I think I payed for two SMA's by accident. I payed this year and think
I had already had one before. In any case, they took my money and
didn't say I couldn't do that.
Maria Campbell
lucky1inct@xxxxxxxxx
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
~ Blaise Pascal ~
On 12/15/2018 11:04 AM, David Goldfield wrote:
Hi, Maria.
First, I'm glad you're locked in for four years of JAWS updates. I wasn't aware that individuals could pay for an SMA beyond the standard two-year limit. I believe you will likely be grandfathered (or grandmothered) in since you have already paid for your SMAs in advance, just as someone who pays $120 in 2018 for a Home Edition SMA will not have to pay additional fees until it's time for renewal.
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist WWW.David-Goldfield.Com
On 12/15/2018 10:45 AM, Maria Campbell wrote:
I've already payed for two SMA's, making me up to four years ahead. Will they
make me pay the difference or grandfather me in? Hmm.
Maria Campbell
lucky1inct@xxxxxxxxx
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
~ Blaise Pascal ~
On 12/15/2018 10:07 AM, Kimberly Starrett wrote:
David,
Congratulations on your position with Comcast.
And many thanks for continuing with this list despite a busy schedule. It's a valuable resource and offers a unique combination of expertise and friendliness that not all technology lists can claim.
Best wishes for a joyous holiday season to you and everyone on the list.
Kim
Sent from Kimber's iPhone
The happy ending still beckons, and it is in the hope of grasping it that we go on.—Annie Proulx
On Dec 14, 2018, at 11:12 PM, David Goldfield <david.goldfield@xxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:david.goldfield@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
1. I'd first like to start out by thanking all of you for continuing to subscribe to this mailing list. There are a ton of mailing lists out there and I appreciate that you chose this particular one for reading as well as for asking questions and sharing information with others. The list has continued to stay rather small during the past year but I think I almost prefer that to a high-traffic list with hundreds of messages per day.
2. I'd also like to thank those of you who chose to call in during our bimonthly phone meetings. Your time is valuable and I am humbled that many of you choose to give up some of that time calling in to a phone meeting when there are plenty of other things you could be doing. The phone meetings, as well as the list, will continue throughout 2019 as long as there is sufficient interest. The meetings are scheduled bimonthly, with our next meeting scheduled for January 25. As always, they are conducted during the last Friday at 8:00 PM Eastern time.
3. I'd like to emphasize that your contributions to the list and to the phone meetings are always welcome and appreciated. As long as it's related to blindness technology any topic, question or comment is more than welcome. I am grateful for questions from the most basic to the incredibly complex. (I'm not promising that I'll be the one to answer all of them, of course.) <smile> Remember, also, that there's no such thing as a stupid question! This list, as well as the phone meetings, is all about sharing what we know with others.
4. As always, feel free to invite others to join the list. The address to subscribe is
blind-philly-comp-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the subject type
subscribe
and send the message. Incidentally, anybody who feels the need to unsubscribe can send a message to the same address, putting the word unsubscribe into the subject field. I don't take it personally if people choose to leave the list. To be honest, I find that I unsubscribe from lists as frequently as I join them. Because I'm using JAWS more at home I've joined some additional lists, most of them related to JAWS, so that I can not only ask questions about issues I may be experiencing but so that I can learn more about JAWS and Windows from others. However, I'm sure that, after a while, I will likely leave some of those lists when I need a bit of a break.
5. If any of you have ideas for presentations you'd like to conduct for a phone meeting please don't hesitate to reach out to me at info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and let me know about your idea. If you know someone who might be interested in doing a presentation for us please invite him or her to contact me so we can talk about their idea. When I was working part time I had more time to pursue finding speakers and presenters for phone meetings but, with my current role being full time, I don't have the time that I used to have for finding and contacting potential guest speakers.
6. On a personal note there has been a positive change regarding my current role with Comcast. When I first began working for them I was actually a contractor. Technically, I started out not as an employee of Comcast but as a contractor, being an employee of a company called Intepros Consulting. Intepros hired me to work at Comcast full time. This was an arrangement which was more than satisfactory for me as I was receiving a regular salary along with health benefits and so I was actually quite happy being a contractor. However, I was recently approached with the option for what they call conversion, meaning that I would go from being a contractor to being an employee of Comcast. I accepted Comcast's offer and, as of November 12, I have been a full time employee of Comcast and am no longer with Intepros Consulting. My role, however, is still the same and so very little regarding my actual day to day work has changed as I am still a user acceptance tester with Comcast's accessibility team.
7. A while ago I wrote a very, very, very long post discussing my experiences of installing the home annual license of JAWS after using NVDA almost exclusively for nine years, as well as my reasons for making that decision. I'm nearly finished composing a follow-up post with some additional experiences and impressions of JAWS 2019. I plan to complete it within a week and will share it with the list when I've published it to my blog. To summarize, I'll say that there's a lot about JAWS that I like, particularly its productivity tools which I still find useful and attractive. However, during certain times I continue to use NVDA, a product I will always recommend, use, endorse and support.
8. Finally, for those of you who celebrate it I would like to wish you a joyous, blessed and a merry Christmas as well as a healthy 2019!
--
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist WWW.David-Goldfield.Com
