It is pitty that although there is an easy way to set the caption to work on HBO programs. No one is accountable for that.
You can see that in good Series like In Treatment sometime they turn the caption on and sometime they set it off. When calling customer service you can just live a message - sometime they change the setting to captioned sometime not.
There is a need to more public pressure to allow all of us enjoy the caption.
Etti
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FOUNDATION PROGRAM HAS FUNDING FOR CART PROVIDERS
Are you a CART provider? Do you know of a K-12 school that's holding a graduation or other major function and needs CART services but doesn't have adequate funding? NCRF's new CART for Schools Program has funding for the CART provider. Through this new program, NCRF not only wants to provide access to those who need it, but we also want to expose students and their families, teachers, and school administrations to CART as a viable career path. June graduations are almost here! Contact B. J. Shorak at NCRF by e-mail or at 800-272-6272, ext. 126, for details.
Dr. Neil at http://hearinglosshelp.com/weblog/?p=279
Web CapTel—Using Your Computer and ANY Phone to Make Captioned Calls
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Captioned (CapTel) telephones have been around for a few years now. With these special phones, you can both hear the caller and read whatever you miss hearing on the small screen on the phone a few seconds after the caller has said it.
The downside of this is that you need to have the special CapTel phone (and they are quite expensive). What happens if you are away from home, or don’t have a CapTel phone on your desk at work, or you have a digital line?
Here’s some exciting news. March 1st, 2008 saw the beginning of a new web CapTel service by both Hamilton Relay and Sprint Relay. Now you can make captioned phone calls from ANY phone, not just CapTel phones if you have a computer on-line with you, and the best news about it is that it is absolutely free. It doesn’t cost you a penny extra to call anywhere in the USA. (Sorry foreign readers, if you are outside the USA, you are out of luck.)
For example, say you are away from home on vacation. If you stop at a coffee-shop that is Wi-Fi enabled, you could make a web CapTel phone call using your cell phone and read the words on your lap-top computer at the same time. Nice, huh? You could do this in a hotel room, or a client’s office, or a friend’s home—virtually anywhere you can get an Internet connection and be near a phone at the same time.
Web CapTel works with all phones and with all computers with Internet access. You can access in from the two (below) providers:
Hamilton Web CapTel
Sprint Web CapTel
To make things easy, both companies have exactly the same registration/sign up forms. Furthermore, to have your incoming calls captioned, you use the same 800 number.
Before you can use web CapTel, you first you need to register with either or both of the above relay services. Registration is easy, and again, it doesn’t cost you a penny. You’ll need to come up with a different User Name and Password for each service.
When you have filled out the on-line registration form, they send you an email within a few minutes with a link to activate your account.
Once you are registered and have activated your account, making outgoing calls is easy. Here’s all you do. Go to one of the above web sites and log on with your user name and password. Then fill in the appropriate places in the “Place and Receive Calls” form. The left side of the form is for placing calls.
You put the number of the phone you will be using in the first box (this may not be your own phone number, but the number of the particular phone you are going to be using at that point), and the number you are calling in the second box. Choose your language preference. Both English and Spanish are supported, however English is checked by default. Finally, click the “Place Call” button. Now wait until your phone rings, then answer it in the normal fashion. Anything the other party says will shortly appear in the Web CapTel window on your computer screen. It’s that simple.
To receive incoming calls, you fill out the right side of the “Place and Receive Calls” form. You put the number of the phone you want to use in the box (again, this is not necessarily your own phone number, but the number of the phone you are going to be using at that point) and then click on the “Start Waiting For Calls” box. Leave your computer on and connected to the Internet with that program running in the background.
To use this incoming web CapTel service, you need to instruct people that in order to reach you, they must first dial 1-800-933-7219. They will then be instructed to dial your number followed by the pound (#) sign. Your phone will ring and the Web CapTel screen program will become active. You will both hear and read what the person is saying. Again, it’s that easy! When you no longer want to use this service, log off and the “system” returns to normal again.
