides to move.
the downstream? hi, did we roll back to the dialup days?
Normally with the two of us being bandwidth bitches, we’d see speeds between the two of us topping 2MB/sec down. really? we saw maybe, if we were lucky. 600K down.
so I got it in my head, kill anything we weren’t using, skype, mail, etc.
No change.
we started being tossed on the floor again, packet loss, dns resolution issues, etc.
So I then pick up the phone, and ring the helpdesk and start applying drop kick to peoples heads.
I end up getting this half assed response, well, here’s what you can do, we’re not seing any issues, call us back if it persists.
5 minutes later, neither of us can get online, it’s all exploded. It’s like we’d never used the network before.
Someone over their had reset the permissions on krista’s account, when clearly, I’d told them to leave it alone until the morning when I would call them back for a follow up.
We get her machine, and my machine, back online, but the netbook refuses to do what it’s told, I can surf the regular net, but get e-mail or do other essential tasks from the netbook? not happenin!
I beat it around for a bit, reinstalling the driver, trying to fix it, no go.
so I simply shut it down, and go to bed.
This morning rolls around, and I decide, fuck automatic registration, I’ll do it manually.
In other words, from a working computer, pull up the
self-registration
portal of the FSU student network, delete the netbook’s mac address from the system, reboot the netbook and reconnect to the network, forcing it to reregister with the systems.
That’s,. not how it rolled.
The webpage refused to load, either on my machine or krista’s.
So I pick up the phone again, and sit on hold for a million years, and finally get through to someone with a brain, and explain the entire situation, she reviews the ticket, then she herself, attempts to access
ENAC
and it tells her to go to hell as well.
So that tells me that it’s not just me and I’m not losing my mind, (not that I had anything to lose to begin with.)
After some digging, she escalates the ticket and reminds me of the policy of only having 3 devices per ID on the network.
I ask her where that’s documented, she tells me well it should have been in the paperwork you signed.
I then inform her that the residence agreement available to students online via the student portal, or the TOS/AUP available during registration make no mention of this stipulation and that I think she’s lying to me.
She hims and haws telling me I must have missed it, I don’t know how to read, it went on and on.
I told her politely but firmly, that she has to choices, either quit bullshitting me around or put me through to her supervisor, because I was done dealing with her giving me the run around.
so She then says, well you can get a special request to lift that limit, I ask her to make it happen.
She adds that to the ticket.
Then informs me that I will be hearing from her or teer 2 support by the hour of noon, today with a resolution to the matter.
I tell her that’s fine, and that I’d be speaking to her at 12:00PM eastern time today.
Why isn’t krista dealing with this herself, you may ask?
Because the technicians won’t listen to her, and she’s afraid to employ drop kick liberally to peoples heads, and I’m not, so, you want it done, welcome to drop kick central.
If this is not resolved by the end of the day today, they are aware that I’ll have krista file a complaint with the dean of student services, and something will get done, and someone over their, may end up jobless, or at least, severlely reprimanded.
To top it off, without a firm resolution to the matter, by the end of the day, they’ll get an introduction to my best friend.
Wanna know what that is?
It’s called.
welcome to open communication,
fitchburg state university
hope you enjoy.
With that, I’ll see you next time.

Popularity: 25%

I used to have this mild dislike for
Cpanel
that is supposedly the leading control panel, or so it’s
website says.
After tonight, that mild dislike has turned into utter hatred.
as
james
has also
posted
It started out as a mild
wordpress
issue that I asked
him
to help me fix.
actually it was more like I wanted
google analytics
to better provide tracking and other useful things.
Well, the plugins wouldn’t install, nothing would update, it was just a giant cluster fuck, so we decided, maybe the install’s hozed, so back your shit up, let’s reinstall that.
This is when we found all the broken things
so, Well a five minute job turned into 2 and a half hours, of nothing but headaches, and just stupidness!
I swear to god, when you install apache, it shouldn’t have shit barried under every fucking conceivable location in the linux operating system, and some spots, you wouldn’t think of!
Cpanel seriously, I hate you, if this hasn’t been made clear by now.
We came to the conclusion that apache was partially hozed, with miscompiled modules, etc, so simple fix, right? recompile the missing shit, and carry on, right? not so much!
The entire apache install was hozed, causing me to have to rip it apart, and basically take it down to the barebones, then rebuild the entire fucking thing back to spec, and to my standards.
I swear to god, cpanel, if you weren’t the one my customers liked, and what made me money, I’d fucking shoot you!
I seriously, and utterly, hate your goddamn guts.
you are the biggist piece of shit this side of the mississippi.
you stupid thundercunt of a control panel.
your supposed to be easy? your supposed to make things easier? really?
Tonight’s issues were deffinitly not easy to resolve, eeven with cpanel.
If i’d been able to get away with it, I’d have recompiled every goddamn package on that system from ground 0 from source and told cpanel to kiss my fucking ass.
But because it’s the thing that makes me able to pay the bills, I keep it around, but let me tell you, from now on, I’m not going in their, I know where all the shit is to do everything I need to from the command line, if it doesn’t exist, I’ll fuckin’ write a script to accomplish a task.
I’m not touching your useless web interface that’s made of so much fail, i’d have better luck talking to krista’s mother vanessa then making you do what your fucking told, and that, for the love of fuck, is saying something!
With that said, I’m done, for now.

Popularity: 22%

Hello all,
It’s been awhile since i’ve actually posted something other then random bouts of humor, etc.
So let’s catch up on the happenings in my life.
As those of you who follow my
twitter
will know I’m again single. I’m not going to go into details, it’s in the past and if you really want to know my thoughts on it go read twitter, or ask me via messenger.
As well i’ve moved out of what i most fondly called the cockroach motel, and now live on king street. It’s a better area of town, more accessible to bus routes that i know and can use, and i’m much happier here.
Health wise, i’m going through a lot of issues right now, trying to gain lost weight, severe bouts of depression, medications that aren’t agreeing with me, etc.
If you really want to keep up with me, follow me on twitter, as it’s the fastist way to no what i’m up to.
ok, piece for now.

Popularity: 11%

Hello fellow blog readers
It’s been awhile since I posted something of major substance to the blind community here.
On
this blog
We have some very interesting posts to reference.
I’m going to post each of them below, exactly as posted, and I’ll follow each one of them up with my comments.
The first one is entitled

Critical security flaw in JAWS

and was posted on october 16, 2009.

Critical security flaw in JAWS
October 16, 2009 by Tyler Spivey
I have found a critical security flaw in the JAWS Screen reader that allows an attacker to gain full system-level access to

the machine. I have tested this on 32-bit Windows Vista
with JAWS 10.0.1154 and 32-bit Windows 7 with JAWS 11.0.611 Beta.

Instructions:

1. From the Windows logon screen with JAWS running, press insert+f2. Run JAWS Manager will appear.
2. Select Settings Packager, and press ok. Settings Packager will open.
3. From Settings Packager, go to File menu > Open, or press ctrl+o.
4. In the open dialog, type “%windir%\system32\*.exe” into the file name field (without the quotes) and press enter.
5. In the list of files, find cmd. Right click on it, or press the applications key and select Run as Administrator.
A system-level command prompt should open. To get out of it, type exit and press enter, then close the Settings Packager.

my comments on this one
Note that this was during the last public beta build of jaws 11, build 611. I was able to varrify this issue with this build of jaws on all machines I have access to. After build 729 the final release to the public on DVD version of jaws came out on october 19 2009, tyler reported in his next post, see below, had been fixed. but as this next will show, this problem still exists using a different set of varrifiable instructions.
The next post entitled

JAWS security flaw, round 2

has this to say.

JAWS security flaw, round 2
October 19, 2009 by Tyler Spivey
In my First Post, I described a security vulnerability that allowed local users to gain system-level access to a machine. A quick test with JAWS 11.0.729, the release build of JAWS 11, reveals that it is fixed. Here is a slightly different set of instructions that will do the same thing.
1. From the login screen, press insert+j, and navigate to utilities/configuration manager.
2. When configuration manager opens, press control+o.
3. press the Import button. The open dialog will appear.
4. On my Windows 7 test machine, I got an error box that can safely be dismissed. Once done, type %windir%\system32\*.exe into the open dialog.
5. find cmd in the list, and press the applications key on it. Select Run as administrator if it appears. If not, keep following these steps.
6. From cmd’s context menu, pick select. answer no to the question asking you to overwrite settings files, if it comes up.
7. press import, and pick cmd from the list again. Activate the context menu, and select Run as administrator.
If done correctly, you should have an administrative command prompt

I took that set of instructions and again tested them on as many systems as possible, and low and behold, I received an administrative command prompt.
But the ensanity doesn’t end there.
On the same day, this post

Gathering passwords with the JAWS builtin keylogger

hit his blog.
The text is below.

Gathering passwords with the JAWS builtin keylogger
October 19, 2009 by Tyler Spivey
JAWS so helpfully contains a built-in script that logs all keys pressed on the keyboard. This method has a better chance of working on XP than the others. You must have a user account on the machine to make this work.

1. Open Keyboard manager, and open the default file. Add a key to the “ToggleKeyboardLogging” script.

2. Once done, log out of the machine. Your profile will still be loaded. Press that key. The only thing JAWS will say is “enabled”. Log into the machine, then open keystrokes.log in your jaws program directory. all keys pressed will be there, from the last time the script was enabled

At the time of writing, do to my keyboard manager acting up, I have not been able to test this particular vulnerability relating to the keylogger.
At the time this went to press, Freedom scientific LLC,
http://www.freedomscientific.com
was closed.
But the following e-mail was dispatched to both the support and info addresses.

subject: freedom scientific’s response to the security wholes found in jaws 11?

To whom this may concern,
I am writing this message in reference to three blog posts available at:

http://tspivey.wordpress.com/

and who’s text and my comments were placed on my own blog at

http://www.shaned.net/blog

To summarize these posts, it was discovered that not only can system level access to the computer be gained using your software, but your program includes a hidden keylogger that isn’t even documented that logs all keystrokes entered and can gain sensative information from a users computer?
These keys hense are logged to keystrokes.log.
I would like to ask, what is freedom scientifics stand on these issues, and is freedom scientific willing to comment publicly for airing on ACBRadio’s main menu and in other public venues regarding these security wholes?
I Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Shane Davidson

We shall see what comes of this.
until then.
piece yall.

Popularity: 20%

Hello all,
I’m sitting in communications class, bored out of my mind, eating ritz chips. Jordan’s running his mouth about programming. We’ve got a supply teacher in Communications class today.
Drama should be interesting.
Guess what play we’re doing for Christmas?
The grinch, of all plays!
Could they not have come up with something, shall we say, a little more interesting then the grintch? Like Come on!
We’re discussing the mac house program as I type this.
Let’s see, what else to talk about…
The Trekker in one of the courses I am taking has decided it’s not going to play nice, so the teacher that knows how to work it is trying to fix it.
In regards to Rose and myself, we’re dooing awsome.
A lot of people jokingly ask us when the wedding is going to be, grin, and we always say, you’ll find out when the time is right. grin!

Talk to yall later.

Popularity: 8%

>Hello all,
I’m sitting in communications class, bored out of my mind, eating ritz chips. Jordan’s running his mouth about programming. We’ve got a supply teacher in Communications class today.
Drama should be interesting.
Guess what play we’re doing for Christmas?
The grinch, of all plays!
Could they not have come up with something, shall we say, a little more interesting then the grintch? Like Come on!
We’re discussing the mac house program as I type this.
Let’s see, what else to talk about…
The Trekker in one of the courses I am taking has decided it’s not going to play nice, so the teacher that knows how to work it is trying to fix it.
In regards to Rose and myself, we’re dooing awsome.
A lot of people jokingly ask us when the wedding is going to be, grin, and we always say, you’ll find out when the time is right. grin!

Talk to yall later.

Popularity: 1%