Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind the source for blindness news and information since 1907

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a nice weekend. As you know, last week I tried out a different method of distributing the magazine by separating the new content and the special notices and pen pals sections into two emails. By doing this, any spam issues connected to the special notices or pen pal submissions would not affect the receipt of the new magazine content. For a few exceptions, this method was successful, and many of you wrote in to me saying that you received both parts without issue. However, some of you still did not receive the second email with the special notices and pen pals, so the problem still persists.

For the first time since we began experiencing these issues, I was able to reach someone at both Verizon and Comcast, two of the most affected email providers, to talk to them about this problem. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, for the most part, they don’t know what’s causing the problem. The issue remains the same–some emails make it through, and some don’t. They aren’t blocking our IP address, so they don’t know why any messages are eliminated at all, let alone without even reaching your spam boxes at the very least. I’m still in contact with both providers’ departments who deal with these issues and we’re all working on a solution.

Which brings me to my next point–solutions on our end. Active hyperlinks are the problem-child of the spam world, which is why the special notices and pen pals sections are bearing the brunt of this issue. So I want to ask all of you if implementing a slight change would be acceptable. Rather than using the classic email or web address links in the magazine, I’ve received suggestions that we use john [at] email service [dot] com as a way of writing email addresses. Any web addresses would be written similarly as www [dot] website [dot] com. I feel that this change might be very helpful in eliminating spam issues with the magazine, but it means that selecting links directly from the magazine will no longer be an option. It will be a sacrifice of convenience while improving the ability for readers to receive the magazine.

The other option is to create a secure website, requiring login information, where the special notices and pen pals sections are updated. The login information would change weekly, and would be announced in my letter to all of you for that specific week. This would allow you all to see those sections with the active links imbedded, but you would not be able to do this directly from the email. For security purposes, this information would only be made available in the email version of the magazine.

Again, these are just some ideas we’re considering and they may become moot if any progress is made with these email providers. However, I would like your input on the matter if we do have to implement any of these changes. Feel free to email me at editor@matildaziegler.com with your thoughts.

In the meantime, I will be sending the magazine in separate parts as I did last week. The second part will begin sending after the first, so there will be a delay. If you do not receive the second part, please email me and I will send it to you personally.

Take care, have a great week, thank you all for your patience, and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had great weekend and that those of you affected by the storm here in the Northeast have had your power restored. As I mentioned in my impromptu announcement last week, we experienced some spam issues when sending the magazine last Monday, and as a result, the magazine will be delivered in a different way from now on.

These spam issues are maddeningly tricky and, as I’ve discovered, rather difficult to track. You may have noticed that I zeroed in on a few email domains that were experiencing the bulk of the spam difficulties. Yet, I had multiple readers write to me saying that they were using those email services and have had no trouble receiving the magazine. Sure enough, the next message in my inbox was from someone thanking me for sending the special web link to the magazine because they hadn’t received their copy of the magazine. Both were using the same email provider.

While that fact gave me little hope that we’d solve this issue quickly, it did give my computer guru an idea that might help to solve the problem and we’re going to begin utilizing something called domain throttling when we send the magazine. He feels that the spam problem is a result of volume from a single source. When we send out a thousand emails to users with the same email provider, the first few may make it through, but then the email provider assumes that the message is spam (since it’s being blasted into their servers at a suspect volume) and essentially vaporizes any further messages. By throttling back the volume of messages to a given domain at one time, we hope that we won’t raise these red flags any more. However, what this means is that the magazine may be sent out a little slower, so I ask for your continued patience as we keep trying to get this right.

In addition to that, I will also be sending the magazine in two parts–content in one and special notices and pen pals in another. The notices and pen pals contain a lot of material that could look suspect, so by separating the two, there is a much better chance that you all will receive the new magazine content, even if there are spam issues with the notices and pen pals. We’re hoping that the throttling method makes this separation moot, but until we’ve verified that it works, I want to make sure that everyone receives the new magazine material routinely.

That aside, I’d also like to take a moment to thank all of our veteran soldiers. What you’ve sacrificed for all of us cannot be appreciated enough. All of you are our heroes, and we are so fortunate to have such a brave force protecting and watching over us.

Take care, have a great week, and as always, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a nice weekend. For those of you affected by the ridiculously early winter storm we had, I hope you’re faring well. I know at one point we had about 831,000 people without power here in Connecticut, and well over a million including New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Some areas got as much as 20 inches of heavy wet snow, which wreaked havoc on the trees and power lines. Things are quite a mess.

The biggest problem is that some people will be without power for the better part of a week, and inland temperatures will be below freezing at night–making this large outage much worse than Hurricane Irene, when temperatures were still at a comfortable level. If any of you are affected by this, or know someone affected by this, make sure that you find a safe and warm place to be until power is restored.

As for the magazine this week, we’ve got a great series of articles for you, including a very appropriate contribution regarding how to prepare for winter, along with many other topics that you’re sure to enjoy.

So dust the snow off of your pumpkins, and I hope you all have a safe and warm week and a Happy Halloween.

Take care, and as always, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Hello Everyone,

Well, it’s officially Fall as far as I’m concerned. My favorite jacket was steeped in bonfire smoke for hours this past weekend and my whole house now smells like a fireplace because of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the smell, but other people don’t seem to share that sentiment. While at the store yesterday, a woman actually coughed as she got close to me and chose to wait in a much longer line behind the register next to us. I guess nature’s cologne just isn’t for everybody (although, I’ll take an abundance of wood smoke over the perfume counters at various department stores any day).

Moving on, we’ve got a great magazine lined up for you this week and I was happy to see that people wrote in to share some Halloween and ghost stories–I think you’ll enjoy those. We’ve also got part 4 of the five part series on improving sleep and alertness in blind individuals and I hope you all are finding that series informative. As always, our writers have come through with some great product reviews, inspiring stories, new program information, and much more.

I hope you all have a great week. Take care and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a great weekend. As for me, I took advantage of what will probably be the last weekend with weather in the 70s for a long time and went apple and pumpkin picking. There’s nothing like apple cider straight from the orchard.

We’ve got a great magazine lined up for you this week and, as always, I hope you find it enjoyable and entertaining. If anyone has any good Halloween anecdotes they’d like to share with us, feel free to submit them for next week’s Reader’s Forum by emailing me at editor@matildaziegler.com. Let’s fill that spot up with some great stories.

That’s all for now. Take care, have a great week, and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

As I drove along the Henry Hudson Parkway, which hugs the banks of the Hudson River, and saw the George Washington Bridge in the distance, I began to feel excited. It was that feeling you get right before you show up to the game. That feeling when you know that no matter the outcome, you’re going to have a good time.

Getting to the Meadowlands Sports Complex was delightfully uneventful considering that it was game day and I expected to sit in stopped traffic on the highway for quite some time. But I meandered through the parking checkpoints and found the lot I had been assigned. When I exited my car, I could just barely make out the stadium as it peeked out over the arching horizon. Simply put, I had a bit of a walk to go meet Romeo at the train station at the opposite entrance. It wasn’t a problem, though–the weather was perfect.

As I walked, I watched as people tossed footballs around wearing Eli Manning jerseys and flipped burgers on portable grills. The entire atmosphere was filled with the happiness of fans who couldn’t wait until kick-off. When I finally made it to Romeo, we walked down off of the train platform, made our way through security, and entered into the underbelly of the massive Metlife stadium.

From the outside, the stadium looks like a giant bird’s nest, with a series of large steel louvers winding around its entire circumference that, by design, might be meant to divert the wind. Inside the basement area of the stadium is a small city, comprised of an uncountable number of rooms and corridors. Wasting no time once inside, we made our way to the press elevator and were whisked upwards to the press box.

Inside, the press box is very office-like. If something wasn’t white, it was glass or brushed steel–very modern and utilitarian looking–a place for business to coincide with entertainment. The accommodations couldn’t have been better. We found our seats, I plugged in my laptop, connected to their wi-fi network, and then Romeo and I grabbed a bite to eat from the press cafeteria while the teams were warming up on the field below.

During the game, a slew of statistical information was thrust in our direction and announced through an expansive network of speakers and televisions. We knew as much about the game as any football fan could ever ask for. While there was no audio jack for Romeo to listen to the play-by-play at our work station, he easily picked up the WFAN broadcast on his radio (which was coming from a few booths down) and was able to keep up with every little detail.

Afterwards, when we went into the locker room, we were immediately met by a member of the Giants’ PR staff, who said, “You must be Ross and Romeo. If you need anything or would like an introduction to the players, let me know.”

Which brings me to my final point–this trip exceeded my expectations. Not because of the quality of the game, or even the facility, but because of the New York Giants staff. Not once did I ever encounter one person who wasn’t more than happy to answer a question, or seek out someone who knew the answer. They treated us the same as any front page sports writer for the New York Times. They really made us feel so welcome, and I am immeasurably grateful for the entire experience that they offered Romeo and me.

So, as I said in my previous announcement, I hope that this is the first of many experiences for the Ziegler writers. I also hope that those of you who checked in on the live blog on the website enjoyed the coverage of the game and the commentary from Romeo and me.

Have a great week. Take care, and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a nice weekend and are ready for the first week of October. I still can’t believe it’s already that time of year. Though, apparently some stores have skipped fall altogether and have winter on their minds. I went into a hardware store this past weekend and was bombarded with Christmas trees. I’m assuming their Halloween decorations went on sale in June and they took them down before Labor Day.

As many of you know, we experienced one of our occasional email glitches last week and hundreds of you did not receive the magazine. While I’m not going to name names, there were a couple email services which experienced the bulk of the problems and with the help of my server host, I think we took care of most of what we think was causing the issue. The majority of those details go way beyond my level of technical expertise, but there were certain coding and identification changes that we’ve made, as well as filing applications to be removed from certain blacklists that labeled us as a spam risk. So, we’ll see if we worked out the kinks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Also, as a reminder, we are starting the five part series on Non-24-hour Wake-Sleep Disorder today, so be sure to check it out over the next four editions as well.

That should cover everything for now. I hope you all have a great week.

Take care, and as always, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond

Hello Everyone,

As always, I hope you all had a nice weekend.

We’ve got a great magazine lined up for you all this week and I hope you all enjoy it. Also, I’m still in the process of putting together a comprehensive events supplement for Fall and Winter 2011, so please feel free to continue sending in suggestions. The more the merrier.

I also want to let you all know about a series of articles that will be coming up in October. I was contacted a little while ago by a research institute that is investigating Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, something that occurs almost exclusively in people who are totally blind. This disorder results in recurring bouts of trouble falling asleep and staying awake. Since our magazine reaches many blind and visually impaired individuals throughout the United States and the rest of the world, they felt that we would be a good medium to get the word out about the study they’re doing. The articles will also serve as an opportunity to bring this issue out into the open and possibly clear up and misconceptions or questions you all may have.

The series will be made up of five parts, beginning next week with an introduction that will outline what Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder is, and will include various interviews of blind individuals who live with it. The series will then outline current treatments and ongoing research that is being performed to remedy the disorder.

These articles will be written by Lynne Lamberg, co-author of The Body Clock Guide to Better Health, published in 2000. Lynne has written extensively about sleep medicines and disorders for both physicians and the general public.

If you would like to familiarize yourself with the studies being done prior to the appearance of the articles in this magazine, you can visit www.non24registry.com or call 888-389-7033. For more information on Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, you can visit www.24sleepwake.com

Since we have had articles published in the past, as well as Reader’s Forum discussions regarding troubles sleeping and the various remedies, I thought that this series would be interesting to all of you and may answer some questions you have. I also want to point out that we are not being paid, nor are we paying to feature this series. This series will not be an advertisement for the company performing the research. If you are interested in participating in any studies that they are doing, you are free to contact them, but the main goal of this series for me was to provide all of you with the best information possible regarding a disorder that almost exclusively affects the blind and visually impaired population.

That should cover everything for now. I hope you all have a great week.

Take care, and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a nice weekend. I quickly learned that whether I like it or not, Fall is here, and it was time to break out the sweatshirts and jackets if I was going anywhere in the morning or at night. I have to say, though, sleeping with the windows open has been very nice.

Despite the departure of the warm weather and everything that Summer brings, Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. Friends start calling up with invites to bon fires, the air has a fresh bite to it, and most of all, football is back. I have really missed football.

I’m also going to be preparing a Fall and Winter 2011 Events Supplement over the next couple of weeks, so if you have any events that you would like to promote or bring to my attention, please email me at editor@matildaziegler.com so I can add them to my list.

That should cover everything for now. I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the articles we’ve put together for you.

Take care, and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor

Hello Everyone,
As always, I hope you all had a nice weekend. This weekend is kind of tough to write about. September 11 affected everyone differently, and writing about it in a general, all-encompassing way tends to marginalize how each of us experienced that terrible day. So instead of trying to speak for all of you, I’m going to share just my story–something I was inspired to do when I read Lynne Tatum’s article for this week, where she recounts her experiences as a New Yorker.

I was in my 11th grade Biology class when we first heard that something was wrong. It was probably mid-morning. I don’t remember the time exactly, but both towers had already fallen. My teacher, kind of a shy individual, was tasked with breaking the news to our class. He spoke in short, general terms, because that’s all he knew and he was asked by the school administrators not to speculate. He said that planes had crashed into the world trade center and that both of the twin towers had fallen. At that time, the cause of this was unknown. Before we could even ask, he said that the television in our classroom was to remain not only off, but unplugged entirely. Any teacher found with a TV on would be severely penalized.

The reaction in my class was very mixed. Some people were quietly confused, others immediately had questions that couldn’t be answered, and a few sadly grasped for their phones in pockets and purses because loved ones worked in or close to the WTC (which is why the TVs had to remain off). The girl who sat at my lab table lost her cousin–another a few tables over lost her father. Altogether, I think six or seven families in my school were directly affected by the attack. In my town as a whole, I’m not entirely sure. Where I grew up was a popular suburb that offered an escape from the city life while still granting easy access via Metro North.

When I got home from school that day, I opened the front door and my mother had CNN on the living room TV. Right as I walked in, I saw a replay of the first tower crumbling, followed shortly after by the second. I just stood in the entryway, watching all of the replay footage for what seemed like forever. It just didn’t seem real.

Then I saw the Pentagon, which I didn’t even know was involved yet, and I had to sit down. I watched probably another hour of coverage and then they started with Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. As a kid who didn’t even remotely know his place in the world yet, the whole day was surreal. I kept watching news coverage until it drained me completely, and as I walked upstairs to go to bed, the realization that we were at war hit me, and I barely slept a wink that night.

Take care, have a nice week, and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ross Hammond, Editor