[gui-talk] One number to ring them all
Nimer
nimerjaber1 at gmail.com
Mon Mar 16 02:24:28 UTC 2009
I am not sure if you guys know, but there is a basic html link on the
gmail site that makes it a little bit more usable. I personally don't
hop on the site, preferring instead to use seamonkey and IMAP, but if I
did, I would definitely use the basic html interface.
Thanks
nimer J
On 15/03/09 19:51, Joel Deutsch wrote:
> I know. I mean I know that's why the shortcuts make a lot of things possible
> that would be too much trouble, otherwise, even though I pride myself,
> somewhat absurdly, I guess, on taking the time to explore interfaces and
> menus and so forth before getting hooked on short cuts. So if I were
> thinking more screen-reader-clearly, I'd probably have to conclude that the
> problem really does boil down to what you say about hotkeys. I mean
> shortcuts. if they don't work,we're kind of sdrewed at this site. At least I
> feel I am, and believe me, I know I'm a dummy sometimes but I found a page
> on Fred's Head about how to syncrhonize the gmail with my Outlook Express
> using the POP server, and followed everything step by step, but that did not
> work right and neither can I traverse the gmail pages and feel like I know
> what I'm doing. Now, I know a lot of screen reader people do use gmail, and
> I don't know how they deal with it. But for me, I just don't have any more
> time for it, just to get a purple heart from some organization for perfect
> self-sufficiency despite losing my mind in the process. I've just gotta let
> it go.
> ----- 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 6:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>
>
> I won't be using it either. For most of us navigating web sites is
> problematic and that's why the shortcuts.
>
> -----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 6:09 PM
> To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] One number to ring them all
>
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/bspiry%40comcast.n
> et
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/albertgriffith%40s
> bcglobal.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/jdeutsch%40dslextr
> eme.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/albertgriffith%40s
> bcglobal.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/jdeutsch%40dslextr
> eme.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/albertgriffith%40s
> bcglobal.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/jdeutsch%40dslextreme.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gui-talk mailing list
> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for gui-talk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/nimerjaber1%40gmail.com
>
More information about the GUI-Talk
mailing list