what am I? an AT Professional, or an IT professional?

Hello VR and all my other faithful readers:

I have a question that I need answered, so if you could help me out here, I'd appreciate it.

For a couple of months now, I have been doing some private contract work, where I train individuals to use computer with what is called Assistive Technology, or Access Technology depending on what person you ask.

I'm obviously blind, (Duh?) and my primary range of students are also.

I was brought in to a meeting a couple of weeks back, questioning my qualifications and or authority on, in all essense "What the hell I know ABout AT" (assistive/access Technology)

There was some big wigs in this meeting, which turned out that their opinions really didn't matter but it really got me caught up there for a second. I was arguing my case with some top level admin for who some how some way he directed contracts with some connection or another and he was getting all specific and technical on what AT really was.

Lets put it flat on the line, I'm just a lowly ol' computer tech, with an expiered A+, and Network+ certificates. Which from what I've been told, kids get those in highschool now. *frowns*

I have a professional resume documenting and varifying work in the I.T field for seven years.

I have worked (and when I say worked, I mean got indepth, either coding with or supporting as a tech) Dos and Windows all the way back to dos3 to windows server products, linux, since about red hat 5 and then delving in to toehr flavors of linux/unix/bsd,etc and mac os since os 6 to the now os x 10.4.6.

Now, the meat and potatoes questions:

being that I am blind, and have been for the majority of the seven professional years I've been supporting or coding for these operating systems, I have had to not only use, but master the software/hardware that makes a blind person able to function productively in these environments.

I'm talking vert plus, vocal eyes, jaws for dos for dos 3,5, 6.22 etc. speakup, yasr, emacs speak, etc for the *nix varients. echo 2 synth for the original apple products such as the apple II and other branches with word talker, touch talked, etc. and for the mac, from os 6 to os 9 outspoken. and now with os x I use tiger's voice over.

along with all this, in windows, I've used, jaws from version 2, windows eyes since version 3, protalker, window brindge, tiny talker, dolphin's hal, shell I go on>?

on top of that, I owned more than one note taker, in the mainstream world called PDA's which are very primitive persions of the palms ipaq's etc. such as the bns, brl lite both original and m serious, braille note, and even used braille terminals such as optilec, freedomscientific, alva, etc. shell I go on? Does Balm ring a bell??

I own a romeo rb 25. braille printer for those who don't know the name.

not to mention, I coded for 80 percent of the things I touched, either in its own language or a version of basic, or c, which ever it liked.

now, you ask, "Hey blindTech what the hell does this got to do with anything?"

well, I'll tell you.

You know abouit blindtechs.net right??

well if not you should you hethin, its my network of services I run on a servers I run on a cox business pipe that comes right in to my home, I manage the mail, the voice chat server, the website development, the forums, the web mail interface, the racing server, the network stability, etc.

Most of the stuff on my network is powered by a Mac running os x a bsd varient and LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) did you really think I'd use a microsoft product? what's wrong with you?

as a blind person, I repair, build and troubleshoot pc's, servers, networks, etc. now......

for some reason, this person hadd the odicity to say:

"although everyone knows you're a wizard, a genious in I.T related things, we are just not sure how qualified you are on at."


WTF???????

Can we say, "Dude, I'm blind, I have to know my AT software to the t, because If I don't I wouldn't be productive in I.T." doesn't this make sense??

Well, doesn't it???

Come on, that is the most rediculous statement I ever heard from anyone, I write jaws, scripts and window eyes set files for computer sakes, and you are not sure where my AT skills are at???

also, I own two Macs, one is a server, one is my laptop, which I am writing this on. I own two windows boxes, one is used for general stuff and used for the racing server and I have a windows laptop I use for work and take out in the field, to demo the windows technology I teach my students. (yeh, carying two laptops is a pain) I have a hp server, running net bsd, I have a couple of other macs and missclanious systems in clossets, on shelvves and stuff just taking up space. I have a braille printer that I could print to from anywhere in the world, I have hp laiser jet printer I could do the same too, My network wiring, and pbx phone system wiring, I did. I ran the cables, stabled them down, designed the layout and programmed the phones.

So, what did BlindTech do?

I said, "Fine, You want to know what I know? Then put your money where your mouth is, pay for the ATACP Test and I'll pass it and get certified."

and then, we get studders! from them, oh, so you're really not that concerned are you hahahaha!

but in the end, they will, pay for the cert So can I get some comments???

btw, ATACP=Assistive technology access certificate program. (can you believe it, its a special cert for disability technology.)

The BlindTech