TANTALIZING TIDBITS

** Children’s Book About Blindness from Barnes and Noble: "The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination" by Jimmy Liao is about a young girl who has lost her sight and navigates the subway, imagining and describing her adventures as she gets off at each stop. She has her cane with her in every picture and talks a lot about all of her senses. Like every good children's book, it has a deeper meaning for adults, too. For parents, this is a great book to send to school with a blind or visually-impaired child, to foster positive awareness of visual impairment.

** Independent Living Aids anounces the availability of the 2006 “CAN-DO Products” catalog. It will be available in print, in DAISY formatted CD and in Braille. If you have ordered a Braille product in the past, you will automatically receive a CD. The Braille version will be available for $25, which is the cost of producing it. You can order it using item #06ilaB by contacting ILA at Toll-Free: 800-537-2118 Fax: 516-937-3906; Web: http://www.independentliving.com or E-mail: mailto:can-do@independentliving.com .

** National Accessible Travelers Database: To meet a need for more direct information about accessible services among users, travel agents, tour coordinators and tour guides, Easter Seals Project ACTION offers a database of accessible transportation services in the United States. This database of transit systems is supplemented with information on accessible tours and tour companies, accessible airport and other private shuttles, and accessible taxi services. The transportation database website allows the user to highlight the state and city they plan to visit, and view all transportation services available to them. The user is also able to view the travel agencies specializing in travel arrangements for persons with disabilities.

** Microsoft is interested in recruiting college students for internships and employment opportunities in a variety of locations across the United States. For more information on internships, scholarships, campus recruiting events and employment opportunities, check out Microsoft's college recruitment website at: www.microsoft.com/college. The website provides a great overview of the company including the corporate culture, employment opportunities, benefits, how to apply for positions, the interview process and profiles of current employees who were hired through the college recruitment program. There is an interactive map of the United States that allows you to obtain the dates and other information about Microsoft's college recruiting events that are taking place in your area. There is also information on scholarship opportunities for people who are interested in the field of computer science.

** Donate Your Books: Do you have any books you don't need? The New Orleans Public Library System is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina. The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections. The rest will be distributed to destitute families or sold for library fundraising. Please send your books to: Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations, New Orleans Public Library, 219 Loyola Ave., New Orleans, LA 70112.

If you tell the post office that they are donations for the library in New Orleans, they will give you the less expensive library rate.

** Chicago Lighthouse Sets Up Assistive Technology Computer Help Desk: (from the Blindtech listserv) In an effort to accommodate people with visual impairments in need of technical support, The Chicago Lighthouse has established a telephone assistive technology support line. The toll free number for the new service is: 888 TCL (825) 0080. "We're excited to have an opportunity to make it easier for people with visual impairments to take advantage of the many technological advancements that are now more readily available, said William Bielawski, program manager for adaptive technology and office skills training at The Lighthouse.

Bielawski noted that any blind or visually immpaired person could call the support line regardless of what product they're using.

"It can be any hardware or software relating to assistive technology as long as the customer is visually impaired," he said.

"We also encourage calls from teachers and other individuals who work with people who are visually impaired as well as other interested parties.”

Servicing the calls is Ray Campbell, a former engineer with Lucent Technologies who now works in The Lighthouse's Adaptive Technology program.

"Our intent is to offer a one stop place where people who are blind or visually impaired can get the assistance that they need," he said. "I can listen to what JAWS or WindowEyes is saying and walk him or her right through their problem.” Campbell added that if he can't resolve the issue over the phone, he will schedule an on-site visit as long as the customer resides in the Chicago metropolitan area.

The program was made possible when The Lighthouse successfully matched a $41,000 grant from the Boeing Company Foundation.

"We're tremendously grateful to Boeing for their support and we intend to use the help desk in strengthening our level of customer service an showcasing The Lighthouse as a national leader in adaptive technology," Bielawski said.

BlindTech is a service of MosenExplosion.com. To find out about the other e-mail lists we run, please visit us on the web at: http://www.MosenExplosion.com

** Jury Duty Scam: Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS.

In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you didn't show up for jjury duty. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any of this information and bingo! Your identity just got stolen.

The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This (scam) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they're with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud. Check it out here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp=20

** New Online Peer Mentoring Project and Discussion Group: Karyn Zweifel, Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB.org) Site Manager is the moderator for a new group at Yahoo Groups, College Ready B/VI. College Ready B/VI is an online peer mentoring project and discussion group for high school juniors and seniors and college students with vision loss and their parents. Guidance counselors and vocational rehabilitation counselors may participate, but this group is planned primarily for peer-to-peer interaction. It is sponsored by the College Prep program at EH Gentry (http://www.aidb.org/ehgentry/college.asp) and part of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB.org). This is a unique service, with the potential to be quite valuable for college-bound students who are blind or have vision loss. Of course, to make it work, we need people to participate. Join College Ready B/VI at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeReadyBVI/.