[gui-talk] One number to ring them all
Nimer
nimerjaber1 at gmail.com
Mon Mar 16 02:13:40 UTC 2009
Yes, I did have another account before. It allowed me to upgrade
straight from grand central to google voice.
Thanks
nimer J
On 15/03/09 19:32, albert griffith wrote:
> Did you have a Central Station account before? I don't think the service
> itself is allowing new subscribers yet. I wonder what you tried?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Nimer
> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 6:43 PM
> To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>
> All right, I have just tried this google voice. While this is a great
> service, I am using NVDA and it does not appear accessible. If I have
> different results with the web interface with any other screen reader, I
> will post here.
>
> Thanks
> Nimer J
>
> Joel Deutsch wrote:
>
>> okay. Well, my problem with Gmail wasn't about keyboard shortcuts. I never
>> got that far. I was just trying to use it straight up and didn't care
>>
> about
>
>> that convenience yet. or the lack of it. I just had too hard a time
>>
> figuring
>
>> out the layout of the pages, understanding how to get from message to
>> message, not sure why all the links that Jaws announced as "this page"
>>
> links
>
>> seemed to actually be opening another page when I clicked on them, and a
>> million things. I spent hours trying to acclimate myself to the landscape,
>> so to speak. And managed to figure out only a couple of things. You
>>
> wouldn't
>
>> even want to hear how many years of being an Amazon shopper it took me to
>> learn how to skip around an Amazon Web page of this sort or another and
>>
> find
>
>> the page elements and controls I needed, although I'm glad I've hung in
>> there because I've visited that supposedly screen reader friendly version
>>
> of
>
>> the Amazon site and find it seriously inadequate in a number of ways.
>>
>> But Gmail, I did give it a try but finally gave up. I didn't really need a
>> gmail address, just wanted to have one to have one. I mean, say I wanted
>>
> to
>
>> subscribe to an email list and flame people and remain incognito. Just
>> kidding. But anyway, I don't really understand everything about your
>> obviously pretty good explanation below, and it all sounds pretty
>> complicated to me. Plus I don't make many long distance calls on my land
>> line, already get the cheapest blind monthly rate, don't have much a
>>
> problem
>
>> with voice mail or anything else, and am only annoyed by the occasional
>>
> call
>
>> from a marketing boiler room operation that chooses to disregard the
>> National Do Not Call list. So I guess I'll just set aside my curiosity
>>
> about
>
>> this obviously nifty and innovative set of services. For now, at least.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "albert griffith"<albertgriffith at sbcglobal.net>
>> To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'"<gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 1:31 PM
>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>>
>>
>> You're not the only one who finds Gmail difficult to use.
>> While they have a full complement of short cuts jaws won't work in the
>>
> mode
>
>> Google requires to display them. I reread the article and most features
>>
> can
>
>> be accessed via phone, however, you would have to access the in box and
>> address book from the web. Now that the web navigation keys for jaws are
>> more robust it won't be difficult because you won't be covering the vast
>> amount of real-estate needed to handle quantities of messages. With those
>> limitations in mind you would be able to hear mail messages, access the
>> answering machine, accept phone calls and call conference style. You
>>
> could
>
>> also integrate calls from your home and cell phones plus make real cheap
>> long distance calls. At a minimum this will allow users to scale their
>>
> land
>
>> line services back to their minimums saving many quite a bit of cash. I
>> particularly like two features: never having to hear from another
>> telemarketer and the ability to assign a different greeting to each of my
>> contacts. P.S. I think I'll enjoy the ability to record conversations
>>
> I'm
>
>> having. This will make driving directions and appointment information
>> easier to capture. Now that AOL has used this accessibility tool kit to
>> develop keyboard shortcuts for their e-mail program Google will do the
>>
> same.
>
>> They might use the same short cuts. I hope others reading the article
>>
> will
>
>> have more input.
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
>> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 1:58 PM
>> To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>>
>> Albert,
>>
>> I was wondering the same thing as the lister to whom you're responding. In
>> my case, my question would be, does anyone have an idea whether the
>>
> controls
>
>> for all this would be easy to use with Jaws? By the way, I'm speaking as
>> someone who doesn't bother using my one gmail account because even though
>>
> I
>
>> took a lot of time to learn the interface, and I know other screen reader
>> users do all right with it, I just could not get comfortable or skillful
>> with it, myself. So I figure that if you're good with Jaws or another
>>
> screen
>
>> reader when using Google Mail or Gmail, this stuff will be manageable,
>>
> too.
>
>> if I understand David Pogue's description of the service interface
>> correctly.
>>
>> But what do you mean by answering that it ought to be accessible because
>> it's all tied to your phone? Do you mean the whole function works through
>> the keypad of either your land line or your cell phone, or both? Did I
>>
> miss
>
>> that? The star key and so forth? Because so much of Pogue's explanation
>>
> was
>
>> about how you could manage your voice mail and text messages online. In
>> fact, I was left with the understanding that if you signed up for this,
>>
> you
>
>> could never again just use your land line's answering machine or your cell
>> phone's voice mail in the normal way. I think I am a little confused.
>>
>> Please explain more if you have the time and patience.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Joel
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "albert griffith"<albertgriffith at sbcglobal.net>
>> To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'"<gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 9:57 AM
>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>>
>>
>> Since it's controlled by your phone I don't expect problems.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of Bill Spiry
>> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 11:27 AM
>> To: 'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>>
>> How's the accessibility going to be with this service? Anyone have a sense
>> of that yets?
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of Sherri
>> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 5:26 AM
>> To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
>> Subject: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>>
>> This sounds great!
>> Tech Update of the N Y Times, Washington Post, and MIT's Tech Review
>> State of the Art
>>
>> One Number to Ring Them All
>>
>> By DAVID POGUE
>>
>> If Google search revolutionized the Web, and Gmail revolutionized
>> free e-mail, then one thing's for sure: Google Voice, unveiled
>> Thursday, will revolutionize telephones.
>>
>> It unifies your phone numbers, transcribes your voice mail, blocks
>> telemarketers and elevates [10]text messages to first-class
>> communication citizens. And that's just the warm-up.
>>
>> Google Voice began life in 2005 as something called GrandCentral.
>>
> It
>
>> was, in its own way, revolutionary.
>>
>> It was intended to solve the headaches of having more than one
>>
> phone
>
>> number (home, work, cellphone and so on): Having to check multiple
>> answering machines. Missing calls when people try to reach you on
>>
> your
>
>> cell when you're at home (or the other way around). Sending around
>> e-mail at work that says, "On Thursday from 5 to 8:30, I'll be on
>>
> my
>
>> cell; for the rest of the weekend, call me at home." And having to
>> change phone numbers when you switched jobs or cities.
>>
>> GrandCentral's solution was to offer you a new, single, unified
>>
> phone
>
>> number, in an area code of your choice. Whenever somebody dialed
>>
> your
>
>> uni-number, all of your phones rang at once.
>>
>> No longer did people have to track you down by dialing multiple
>> numbers; no matter where you were, your uni-number found you. And
>>
> all
>
>> voice mail messages landed in a single voice mail box, on the Web.
>> (You
>> could also dial in to hear them as usual.)
>>
>> On the Web, you could play back your messages or even download them
>>
> as
>
>> audio files to preserve for posterity. You could even ask to be
>> notified of new voice mail by e-mail.
>>
>> But wait, there was more. Each time you answered a call, while the
>> caller was still hearing "one ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies," you
>> heard a recording offering four ways to handle the call: "Press 1
>>
> to
>
>> accept, 2 to send to voice mail, 3 to listen in on voice mail, or 4
>>
> to
>
>> accept and record the call." If you pressed 3, the call went
>>
> directly
>
>> to voice mail, but you could listen in. If you felt that the caller
>> deserved your immediate attention, you could press * to pick up and
>> join the call. This subtle feature saved time, conserved cellular
>> minutes and, in certain cases, avoided a great deal of
>>
> interpersonal
>
>> conflict.
>>
>> GrandCentral also let you record a different voice mail greeting
>>
> for
>
>> each person in your address book: "Hey, dollface, leave me a sweet
>> nothing" for your love interest, "Hi, boss, I'm out making us both
>> some
>> money" for your employer.
>>
>> You could also specify which phones would ring when certain people
>> called. (For the really annoying people in your life, you could
>>
> even
>
>> tell GrandCentral to answer with the classic, three-tone "The
>>
> number
>
>> you have dialed is no longer in service" message.)
>>
>> Also very cool: Any time during a call, you could press the * key
>>
> to
>
>> make all of your phones ring again, so that you could pick up on a
>> different phone in midcall. If you were heading out the door, you
>> could
>> switch a landline call to your cellphone.
>>
>> GrandCentral also offered telemarketing spam filters, off-hour call
>> blocking ("never ring my BlackBerry on weekends"), and a dizzying
>> number of other functions. For people with complicated lives,
>> GrandCentral was a breath of fresh air. It felt like a secret power
>> that nobody else had.
>>
>> Then, in 2007, Google bought GrandCentral. It stopped accepting new
>> members, ceased any visible work on it, and, apparently, forgot
>>
> about
>
>> it completely. The early adopters, several hundred thousand of
>>
> them,
>
>> were able to keep using GrandCentral's features. But as time went
>>
> on,
>
>> their hearts sank. In January, Salon.com summed it up in an
>>
> editorial
>
>> called, "Will the Last One to Leave GrandCentral Please Turn Out
>>
> the
>
>> Lights?"
>>
>> As it turns out, the joke was on them. Google was quietly working
>>
> on
>
>> GrandCentral all along. Starting Thursday, existing GrandCentral
>> members can upgrade to Google Voice. In a few weeks, after
>>
> debugging
>
>> the system, Google will open the service to all.
>>
>> Google Voice starts with a clean, redesigned Web site that looks
>>
> like
>
>> an in box, a la Gmail. It maintains all of those original
>>
> GrandCentral
>
>> features - but more important, introduces four game-changing new
>>
> ones.
>
>> FREE VOICE MAIL TRANSCRIPTIONS From now on, you don't have to
>>
> listen
>
>> to
>> your messages in order; you don't have to listen to them at all. In
>> seconds, these recordings are converted into typed text. They show
>>
> up
>
>> as e-mail messages or text messages on your cellphone.
>>
>> This is huge. It means that you can search, sort, save, forward,
>>
> copy
>
>> and paste voice mail messages.
>>
>> No human effort is involved; it's all done with software. As a
>>
> result,
>
>> the transcriptions are rarely perfect. For one thing, Google's
>> software
>> doesn't seem to have discovered punctuation yet. ("ohh hi it's
>> michelle
>> i just wanted to let you know that i really had fun last night and
>> it's
>> really great to see you okay talk to you later bye bye.")
>>
>> There are errors, of course; it's hard enough for people to
>>
> understand
>
>> cellphone conversations, let alone computers. Cleverly enough, the
>>
> Web
>
>> site displays transcribed words more faintly (light gray) when it
>>
> is
>
>> less confident about the transcription. Fortunately, it generally
>> nails
>> numbers -- phone numbers, arrival times, addresses. And the rest is
>> accurate enough to convey the gist.
>>
>> Companies like PhoneTag, Callwave and Spinvox already transcribe
>>
> voice
>
>> mail, complete with punctuation. They're great, but they cost
>>
> money.
>
>> Google Voice is free.
>>
>> FREE CONFERENCE CALLING Never again will you pay for a conference
>> call,
>> or require a special dial-in number, or mess around with access
>>
> codes.
>
>> All you do is tell your friends to call your GrandCentral at the
>> specified time -- and boom, you can conference them in as they call
>> you. No charge.
>>
>> DIRT-CHEAP INTERNATIONAL CALLS If you dial your own Google Voice
>> number
>> from one of your phones, you're offered an option to call overseas
>>
> at
>
>> rates even lower than Skype's (and much lower than your cellphone
>> company's): 2 cents a minute to France or China, 3 cents to Chile
>>
> or
>
>> the Czech Republic. Sweet.
>>
>> TEXT MESSAGE ORGANIZATION Google Voice's last feature is its most
>> profound. The old GrandCentral wasn't great with text messages sent
>>
> to
>
>> your uni-number. In fact, it ignored them. They just disappeared.
>>
>> Google Voice, however, does the right thing: it sends text messages
>>
> to
>
>> whichever cellphones you want -- even multiple phones
>>
> simultaneously.
>
>> Even more important, it collects them in your Web in-box just like
>> e-mail. You can file them, search them and, for the first time in
>> cellphone history, keep them. They don't vanish forever once your
>> cellphone gets full.
>>
>> You can also reply to them with a click, either with a call or
>>
> another
>
>> text; your back-and-forths appear online as a conversation.
>>
>> Google Voice eliminates some of the annoyances of its predecessor.
>>
> You
>
>> can, if you wish, turn off that "press 1, press 2" option, so when
>>
> the
>
>> phone rings, you can just pick it up and start talking. Google has
>> also
>> done some Googlish integration; for example, your Gmail and Google
>> Voice address books are the same.
>>
>> Nitpicks? Sure. The service has vastly beefed up its selection of
>> available uni-numbers, but there are still some area codes you
>>
> can't
>
>> get (212 is especially rare). As a side effect of Google Voice's
>> ring-all-phones-at-once technology, you sometimes find fragments of
>> Google Voice error recordings on the answering machines of the
>>
> phones
>
>> you didn't answer. (Solution: make your voice mail greeting at
>>
> least
>
>> 15
>> seconds long.) There's a learning curve to all of this, too.
>>
>> Still, you can't imagine how much the game changes when you have a
>> single phone number, voice mail transcriptions and nondeleting text
>> messages on every phone. Suddenly, your communications are not only
>> unified, but they're unified everywhere at once -- the cellphone,
>>
> the
>
>> Web and the e-mail program. And all of it free -- even ad-free.
>>
>> There mthe cay be some fallout as a result; I'd hate to be a
>>
> company
>
>> that
>> sells voice mail transcription or conferencing calling services
>>
> right
>
>> about now. But that's life, right? Every now and then, a little
>> revolution is good for us.
>>
>>
>> E-mail: pogue at nytimes.com
>>
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