Net2 called it a "huge experiment," and we took it in that spirit when we posted our ATSTAR program as a candidate - thanks for the opportunity to jump in with you! I am sharing results so far and would love to hear from others who posted projects.

I ran across information on a recent United Nations accessibility review of 100 different Web sites from 20 countries around the world.  Their grade?  Big Fat F for Failure

Only 3 of those 100 actually made a decent score, which is just pathetic.  Specifically:

1. German chancellor's site: http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de
2. British prime minister's site: http://www.primeminister.gov.uk
3. Spanish government site:  http://www.la-moncloa.es/default.htm

Jim Fruchterman was named a MacArthur genius yesterday.  You can find links to his blog and to a couple of bloggers who know him at my blog, studio 501c.

I have only recently become aware of NetSquared Houston through their Meetup page. Last Tuesday I attended my second meeting with the NetSquared group. Ed Schipul asked me to share my thoughts here, based on a post I made on my blog. You can read the longer, original post there.

The NetSquared Houston events are organized/hosted by Ed Schipul of Schipul Web Marketing. I'm still learning about what NetSquared really is all about. So far, it's made a much better impression upon me than Wikipedia. I've come to feel that NetSquared is about putting the influencing powers of Web mongers like me to work for the greater good -- online, offline, wherever.

Disabled computer users often regard their browsers as a lifeline to the world.  But during last year's natural disasters, it became very clear that the lifeline was tenuous - perhaps broken entirely - as so many relief sites were not accessible to those who need them most.  To help people with disabilities find what they need more easily, Google Labs released a new product yesterday.  Called Accessible Search, it optimizes pages based on some key accessibility features, including alt text, keyboard navigation, simple language and so forth.  The idea is to save blind users the wasted time and frustration of trying to get information from inaccessible sites. To see how your standard search stacks up against the accessible searc, try out this comparison tool

We saw a bunch of cool new tools at the conference.  It seemed like blogging was a very big deal for attendees thinking in new ways about communicating their mission-based work.  I was inspired to become hyper-alert to identifying accessible, equivalent tools and communication methods.  In that spirit, I offer EasyJournal as a tool that meets accessibility standards, but more importantly that opens up the blogging experience for millions.  The most well-known blogging tools may create accessible pages - usually mostly text, after all. The problem comes when someone - the student at the school for the blind, perhaps or the personnel administrator with quadriplegia - who can't use a mouse tries to post a blog.  It doesn’t work well.  It is difficult, perhaps impossible for the person with a disability to have the blogging experience using well-known tools because thecontent creation interface is not accessible.  The interface for EasyJournal was designed with accessibility in mind, however and you might consider trying it.  It’s free, it’s accessible, and it requires no additional software.

If you are trying to solve accessibility barriers for your software and / or Web 2.0 site, we will host a round table during the 3:15 sessions.  Anyone having accessibility interest, expertise or phobia...come join me and Glenda the Goodwitch for a lively problem solving session. 

So sorry to be joining the discussion so late! I'm Jayne Cravens (http://www.coyotecommunications.com), and I'll be coming from Germany to attend the NetSquared conference. I was one of the first people to create a web site to help nonprofits with technology many years ago, but most of you probably know me from my work in the last 10 years regarding online volunteering, first with the Virtual Volunteering Project (http://www.serviceleader.org/old/vv), and then at the United Nations Development Programme/UN Volunteers (http://www.onlinevolunteering.org). I'm now more focused on broader nonprofit management issues, particularly in the developing world and particularly regarding volunteer/community involvement (http://www.coyotecommunications.com/volunteer), but I still have a strong passion regarding nonprofits and technology, promoting accessibility for people with disabilities, as well as for people using "old" or "vintage" technology, and helping to provide a reality check for the tech world regarding nonprofit resources.