NOW – Page 3508 – Amanda Unvarnished

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· 26 Adar I 5779 (Sunday 3 March 2019) · 2 minutes to read

I starved my Apple Watch to death overnight, and I am here to tell you that if this happens you are absolutely restarting your phone because all your connections go to shit. I went to see Ed Turner and Number 9 last night at the Imperial Theater and they were amazing. Lord help them though they need a website because right now they have a Facebook page, a Youtube channel, and all their other content is published in newspapers and magazines, and they own none of these bits of content. I’m trying to decide if I have a large enough set of balls to leave them a message on their Facebook page. Maybe later. Right now I’m spending my Sunday morning waiting on assistance for a request I have made of my apartment complex something like five times in the span of four days and so far, despite an approach by staff this morning with a promise of assistance within thirty to forty-five minutes, no dice. I’ll provide more details later if it gets to that point but this has until tomorrow morning to finish playing out so I’ll keep those to myself for now. If it gets to the point of no return though it’s on then because some serious shit is going to go down and I have everything documented. However I am fast losing patience and it’s only a matter of time before it gets flamingly lit.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 24 Adar I 5779 (Friday 1 March 2019) · 2 minutes to read

The American Foundation for the Blind is using the scenario of the lone, overworked, harried accessibility expert as a marketing prop for its own accessibility consulting service at this year’s AFB Leadership conference, and I have some thoughts. This is maybe a half a level above selling an overlay as a silver bullet for every accessibility problem on the planet, and unless you’ve been living under a rock or are an overlay vendor, you’re probably aware that overlays as a solution are at the absolute bottom of the totem pole. Any company which tasks a single individual with all of the responsibility for accessibility is guaranteed to fail at accessibility, and anyone who’s been in this field for any length of time knows this. To use someone who is guaranteed to constantly be fighting an uphill battle, only to not succede in the end, as a marketing prop for your own accessibility consulting, like you’re the white knight who will come in and save the day, is disgusting, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say you should stay as far away from accessibility consulting as possible. There’s not an accessibility firm worth its salt that would stoop to the level of using someone who is guaranteed to be unable to complete the task they have been given as a ploy to market their own services. Those accessibility teams of one are some of the hardest working, least appreciated people in this field, and when I’ve been in that situation, actual accessibility professionals have given me a hand up, not used me as a selling point in a marketing campaign. Using overworked accessibility teams of one as a sales pitch dehumanizes those accessibility teams and devalues all of their hard work, as well as the work of everyone else toiling in this field.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 24 Adar I 5779 (Friday 1 March 2019) · 1 minute to read

OK, so the hot new Ambutech cane I recently purchased has cracked, so it’s time for another one, and so it’s also time for a rant about assistive technology and eCommerce. Specifically, why does every single assistive technology vendor’s eCommerce setup have to suck so badly? Most of these are running WooCommerce, and holy hell it’s painfully obvious that these installs aren’t up-to-date, that the themes being used do not have WooCommerce support, (let alone accessibility), and that whoever set these up knows pretty much nothing about eCommerce, marketing, or WooCommerce. This isn’t about one-man shops. This is about vendors who have staff, who have the income, and yet who are perfectly willing to provide their customers with a horrible user experience just to save some cash. Guys, eCommerce is hard. There’s a reason you’re not going to get a working eCommerce that does everything you need it to do for any less than $10,000. But trust me, it’s worth the investment. If your customers have an enjoyable experience shopping with you, (and this includes accessibility), they will be more than willing to recommend you to their friends and family and you will see more business for your efforts.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 23 Adar I 5779 (Thursday 28 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

Not that I’m going to go leave this comment on the Breitbart website or anything, but there’s one huge problem with the so-called “buttering-up” strategy which Joel Pollak attributes to the president, and as someone who has negotiated my fair share of contract terms, I think I can comment on this to some degree. That strategy can work, if a few things are in place: First, you have to already possess a reputation for having an amiable personality. If you don’t have that, and you then go to the negotiation table pouring the sugar on as thick as you can, whoever’s on the other side is going to see right through that, and proceed accordingly. Second, as with any negotiation, you don’t show your hand before talks begin, and you sure as hell don’t hand over all your cards, (as the president appears to have done), before you secure worthwhile concessions from the other side. To do otherwise isn’t negotiation, it’s desperation to save face, and it usually never turns out that way. So I think it’s safe to conclude that the president, (once again) got played like a baby grand.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 22 Adar I 5779 (Wednesday 27 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

I’m in the process of giving the Customer Servant Consultancy website a fresh coat of paint. I’m planning to replace the current front page with a static front page and then link to the various content kinds in the navigation menu. I’ll also be rebuilding and updating the portfolio and testimonials and contact pages. I’m choosing a theme that still supports all the indieweb goodness while looking pretty different from my personal site. I’ll need to spend some time in the customizer making sure the color scheme has good color contrast, just in case it doesn’t currently.

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Read: An Introduction to Block-Based Homepages with the Genesis Framework by @cdils with some brief thoughts of my own

Amanda CAARSON

· 22 Adar I 5779 (Wednesday 27 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

An Introduction to Block-Based Homepages with the Genesis Framework by Carrie Dils

StudioPress just released Revolution Pro, the first Genesis child theme to sport a block-based homepage. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create one.

Speaking from experience, I know exactly what Carrie is talking about when it comes to widgets being a poor choice, (although the only available one), for homepage layouts. I’ve done more than my fair share of theme customizations and often times those customizations meant hiring someone to redo the CSS. I, for one, will be over the moon when I can fully use Gutenberg and take advantage of block-based homepages.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 21 Adar I 5779 (Tuesday 26 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

First trip planned for 2019 and will start next week. I get to spend some extended time away from Augusta and I am extremely happy about this. I’m hoping there will be more trips than just this one but so far 2019 is getting off to an excellent start with regard to travel.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 20 Adar I 5779 (Monday 25 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

Initiating a crisis among the Intellectual Dark Web by opening a jar all by myself with my tiny, tiny hands.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 20 Adar I 5779 (Monday 25 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

Current status: Dealing with DNS and MX entry ratfuckery. I will be glad when this shit is working properly and this day gets to the part where I am doing enjoyable things. I think if I could throw this server off a roof right now I would. It’s going to drive me to start drinking. Oh and of course there’s the obligatory browwser/screen reader hick-uping going on because we just have to have delays between key-presses. And no, this is not NVDA. It’s the world-class screen reader we all know and love because this web host’s control panel is improperly coded so I’m reliant on the huristics Jaws employs to get this working. Never mind that browser support for anything other than Internet Explorer is pure unadulterated bullshit. Jesus I can’t believe this screen reader costs money.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 15 Adar I 5779 (Wednesday 20 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

All three of my Apple Watch’s rings are full, and I’ve completed most of the work I wanted to get done today. I have a few things I’m putting off until tomorrow because I need to spend some time fighting with screen readers plus web apps but I’m not broken up about it. I have a very enjoyable evening ahead of me and I plan to enjoy every minute of it to the fullest extent possible. I’ve been looking forward to this all day.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 14 Adar I 5779 (Tuesday 19 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

It’s official. If you use multiple successive emojis in a tweet or any other publication where I can’t skip past them I hate you and I hope you walk on legos barefoot for the rest of your mortal existence.

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Amanda CAARSON

· 13 Adar I 5779 (Monday 18 February 2019) · 1 minute to read

Today has been a very productive Monday but it is now beer hundred hours and I am signing off until tomorrow. I hope to get a restful night’s sleep tonight. See y’all on the other side, and behave while I’m gone. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, or if you do, make sure you do it well.