Note, this programme is not currently in production. For live interactive talk we recommend Marlaina!
Blind Line is the international talk show on blindness issues. It can be heard live at 1 GMT on Mondays. Blind Line gives blind people from around the world the chance to discuss important issues of the day, and also to hang out and chat.
It's live, it's interactive, it's informative. Remember to turn on, phone in, and speak out.
You can call us free, using the Speak Freely software available from our Download Page, or on the phone using facilities generously provided by Spiderphone on 1-212-812-2800 and enter the PIN 04805512.
If you'd like to listen to archives of previous interviews heard on Blind Line, make your selection below.
23 June 2003, Chris Gray, declared candidate for ACB President.
20 June 2003, declared candidates for ACB Second Vice President and Secretary.
16 June 2003, debate between declared candidates for the position of ACB Treasurer.
28 April 2003 we discuss some of the great tours available as part of the 2003 ACB Convention
31 March 2003, callers share their favourite web sites.
10 March 2003, Marc Mulcahy talks about the PRS software that now runs ACB Radio.
3 February 2003, Gerald Fischman discusses developments in the treatment of retinal conditions
19 October 2002, ACB President Chris Gray
12 August 2002, Wendy Jones talks about making a career of public speaking.
27 May 2002, learn about the exciting ACB Cruise of the Caribbean
15 April 2002, Dr. Steven Lockley discusses sleep disorders in the blind. E-mail Steven Lockley.
8 April 2002, Doug Geoffray of GW Micro
25 March 2002, Maryanne Diamond, Executive Director, Blind Citizens Australia
18 March 2002, Lainey Feingold talks about accessible Automatic Teller Machines
11 March 2002, Chris Gray, President of the American Council of the Blind.
11 February 2002, Andy Potok, author of the new book "A Matter of Dignity".
21 January 2002, Jim Thatcher, accessibility expert and screen reader pioneer
12 November 2001, Bonnie Kearney and Lisa Mauldin of Microsoft
22 October 2001, Vaughan Dodd, President of the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand
15 October 2001, Laura Oftedahl, host of ACB Reports
1 October 2001, Blind Line broadcasts from the Blind Citizens Australia Convention in Sydney
24 September 2001, Blind Line broadcasts from Bangkok, Thailand
27 August 2001, Jonathan Simione, President of the National Alliance of Blind Students
20 August 2001, Jim Layton speaks with Dr Jean Bennett about break-through genetic retinal research
6 August 2001, Ryan Kelly, who plays Jazzer in the BBC Radio drama "The Archers"
23 July 2001, Curtis Chong of the National Federation of the Blind speaks with Jim Layton
16 July 2001, Chris Gray, ACB President.
4 June 2001 Leroy Saunders talks about the ACB National Convention in Des Moines
28 May 2001 Jim Snowbarger, the Snowman
21 May 2001 Jenine Stanley speaks with Pat Sheehan about the 508 regulations
30 April 2001 Paul Edwards, President, American Council of the Blind
26 March 2001, Jim Layton speaks with Charlie Crawford
12 March 2001, Amy Ruell talks about being a blind parent.
26 February 2001, William Jolley, Secretary-General of the DAISY Consortium.
22 January 2001, Brian Charlson, First Vice-President of the American Council of the Blind.
18 December 2000, the Blind Line Christmas Special, featuring Santa!
6 November 2000, Penny Reeder, editor of ACB's Official publication, the Braille Forum
26 October 2000, Steve Bauer of the Telephone Reader in Wichita. The telephone is an efficient, flexible way of getting the news you want, when you want it. We speak with Steve Bauer about the telephone reader service he runs.
12 October 2000, the CNIB Digital Library.
A revolution is taking place in the way blind people interact with their
special format libraries, and it seems the Canadian National Institute for
the Blind is leading the pack. This week, Blind Line features a fascinating
look at the new digital library launched by the Canadian National Institute
for the Blind in September. Our guests will be Rosemary Kavanagh, the
Executive Director of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind's
Library, and Gerry Chevalier, a member of the CNIB Library's Board of
Directors. We'll discuss the three core components of VISUNET Canada. We'll
also look at the benefits of almost all of the world's libraries moving to
DAISY, and how steps are being worked on to make the sharing of precious
special format materials easier between countries.
14 September 2000, Irwin Hott. Irwin Hott is the host of the Newsreel cassette magazine, as well as a tech support person for Blazie Engineering.
7 September 2000, Paul henrichsen. Paul currently does technical support for Kurzweil 1000, but has previously worked for Artic Technologies, and been a vendor. he also runs a very popular FTP site for blind people.
24 August 2000, Dennis Nelson. Dennis operates his own production business, the Audio production Den, and is also the technical director for Live Stream America.
10 August 2000, Allen Little. Allen is the director of New Zealand's Radio Reading Service, and was also recently elected to the board of the International Association of Audio Information Services.
27 July 2000, Brian Hartgen, host of the ACB Radio Infotech Show.
20 July 2000 Mike Calvo. Mike is the brain behind the Radio Webcaster, the product that allows you to listen to audio from your computer on any standard FM radio.
22 June 2000 Open Forum. We discuss the impact of the acquisition of the Arkenstone line of products by Freedom Scientific, and share the good and bad side at airline travel.
8 June 2000 Dan Kysor. Dan speaks to us about his background, his work in broadcasting, his role as the sysop of the Global Blind Exchange bulletin board system, and is current work in advocacy for the California Council of the Blind.
1 June 2000 George Kerscher. George talks with us about the new DAISY digital talking books, an exciting innovation that has been embraced by most major libraries for the blind.
18 May 2000 Patricia Lawrence. We speak with the producer/presenter of the award winning Travel Radio show, ehard here on ACB Radio.
11 May 2000 we speak with staff from the Sensory Access Foundation. Note that due to a technical problem, this archive starts about ten minutes through the broadcast.
27 April 2000, Dennis Brown. Dennis Brown has provided many people with technology advice, in his former role as the tech support person for Microtalk, and now in his own company DB Tech. Dennis also runs a number of lists, and the web site blindprogramming.com.
20 April 2000, Cathy-Anne Murtha. Cathy-anne was one of the first blind people to put together a comprehensive web site, Cathy's News Stand, now located at www.cathyanne.com. She has also produced tutorials, and advocates strongly and effectively for a more accessible web.
13 April 2000, Phil Troll of the National Talking Express. We find out about this tape-based magazine from Britain, plus plans to establish a radio station for the blind. For the first time, the call-in portion of the show is also available in this archive.\
1 April 2000, the Braille Note from Pulse Data International. Jonathan Sharpe and Maurice Sloane of Pulse Data International discuss their new Braille note taking device, available in 18 and 32 cell versions, that runs under Windows CE and has its own PPP e-mail client with address book and mail filters. You can find out more about the Braille Note by visiting www.braillenote.com
25 March 2000, Jim Snowbarger, the Snowman. Learn about the host of one of ACB Radio's most popular programmes, and what makes him tick.
18 March 2000, David Kostyshyn of Synthavoice talks about Window Bridge 2000. The first screen reader that was even written for the Windows operating system has now been rewritten from the ground up. Find out why, and what's new in Window Bridge 2000. For more information, visit www.synthavoice.on.ca.
11 March 2000, Michael Feir of Audissey Magazine talks about games for the blind. For a while, there was little activity happening in the field of computer games that blind people could play. But there are a few games that happen to be accessible, and an increasing number of games are being written specifically with the blind gamer in mind. Michael's magazine covers this fascinating topic. Archives of the magazine can be found at www.espsoftworks.com
19 February 2000, Jamal Mazrui. There are so many facets to Jamal that it's little wonder this interview is one of the longest in the Blind Line collection. Learn about Jamal, his advocacy, his expulsion from the NFB, his web site, and the Homer scripts that provide significant enhancements to JFW. For further information, visit Jamal's highly acclaimed site, the Empowerment Zone at www.empowermentzone.com.
5 February 2000, Peter Scialli from ShrinkWrap Computers . Peter produces the cassette-based magazine Bitstream, is a frequent and sometimes controversial participant on Internet e-mail lists, and runs Shrinkwrap Computer Products. Peter's web site can be found at www.readingmachines.com
29 January 2000, a Special Report on the Unified Braille Code. Efforts are being made to unify the various Braille codes so that there is no longer a separate code for each technical discipline such as computing, chemistry and physics. At the same time, attempts are also being made to standardise this code to be the code used throughout the English speaking world. But have the designers of the proposed new code got it right? This Blind Line special investigates.
22 January 2000, Glen Gordon of Henter-Joyce discusses JAWS for Windows 3.5 . This key person on the Henter-Joyce staff discusses the JFW 3.5 release, seeks to clarify JFW's support for the JAVA Access Bridge, and answers questions e-mailed by listeners. Information on JAWS for Windows can be found at www.hj.com
15 January 2000, Gregg Vanderheiden of the Trace Research Center. Many people are seeing some degree of light at the end of the tunnel with respect to computer access. But what about that household appliance with the graphical menu system and the buttons that you can't feel? When will those appliances start to become accessible? For more information, visit the Trace Research Centre at www.trace.wisc.edu.
18 December 1999, Guido Corona discusses and Demonstrates IBM Home Page Reader. In this Blind Line Christmas edition, you'll hear all about this self-voicing browser. You can find out more about Home Page Reader by visiting www.ibm.com/sns.
11 December 1999, Mickey Quenzer of the Productivity Works. PW Webspeak is a self-voicing web browser which can be used with your existing speech or its own Softvoice speech. In this interview, Mickey Quenzer puts the product through its paces. More information about PW Webspeak can be found at www.prodworks.com
4 December 1999, T V Raman, developer of Emacspeak. Linux is interesting an increasing number of computer users, and blind people are no exception. Find out about one method of gaining access to Linux, through a speech output interface called Emacspeak. Find out why it makes Linux accessible, yet is not a screen reader. You can visit the Emacspeak home page at www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/emacspeak/emacspeak.html.
13 November 1999, ACB Radio, and the NFB's AOL Law Suit. This is the last Blind Line show that was aired on MBSFM. ACB President Paul Edwards announces ACB Radio, and we look at the National Federation of the Blind's decision to sue America On-line.
6 November 1999, Stephen Bennett. What does it take to be a blind orientation and mobility instructor? We speak with Stephen Bennett, about to be the first blind O&M instructor to graduate in New Zealand.
23 October 1999, Michael Lauf. Michael Lauf is the host of the Handitalk programme. In this interview, we speak with Michael about his background and his hopes for the Handitalk show. More information is available from www.webradiostation.com
16 October 1999, Paul Edwards. Paul is the President of the American Council of the Blind. In this extended interview recorded during his visit to New Zealand, we speak with Paul to find out a little about himself, we discuss some of the present issues facing the American Council of the Blind, and look at consumerism in general.
9 October 1999, Jonathan Mosen. In this turning of the tables, Dean martineau interviews Blind Line host Jonathan Mosen about his background in broadcasting and his role as president of the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand.
2 October 1999, Dean martineau. Dean Martineau publishes the Sound Computing magazine, has produced many high quality and low cost tutorials, and is a frequent, helpful contributor to e-mail lists. Dean's company, Top Dot Enterprises, can be found on the Web at www.eskimo.com/~deamar.
18 September 1999, Kelly Ford. Kelly is a trainer, staunch web accessibility advocate, and a frequent contributor to many mailing lists. Here, we find out a little more about him and his views.
11 September 1999, Jim Fruchterman of Arkenstone. We look at Jim's background, the history of Arkenstone, and Openbook Ruby edition. More information on Arkenstone and its products can be found at www.arkenstone.org
4 September 1999, Charlie Crawford of the American Council of the Blind. As Executive Director of the American Council of the Blind, Charlie holds one of the world's most important blindness-related advocacy positions. In this interview, we find out a little about Charlie's background, and look at some of the issues on which he and the Council are working.
28 August 1999, David Andrews of NFBNet. David Andrews has been facilitating electronic communication between blind people for many years. He is involved in the CompuServe Disabilities Forum, is sysop of NFB-Net which runs many mailing lists for the blind, and participates in many other blindness-related e-mail lists. NFB Net can be found at www.nfbnet.org.
21 August 1999, David Kostashin of Synthavoice. We learn about David's background, the history of his company which was the first to bring a Windows screen reader to market, and we look ahead to a total re-write of the product. Synthavoice's web site is at www.synthavoice.on.ca
14 August 1999, Phil Scovell. Phil has been communicating with a computer since the golden age of Fidonet. As publisher of the Internet Phone Book of Blind Users, moderator of a popular mailing list, and entrepreneur, Phil still plays an important part in the blind community. Visit his site at www.redwhiteandblue.org.
7 August 1999, George Bell of Techno-Vision Systems. When someone has a tricky technical problem and turns to a mailing list for help, George Bell seems able to solve it. George has built up a very successful business in the UK in a field where it can be difficult to stay afloat. George's company web site is at www.technovision.co.uk
31 July 1999, Stephen Baum of Kurzweil Educational Systems. Stephen Baum is the prolific programmer primarily responsible for the frequent releases and exciting new features in the Kurzweil 1000 OCR software for the blind. In this interview, we find out a bit about Stephen, and also look at Kurzweil 1000 4.5. More information is available from www.kurzweiledu.com.
24 July 1999, Ted Henter of Henter-Joyce, makers of JAWS for Windows. We speak with this highly successful entrepreneur who is the President of the company that makes JAWS for Windows, one of the world's most popular screen readers. More information on JFW can be found at www.hj.com.
17 July 1999, Doug Geoffray of GW Micro, makers of Windoweyes. This ihttp://www.acbradio.org/archives/blindline/http://s the third Blind Line programme ever broadcast, and the first in which we featured an interview. We speak with Doug Geoffray, one of the founders of GW Micro, makers of Windoweyes, one of the world's most popular screen readers. We find out a little about Doug, the challenges of being in the screen reading business, and plans for the future.
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