By Tayler Mayer Friday, December 17th, 2010

Try out a new way to navigate posts using DeafRead. If you consider yourself an advanced user, dare yourself to try the new and advanced interface. You may need to be a master of scrolling – of windows inside windows. This can be an awkward experience, but some people will prefer it over the current interface, including myself. With the current interface, clicking on a post opens a new window. When done reading, the reader closes the window to return to DeafRead.

The advanced interface eliminates this step. Simply click on the post and the post itself will appear on the right side — without leaving DeafRead. Click another post. It replaces the previous post in the right-side panel. Gone is the step of closing windows.

The pro is obviously speed. The new interface, in beta testing, comes with a few cons. For example, some posts may have page elements on the left side, which pushes the post content further to the right — which then requires the user to scroll to the right. This is where the scrolling mastery comes in. Even so, not all post content will fit in the right side panel. This suggests that computer monitors with larger resolutions will benefit the most. Do make your browser window larger for a better experience. The two side-by-side panels are 40%-60%, meaning they will automatically re-size according to your browser window size.

I don’t plan to replace this advanced interface with the current one. After beta testing is complete, the two interfaces will be standard and advanced, and you will be able to seamlessly switch between the two.

For bloggers: this doesn’t affect the traffic measured on your blogs, and the number of visits on DeafRead will count normally.

Currently the pagination (page 1, 2, 3 and so on) on the bottom doesn’t function properly. I’ll fix when I have the chance. Suggest feedback, share input and/or report any other issues. If you like it as much as I do, do tell!

By Tayler Mayer Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Over the weekend, Jared and I got together and worked for 7 hours on DeafRead, giving it much needed changes.

Categories are wiped out. Replacing them are three super-categories. They are People, Organizations and Captioned. People are individual bloggers. Organizations are teams of bloggers, or blogs by organizations. Note that organizations’ blogs appearing on DeafRead are not for-profit, with the exception of DeafRead’s sponsor, Purple Communications.

Finally, the third super-category is Captioned. Also of note, this Captioned category is NOT moderated. Further, the feeds coming into the Captioned category must be dedicated to captioned videos only. Blogs having a mixture of both captioned videos and uncaptioned videos or no videos will not be added to this category. Make changes to your blog if you wish to be fed into the Captioned category – and let us know. Captioned entries do NOT appear in the main page. To see Captioned entries, click on the “Captioned” button on the navigation menu area.

That is, the main page shows a mixture of only People and Organizations. Click on their respective menu buttons to narrow down on these types.

We found and marked scores of blogs as Organizations. If we missed any, do let us know.

By Tayler Mayer Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

The server will be upgraded on Tuesday January 5 at 8PM EST/5PM PST. The server will be down for between 1 and 3 hours. We apologize for any inconvenience.

By Tayler Mayer Friday, December 11th, 2009

I thought I’d join the 2009 Lists craze and do one for DeafRead. Here are the top posts for 2009, ranked by number of visits. As of December 10, 2009, DeafRead published 13,179 articles in 2009.

Blogs

1. Michael Jackson’s sign language children choir (Fookem and Bug)
Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009 By Bug Two weeks ago Michael Jackson made requests for his comeback concert – he wanted a choir full of sign language children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds for his concerts in London next month. Michael Jackson wanted every child to know sign language and they should be in the age of [...]

2. 26 arrested in connection with Viable, Inc (submit by: Kevin)
Indictments were unsealed today against 26 people charged with engaging in a scheme to steal millions of dollars from the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Video Relay Service (VRS) program, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Joseph Persichini Jr., Deputy Chief

3. What Do You Think of the VRS Arrests? (Jamie Berke – About.com)
What do you think about the recent indictments of 26 people for stealing millions of dollars from the telecommunications relay services funds? There has been a lot of emotions expressed over this; share your thoughts on the forum. Incidentally, someone asked if I had any relationship to two of the men arrested, because my last name is the same as their last name. I would like to publicly state that I have no relationship to them.

4. FCC: No prison for 26 charged defendants? (Tayler Mayer)
I’ve been in middle of a cross-country move, and with Thanksgiving dinner being prepared, I’ve slowed down. Being busy, the headlines of the 26 people being arrested did not escape my attention. Of course it did not; it’s probably the biggest news in the deaf community since the Gallaudet protests of 2006. It certainly ranks [...]

5. 26 Arrested for VRS Overbilling Fraud (Mishka Zena)
The investigations conducted by FCC had resulted in arrests of over 2 dozen pepole involved in overcharging FCC for generating fake calls. These arrests took place in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Maryland. “The indictments charge owners and employees of the following seven companies with engaging in a scheme to [...]

6. Ella come back! (Tayler Mayer)
Ella, I strongly urge you to return to your post as CAD secretary. First, you walkout of DeafVIDEO.TV, and you’re now abandoning your elected position at CAD. You were nominated and elected by people who believed in you. You’ve been a long-time CAD board member. I admire your passion for Deafhood Foundation, but what are [...]

7. FBI Visit Viable VRS Headquarters (Crazy Deaf Joe Blog)
This story came to my eyes and was shocked. This is from Gazette, a Maryland newspaper that they are doing some research. This is scary but sad. Story: The Rockville headquarters of Viable Inc., which provides video interpreting services for hearing-impaired people, was visited by federal investigators recently, and the company is “cooperating fully” with investigators

8. HERE”S MY ANSWER TO WASHINGTON POST ABOUT JOHN YEH (RLMDEAF)
From: robert mason (rlmdeaf@hotmail.com) Sent: Fri 11/27/09 2:47 PM To: mario washington post (glodm@washpost.com) Maria, I got to know John Yeh after joined the student organization, the Asian Pacific at Gallaudet University. I heard about John Yeh before meeting him personally. Yeh welcomed the Asian Pacific student members to his Potomac residence to make an example of him being the role model to the deaf Asian students about succeed in life working with all races of people, instead of being cliqued within their own racial group all the…

9. United States of America VS John T.C. Yeh and his partners (Fookem and Bug)
[Read more about it, click USA vs Yeh, Yeh, Mowl and Tropp] By Fookem and Bug Also read about the Department of Justice Press Releases to Federal Bureau of Investigation, Click: [link] Are they hurting the Deaf communities across the United States of America? Be aware that they are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Here is a new article and see below. Gazette.Net [...]

10. Blog about Viable and DeafNation (submit by: anonymous)
Blog about Viable and DeafNation

Vlogs

1. Larry Fleischer has passed away (The Frost Village Blog)

2. Dr. Lawrence Flesicher (Jean Boutcher”s Collection of Quotations)

3. Re: Teri Sentelle’s Bad News Vlog on FaceBook (Shel: A Deaf Canadian”s Thoughts)

4. HURWITZ! ROSEN! STERN! WEINER! WHOA! (Amy Cohen Efron)

5. Watch Marlee Matlin at the FCC hearing on Broadband Access (cc) (Jared’s Global Microbrand)

6. Deaf Sex ! (At The Rim)

7. BREAKING: Gallaudet President Finalists (Insane World of Misha)

8. THE CODA BROTHERS SHOW! (LAUGH. LEARN. SIGN)

9. Video Showing A Cop Breaking Deaf Driver’s Nose During A Traffic Stop (Mishka Zena)

10. Ella”s Vlog about Larry Flesicher (Where”s Maisha?)

By Tayler Mayer Monday, June 29th, 2009

Because DeafRead co-founder Jared Evans lives in Washington, D.C. and I live in Los Angeles, it’s not often that we get to meet in person. We meet frequently by instant messaging and e-mail one other nearly everyday. We were both at the recent DCARA vblog symposium in the Bay Area. We took the opportunity to meet and discuss DeafRead.

The first thing we talked about was DeafRead Custom. We felt that it wasn’t being used enough. Perhaps visitors did not understand how it was used, or what it was for. We decided we would re-brand DeafRead Custom and in doing so, re-name it to DeafRead Hide. The name itself says what it does.

(Currently there are 543 active Dashboard accounts and 257 “hides”).

You can personalize DeafRead to your liking. Blogs that you don’t want to see on DeafRead can be hidden. This requires registering for an account, which is called DeafRead Dashboard. If you’re not logged in, you’re seeing everything. Logged in, you can customize your Hide list. A hidden blog won’t appear on DeafRead.

When you register, an e-mail is sent to your e-mail address to confirm you’re the owner of the e-mail address. Enclosed in the e-mail is a link. Click it to verify and activate your Dashboard account.

There are two ways to hide a blog. The first is within your Dashboard. Click on “Hide”, and on the following page you are presented with a list of all of the blogs at DeafRead. Click the button “Hide” next to the blog you want hidden. After clicking “Hide” for a blog, this hidden blog will be shown on the top of the page. On this list of hidden blogs, click “Show” to undo this.

The other way is from the front page of DeafRead. Under each post summary, there’s a button “Dashboard” with an icon of a gear. Clicking this pops up a menu. Click “Hide” in this pop-up menu.

You can check whether you are logged in by checking the upper right corner of DeafRead. Next to DeafRead Hide: it says either “On” or “Off”.

Register for a Dashboard account and personalize your DeafRead.