AI-Generated Transcript
Speaker 1
And we are good to go. Hi, good morning, everybody. This is Larry Watkinson with Blind Information Technology Solutions, our new S there for solutions. This morning, I am joined by, with David Edick, and with our infamous Jeff Bishop.
Speaker 2
Infamous?
Speaker 1
What’s that?
Speaker 2
The infamous Jeff Bishop. You, Jeff. Sure, no, no, not really.
Speaker 1
So we’re here to have an hour of fun, answer your tech questions, and we’re going to be able to take you. Remember now we get to take one question, and if we have time, we’ll take additional questions. The question of the day might be a little bit strange in the sense that, are you going to join us in Missouri for the convention? And if so, what tech item is it that is going to be critical for you to be a part of your life in Missouri? So that’s the question I have for you. And if you’re not going to be in Missouri, what tech item is it that is going to help you be a part of the convention if you’re away? And I’m going to jump over to David. But I first want to thank Diane and Holly both for helping us be on the air this morning. So, David, what’s up? And what have you got in mind for your tech item to make the convention successful for you?
Speaker 3
Well, either way, it’s got to be the iPhone. I’m still working on seeing if everything aligns for me to go. But, yes, it’ll be the iPhone, definitely. Of course, if you’re not coming to convention, Bits will have extended chat and discuss the convention in the evenings.
Speaker 1
Yes, we will. Yes. How about you, Jeff? I know you will be in Missouri.
Speaker 2
I will. Well, and I will make sure I have a computer with me. Not that I ever walk around without one, it seems. But that’s going to be my device since the iPhone was taken. And I will probably have multiple computers with me at the convention. So, hey, Larry, while we are here, I thought I would announce our big event that’s happening on…
Speaker 1
I was hoping you would do that.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I hope it’s okay for everybody. We still have, I think we still have, I have not looked this morning. I got up late this morning because I was up working on stuff for this event, actually, until about 3 o’clock this morning. And we are putting together a course, a two-day course, pretty long, actually. But we are partnering with GitHub, the Microsoft-oriented company that is really used for open source projects and storing information. And it’s not all about writing code, but just sharing information and being able to manipulate that information. We’re calling it Git going with GitHub. And Git is, of course, the command, if you’re at the command line, that you use to work with GitHub. So we thought we’d be a little clever there. And so call it, you know, instead of Git, we call it Git going with GitHub. It sort of conflicts with, of course, the upcoming leadership conference. But we know that many of you will not be attending that. And there’s a reason why we are doing it early, because we need to be able to refine the process. because we’ll be taking this show on the road at GitHub headquarters and doing it live and working with people around the country during the week of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. So that’s why we’re doing this. And not only that, but we’re doing it because we want to be able to provide the information to the community. You need not be a BITS member to participate. We’re opening this up to everyone, but there’s a limited number of people that we’re going to accept in the class. So if that’s you, I’m going to ask you to write to ask at bits-acb.org, and we’ll get you all of the information. The URL is a bit long to actually sign up. But if that’s you, and I’m looking at you, Holly, because I think you might love to do this, then just write to us and we will get you enrolled. And if you’re already a Bits member, you will have seen it in Bits Bytes, as well as if you’re on our developer list or our VS Code list, then you would have seen it there too. Anyway, I’m going to stop talking about it now because I could take a whole hour and talk about it. It’s going to be fun. Anyway. Very fun, yeah. Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1
16 hours of Jeff Bishop. We all get, you know, we’ll all be able to submerge ourselves into this whole 15 hours and stuff. And then I will die.
Speaker 2
I will die. Yeah. It is 16 hours. That is correct. Two days, eight hours each. And we’ll take breaks and we’ll have a lunch break. And it’s 12 to 8 Eastern on the 7th and 8th of March. So, yeah, that’s what’s going on.
Speaker 1
It’ll be fun. So the other thing I just want to mention, too, is that many of us are going to be at CSUN, the California State University at Northridge. It’s the exhibit hall activity that will be on down there. And we’re going to be down there on March 9th through the 13th. And we will be doing live chat events in the evening where we will go to exhibitor booths. And I’m going to post on the – Jeff, I don’t know if we’ll do it on the announcer or we’ll do it on the members, but the link so that folks can click on.
Speaker 2
We can do it on both. I think that would be good.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And what will happen is you’ll be able to see the exhibitor list. And what I would ask you to do is if there’s something that you specifically are really wanting to have some information on, if you write to ask at bits-acb.org with what booth you would really like to have us go to, we will make it a point to go to that booth. We’ll find something in the booth. We will interview them and ask them everything you want us to know about their products. And then that will be available. I’m thinking, David, you’ll probably start to chat about 5 o’clock. I probably won’t. I or Jeff or Michael Babcock probably won’t be able to do a live with you until probably at 6 or so. And we’ll have to work those dynamics out. But is that your plan right now, just to start chatting around 5, David? Yeah, during the week, yes. So that’ll be on – actually, it’ll be Wednesday and Thursday night. And then the interesting thing is that for those that are registered for the exhibit, we get a preview at 5 o’clock on Tuesday night. So you probably – you might get me live from the floor, and the audio may be a little funny because it may be strictly out of my phone. So we’ll just have to see how that goes. So, again, if there’s something you want us, write to Ask at Bits, and we will get a hold of you. So, Diane, let’s go ahead and take our first person caller here, if you want to call them up.
Speaker 4
Okay, first we have Christine, followed by Angel.
Speaker 1
Christine, good morning, and how can we serve your needs today?
Speaker 5
Good morning, folks. Good morning, Sir Bishop.
Speaker 1
Hello.
Speaker 5
Hello. I don’t know if this is a – do you talk about the Apple Watch at all on this call? Sure.
Speaker 1
We’ll talk about everything here. Anything. It doesn’t matter. Anything.
Speaker 5
We’ll even talk about you. Yeah, I bet you wouldn’t. I’m scared of that one. No, no, no. Because you know a lot of things.
Speaker 2
No, I don’t. She is a great singer, and she loves to sing his Beatles songs. I’m just saying. You’re not going to acknowledge the Beatles song thing? Don’t you remember we used to sing the Beatles? I do. I remember the Beatles.
Speaker 5
I remember lots of things about Microsoft. You were the best, one of the best things about Microsoft was you. So there you go.
Speaker 1
So what’s your question about the Apple Watch?
Speaker 5
Yeah, because we could chat.
Speaker 1
We would, and I want to get a chance to get in here. And then we’ll come back and you can talk to Jeff a little bit more.
Speaker 5
No, that’s all right. She can call me. So since iOS 2.6, I guess, or watch OS 2.6, I rebuilt it a couple of times. It doesn’t matter. I have this weather widget. I used to have a complication. And in that complication, I could see the temperature. And I really like and sometimes need to see the temperature as one of the things on the crown. And now it’s the UV level, which frankly doesn’t concern me, especially in the winter. Yeah, exactly. It’s zero most of the time here in Michigan. I don’t know how to get that. And the complication is no longer available. I can’t even get weather on any complication. And I’ve heard that it’s because of the widget. But is there anything I can do to make it be?
Speaker 2
No. Do you have the Weather Gods app on your phone?
Speaker 5
I do not. Should I? Is that a good thing?
Speaker 2
You should. You should. There’s an Apple Watch complication that it provides. that you can use, and that might be your solution. Okay. I would try that. All right. I will go do that.
Speaker 1
And the other thing you need to do, too, is that Apple has rearranged some of the complications, and where you may not normally have found the widget under that particular complication, it may be in another area on the complication. Because I’ve noticed that with some of the updates, they’ve moved what you can access on some of the complications.
Speaker 2
So you might want some of the watch faces as well.
Speaker 1
Different watch faces. Yeah. If they get it in there. Cause I’ve noticed that.
Speaker 5
All right.
Speaker 1
Any other part of that?
Speaker 5
No. Awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Another thought on that. I have the temperature complication on my watch on the modular watch face.
Speaker 2
Is that part of the weather?
Speaker 3
Yeah, it’s what’s built into the watch.
Speaker 2
So it’s the watch section. Okay, and you’re using the modular face, right? Yes, on an ultra. Okay.
Speaker 1
Okay, good. How about our next person we’ll take there?
Speaker 4
Okay, we have Angel followed by Janet Wright.
Speaker 6
Thank you. Angel, go ahead, sir. Yes. Now, since I’m on a PC, I do have a PC-related question about Clubhouse. Now, every time I look up the schedule and it says “Jordyn Clubhouse” and if I want to press the Enter key, is it going to basically work the same way that I use Zoom? Because when I use Zoom, when I like to raise my hand to hit Alt Y, and then when I like to mute and unmute, I like to hit Alt A. And then when I leave the Zoom room, I have to hit Alt at 4 and then hit Enter. Is it the same way in Clubhouse? If I were to go to Clubhouse, let’s say for Community Karaoke, for example.
Speaker 2
On your PC, right?
Speaker 6
Yes, on my PC.
Speaker 2
You know, I have not used… I even took Clubhouse off my phone. I haven’t used it in months. So I don’t know what the current state… David, do you know what the current state of applications is?
Speaker 6
I do want to answer the icebreaker question as well.
Speaker 3
but let me let’s answer this one first okay i don’t have a clubhouse so okay um and and i
Speaker 1
have not used like do you uh do you use any kind of uh ai like chat i use jaws i use jaws yeah yeah yeah yeah um any ai device like chat gpt because what i would do is no i don’t let me let
Speaker 2
me um let me look into this and i will answer that question as we proceed here yeah But I will get back to you.
Speaker 6
Yeah, in the meantime, I’m going to answer it, which is, since I may not be able to make it because of financial situations, I’m going to be tuning into ACB Media on my Lady A, on my Amazon Echo device.
Speaker 2
Okay, very good.
Speaker 1
So why don’t we go ahead and take our next caller, and then Jeff is going to research that.
Speaker 2
I will in a few minutes. I’m not doing it right in a second.
Speaker 1
So let’s then take our next caller.
Speaker 2
We’ve got the hour here.
Speaker 4
Okay, next we have Janet Wright followed by Donald G.
Speaker 1
Good morning, Janet. And thank you so much for your help. Good morning, everybody.
Speaker 7
I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.
Speaker 1
You’re not?
Speaker 7
But I want to answer. May I answer Angel’s question?
Speaker 2
Oh, the question. Yeah, do it.
Speaker 7
It’s not Clubhouse. It’s Club Deck on Windows or Mac.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s what I was trying. I couldn’t remember the name. Yeah, it’s Club Deck. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7
And I’ve never played with it, but I do have to come out on my phone. And since I’m living in St. Louis and I’m going to the convention, my braille display.
Speaker 1
All right. My braille display is six. You know, Jenna, I want to, you know, you were concerned about stepping on anyone’s toes. Here’s the thing is, about Ask Bits here, is it’s not stepping on anybody’s toes. We are a community of collaborators. And so, you know, we don’t have all the answers. We’re the panels. We’re facilitating things and making it happen. And by all means, if somebody has an answer to a question, we encourage you to come forth. And so, Janet, we really appreciate the fact that you would come forth, have an answer, and feel good about being a part of that process. I mean, in this world, if we could just bring everybody up and have them as facilitators and we would be able to just have this community conversation, we’d make it work very well. So please always feel free to step forward. And I don’t care if there’s somebody here who’s got an answer. That is awesome. So, Janet, thank you. And let’s go ahead and take our next unless you have something else. You’re welcome.
Speaker 7
Have a great day.
Speaker 1
You bet. And our next person.
Speaker 4
Donald G.
Speaker 8
Hello. Donald G. Oklahoma. Donald G, yes, sir. I had a question. I wanted to know if you guys can help me figure out about Telegram. I have Telegram. I use Telegram as my main – well, I have a group that uses Telegram, and it’s not accessible. And I was wondering if there’s any way that you guys can help me figure out who to talk to on Telegram because I tried to submit a report, an accessibility report. And it wasn’t accessible even there. So the buttons weren’t labeled and I couldn’t submit it. What is Telegram? Telegram is kind of like WhatsApp. It’s kind of like WhatsApp. Got it. But it’s a messaging service.
Speaker 2
So, boy, if everyone’s stumping me today. So the answer to this is I believe that there is a – I wish Holly could answer questions too. She can. Yeah. I would welcome Holly. Because I think she might know the answer to this one maybe. I believe there has been a newer app release that is a Telegram clone that is voiceover compatible. and I don’t know the answer to that. Can you do me a favor, Donald? Can you email us at ask at bits-acb.org and we’ll get back to you on this one? Yeah, sure. I would also check the AppleViz website because if I recall correctly, there should be an app in the app directory up there that is specific to that. And I don’t use Telegram or else I would probably know the answer to this right off the top of my head. it’s not one of the apps out of the 1200 apps I have on my phone it’s not one of them so I have everything else but almost but not that and I know breaking with tradition
Speaker 1
if Holly has the answer I would be willing to do that if Holly is feeling so inclined I realize it’s a little
Speaker 2
I don’t know if she knows the answer
Speaker 1
to that or not
Speaker 8
I tried to submit it yesterday and it didn’t I don’t know I don’t understand it So, yeah, if you could, I’ll email you guys then.
Speaker 1
Holly, you want to break the rules a little bit? And if you have an answer, come for it.
Speaker 2
If not, that’s okay. Yeah. But we’ll research that and get back to you.
Speaker 8
Yeah. Yeah, take your time.
Speaker 1
How about you, David? Are you familiar with Telegram? I know the name, but yeah, I think.
Speaker 2
I’m definitely familiar with Telegram, but I just don’t use it. It’s one of those situations where, you know, I got so many social media things and I just, you know, I didn’t really communicate with that many people on it. So I don’t need another one.
Speaker 1
And I kind of limit myself to the tools that Bits has, you know, because we have our WhatsApp and we have, you know, a whole bunch of stuff going on there. And so, you know, I’m so Bits focused. And so I have to look into that. All right. Let’s take our next person then.
Speaker 4
Okay. Next, we have Allison from Michigan. All right.
Speaker 1
Allison from Michigan. Another call.
Speaker 9
Yep. Hello, Jeff and everybody here. I am not going to the convention in Missouri, but somehow I’d like to listen to it virtually. But the tech tool that I would find very helpful is if I got a BT speak, because the Commission for the Blind here in Michigan, now known as the BSBP, They kind of gave me a cheap deal on a note taker and gave me an APH scholar, which didn’t last very long. So I think if I got a BT speak, it would last longer.
Speaker 2
That’s that the BT speak is is is turning into quite the device. And it’s got some amazing innovative features, both for very basic, you know, technology oriented people, as well as people who are wanting to spread their wings and do even more. So I have to really think seriously about purchasing one of those for myself, actually. So, yeah, great choice there.
Speaker 1
So just probably going home with a new toy from CSUN.
Speaker 2
No, no, it’s $1,200. If I did that, my wife would kill me if I spent $1,200.
Speaker 1
Do you have a question for us, Alice, also? or I want to make sure that we get your question if you had one.
Speaker 9
No, I don’t have a question. Thank you, though.
Speaker 1
Do you have snow up there in Michigan today?
Speaker 9
We did, but it’s pretty much all gone now.
Speaker 1
Awesome. Great. Well, stay safe. And let’s go ahead, David, unless you had a comment. Let’s go ahead and take our next caller.
Speaker 10
Pam? Pam? So I will be doing convention virtually. And of course, the device that goes everywhere with me is my iPhone. So I might be outside enjoying the weather if it’s decent on a summer day. I will be tuning in to the convention on my iPhone.
Speaker 1
All right.
Speaker 10
And for the person who was having trouble with Telegram, now I have never used Telegram. I’ve heard of it, but that’s the extent. But when you have an app that has unlabeled buttons, sometimes, and I emphasize the word sometimes, if you’re on an iPhone, you can turn screen recognition on. and it will tell you what those unlabeled buttons are. And then as soon as you get done with that feature, you turn your screen recognition off because otherwise it’ll mess you up when you’re on perfectly accessible apps. But that would be something else to try if you’re running into unlabeled buttons or unlabeled this or unlabeled that. Sometimes that will help.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you. That’s great advice. I think there’s other inherent issues, though, that that will not fix, from what I recall. But, you know, that’s a great tip regardless. So thank you so much.
Speaker 1
You’re welcome. That screen recognition, it’s really helpful. But if you use it at the wrong time, it’s not as helpful. But that’s really the point that you’ve made is that turning it off after you identified what it is you need.
Speaker 10
Oh, yes.
Speaker 1
That’s really good advice. Well, we want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we’ll take the next person, please.
Speaker 11
Nora.
Speaker 1
Oh, good morning, Nora.
Speaker 11
Hey, good morning, everyone. My answer to the first question is I’m not going to go to Missouri, but if I join virtually, I’ll be using even my smartphone or my iPad or both. Or my computer. Because I’ll be home.
Speaker 1
Very good. Did you have a question for us, Nora, today?
Speaker 11
Yes, last week I want to find out if someone can email me via Zoom, the chat, what do you call that? Zoom link because I tried to get in and wanted to make a call in instead of joining the link.
Speaker 2
What we’re going to do is we’re going to ask you to email ask at bits-acb.org and we’ll take care of you for that, okay? It’s also on, oh, no, it’s not. Okay, yeah, yeah. Just email us and we’ll, as I was going to say, it’s on the, it’s not anymore. Okay. So just email us and we’ll get that to you. Okay. Just in case we don’t remember to do that, that’ll make sure that it’s in our, it’s in our queue. Okay.
Speaker 1
All right. Thank you, Nora. And we’ll take our next person.
Speaker 4
John Melia.
Speaker 1
You got it right.
Speaker 12
Very good. Good morning.
Speaker 13
Good morning. I’ve got a JAWS question lately when you do an update with JAWS it’s taking longer and longer to update you can go have lunch and come back and it may not be done
Speaker 2
I noticed this too
Speaker 13
and my question is now a couple of the participants were talking about this earlier and one of the things they said they go out to the web and download it from there now if you were to do that do you delete the old JAWS that you have No. Or do you just run it right over top of it?
Speaker 1
Right over the top of it. Because you’re going to have that older version of JAWS there. And it will update all the files that you need to. And I’m the guy who was talking about updating this morning. I got this prompt to update. I started at 734. And I have an ARM-based machine. Not that that’s anything special. And I started to panic because I was at 92% at 745, and it took until 749. And I was like panicking, thinking that Diana was going to send the posse out looking for her to find out where is her panelist. And so you are so right. It is taking a lot of time to update. Going out and downloading it is a good solution.
Speaker 13
Yeah, I’ve got a Windows 11, i9. I mean, it’s a good machine. So I was just wondering, if I were going to the convention, I’d probably take three things. I’d take, well, I have my phone, but it’s not iOS. I would take my BT Speak, the computer, and the Victor, because the Victor has all the ACB channels on it.
Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s a good tool, the Victor. I don’t leave home without my Victor. You know, and I’m a part of their beta program. There’s some neat things happening with the Victor, and there was just a release a week ago, last week, of a new version. Watch that there’ll be another release this week to fix a couple of patches, just so folks know that on the Victor. There’ll be another slight little update coming out probably next week, from what I understand.
Speaker 13
Well, guys, I thank you for helping me with that. I’m new to ACB and BITS, so I’m glad to be here, and you have a good day.
Speaker 2
Hey, one other thing that you might want to think about for the JAWS issue. Oftentimes, I go to the download for the full offline installer, which is rather large. So it’s going to take a little bit of time to download depending upon your internet connection. That also might speed things up because then you’ll have all of its files locally versus it having to go out to the internet and download each component as it needs it. So that’s another option that you might want to consider. Okay. That’s what I do.
Speaker 1
You know, Jeff, that’s actually a really good idea. Do you think it would speed the process up to overall? Oh, yeah. Yes, I do.
Speaker 2
It’s really big, though. It’s like two gig or some crazy thing. So it’s very large. But that’s because it has all the languages and all the, like, it has everything in it. And so, you know, you’re downloading a lot more than what you really need. But then it doesn’t have to go out to the internet and download anything. It’s all part of the package. I do that on a regular basis.
Speaker 1
And all of us now have terabytes and three terabytes. And I think David’s got like five terabytes. You know, it’s not like we have a room issue, right? So let’s go and take our next caller.
Speaker 4
Okay. Anisio.
Speaker 14
Hi. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Yeah. Thanks so much for the wonderful service you offer. And I’m proud to be a member. You’re a part of it. The organization, yes. Well, thank you. My question is about Overcast. You guys familiar with that?
Speaker 2
Overcast, yeah.
Speaker 14
So, Jeff, I imagine you as having as many or maybe more podcasts than I do that I subscribe to. And the problem is that I just can’t keep track of it, right? So, I mean, I forget that I subscribe to this or that. And then when I go through it, oh, my God, I can’t believe I forgot this. Anyway, I have a number of them in different languages because I’m originally from Portugal. So I downloaded quite a few news apps from there. And what I would like to do is to create folders or I think it’s called playlists. And I can figure out how to do it. So I wonder if there’s a place where I can go to, you think, or what I would get some direction.
Speaker 2
Wow, this is cool. We should do, I’m going to forward this. Well, I’m going to ask you to email us at ask at bits-acb.org because I think this is one that I think we should do as an educational event or at least as a presentation. So I’m going to talk to Brad and I’m going to talk to Tyson about this because I think that we should do something on this, that we haven’t done this on a, I don’t know if we’ve ever done it, honestly. Um, and if we have, I don’t remember. Uh, but this is a good one. There’s, you know, there’s a number of really great podcast, uh, clients, um, including the Apple podcast app, downcast, uh, of course, overcast, uh, Castro, um, uh, just, you know, a number of them and they all have their advantages and disadvantages and um this is a a bit of a complex topic to cover here um playlists are very are very powerful um they are um you can you can do all kinds of stuff and add specific uh episodes or add specific podcasts and combine you know bunches of things and make them all appear in in the list and um it’s it’s really really really cool um one of the other things that you might want to think about um is um castro has a a very very cool user experience where basically um everything comes into what it’s called the inbox and then you can you can then you don’t about where podcasts are because they appear you know it’s like opening your mailbox right they’re there um and then if you’re looking at your list and it you can just move to things that you want to listen to to what they call their queue and then you can say okay everything else i don’t care about so just you know delete it out of the inbox and it goes away now it doesn’t go way but it just it’s no longer in the inbox itself so specific episode or yeah exactly exactly so so um it helps you in keeping on on task for those things that are important to you um but still having ability to subscribe to you know however many podcasts that you want so if it’s not a free app um it it does cost so um but it’s very very accessible um the author is very responsive to accessibility changes and that’s another choice that you might want to think about but i think we should we should really honestly think about doing a series of you know maybe maybe a you know one a week kind of you know teaching everyone about these different clients i think that would be interesting yeah i love overcast in general i mean and i pay yeah i used to love overcast i used to love overcast until um it got to the point where it got so sluggish i couldn’t use it but but um i i i am not the norm um you know i think i subscribe to 1500 podcasts so yeah i figured that right so so you know my situation is a little different right the average person has you know 10 or 20 or something and that’s manageable um for me it it it got to the point where and the author of overcast is not very responsive to feedback from
Speaker 14
about accessibility either is apple apple the apple podcast a native app is it more accessible
Speaker 1
nowadays. It’s getting more friendly. I switched between the Apple. I’m sorry, David. You were trying to say something.
Speaker 3
I don’t want to. You finish. I was just agreeing with you. Okay.
Speaker 1
The Apple native app is much more friendly. I actually had subscribed to Castro and I really loved Castro but I’m kind of lazy. My Victor Reader goes with me everywhere and so it’s always was on and I, so that’s where I go. But if I have Castro, I had Castro. I love that. But the Apple native app kind of has become the one I’ve gone to on my iPhone because it is actually fairly friendly
Speaker 3
and useful. But David, your thoughts? I use the Apple native podcast app exclusively. I’ve thought about going to other ones. They’re even downloaded, but I, it works. It’s not the best, but it does
Speaker 1
work and yeah has met all my needs and it’s accessibility is better than a lot better than what it was um definitely a lot better thank you thank you so much yeah i i find that that app is
Speaker 2
too basic for me for what my needs are but that but you know it’s it’s getting more powerful yeah
Speaker 1
but but the thing is that i think that’s a key uh key statement you made jeff and that is is that
Speaker 2
you i mean i’m not the normal person you’re not when it comes to these this stuff you’re not
Speaker 1
because you’re always digging deep and you know 1100 uh podcasts you know how many other people are like that they’re not oh let’s go ahead and take the next caller please deborah good morning
Speaker 15
Hi, Deborah. Hi, good morning. I got a couple of situations here. A friend of mine was talking with me this morning. He uses Gmail, as do I. I also use Gmail as well. He got a funny message this morning that said, You have three days to, something like you have three days to use Gmail and then Gmail is shutting down. I’m wondering if that was. That’s spam.
Speaker 2
That’s spam.
Speaker 15
That’s what I thought. Okay.
Speaker 2
Gmail is not going anywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 15
Okay. I will reassure him.
Speaker 2
Trust me, the internet would go into a panic if Gmail was going anywhere.
Speaker 15
I’ll bet that. Yeah. Now, my other question is, I started to use Google Chrome as of yesterday. I was using Microsoft Edge, which I really don’t like. I was also using an internet browser called Brave, which my dad recommended as well. Because a couple of years ago, I was using Google, and I clicked on something which caused my computer to do some really, really funny things, such as when I would send a single email to somebody, they would get that email about, say, about 40 or 50 times, the same email. And we discussed that and we decided to go and use Brave, which is actually a highly recommended browser, internet browser, by some folks. The only thing is, sometimes Brave doesn’t let you do things that you really want to do because it’s really keeping you safe. I had a problem with our library here in Canada, Center for Equitable Library Services, which we fixed up. But I was working with somebody yesterday, and I do things with the interactive Christian community. And he recommended and installed Google Chrome. And I’ve got the two browsers here, Brave and Google Chrome. But what’s happening with Google Chrome is that when somebody sends me an email and they say, if you have any questions, email, and it gives the link to the email address. So when I enter on that, it goes into Google search, and I can’t get to what I want to do. I can’t get to actually emailing somebody.
Speaker 2
Oh, that’s interesting. So I don’t know. Have you tried making sure that the screen is maximized to make sure that that isn’t for the problem?
Speaker 15
Yeah, I think I did. I can try it again.
Speaker 1
Try that. Yeah, maximize always.
Speaker 2
That will probably resolve the issue for you. You can also use the application key or the Shift-F10 keystroke to go to the context menu after highlighting, you know, placing your… Are you using NVDA or JAWS? JAWS. Okay, either way. when you tab to that link then you can press the application key or shift f10 then you can you can copy the link and then you’ll be able to then email that specific email address if you want to do it that way as well but maximize the window with windows up arrow and that should that should
Speaker 1
probably resolve that issue for you and what if she didn’t insert f7 jeff and highlighted that
Speaker 2
link and then she could just uh you could try that too that might work or may not it depends on
Speaker 1
okay yeah it depends yeah you might try try to insert f7 and see if the list of your link comes out and if the specific link that you want to go to just go down to it and hit enter on it um sometimes you’ll get a message that says no links found um even though you see it and it looks like a link right so it’s not the most reliable but it’s certainly is a good tool to have in the toolbox
Speaker 15
So either you mentioned insert F10.
Speaker 2
No, no. Shift F10.
Speaker 15
Yeah, shift F10. Yes, yeah. Shift F10.
Speaker 1
And then insert F7 will show you your links typically.
Speaker 15
Okay. And you said to maximize the window as well. Windows up arrow. Windows up arrow. Okay, because of what I was doing was I was doing the alt space bar in X.
Speaker 2
That works too. You can do that? sometimes that does not work if you have installed utilities such as power toys they take over alt space and if you’ve installed the gpt app that can take over alt space and that’s why i’m recommending that people switch to using the windows up arrow command okay and if i
Speaker 15
can if there if if i do have another moment or so um have any of you gentlemen heard of the smart vision three it’s a it’s a phone um i have heard of it yes yes um yeah i know i know nothing about it okay that’s yeah so so that i won’t ask any any uh but i mean i mean yeah yeah i don’t know i just find box edit w o r winter sabbathu you know if you listen in i will see if they’re at the
Speaker 1
CSUN. I have some doubts that they’ll be there, but I will check in and see. We’re going to go ahead and mute you and we’re going to move on.
Speaker 15
Thank you for your help. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1
We’ll take the next person, please, Diane.
Speaker 4
Okay, next is Sabi Havi.
Speaker 1
Yes, Sabi, how are you doing this morning? I feel like I just talked to you a few hours ago.
Speaker 16
Right. Well, a beautiful Saturday to you, however, yeah, whatever you think beautiful is. But anyway, I will not be attending the Missouri convention or whatever in person, but I would definitely like to join virtually. And I am interested in the BT Speak since everyone’s speaking about it. You know, as you said, it has everything from basic to the advanced, and I think I’m at the very basic. And so I would like to start somewhere and see what would be. I’m still struggling to find what would be the best or the ideal refreshable, you know. So that’s one. And in terms of, like, attending, even though we’re not doing all these conventions and things in person, whether it’s in Missouri, whether it’s the CSUN, or let’s see what else is there. Is there a way you guys could compile one email with just links to register things and all of that in one place? I mean, I’m sorry. I hope not to be sounding lazy and going to the websites. Yes, that would be the ideal, but just to save time for some people just so that they can have it all in one place. And then what’s your WhatsApp group? What do I search for, just bits?
Speaker 2
as far as the website no WhatsApp we have a WhatsApp group you say we do it’s for members and so you can send us an email at support at bits-acb.org and we’ll get you connected isn’t it at the bottom of the email it’s also at the bottom of the email yeah
Speaker 16
yeah you get that
Speaker 1
yeah and Sevilla what probably we’ll do is I will put a link of all the exhibitors and you’d be able to click on it. It would take you directly into the CSUN exhibitors, but to compile a industry list of everybody and be able to maintain that, that would take a lot of work. I mean, and if we had a volunteer who really wanted to kind of take that project on, we can give you some space to do it, but we’ll post the exhibitor list for CSUN. And beyond that, it’s a labor of love. and right now we don’t have enough people to really love doing something like that and keeping it up and so we’ll post the exhibitor list and when there’s other conferences where there’s exhibitors if we can grab that list and put it out we’ll do that but so like we appreciate that and we’ll talk to you in chat probably tonight and thank you we’ll take our next next person please okay thank you and we’re going to be starting to run out of time so if you could really stay focused on specifically your question we want to make sure we get through all the hands this morning so diane
Speaker 4
our next person please okay next is carla good morning carla hi how you doing we’re all good
Speaker 17
part of the meeting because i had a conference call so i assume your questions are are you attending in person the acb right and i’m gonna say if god willing and my health holds and everything
Speaker 1
i am planning on it i am really if the water doesn’t rise right yeah the water that’s a good
Speaker 17
one with all the rain and melt. And was the other thing about what tool you wanted or take? What was
Speaker 1
that one? Yeah, what tech equipment would be valuable for you to have at the convention?
Speaker 17
Oh, I’m going to take my note take or my Braille sense. There you go. Okay. So my question is, well, first of all, what I wanted to know is sometimes I’m still having trouble with whenever you go into an email somebody sends you an email or so yeah they send you an email about their service or product and then they put in there for the link you know to you know to see this go to and then they just have the link but they don’t have the name of you know they don’t have the link you just click on it and you go in and I compile a column a resource column for the the Association of Blind Teachers, and I’d like to actually have the HTTP and everything. So is there any way of getting that, extracting that information off the link?
Speaker 2
What screen reader are you using? JAWS. Okay. So if you follow the link and it takes you to the web browser, you can press insert A twice quickly, and that will actually virtualize the address bar, and you can get the link. And then you can copy it to the clipboard and do whatever you need to do with it.
Speaker 17
Okay. And can you use the reading keys to read it or not?
Speaker 2
Yes, you can.
Speaker 17
Okay. Because some of these things you can’t.
Speaker 2
Yes, you can. It puts it in a virtual buffer.
Speaker 17
So you just go to the link. Insert AA. Insert, go to the link.
Speaker 2
And then real quickly.
Speaker 17
Insert AA. Insert AA. Okay. And then the other real quick question I have is I still haven’t done that. I’m ashamed of myself. This 26 JAWS update. I’m scared to death. heard some very bad things. No, you’re fine. I want to know if I’m going to need hand-holding to do that. They will not give you hand-holding unless you’re updated.
Speaker 2
You’ll be fine.
Speaker 17
Okay. Thank you for doing this call.
Speaker 3
I also wanted to mention that if you’re focused on the link and you hit your applications key, you should see a copy link.
Speaker 2
This is a copy option. That also depends on, good point. I tend to follow the link because if you have, if your email is coming from a Office 365 type plan or from Outlook.com, then what tends to happen is then the link becomes a little bit convoluted because they’re attaching a process of checking it before you actually browse to that link for, you know, that it’s a trusted link. And so I tend to, because of the way that I work, this is not the case for everybody, but if, you know, that’s why I tend to follow the link and then copy it if I need to copy it.
Speaker 1
so just so it is yep yeah yep it’s all trial and error go ahead and pick the next caller please
Speaker 18
okay sounds like hersha yes uh yes so thank you everybody i’ve been listening to this call um i registered for the github workshop on march 7th and 8th yeah yay yes yes i’m super excited my question is and i’m good with jaws but i have jaws on my work uh computer and i’m too cheap to buy it from my personal computer.
Speaker 2
NVDA is fine.
Speaker 18
Okay. Can I use Narrator or do I need NVDA? Does Narrator work with GitHub, do you think? Visual code, Visual Studio.
Speaker 2
I would not recommend it.
Speaker 18
You would not? Okay.
Speaker 2
And that breaks my heart to say that.
Speaker 18
Okay.
Speaker 1
So, Narrator is a really good tool in the Microsoft ecosystem, in the office environment and some of those basic, you know, vital tools that you have. But Narrator is, and with our partnership, by the way, Bits is helping Microsoft grow Narrator to do more for us in the common industry. And so, you know, with our partnership with Microsoft, with our group, it can grow. but there’s some limitations with what narrator is doing and i think nvda is a really a good alternative for folks that are doing coding and other stuff if you’re not going to use jaws
Speaker 18
at home and and i mean i know how to use jaws i’m just we have 10 minutes by the way and two hands
Speaker 2
and by the way nvda is free and it really is becoming a not that it hasn’t but like i mean the third there’s some amazing new features in that in that screen reader and frankly you really should have all of the tools at your disposal to be able to you know i mean why not
Speaker 18
it’s free get it you convinced me okay thank you thank you and are you and if you’re a bits member
Speaker 1
and take some classes. We’re eventually going to have some training material for PITS members who take specific classes from us on the NVDA, and we’ll be able to get you that training material as a part of your membership. We have worked to deal with NVDA to have some of those products locally. NVDA access, yeah. NVDA access to do that. So there you go. Let’s take our next two hands.
Speaker 4
Okay, we’ve got Sirku followed by Frank.
Speaker 1
Sirku, it’s nice to, great to have you here. Hi.
Speaker 19
Great to be here.
Speaker 1
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard your voice, Sirku. It’s really great to.
Speaker 19
It’s been a long time. How can we help you? I don’t know if you have answered to my question, but it doesn’t hurt asking. So since I bought my iPhone 16, the volume on my iPhone seems to fluctuate with no logic. I mean, some apps that I use, the volume goes down so low that I have a hard time hearing.
Speaker 2
Wow, that’s interesting.
Speaker 19
Yes, it is. Are you like in Discord?
Speaker 1
Or give us a couple examples of apps real quick, if you could.
Speaker 19
One worst is a Finnish app, but I was going to call the accessibility of that app, like whatever developer to, so how, because it really, like, as soon as you hit whatever, open the app, the volume goes down. And sometimes Clubhouse does that too, like fluctuates the volume.
Speaker 2
And it’s… or is it just when the app starts?
Speaker 19
Just randomly, yeah. With that one app, it happens all the time. That’s the bug in that app. But it seems to happen with other apps too, like randomly, and there seems to be no logic. So I’m just wondering why.
Speaker 1
So I’m wondering, Jeff.
Speaker 2
I think it’s auto-ducking.
Speaker 1
Exactly. I was thinking auto-ducking. David, what do you think?
Speaker 3
Audio-ducking. I was just confirming it’s on the iPhone speaker, correct?
Speaker 19
Yeah, but when I use MetaGlass, it does the same. Okay. And I don’t use it. Yeah.
Speaker 2
So let me ask you something. If you turn VoiceOver off, I know this is not ideal, I know. No. But I would be interested to see what you think here. If you turn VoiceOver off after opening the app, right? And for example, Clubhouse, right? And you’re just in there and you’re listening. Does the problem go away?
Speaker 19
I haven’t tried it. I sure will. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Try that. Try that and let me know. And then, you know, we’ll continue to troubleshoot it with you, okay?
Speaker 19
Sure.
Speaker 2
It’s great to hear you, though. Wow, this is great.
Speaker 19
It’s great to be here. I love this call.
Speaker 1
You know, we have chat on Friday nights and Saturday nights.
Speaker 2
Yeah, Friday night for her is kind of late, right? Yeah, I know. No, no, no, you’re in the morning. It’s in the morning for you. Yeah. It’s in the morning, yeah.
Speaker 1
But, you know, if you come in to chat, we can play with that issue, you know, if you came in at all. We’d love to have you.
Speaker 19
Yeah, I promise.
Speaker 1
I’m going to take the next caller. And I think that will be the last call, by the way.
Speaker 19
Thank you for the suggestion.
Speaker 1
Yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 19
Try that.
Speaker 1
I think we have one more call that we can take real quick. Yes. If they can be quick.
Speaker 4
Yes, and that is Frank.
Speaker 1
Frank.
Speaker 12
Hey, Frank. Hi, am I making it all right?
Speaker 1
You are. Let’s go ahead and do your question real quick.
Speaker 12
Good. I use Outlook. I get an email with a document PDF. They open up and it’s loaded with graphics. How can I correct those graphics or be able to read them?
Speaker 2
Well, so this is a tricky one. And you’re on Windows, yeah? Yes. Okay. I’m going to suggest that you and you’re a JAWS user? Yes. Okay. A couple of choices here. You can save the PDF to your local machine, first of all, and then try opening the PDF in Word. If it’s an image-based PDF, Word will recognize that and try to OCR the PDF and convert it into text. And that’s probably going to be your best bet. If you have the Be My Eyes app from the Microsoft Store, then you can use that and you can open up the PDF and ask it to tell you what’s on screen. Or you can use Windows Co-Pilot and have it read to you what the PDF is showing.
Speaker 12
Okay. The other thing I do use Adobe, open up that PDF.
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1
Adobe is not always going to help recognize the image.
Speaker 2
No, and Adobe is getting to the point now where it sometimes doesn’t even get you into the PDF when you open it. There seems to be some focus issues going on there, and it’s becoming very frustrating to use that application.
Speaker 1
The other thing is, if you have OpenAI on your cell phone, you could always use OpenAI. Or ChatGPT, yeah. Or ChatGPT of what’s on that screen, and it would read it to you. Yes, I have. But OpenAI is an excellent tool for you to recognize. And it does. I use it to read my screens often. Was that Seeing AI?
Speaker 2
Seeing AI, yeah. Yeah, Seeing AI, yeah. Seeing AI. That’s another option.
Speaker 12
I do it all on a computer. I don’t use it. I understand, yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay, very good. Thank you, Frank.
Speaker 1
We’re at a point where we’re going to need to wrap it up for the day here. David, I’d like to find out if you have any last comments for the group today. And Jeff, we’ll go to you next.
Speaker 3
If you have any more questions, I would say join us at chat or send an email to ask at bits-acb.org.
Speaker 1
You do not have to be a member to join chat. Is that correct, David? That’s correct. And if they want to get on, what do they need to do to get the notices?
Speaker 3
If you haven’t received it in your email already, then send an email to ask at bits-acb.org and we’ll get you that link directly. Absolutely.
Speaker 2
And Jeff, any comments? Yeah, just thank you for being here, everybody. We appreciate you so much. It is BITS renewal season. So if you have not renewed your BITS membership, you have until the 28th to do so before we will start removing people from all of our services that have not renewed. So if that’s you, please do consider renewing on the website at joinbits.org. And we’d love to continue to support you. And if you’re interested in the Going with GitHub course, then send an email to ask at bits-acb.org and we’ll get you all set up.
Speaker 1
And I would like to take an opportunity to thank Holly and Diane for working very hard on our behalf today. I’d like to thank the ACB community overall for supporting BITS and please join us at BITS. And Jeff already took my line about renewing or becoming a member. We’re here to support you. We’re here to have you as part of us. And then with that, I want to thank you all for joining us this morning. You are who BITS is about and you make BITS successful because of you. So, Diane and Holly, have a great rest of the weekend.