Archive for May, 2010
And, without meaning to seem rude, this officially leaves all other companies that make touch screen devices without excuses not to make their products accessible to blind would-be users. I was one of those who doubted but Apple has proven beyond contention that it can be done. And yes folks, I am a blind owner, and a proud one for that matter, of a 32-gig IPod and I’m going to be writing this review from a blind person’s perspective.
Of course I’d heard of IPods for years but I’m old-fashioned enough that it took me years to set aside a Diskman (it actually eventually just died on me), at which point I opted for a device called a Victor Reader Stream. This is a device designed specifically for us blind folks and it plays audiobooks of various formats including the new digital versions of the talking books we’ve listened to courtesy of the Library of Congress. It also plays music in MP3 format, so I simply ripped any CD’s I wanted to take with me to my laptop and then copied those files to the VR Stream. Just one problem. The Stream uses SD cards of up to only 32 gigabyte capacity, which meant you would have to sacrifice some tunes if you also wanted to take some books with you on a long car trip or vice versa. This did get frustrating to me, so I decided to take the plunge and order an IPod Touch so that I could focus my Stream solely on my passion for reading and recording the occasional podcasts (yes folks it’s also a voice recorder), while keeping my music on a separate device that I could devote solely to it.
All that rambling aside, let’s get on to the review. It should be said here, not that it really matters, that I didn’t order the IPod from Amazon since there are some products that I can find cheaper elsewhere and yes, the very! occasional times when I’ve gotten a defective product from Amazon. But let’s get on with it, shall we?
First off, the appearance. The IPod Touch is shaped very much like a Hershey bar. In fact once I got it out of the packagi
Allerair AirTube Vocarb Portable
Catcher in the Rye has many relevant meanings for the teenagers of today. Holden Caufield’s confusions and frustrations are those of most teenagers who want to connect with other people and belong to a certain social quota. J.D Salinger presents to us a novel full of symbolism, imagery, and adolescent complexity that fufills it’s overall goals of giving us a glimpse into the life and psyche of a troubled and disturbed teenager who tries making connections with people he doesn’t know ending up in, as mean as this may sound, humorous failed attempts. The overall theme in this novel doesn’t comply any moral as did Ovid’s fables back in ancient Greece. Catcher in the Rye tends to be more interpretive in that manner. Holden’s inability to truly connect with people is due to his inability to immature and let go of pain.
“People never notice anything” (Pg 9). It’s in this quote that we really see what type of person Holden really is. Nobody around Holden seems to understand him, seems to understand his angers and confusions. Everyone is just as about as “phony as he is”. It’s in these beginning chapters we notice that something is wrong with Holden. something that doesn’t quite match up. He’s a white male with well-off parents that can afford to send him off to boarding school and he purposefully flunks out by not even attempting to study. It’s not until later on in the novel that we learn of James Castle and his brother Allie that there is a reason for this rebellion and personal wall that he has erected for himself. It’s how Holden breaks this wall that makes this book powerful and a very compelling and humorous read.
Casio Women s Sheen
If you are looking for a vacuum cleaner that is no frills, easy to assemble, and has a 12 amp motor…look no further. I was going to get a Dyson until I did the math and realized I could get 5 of these for the same price and put one on every floor of my house and have 2 left over. Tired of cleaning filters? Yeah, me too. This one has the easy disposable bag that changes in 60 seconds. The dirt & dust in my house doesn’t know it is being sucked up by a $79 vacuum cleaner versus the $500 Dyson.
HP C9730A 33A Remanufactured
I saw this movie in the early ’90’s when independent and foreign films were still independent in the real sense. At this point, I had only seen Daniel Day-Lewis in Room With A View, so this movie was a significant departure from that. It is a fish-out-of-water comedic film. A Britsh art-dealer living in New York (and dating the boss’s daughter) is sent to the South to collect a valuable painting from the estate of an eccentric Southern gentleman. Along the way, he encounters the woman of his dreams and the man’s wacky family. High jinks ensue.
I really liked it. The casting was genius: Laurie Metcalf, Glenne Headley, Joan Cusack, Maury Chaykin, Will Patton, and many others. While funny and strange with a touch of Southern gothic, the film also questions the real value of American success. A good companion film would be Shy People with Barbara Hershey.
Stars Bars VHS
The packaging was really “frustration free”. No cutting, chopping, cursing, swearing and bleeding involved.
I’ve had the card for a year now. No issues at all. No corrupt data or read errors. The card is pretty fast since it is class 6. It is actually cheaper than other class 6 cards out there yet performs the same. Take a look at this hardware benchmark if you don’t believe me – [...]. Same performance yet cheap isn’t it?
Works with my Canon SX110IS, Windows and Linux if anyone is wondering.
Definitely recommended!
Lithium Ion Digital Cameras
I just got a Kindle for my birthday yesterday. I’ve been SO excited about all that it can do and up until a few minutes ago, I was psyched about my gift. In considering Kindle vs. Nook, I chose Kindle b/c of the “text to speech” option which allows the devise to read to you. After doing some shopping on the website I have found that the text to speech option is not enabled on most books that I have looked at. There was a dispute between Amazon & book publishers about this feature and Amazon rolled over and played dead. Pretty disappointing considering the power-house that they are now in the book industry. So, I may still look into the Nook while I can still return my Kindle…after all, the Nook allows for more sharing and access to library books.
The Encyclopedia of Democracy
Despite several thousand positive reviews, this carpet cleaner was HORRIBLE. I read the owner’s manual as everyone suggested before using it but it was to no avail. The cleaner itself was so light it didn’t make a dent in the sections of my carpet I was trying to clean – the carpet looked just as stained as it was before after 2 separate runs in the pattern recommended in the owner’s manual.
The handle of the cleaner is jiggly – it doesn’t lock in place when you put the cleaner upright and ‘lock’ it into place – overall cheaply made product.
The cleaner does NOT auto-rinse the carpets and the water tank is ridiculously hard to empty to do the second rinse run as the owners manual suggests you may want to try. In fact, it never truly empties – there is always a bit of water left in the tank which could lead to mildew problems. The cleaner left a ton of soapy water in my carpet that did not dry for FIVE DAYS because no mater how many times I ran the cleaner over the area, minimal water was sucked up into the tank! I had to call out a professional steam cleaning service to clean my carpets!!
Horrible, horrible product. I shipped it back for a full refund just 3 days later.
Steven Adler s Getting