Accessability

Today I am learning about accessibility for my site.
This may just be my own personal little babble blog but I believe it is important to make it accessible to anyone who might want to visit.
To that end I am going to attempt to make what I share here, comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

I may not get it right but I will try.

I downloaded a thingy that speaks to me. It is a robotic electronically generated voice that won't shut up and babbles every time I move the cursor. It drives me crazy so if it is supposed to be the program for people with sight challenges it must drive them crazier. I can turn the thing off - they need it to access the ether.



Colour choices are a important
Sound needs to be thought about
Sub text, subtitles, documents, images, other graphics all need to be labelled apropriately


Apparently my blog is almost as difficult as breaking into a Swiss bank account to leave a simple comment and I don't know how to fix it? I have tried several things, I googled the help files, I asked in forums but still it is not working and I do not know what to do? Sorry dear willing to comment but cannot-ers.


I shall keep working on it.

a magpie

'Accessibility benefits everyone'

some links...
Australian Government Accessibility
W3C
Vision Australia
Wikipedia
The Kernal ( a few years ago)
Media Access Australia
United Nations on Accessibility
Internet Society2012 but still relevant
Huff Post has something to say on the matter
Council of Europe 

The best laid plans of chickens usually end up scrambled

Best laid plans....mine were to be organised and regular and on time and professional and instead I had toddler troubles and tummy bugs. Coughs, sniffles, temperatures and plumbing problems have a tendency to derail even the most meticulous plans.

The highlights of the holidays...

 The toddler recovered and lovingly shared his illness with the rest of the household. This knocked out almost two weeks of the holidays. So much for getting lots of assignments finished.

 The fast food franchise next door, renovated, and added a powerful flood light that turns our bedrooms, and front and back yards into permanently glowing spaces. The upside of this is I never have to switch on a light when walking through the house after midnight.

 Toddler delighted in the choc fest side of the Easter weekend.

I created lots of art for the Ballan Solstice festival to be held in June. It should all glow in the dark but so far it doesn't. I discovered I needed to look for UV active paints. Glow in the dark and phosphorescent are leftovers of the disco era and were scary in content,  apparently, according to the helpful paint guy I found in a distant hardware story. I have ordered some invisible security paint that glows under UV to highlight the art.

I am back to classes and falling a bit behind in reading and missing deadlines. I need to reoganise myself and catch up. Cheer me on crew. <3

The last week of term

I have two weeks of solid hard work to do over the mid semester break, especially if I am going to come close to mastering the meta language of our language. Thank fully Mike is making it start to make sense. I hope he never reads my blog because the dangling and misplaced things he would find here are sure to give him nightmares. They will disappear as the year progresses I am sure.

It has been a sleep deprived week with a sick toddler and so much to do however I am managing and my brain is loving me.

I have to play around with the photo manipulation program on my computer and design a logo. I have an idea in mind and as soon as I work out how to do it, you will see it here on my blog.

So a short, short blog this week.

Have a wonderful week all.

Returning to Study

Last week I enrolled in the Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing at VU.  Those of you who have been following my writing journey, since THAT health issue gave me the opportunity to quit the day job and launch myself into the life of a full time writer, will know I have been writing and engaging in all sorts of writing challenges, attending conferences and sending little bits and pieces out to ezines, anthologies and competitions. I started the PWE a long time ago but life tends to get experiential in my neck of the woods and my studies have oft been put to one side for other commitments. My writing has frequently been interrupted with such earth shattering needs as 'What's for dinner?' or 'Where are my glasses?' and frequently 'Can you drive me to...'

"No more!" I cried and ran to VU, keen to enroll.

"I am going to write full time if it means you all starve to death in my stead" I yelled at the Offspring (mine not the band).

"What have I done?" I gulped repeatedly as the mountain of course material grew and grew.

"At least I will get fit even if it kills me." I gasped and didn't actually speak as I pulled myself up the third level of stairs to the classroom, sucked in some Ventolin(TM) and stubbornly refused to use the lift.

My calendar has everything loaded and I have read some of the required reading.  I discovered I already have most of the  required texts after I rearranged my bedroom shelves so I am off the starter blocks and ready to go.


So what else have I been doing apart from attending classes and sorting my folder? 

It is day 11 of Christie Wilde's #14daysoflitlove  and I am going strong with the fun word prompts.

It was week four of the OWL I enrolled in and I met the deadlines of that too.

I have my questions ready for my ESL discussion group tomorrow night at 11pm.

I am creating art for the cover of The Moorabool Writers Craft anthology.  (We meet on the first Sunday not the third - the banner will change)

I completed some art for advertising the Moorabool Shire Literary festival coming up in May. I am also on the committee and attended a meeting and read a metaphorical, as opposed to metric, tonne of emails about it. The inaugural Peter Carey short story award will be happening there so check it out.

 Have I mentioned I also have a 2 and half year old and three adults living with me? I managed to pull the shower to pieces today and replace all the rubber grommets, did two loads of washing, chatted with visitors, made phone calls, tracked down an elusive text, washed dishes and bathed the littlest. I have watched a movie, listened to some music and read a few books so it appears I have been relaxing at some point until I tell you it was Emma the girl with the yellow bow, Emma and her cohorts doing that wiggling thing, The Wonky Donky and at least one Mem Fox


I announced that I was diminishing my procrastination on social media. The irony being that I am studying a subject which directly relates to writing for social and other contemporary media.

I am very excited though and expect to have several of my novels to second draft during this course.

It is now 2am and I suspect I should get a little sleep before tiny person wakes up and demands some vegemite toast.

Cheer me on everyone.

NanoWriMo 2016

Yes I am doing it again.

I will put up a word count widget if I work it out properly and I am aiming for a solid 50k.

This is what the month should look like...



you get the idea. 360,000 people worldwide are attempting to write 50,000 words this month which equates to around 18000000000 words if we all drag ourselves across the finish line.

It is estimated that only of us will make it to the finish line and only 5% of the winners will go on and edit their 50k and only 5% of those will actually send it off somewhere and of that number, only 5% will gain publication. This sounded intimidating when I first heard it but then I thought, hey I can be a 5% winner.

I wrote a LOT of words in my very first NanoWriMo in 2013 (104,000)and those words turned into two novels with characters I love and adventures twisted and convoluted and both novels have been pitched to editors at conferences and there has been interest shown so...

Apparently we all write total manure during the NanoWriMo month but as all gardeners will tell you, from good manure great things grow.