JOHN GASSMAN: Welcome to FSCast 174, September 2019, the most popular time of
the year for assistive technology with regard to Freedom Scientific because
Eric Damery will be here shortly to tell you all about JAWS 2020. Also,
retired Superior Court Judge David Szumowski talks about assistive technology
and his brand new book. All of that coming up right now on FSCast 174.
Hello, and welcome to FSCast #174. John and Larry Gassman with you. We’ll get to Eric Damery and all the great things in JAWS 2020 in just a moment or so. First we want to remind you that, if you would like to contact us here at FSCast, as many of you did, you can do so by contacting us at fscast@vispero.com. So that’s F S C A S T @vispero.com. And Vispero is spelled V I S P E R O.
Now, if you want to call us, you can do that, as well. And we would request, and we do request that, if you leave a message on the listener line, you also leave an email address, if you should need us to get back to you, so that we can do that. So if you call from outside of the United States, which is great, but it’s not always convenient to call, and so an email would really help us out in the event that we need to contact you. You can call us at area code (727) 803-8000, and that’s extension 1010.
Fans of Freedom Scientific’s talk show, FSOpenLine, will be glad to know that FSOpenLine returns on Thursday, this time September 19 of this year. And that will be 8:00 Eastern time in the United States and 5:00 Pacific. And if you’re in another part of the world, you’ll want to go ahead and look up your time on one of the Internet time tools that is available.
We’re going to hear from Eric Damery very shortly about the JAWS 2020 public betas. There will be at least two, maybe a third. But that brings to mind the fact that there will not be a public beta for ZoomText or for Fusion. We have private beta teams already working on those products, and they will be released at the same time as JAWS release comes your way toward the end of October. With more of that, we’ll hear from Larry Gassman and Eric Damery.
LARRY GASSMAN: Well, back with us again, he’s almost a regular to FSCast, is
Eric Damery. And this time of year it could only mean that we’re just about to
unveil JAWS 2020 for public beta. It’s coming soon, folks. We’re warning you
now there’s a lot of good stuff in this particular beta. And to kind of give
us an idea as to what’s happening with JAWS 2020, we welcome Eric Damery to
FSCast.
ERIC DAMERY: Well, hello, Larry, and thanks. I’m glad to be here again. And you’re right, it’s that time of year. We’ve been doing this for a lot of years now, getting these new releases out; and the 2020 versions of JAWS, ZoomText and Fusion will be ready to go end of October, right on schedule.
LARRY: What can you tell us about this particular release? What can people expect?
ERIC: So we’ll talk about kind of our lineup or our schedule. We’re recording here, we’re right around the middle of September. And we should be just a day or two away from public beta as people are listening to this. And public beta will be on the JAWS product that will post, so somewhere here in the second half of September. And we’ve got quite a few things that will be in the initial release. I’ll kind of go over those later as we talk through this.
There’ll be a Public Beta 2 that will follow, probably two to three weeks after Public Beta 1, and we tend to have another Public Beta 3 right before final release. And usually there aren’t a lot of changes in 3, only tidying up one or two things. Release we target for no later than the 31st of October, so we always try and beat that date. And I think we’re on schedule so it will be somewhere around the end of October that people will get the actual releases that are – and this, of course, is an SMA release.
So if you are using ILM licensing, and you don’t have your SMA in place at this time, you should definitely look at doing that because, remember, once the release comes out the end of October, if you hadn’t got into the SMA program, you’re actually responsible at that point, you would have to buy the upgrade, which is basically the same price, and you’re only going to get that one version. So get your SMA in place. And if you’re not sure, and you want to follow up on that, there’s a link on the Freedom Scientific home page about SMAs and upgrades and checking your serial number. And if you go to that link down in the software update section, you can type in your serial number, and it will let you know if you’re entitled to it or not. And call customer service, call your local dealer, and try and get that SMA in place.
Now, following that initial release on the 31st, we’re already getting our schedule in place, and we’re looking at having an update. It should occur during the first week in December. This is what we’ve tried to do in the past so any of the changes that we had hoped to get in the initial build that weren’t going to make it, that have already slipped, will be in that first update. And of course then there’ll be an update probably coming towards the end of January, and we’ll go right on with our schedule.
Now, also coming again this fall, probably around the time of the public beta for 2020 when it posts, there’ll be a 2019 update. So there is another update for 2019 set to hit in this month of September. I’m not saying we’re done with the updates for 2019, but it won’t be much of a focus going forward. Most of the effort goes into 2020. And any real significant things that we can bring back to 2019 safely, we will; and we’ll probably get another update of that out before the end of the year, as well.
So that’s kind of it on the schedule. Watch for public beta coming up very shortly, Public Beta 1 of JAWS. There’ll also be a Public Beta 2, maybe a 3. And JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion initial final releases will hit around the 31st of October.
LARRY: Now, Eric, there is a change this year with regard to SMAs a little bit. Tell us about that, and what can customers expect?
ERIC: Starting last year, we stopped shipping DVDs with our software. And so when someone buys JAWS today, or buys an upgrade of JAWS today, they’re receiving the links in an email message, and they download the software and install it. And the authorization codes come through email now, as well. So we’re not shipping those DVDs anymore. So SMA customers in the United States can expect to receive a letter in print and braille, and it will cover for them how to get the next download here, the download for 2020, what page to go to to get it. And it will also include information for them if they’re entitled to receive another upgrade next year.
It won’t mention anything about renewal. But if this was the last one they were going to receive, they’ll be given the two options, either renew your SMA or consider the Home Annual program here in the United States. Most people don’t have computers anymore with DVD drives, and it just doesn’t seem to make sense to continue to ship these DVDs out to everybody. People have got drawers full of them, I think, at this point. I know I haven’t bought a computer in several years with a DVD drive. And I’m assuming you’re the same, Larry?
LARRY: I am. I don’t even remember what they are.
ERIC: Yeah, well, in, you know, downloading, one of the other problems with DVDs is they become dated very quickly. As you know, we update the software about every four to five weeks. And so if people are just waiting and installing from the DVD, chances are after they install the DVD they have to do an automatic update and get the new version again. So it’s just easier if you just always download the latest version from the web and install it, and that’s always the best approach.
LARRY: So as we talked about earlier, the public betas are about to take place. So can you share with us anything that’s going to be in those betas?
ERIC: Sure. I’ve got a list of things, and we’ll walk through them. And of course, as always, we try and continue to make modifications throughout the course of the year. But we do have quite a few changes that’ll be coming in this first initial release I want people to look for.
The first thing I’ll mention is we’ve updated our OCR engine. So in JAWS for Windows and for Fusion customers, they have a feature in there called Convenient OCR, where you can OCR a document or an inaccessible PDF file or something like that. And if you have a PEARL camera or flatbed scanner, of course you can use those. And this updated OCR engine improves recognition, and it’s all the latest and greatest from Kofax is the name of the company now that owns the Nuance OCR. So it’s all the latest and greatest version of that. And I believe there’s even some other languages that have been added in. So watch for the write-up on the OCR engine.
One of the other features that users are going to be able to see is in Chrome, the Chrome browser, many people have applications that they use, maybe Gmail, for instance. If you run Gmail in the Chrome browser, you might prefer to do this without the virtual cursor on. You’d want to do it with your applications cursor because Google’s done a pretty good job putting keystrokes in there, and you can just navigate it with the PC cursor quite well. The trouble is if you have another tab open, and you’re on a web page browsing, you want to browse with the virtual cursor. And if you’re going between the two pages, you’re always coming back to your Gmail application or your web application, whatever it might be, where you want to use the PC cursor, and your virtual cursor’s on again, and you have to turn it off.
So there’s a new feature in JAWS that, when you change to the PC cursor on one web tab and then move to another web tab where you’re using virtual, JAWS will remember which one was supposed to be on when you go between those two tabs during this session of JAWS, and it will switch automatically. So it’ll make it much easier for people who have a web application open, but also go to other pages. Great little feature, and one that actually the Google people had recommended to us because so many people at Google that are using JAWS up there do just that. They’re using Gmail in one tab, and they’re going to other web pages, and they like the ability to be able to have that recall and remember.
One of the other features that are coming in is trying to address the issue where users have the JAWS cursor. They’re so used to using the JAWS cursor to review where they are on a page. And in recent years now, when you turn on the JAWS cursor, you’ll just hear blank, blank, blank. And this may be a case where you’re in one of the new modern applications where we can’t get the text in the same fashion. We don’t use video intercept for that. We don’t build that information into our offscreen model, and we’ve added a new way of navigating that in the past. And people have heard us talk about the “touch cursor,” to be able to walk through your elements. Well, we’re thinking of that now as more of a scan cursor, like a JAWS scan cursor.
And so if you’re in an application, say the calculator, for instance, or maybe the Microsoft Store, and the JAWS cursor would not be of any value in those applications because we don’t have the offscreen model, when you try and turn on the JAWS cursor it’ll recognize where it is, and it will turn on this JAWS scan cursor. And you’ll be able to use the same keystrokes that you would normally use to navigate with the JAWS cursor, but it’ll be moving the scan cursor around by element. So I think this will help people who don’t really know when they’re supposed to use the JAWS cursor, when they’re supposed to use the scan cursor. The idea is we’ll get smart enough, recognize where you are and give you the right one to use, and you can always use the same keystrokes.
So the next two things I want to talk about, I think, are things that most users have all stumbled across, and these are probably fixes more than they are features. But I think these are great additions, and I’m glad to see us get this out now in 2020. Have you ever been on a web page, and as you’re moving through the web page, you hear “clickable” on some item. And sometimes I’ve seen pages and had customers tell me about pages, New York Times, for instance, when you’d go to The New York Times and you’d start reading. Every time you down arrow, you’re hearing “clickable, clickable, clickable” on all the text.
And this has been a problem as we’ve been trying to describe some attribute, some accessibility attribute that’s put on text, but sometimes they put it at the top level of a table, and a table is used in a document. And as you move through every line of the document you’re hearing that information because of where it came from. So that will be resolved in the initial 2020 release. And that’s actually going to folded back into the 2019 update, as well; so that, if you’ve been experiencing that term “clickable” on the web – and I’ve seen it, for instance, on the Facebook page. If you move by headings, oftentimes there’s headings where you’re hearing “clickable” all the time. And that is now addressed. Have you run across those at all, Larry?
LARRY: I have, not only personally, but also with my employer I see it a lot. So looking forward to getting rid of it.
ERIC: Yup, that’ll be a good one. Now, there’s another thing that JAWS has been announcing for quite some time now, and it’s actually something that was put in under a contract with one of the big companies that we worked with a number of years ago. The message that comes from JAWS is “Press JAWSKEY+ALT+R for descriptive text.” So it was designed to be a feature to be able to, if you were here on something, and you pressed that keystroke, there would be some descriptive text message potentially written somewhere else that would then read.
And of course most of the time the descriptive message isn’t there, and we don’t say anything special. So even though you press the keystroke, you don’t get anything. So that message is now going to be subdued, and you’re not going to be hearing that. And I have been running across that myself on different order forms and so forth. When you’re buying something online, you’re constantly getting that message. And that should go away in the 2020. And that one, too, will get rolled back into the next 2019 update.
Another change that we’re making for 2020 is the double speaking of prompts. And I’m sure you’ve run across these also very often on the Internet, where you move into an edit field, and you’ll hear something like “first name, edit first name.” And what’s happening here is there’s a prompt for the control, which is “first name,” that we speak. And then we speak the name of the control, which is the “edit.” And then we’re reading some accessibility tag that is put on the control by the author of the web page to provide some accessibility information to try and give you a little contextual information about where you are. And since most of the time they don’t know what to put there, they just rewrite the prompt in that control. So that’s why you’re hearing the same – you’re hearing the prompt, you’re hearing the control type, and then you’re hearing the prompt a second time. It’s like we’re double speaking.
In this 2020 release we’re going to see where we’re going to be able to say the prompt; but if the descriptive text or that accessibility tag is the same text, we’re going to subdue it. So you’ll just hear “first name, edit.” But if they’ve put something that’s constructive there, or what we hope is constructive, we will also read it to you if it doesn’t match. Should be a good improvement. I’m looking forward to hearing from users on that.
Another change that is going to be in the release but not turned on by default is something we call our “unified keyboard processing.” Since we’ve put JAWS and ZoomText together and created a product called Fusion, there are keystrokes for the magnification side of the product, and there are keystrokes for the screen reading side of the product. And they’ve each had their own keystrokes in the past, and their own keyboard driver that’s been separate. And we really need to combine that so we can make this feel like a much more natural product – especially when you’re running Fusion, but even when you’re running them together.
So we’re going to have a single keyboard processing method now so that all three products will be aware of each other and will be able to avoid any key conflicts in the future. We’re still sorting out a few details on it. So the feature will be in, if you go to the Settings Center and search for “keyboard,” you will find the option, and you can turn it on or you can leave it off for the time being. At some point, once all of our testing is completed, and we feel comfortable that we can have it on by default, we will turn it on by default. So watch for that one coming up in the future.
A change that we’re adding into the 2019 update this fall, that we hope to have out before the release of 2020, is something that, when you run 2019 after you put this update in, it’s going to look at your serial number that you’re running, check the last release allowed to see if you’re entitled to the next version or not. If it says that you’re not entitled to the next version, it’s going to go back and check and see if your key on the ILM license server back on the Internet has been updated yet. Because if you went this month, for instance, and renewed your SMA, you’re already entitled to 2019 today, and now you’re entitled to 2020 and 2021, but the key on your computer doesn’t know about that.
So what we want to do is determine that you’re entitled to it, let you know to go ahead and update your key. It’ll update the key for you. And then when the 2020 gets installed, it just works. It doesn’t tell you you’re not authorized currently. So for those of you who buy the SMAs late, and the SMA doesn’t update the key for you, you won’t get those messages when the 2020 is installed in the future. Was that too confusing? That was, wasn’t it.
LARRY: No. I don’t think so.
ERIC: Okay.
LARRY: No. I understood it; so if I understood it, I think anybody else can.
ERIC: Okay. Yeah, well, for people who have done it, they’ll understand it.
LARRY: Yeah.
ERIC: So we look forward to getting this moving and hope we get a lot of good feedback. There’ll be a form online, as always, that people can go to. When you go to the download page for the public beta, it’ll have a link to that form. And please give us the feedback and make sure you give us the information about your operating system and browsers and all of that kind of thing. We really look forward to getting the feedback. And remember, even if it’s getting close to the release time, tell us about issues that you’re finding. While they may not get adjusted in the initial release, we’ll be sure to try and get those things included in that December update also.
LARRY: Eric, once again, thank you so much for giving us a sneak peak glimpse at 2020. And we look forward to hearing you again in the future on FSCast.
JOHN: By the way, just a quick reminder about something
that we may not have discussed previously on JAWS public betas. I know a lot
of you are used to getting the updates whenever a new JAWS version becomes
available. But these are public betas for JAWS 2020. So there will be no
alert, not until we get to the final release. So that’s why it’s very
important that, when we say it will be coming shortly, within a few days, you
continue to check the Freedom Scientific web page for the latest software
updates. If you look in the software updates where it now says 2019, it will
say JAWS Public Beta. And that’ll be your clue to go check it out, JAWS Public
Beta #1. But it won’t come to you in terms of an alert, so you have to be
aware of that and go get it if you want to download it.
JOHN: We are very happy to have making a return visit to FSCast former Superior Court Judge David Szumowski. David was with Jonathan Mosen in November of 2017 in FSCast 146. So if you’d like to go back and hear the full-length interview, you certainly can do that. David has also written a book which we’re going to talk about, as well. And most of the time in this segment we’re going to spend our time with assistive technology, looking at JAWS and OpenBook and things along the way that David has utilized throughout his role as a Superior Court Judge and as a user. Before we do any of that, let’s welcome back to FSCast David Szumowski.
DAVID SZUMOWSKI: Good morning to both of you, thank you. It’s nice to be back with you.
JOHN: You’re a longtime JAWS user, but before that you spent a good part of our life as a sighted individual, and of course never dreaming that one day you’d be learning how to use assistive technology. What were you doing – I know you went to the Vietnam War. But did you have aspirations in terms of what you wanted to do before your wartime accident?
DAVID: Actually, I was planning to make a career of the military until I lost my sight. And back then they thought that was enough for me. Although today I think there are a couple of actual blind people who stayed in the service after some military injury of some sort and have a job that’s appropriate for what they can do. So that’s a good thing. But back in 1969 that wasn’t in the cards for me.
I remember exactly, you know, what happened. I think the adjustment aspect of it came much later. If you’ve read my book, I do talk about that. I was pretty much in a cocoon with the military and being processed out, and then right into blind rehab through the VA system at Heinz, and then right into law school. So my focus and my attention was on getting a new career going and not dealing so much with having to adjust to blindness. It was after I finished law school and had a lot of time on my hands that some of the stresses that one would think go with that kind of a traumatic injury started to rear up their ugly heads, and that’s where I had to deal with some of those issues.
JOHN: And you mentioned the book, and the book is entitled “Reach for More,” available currently, of course on Kindle if you want to buy it there. But you can also get it on Bookshare. And you were telling me that eventually it’ll be available on BARD, as well.
DAVID: Correct. And it just went up on Audible.com on the 4th of July. So there’s a link for that if you want to go to Amazon. You’ll see the link for it since Amazon owns Audible. So there’s several ways to get it. And I understand it’s getting close to being done in the Library of Congress system.
JOHN: And David, spell your last name so that people can search for you.
DAVID: Sure. It’s S Z (like Zebra) U M (like Mary) O W S K I.
JOHN: Now, you were moving through life at a similar time that we were, wherein you had to be able to read, but before all of the various technology came along. How did you go about reading to get yourself through school at those times? Was it the readers and the people taking the classes at the same time?
DAVID: That’s one way I did it. I tried to hire people that were in the same classes to do reading for me. I got some financial help for that through the VA, so I could pay them. But I also had reel-to-reel tapes of books that had been done by the Recording for the Blind, I believe was the name of the outfit, in advance. A lot of textbooks were done that way. And so I had those. And I didn’t use braille that much except to take certain notes in my own little hieroglyphics and contractions. I knew braille, but of course coming so late to braille in life my fingers were not nearly as good as anybody congenitally blind. So I did not read it that fast. So I used a lot of tape recorders, cassette tapes and things like that to take my notes, and relied on my hearing more than my sense of touch for most everything in law school.
JOHN: And you eventually passed the bar and became a lawyer and moved on to becoming a judge. Did you find that people were a little resistant, figuring, well, if I couldn’t do it as a sighted guy, how can he do it as a blind guy?
DAVID: Yes. There was a lot of resistance, especially in Colorado, where I went to law school. So I eventually moved out here to California and decided to try my hand at a couple of other things first. I did go to work for the Veterans Administration for about three years. And that went quite well. They were very receptive and supportive. And then I thought, well, I went to law school. I ought to try to do something with law.
So I took the California Bar Exam, eventually passed it, and did some more work in the veterans field in the nonprofit area for a while. But then I decided that I didn’t really want to be a “professional veteran,” as I phrase it. I wanted to do something else. So I stayed close to the veterans field through the Blinded Veterans Association out of Washington, and over the years rose up through the ranks. And I was its national president at one time.
But I started looking for jobs in San Diego. I found a little bit of resistance with major corporations and things of that nature. The law firms didn’t want to take a chance on me. But eventually the District Attorney of San Diego County took a chance. I had some good support from some people he trusted in his office who were veterans and skilled prosecutors. And so he gave me a shot. And that was kind of the beginning.
And I really enjoyed doing trial work. It’s thinking on your feet. It’s formulating arguments and being persuasive, and that means I’m doing all the talking. It didn’t involve a lot of reading; but where there was reading I had a paralegal that was working with me, and we worked our cases together, and she read me what I needed to know. But as far as interviewing witnesses and cross-examining them in trials and making arguments to the jury, that was all on me.
And it worked out well for 12 years before I decided to take a shot at being a judge. And before I did that, I did some research about blind judges in the country. There were a handful, including a couple in the federal bench. And I got the support of the blind community through AFB and ACB and NFB. And the Bar Association locally liked my performance as a prosecutor, so they supported me locally here. And Governor Wilson appointed me in 1998 to be a judge, and that’s what I did.
LARRY: Did your memory improve as a blind person?
DAVID: Yeah, I think it actually did. I can’t exactly explain why. I think it’s probably because I knew that I wasn’t going to get another quick look at things, as some people rely on notes and things of that nature. Once I had it in my head, I had to try to remember it. And I tried to focus on the things that were the most important things. And I’ve developed some little triggers along the way, making some catchphrases that had some meaning for what the whole thought was. And that seemed to work out pretty well for me. And that’s kind of the way I studied for the bar exam, too, because there were so many rules. I tried to make up some catch little phrases or words or something that kind of triggered the whole thought process.
JOHN: I think the building of a memory is a lot like what it was like, although we didn’t realize we were doing it at the time, enhanced spatial relationships where you’re just walking and maneuvering, and you begin to hear things more clearly, perhaps than sighted people. And you don’t realize you’re doing it. You’re just existing and operating.
DAVID: Correct.
JOHN: In a slightly different way. And I think it’s the same way with the memory. It just happens.
DAVID: That’s right. I think that’s exactly right. And I think my hearing has gotten a lot better. I think my wife would probably disagree with that. But I call that “selective listening” as opposed to not hearing. I hear a lot of things, and I tend to disregard certain parts of things that I hear, too. And I’m not, you know, not as young as I used to be. There could be some issues when you’re plugged into a cell phone, or you’ve got a headset on or something like that. The way most blind people today operate with having to listen to things, I’m sure as time goes on there’s a little hearing impairment going on.
JOHN: Now, where did you first begin to learn about assistive technology? Do you remember?
DAVID: Well, as far as the JAWS aspect of things and Freedom Scientific, you know, I think the first thing I learned about when I was a DA was the old HumanWare program, which I think is still in existence. I mean, I’ve got the Victor Stream, and I bought that from them. I had the old Keynote. That was one of the first pieces of real technology that I used. And I had the Kurzweil reading machine back when it was, you know, probably weighed about 75 pounds in two large units on a cart. Now it’s down to the cigarette pack-sized camera scanner on the PEARL, and that’s what I use extensively when I do have to scan things. However, I think Keynote was the first thing.
And then I learned about JAWS. And I was going to the conventions. Back then I went to the ACB Lawyers Convention and went to the booths and checked out all the stuff that was going on and found it pretty fascinating, and kind of settled on JAWS. And I’ve been very happy with it from day one. I’m not sure, maybe it’s been 20 years since I’ve been with JAWS. I don’t know. We’re up to version 19 now. And I’ve listened to a whole bunch of webinars, some I’ve paid for and keep those MP files. Others were free. And if it looked interesting, I would listen to them and download those files. And I still have those on my computer.
And I was skimming over some of the topic areas in preparation for this interview. I didn’t obviously listen to all those tapes. I didn’t have enough time for that. But some of the things were helpful, especially when I was writing my book, from tracking in Word; and used the Text Analyzer, although that’s a little tedious at times; and some of the Word search functions, especially when I learned that today, unlike the way I learned it with two spaces after a period, most writers and in newspapers it’s one period, I mean, one space after a period now. And so I had this whole book written with two spaces. And it was fun to use the global search and just type in two spaces and then put the correction in it as one space after a period, and then instantly my whole book was done, in about two seconds. It was kind of fun.
JOHN: The webinars you mentioned earlier, and of course now those that were once paid for are now free. And they covered a lot, they’ve covered a lot of things in the past. I’m not sure when they first started. But years and years and year with Dan Clark and the training team, and now we have a new training team and new things coming out just about every month. So Freedom Scientific, probably unlike any other company, is really focused on training.
DAVID: That’s true. I’ve found a lot of times I do have trouble. But I’ve got to tell you, the support staff through the call-in numbers for technical help, they’re just wonderful. I do have a direct communication with Dan Clark at times through email where, if I have a question, he’s always been right there to give me some direction. And, you know, I can’t speak highly enough. When things don’t work, somebody there is going to know how to fix it. And I suppose if I took the time to read through all the training manuals, I could probably figure it out myself; but, you know, time is precious. So the fact that they’re there to help has been wonderful.
JOHN: Terrific help section. So I look at that more now than I used to, now that I’m involved in the podcast, just because people come up with questions, and you tend to use what you use most on a daily basis, and the stuff that you don’t come across all the time, or need, you forget about. And so it’s nice to have a help section in place so that, if you don’t know the answer, you can look it up.
DAVID: That’s exactly right. I use Outlook daily, that’s my email program. And I use Word when I’m trying to do some serious writing. But otherwise I might use Notepad just for stuff that’s not going to stick around for very long. And I save a lot of stuff. Seems like every time I take a look at the memory space left on my computer, I’m thinking, hmm, maybe it’s time to move up to a terabyte or something like that, or whatever’s beyond that.
JOHN: Before we finish up, I want to make sure we talk about the book again because it’s available and accessible to anybody who wants to go get it. And again, what’s the title of the book, and where can people find it?
DAVID: Okay. The title is “Reach for More.” Subtitle is “A Journey from Loss to Love and Fulfillment.” And it’s pretty much my memoir from growing up in upstate New York, and going to college at the University of Richmond in Virginia, my time in the Army, and then the struggles I had coming back, finally landing on my feet in the legal profession, and up through my retirement as a judge. And it can be purchased through Amazon as a Kindle book, as a – it’s a soft paperback. It’d take about four hours to read it, I would think. It’s only about 120 pages. It’s also at Barnes & Noble; and it’s a NOOK book, as well. It’s now an Audible book at Audible.com, but there’s a link at Amazon for the Audible book. Bookshare has done it for me. And BARD is about to do it for me.
JOHN: We really appreciate you coming on with us in FSCast and spending time talking about your life and assistive technology, which is the main focus of this podcast. Thank you again, David, very much.
DAVID: It’s been my pleasure. And thank you both.
LARRY: And once again we thank all of you who have been with us on this
version of FSCast. Remember, in October, if all goes as expected, then Rachel
Buchanan from our training department will be with us to talk about the latest
things happening in the training department, and some great stuff that they are
unveiling with regard to the web page. So you’ll want to be with us for that.
And also go to the free webinars and look and see what’s there because there’s
not only a schedule of archived webinars, but some great stuff in terms of what
they’re going to be doing in the future. So you’re going to want to stay tuned
for that. We’ll join you sometime around the early to mid-part of October for
another FSCast. Thanks for being with us, and we’ll see you in October.