My old copy of NexTalk has been getting a lot of use in the past few weeks and suddenly it kept crashing or just truncating my phone sessions - requiring a reboot to resume a call. Ugh! So I decided to uninstall and clean out the registry and file folders of the program and then reinstall an upgrade. I went to download the program again and was happy to find that the newest version is designed so that it also works on Vista now and has a FAX option. Interesting. Anyway, with Vista capability, now I can install it on my (new to me) Gateway notebook which has Vista installed. :)
The link for NexTalk is here. This is a free program that enables a deaf person (who wants to use the computer interface) to call a person who can hear. An operator types text messages back to the deaf person, typing out whatever is being said at the hearing end. It works a lot like using a real time instant messenger. Thanks to all those wonderful relay operators out there that make these services possible. :D
Now here's a wonderful video with text, showing a sweet dog named Cowboy learning something new. :)
. . . Because people who love you sometimes want to use your laptop computer to make use of real or imagined, undocumented but desirable features. Two videos below with the second one being loosely applied to laptop computer technology that doesn't exist (yet) -
Tech Support in the Middle Ages (things haven't changed much!) Video with English subtitles. If you haven't seen this one before, be sure to watch it to the end. ;)
A Cell Phone that does everything! (ewwwww...) No captions on this one but it's pretty self-explanatory.
Some nice news on one of Vick's former pit doggies at Mercury News. (EDIT: I originally posted a link directly to the article but it is doing some Mercury News related odd login/redirect and page failure thing! --so here's the full text followed by the original URL)
Kids, elders befriend a Vick fighting dog By Linda Goldston Mercury News Article Launched: 01/31/2008 01:42:57 AM PST
[picture of Leo above]Caption: Leo, one of the 50 pit bulls confiscated from former NFL star Michael Vick,... ( Stephanie Lam )
He faced a life of fighting, a cruel death by hanging or drowning if he couldn't make it in the pit.
Now he brings smiles to children, tears of joy to seniors.
Leo, one of 50 pit bulls confiscated from former NFL star Michael Vick's dog fighting kennel, has a new leash on life, thanks to a South Bay rescue group.
He also has a new job: He's been transformed into a therapy dog. Instead of risking his life in a dog fight, he will help fight the fear and loneliness of children and seniors in hospitals and convalescent homes.
"He'll put his paws on the bed and give them the soft warm 'love me' eyes," said Marthina McClay, a dog trainer and founder of Our Pack, Inc., who has worked with Leo since Dec. 16. "That's why he's such a good therapy dog. He's very polite."
When Leo arrived in the Bay Area, he had scars behind his ears and showed signs that handlers at Vick's Bad Newz Kennels in Virginia were starting to condition the pit bull terrier for fights, McClay said.
"He was starting to fight or had done some fighting but it hadn't gone on long enough that he was beyond repair," she said. "Now he's fine and loves to play with other dogs."
Leo shares toy bones with McClay's female pit bull, Hailey, and gives a wide berth to her Chihuahua. He greets visitors with a wagging tail and piercing brown eyes. But there is no jumping up on anyone. This dog sits down and watches you to see what comes next.
"He's a fabulous dog," McClay said. "A real sweetheart."
After authorities seized dozens of dogs from Vick's property in Virginia, the animals were kept in shelters while investigators put together their case. A court-appointed attorney for the dogs decided which rescue groups could take them. Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls or BAD RAP, an Oakland-based pit bull rescue group, helped with the evaluations and drove 13 of the dogs to the Bay Area.
Pack got one of the dogs, Leo, and BAD RAP placed the rest in foster homes.
Vick, former star quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, is serving 23 months in prison after pleading guilty to a dog-fighting conspiracy.
Dogs bought for fighting went through a testing process; if they didn't perform well, they were drowned, electrocuted or hanged at Bad Newz Kennel.
Even though he has minor scarring from fights, Leo likely would have faced one of those violent deaths, McClay said.
"He just wants to play," McClay said as Leo snored on her couch.
McClay and others said the Vick dog-fighting case is remarkable because the dogs were not euthanized.
"People stood up and said, 'Wait a minute,' " she said.
What the rehabilitated dogs are showing now "is their core temperament," McClay said. "Their hallmark is people-pleasing. Otherwise, Michael Vick couldn't have done what he did.
"The dogs aren't criminals. The humans who abuse them are the criminals."
IF YOU'RE INTERESTED For more information on pit bulls, dog training and Our Pack, Inc., see the Web site at www.ourpack.org. ______________ Contact Linda Goldston at lgoldston@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5862.
ORIGINAL MERCURY NEWS URL- http://www.mercurynews.com/lifeandstyleheadlines/ci_8126693
Breed Specific Legislation is WRONG!
And time for some Deaf silliness :) No captions on this one, but it's all quite clear!
In response to a recent blog posting showing pups with expressive eyes, I got a comment, "Eyes you say?" from Kath Coniglio at Gypsy Anatolians with some photos of her girls. I just have to show them off here. :)
Taddy (Full Circle's Sihirli Tatlilik) helping some hidden fingers, I think, do quality control on a sweater. Either that or there's a cookie involved and I didn't get one! :p
Brinks (Briar Patch Brinks v Gypsy) pondering Anatolians of the past and future. :D
Aslan's Defne (Minnos) v Gypsy expressing her boundless enthusiasm for yet another photo :)
Turk, aka Roadblock's Turkish Silver, in a cute picture sent by Tiffany of Roadblock Anatolians. He is now working and training as a livestock dog.
Seeing the eyes above, it reminded me of how expressive our doggies can be. Above is a favorite of mine. The two pups are Coco and Helmut, giving Dave Koerner their rapt attention. I still wonder what he did to get that expression!
At fourteen months, Coco and Helmut above, giving my camera a quick look when I tried to get their attention by making odd noises -- and they do appear to be somewhat concerned. ;)
Now this is cool... Here's a chance to add your doggie pics to a huge mosaic by Pedigree. I added Ruya and got an email response. Supposedly "RUYA1" will show up in the mosaic in another day or two. Pedigree says it will make a $1 donation* to The PEDIGREE® Adoption Drive for every dog photo that's uploaded to the mosaic. (up to $10,000)
I'm still trying to shake off a bad cold and just have been too tired lately to keep up with any reading. I have previously read much ado about potential problems from cell phone radiation exposure but until recently, I just really haven't been paying much attention since I don't one. James used the landline primarily but his cell phone useage has become frequent and habitual -- time for us to wake up. Just saw this new article last night about how cell phone use interferes with sleep. Other general warnings which compare cell phone radiation to wireless laptop use. Interesting.
Last month, I read some articles regarding internet accessibility regarding how deaf captioning in online video shows (the professional ones) are so lacking. For example, you can watch some of the same newsclips on TV with the captions but the online versions never do have captions. From one of the articles discussing this issue, I ran into some delightful YouTube films that were captioned (Yay!) and had to do with with deaf topics. Here's one of them that has humor from Deaf culture featured. :)
Jamie Berke at About.com has a wonderful article explaining about how exhausting or frustrating it is for hearing impaired students at school, and actually applies to some extent for all deaf and hearing impaired in almost all social situations... see the Classroom Ghost.
On a lighter note, thanks to Diane who posted a link to a "Human Tetris" clip last week, I ended up looking at several hilarious clips showing a Japanese game show with a Tetris-like theme. Good laughs are much needed sometimes. :)
If you haven't discovered WikiHow, take a look at it sometime. You may find some of the most odd (!!) or useful How-to files over there. I found some useful tips on tuning up a Windows XP computer such as which Windows services I can disable to speed up my notebook.
Just so you don't get swept away on a tip that seems too good/weird to be true, check out the tab labeled discuss which goes with each topic. Remember Wikis are built by contributors (even pranksters) who may or may not have any expertise. Some are really useful and accurate, and others are... something else all together! :D ;)
To get you started, if you want to get into some degree of the Holiday Spirit (even if you never cook), check out the image that goes with making a Yule Log. I think I spent about five minutes laughing nonstop on that one. :) EDIT - Dec 21, 11AM: Just my luck, someone changed the image today, but you can see the image that I saw right here. Or how about making a necklace out of fish hooks, or how to become a Hobo.
Of course there are so many interesting files there that in order to find more time to browse, you might need some tips on calling in sick. :)
In order to test whether dogs can visually categorize pictures, and transfer their knowledge to new situations, four dogs were shown landscape and dog photographs, and expected to make a selection on a computer touch-screen.
. . . . . . (Doggie not used in the study, but I thought he is cute!)
In this test, the dogs had to choose between a dog-on-landscape image and a landscape-only photo. Good doggies: They aced the test, selecting the images that included dogs.
The results indicate, according to the authors, the dogs were able to form a concept of a "dog." Whether the dogs recognized the pup pictures as actual dogs, however, is an unknown.
The scenarios that come to mind when I think of the Internet Dog cartoon above being used in this test just crack me up. :)
Of course, with dogs recognizing other dogs on the computer, Mr Cartoon Dog might not be so right after all. . . LOL ;) :D
Okay, a more serious perspective. I think that our dogs are a lot more aware and perceptive of things than we are prepared to recognize sometimes. They do amazing things in search and rescue and in more everyday facets of life. It's just that it is us humans are sometimes unwilling or unable to take notice. Or if we do, other people think we are nuts.
It's always nice when those not familiar with the intelligence of dogs finally catch on to what we know. Humans just need to learn how to build good tests.
Boy, that's for sure. I remember reading the news about one you recently blogged, where some study tested to see if dogs would respond to emergencies. The testers staged fake emergencies and the dogs didn't fall for it.
I was wondering after reading that one, if there could only be a test to test the common sense of people who design such studies.
Of course, there are still pet lovers that seem to have the impression that if you fake a seizure or a diabetic coma, you can train a service dog to alert to a real one.
Yep, humans still have a long way to go. LOL :) :)
Amazing beautiful dogs. AKC registerable! Don't fall for for a lesser "doodle"! Get the real McCoy! Check out the Ponydoodle page! A fun site to visit BTW! Check out the training clips/links while you're there. :)
An original creation by Carol Beresh at DogsInStyle. Related Link - Dogs In Style
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April 07, 2008
Semavi Lady //
April 12, 2008
My old copy of NexTalk has been getting a lot of use in the past few weeks and suddenly it kept crashing or just truncating my phone sessions - requiring a reboot to resume a call. Ugh! So I decided to uninstall and clean out the registry and file folders of the program and then reinstall an upgrade. I went to download the program again and was happy to find that the newest version is designed so that it also works on Vista now and has a FAX option. Interesting. Anyway, with Vista capability, now I can install it on my (
Taxes are done for the year, I hope. Whew.
Taddy (Full Circle's Sihirli Tatlilik) helping some hidden fingers, I think, do quality control on a sweater. Either that or there's a cookie involved and I didn't get one! :p
Brinks (Briar Patch Brinks v Gypsy) pondering Anatolians of the past and future. :D
Aslan's Defne (Minnos) v Gypsy expressing her boundless enthusiasm for yet another photo :)
Turk, aka Roadblock's Turkish Silver, in a cute picture sent by Tiffany of 
. . . 
