Oh, man, yes it would. Especially a bottle of 1554 from the local New Belgium Brewing Company. Boy, that would be tasty. “Why don’t I run down to the grocery store and pick us up a 6-pack?”

Oops, wait a minute. We live in Colorado, one of the last holdouts of the so-called “blue laws” which were created to prevent anyone from doing anything construed as enjoyment on God’s holy day. Laughing counts, so cut it out. And I just now realized the irony that the only states that have blue laws are red states.

This is almost enough reason for us to move back to Seattle. Don’t worry, parents, we’re staying. For now.

But, I swear, if the laws for selling beer, wine, and liquor on Sundays (and in grocery stores at all) are not repealed this coming election year, I’m slapping somebody. How else are we going to get Trader Joe’s to open a store here?

I’ve read that the objections to repealing the laws don’t come from irate fundamentalists but actually from outspoken liquor store owners who have an effective lobby in the local government. And it’s understandable, too. If the laws were repealed they might have to compete like real businesses do and that would be a shame. I mean, I wouldn’t want you guys to have to rely on ingenuity or anything. Heaven forbid you have to alter your business model. (Technically, I guess it does.)

This is starting to sound like a rant against the RIAA.

Best Buy, like Speakeasy, is known for its high level of customer service. Our reputation as a trusted provider of voice and data services with stellar customer service will not change. Our values are similar too — Best Buy shares our customer passion, respect for individuals, and drive to do the right thing while achieving results.

Laughable, man. HA ha.

Wake up, CEOs. Please. It’s been almost 10 years since this information was published.

$499 and $1,399, respectively, which may sound like a large chunk of change, but when you look at the features and consider that you’re getting everything for the rest of the life of the company, it makes great business sense.

Head over to TextDrive* now and find the link to Specials and select either The Mixed Grill or Three Martini plan.

* The first link to TextDrive is a referral link that will give me some hosting credit if you continue to sign up, should you feel so inclined. :)

See the video linked from the web site above. 5 out of 9 Jiffy Lube centers scammed a TV news crew and were caught on tape.

This is the type of experience I had at Jiffy Lube at Northgate. They recommended 20 extra services I didn’t need, including changing the radiator fluid. A week later, having never had any radiator problems in the 14-year life of the car, it overheated on the highway when the radiator failed and leaked fluid all over the engine. I won’t be going back and I wouldn’t recommend their services to anyone.

37signals, the Chicago-based, web contructioneer firm, has just released its latest book, Getting Real, in PDF-only format. I’m in the middle of it and loving it. If 2005 was about tagging, Ajax, and Web 2.0, 2006 will be about putting the Getting Real principles into practice wherever web sites and applications are built. At least, one can hope.

They aren’t saying anything new. They aren’t saying things most of us haven’t read or thought about before. But they’re saying it. They’re bringing the ideas of simplicity, focus, and transparency back to the table. And given their reputation and credibility I think it’s worth sitting up and listening for a while.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 794d), Subpart B, 1194.24, (c) says, “All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency’s mission, regardless of format, that contain speech or other audio information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be open or closed captioned.”

The Web Content Acccessibility Guidelines (WCAG), section 1.4 says “For any time-based multimedia presentation (e.g., a movie or animation), synchronize equivalent alternatives (e.g., captions or auditory descriptions of the visual track) with the presentation. [Priority 1]” Priority 1 denotes guidelines which web content developers must satisfy in order to meet the basic requirements for accessibility.

That means, in order to satisfy the minimum accessibility requirements for video on the web, a video that contains an audio track must be captioned and it must use audio description where appropriate. Section 508 states that captions may be open or closed.

What’s the difference between open and closed captions? Open captions are always visible. There is no way to turn them off or hide them because they are burned into the video, so to speak. Closed captions are usually hidden until activated by software or special decoders. Captions are meant for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers but can also be useful for viewers with learning disabilities, non-native speakers, and users without sound cards or speakers, or users viewing in a situation that requires sound to be turned off.

What is audio description? Audio description is an audio track that explains what is taking place on screen. Whereas captions are for sighted users, audio description is for blind and visually-impaired users.

The inclusion of open captioning support in Camtasia 3.1 means that screen video content producers can now easily satisfy requirements that have been in place since 1999. Having used the feature as a beta tester, I can say that it really is as simple as importing a transcript from Microsoft Word or PowerPoint and then pointing and clicking to match up text with its place in the video. The captions are burned into the video during the production process. Since these are open captions, no special software is required to view them during playback.

What’s missing in this release? The most notable is the lack of font selection. Currently, the only choice for captions is Arial. Arial, as a screen font, has a number of problems in its design. As a caption font, it fares even worse. For a list of fonts you could be using for captions while we wait for someone to design a good caption font, read “What fonts should we use in the meantime?” at Screenfont.ca.

Also missing is closed captioning. However, as that is a slightly more difficult programming challenge, I am content living with open captioning for the time being. I will continue to voice my support for closed captioning and push for its release in a future version. It’s all about offering viewers a choice.

The inclusion of caption support is a welcome addition to Camtasia. If nothing else, we can say at least one software company is beginning to take accessibility in this area more seriously.

The book is verbose, with more milk than meat so far, but highly recommended for the concepts that it teaches.