AI-Generated Transcript
Speaker 1
Good morning. Welcome to Ask Bits for February 7th, 2026. I didn’t say the previous year. That’s a good thing. I want to welcome our panelist, Lisa Cliff. We have streaming Darcy. And our host is Mike. And Marcy’s with us as well. So when you’re called upon, Mike will let us know who’s up and who’s on deck. And as soon as you have asked your question, I believe he will mute you at that time, unless there’s a follow-up. So today I’d like to ask everybody if they could give one tip, one keystroke, one most valuable thing that they feel would be important to impart to other people, what would it be? If you could share one shortcut, what is your favorite most valuable keystroke or command or tip for the computer? And let’s start with Lisa.
Speaker 2
Hey. Um, mine is screen reader specific, so I can’t necessarily give a keystroke, but I think it’s really important to know how to restart your screen reader. I can’t tell you how many people say, you know, it stopped speaking. Oh, I’ve got to press and hold the power button. No, if you know the command, and it’s a little different how it’s set up in each screen reader, but if you know that command, then you can start your screen reader back up with a lot less hassle.
Speaker 1
Great. Thanks. Cliff, what’s your thoughts?
Speaker 3
I don’t know. Lisa’s bright about the knowing how to restart your screen reader because you don’t have to restart or shut down every time your screen reader stops talking. So I think I would guess I’d have to say when you’re in mail on either system because you’re able to do it on Windows 2 and Outlook. But if you’re in mail, just know how to get back to your home base, whatever you’re comfortable with. Mine is my folder where I have all my stirred up content go. And, you know, that’s where I usually start my mail app. But just know how to get to your comfortable home spot in your mail app. That way, you know, you don’t get confused and tripping over messages you don’t know where they are. But if you know where you’re at, if you know where your home comfort zone is, then you’ll be fine in any mail app.
Speaker 1
That’s like Control-Shift-I in Outlook will take you to the inbox.
Speaker 3
Exactly, and Apple Mail is Command-1 unless you’ve changed it, which I have.
Speaker 1
Marcy, do you have a most valuable tip first?
Speaker 4
I provided this tip when we had this call before, but I think it’s very important to know which window you’re in. Just like Cliff was saying, is screen reader specific for JAWS? You press JAWS key T. NVDA, it’s NVDA T. But to know exactly which window you’re in because you don’t want to be trying to mute and unmute your screen when you’re writing. So it’s really important to know the title of your active window.
Speaker 1
All right. Darcy, do you have a tip?
Speaker 5
This is a hard one, actually. The favorite shortcut key. guess um a lot of times i have like i i made a shortcut on myself on the mac that it runs a little script i made that will mute and unmute the microphone wherever i happen to be and that’s really useful for you know situations especially in zoom where you don’t want to you’re not in the window so i’m still have that script too thank you yeah i’ll stay unmuted in zoom and just mute and unmute with the microphone wherever I happen to be. So that’s what I, what I would say my favorite one is.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I have a hardware button that does that, but I know how valuable that is. And then Mike, do you have a tip?
Speaker 6
I do. It’s just a, a small thing when you’re on meetings in zoom teams, what have you close other programs that may make noise.
Speaker 1
there you go um before we go to raised hands i will tell people that when i’ve recently joined a zoom meeting on the phone um the more there’s a more button and there’s a raised hand right there so if you don’t see it on your main screen take a look under the more button do we have any raised
Speaker 6
hands we do and our first hand is area code 734 which is allison and she’ll be followed by michael
Speaker 7
right yep all right allison okay okay good morning everybody i have an answer to your question and a question for you um my tip would be it’s always very important to know how to navigate the program that you’re in on windows with your screen readers so i think it’s important to learn how to use FS Companion correctly so you know how to ask it the right questions depending on what app you’re in. And my second question is, I use Microsoft Edge as my Internet browser, and normally when I get into it, it puts me in forms mode so I can type a web address or whatever. But it says new features in Microsoft Edge, and then it takes me to a next button, And I’m wondering what do I do about that?
Speaker 1
I haven’t seen that one myself. Anybody have any thoughts?
Speaker 4
So I think what happened is Microsoft Edge just did an update because a couple of our browsers have done recent updates. So you have to complete that wizard before you have access to the regular Edge. So go ahead and complete that wizard. Click that next button or find out what your updates, you know, how you want to set up your Edge. And then you’re either Alt-D or Control-L or F4 should take you to the address bar.
Speaker 7
That answered my question. So thank you.
Speaker 1
All right. No problem. And you said Michael was next? Yep. And who’s on deck?
Speaker 6
Pam.
Speaker 1
All right.
Speaker 6
Hey, Michael.
Speaker 8
Thank you for having to look to see who is next. I just took a bite of breakfast and I had to finish it real quick. So appreciate that. My tech tip for people is I wish more people, if they took the action to unmute, would assume that they were unmuted instead of asking if they were unmuted because the people who you are talking to will let you know if they can’t hear you. So be more reliant on the keystrokes and the actions you take to be able to unmute. And that is my tip. And thank you.
Speaker 1
I like it, Michael. I like that one, and I would follow that up and say, ask your question and see if you get a response. Just like instead of sending a test email, I would rather ask a question. And if it doesn’t come back, then I know it didn’t go through. So anyway, very good suggestion. You said Pam was next, Mike? Yep.
Speaker 9
Yes, and I’m here. My tip would be, and again, this would be screen reader specific. Get friendly with your context menu and your action menu, whatever your screen reader happens to call it. because especially the context menu, that will often save you a bunch of time and a bunch of grief, because it’ll take you right into some of the features that you’re likely to use on that website or on that app, and you don’t have to do as much scrolling through everything else to find it. And my question, it’s not really a question. It’s an interesting thing I had happen. So, you know, heads up. I got a headset that, no, it’s not one of the big, expensive, fancy one. It’s inexpensive, but it’s good. In fact, I’m on it right now. But it is one of those that you, it’s designed to use mainly when you are falling in bed, falling asleep at night, you know, you fall asleep to a podcast or music or a book or whatever. And you can, if you turn over on your side, it will not be uncomfortable. The name brand is Sleep Pones, but this is like a knockoff, you know, less expensive. But what happened was, and I’d had one of these before, when I got this one and started to use it, I realized that the speakers were reversed. And yes, it can be removed. It’s like a headband. You can remove the electronics and wash the headband and then you put them back in. Taking them out is not difficult at all. Getting them back in is a bit of a bear. they were reversed and that’ll drive you nuts when you’re listening in stereo and everything’s reversed so I took them out reversed them put them back in didn’t change any settings everything worked fine for three or four weeks and then inexplicably try that one three times fast inexplicably it it switched around again I changed nothing I didn’t had not reversed the speakers again so I had to do it all over take them out reverse them put them back in and then you wonder okay how long is it going to be before it switches around again my question is have any of you ever heard of something like that happening and obviously the workaround is to switch the speakers around but what if you were on a headset that you couldn’t do that you know you you can’t take them out of a headband and flip them around and all of that i was just wondering if anyone’s ever heard of a a situation where the uh sound uh where where
Speaker 1
the thing reversed itself like that i haven’t i i have heard of that happening yeah most of my headphones they don’t switch like that but i have some mackie speakers computer speakers and they have a switch on the back that you can switch the which speakers the left and right and it even says on the box uh what it’s for but it also says to confuse your friends or whatever so it’s just oh
Speaker 9
Oh, no, this does not have anything like that. This was a, you know, your economy.
Speaker 1
That’s all right.
Speaker 9
Yeah. But anyway, I was just wondering if anyone had ever heard of one reversing like that without you doing. In fact, I don’t know of anything you can do if you don’t have that feature to reverse it, except to, well, take the speakers out and flip them around and spend two hours getting them back in. That’s a little bit of an exaggeration. You get where I’m going. You have to do it very carefully.
Speaker 1
Yeah, for me, it just means I put my headphones on backwards.
Speaker 9
That doesn’t exactly work.
Speaker 1
I understand. I’m just saying that’s not on these.
Speaker 9
It doesn’t.
Speaker 1
Yep.
Speaker 9
Yep. So.
Speaker 1
Has anybody else seen that? All right. Hearing nothing. Mike, do we have any more hands?
Speaker 6
RC, you have your hand up.
Speaker 5
Yeah. We have somebody in clubhouse. We have Holly. Go ahead, Holly.
Speaker 10
So I’ve been hearing, I’ve been pulling my hair out for the last three days because, um, I am using my, the Amazon, um, a lady app. I’m not going to say her name to trigger people. But, and it switched to Alexa Plus. Well, I just said it. So it switched to the A-Lady Plus. And I could not get rid of it. I tried Disable. I tried End. I tried Exit. I tried all the things people told me to try, and it would not go away. And it kept saying I didn’t have a membership to that in my memberships. And I was like, but it’s on here, obviously. And, um.
Speaker 3
Are you a Prime member?
Speaker 10
And then, yes.
Speaker 3
Then you’re automatically going to get it. And correct me if I’m wrong, David and Mike, once you enable it, you can’t go back.
Speaker 1
I don’t even think you have to enable it.
Speaker 10
Well, so it sounds like it’s on the apps right now, just on the apps, not the devices.
Speaker 3
They’re on the devices because I have two of them.
Speaker 10
Well, I figured out a way to at least get it back briefly is you can go into your… at least it worked on the phone app and tell it and change the language to Canada and then it goes back to the original a lady voice and the the a lady plus goes away so that was my hack initially is to get because I can’t what if you change it back does it go back to plus or do you try I don’t know I didn’t try but I can’t um get the puzzle of the day skill because I I type in the puzzle of day skill so I don’t say the words out loud and I can’t get that to work on my iPad at all with um less turned on so it’s very frustrating I do not like it and just so you know
Speaker 3
you wouldn’t wake my because one is Ziggy and the other one’s computer so yeah but other people who
Speaker 6
are listening and for David’s for David’s clarification and for everybody’s clarification I do not have a Prime subscription, and it is only on my telephone of Apple at this time.
Speaker 10
Yeah, that’s what I’m finding is it’s only on my phone and iPad apps. It’s not on, and it’s not even on like officially on because, yeah, you can’t turn it off. And I guess maybe that’s going to happen eventually. But I know they’re going to keep the old version because if you’re not a Prime member, you have to pay $20 a month for it. So I think that you should be able to turn it off. But that’s just my opinion.
Speaker 4
So Holly, when you switched the language, did you switch to English Canada? Yes.
Speaker 10
And it still uses the same voice because I thought it might use the Canadian voice because it’s a different voice. But it uses the same voice. It just switches off. And it tells you when you do that, well, you’re not going to have access to plus anymore. I’m like, good. I don’t want it. So right now that’s the secret. Thank you.
Speaker 4
That’s the secret. Yeah.
Speaker 6
All right. Here we go with hands. And we got a few of them. First up is Randall, followed by Nora. Good morning, Randall.
Speaker 11
Good morning, Randall. Hello. Is this format or are we just asking wide open technology questions all across the board? Is that okay?
Speaker 4
That is okay.
Speaker 11
So my question, I use my iPhone 12 for Facebook a lot. Two questions. Can you help give me some tips on how do I copy and paste a post from Facebook? If I want to take it and post it like into my email to send to someone or a text message. So I don’t know how to copy and paste. Can’t seem to master that one. I mean, and then second, when there’s a link in the post, it seems hit and miss to me. Maybe I don’t know the exact commands to use, hand strokes, finger gestures. But the link, I want to click on that link, and it seems hit and miss to me to click on links when I’m in a post on Facebook.
Speaker 1
I have a thought for your links. If you use the rotor and go to the links, you swipe down until you hear the link, and then double tap on that. And as far as the post, I’m going to recommend starting with when you touch the post and it’s reading it out, do a three finger quadruple tap and that will copy the text.
Speaker 11
Okay.
Speaker 3
You can also attempt to double tap and hold with one finger. And one of the options that pop up in your actions or context menu should be share. And email is usually past all the people that you’ve recently text. So that’s another thought. I’m not saying it’s going to work because I’m not a big Facebooker, But I’m almost positive that that is a universal action that should work anywhere, any website, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is.
Speaker 11
Okay. Yeah, I do that for like on text message. Yeah, double tap and hold that tap long and it comes up.
Speaker 3
Long press, yep.
Speaker 1
I know on a text message you can swipe down and one of the choices we copy and you don’t have to do the double tap and hold. I don’t know if that works on Facebook.
Speaker 11
It doesn’t. Okay. And back to the three fingers, quadruple tapping. I had mastered, it seemed like I had success. I’d seen that somewhere like three months ago. And it seems, what happens, it seems like Apple, the Facebook, there’s an override in there. And you wind up only getting like there, you don’t get the actual text of the message. It seems to be my problem or the post you get. Apple. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah, the important thing to remember with that three-finger quadruple tap is that it’s not necessarily copying all. What it’s copying is the last thing spoken by voiceover. So if voiceover says, here’s all the text of my lovely post, and the table has two columns and four rows, you’re going to get the text of the, okay, yeah, and the commentary. Exactly.
Speaker 11
That’s kind of what I was saying. That’s the problem. You’ve said better than me what I find. I get something that I don’t want what it gives me.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So basically what you have to try and do is like engineer it so that you’re right on the thing. So it only says what you want, which it’s kind of like finding a unicorn. It can happen, but it’s really kind of rare. Or what you do is you just usually what you find is the intrusion from voiceover comes either at the beginning or the end. And so you can just edit that out by words, characters, edit it out.
Speaker 3
And I just got a text from one of my friends that just so happens to be listening at work. And they also said when you double tap and hold or when you go to the share, there’s a spot where you can copy it and it’ll give you a link to the post. So you can paste that into a text message or an email.
Speaker 2
Yeah, the only problem with that, with the copy link kind of thing, is like sometimes what you end up with is a link to the post in that app. So where I see this, for example, is if I want to share a podcast with somebody, it will not send a link to the podcast in iTunes. It will send it in Downcast, which is the app I have. And I’m not sure if they don’t have downcast. It doesn’t always translate. So that’s kind of why I prefer, if I can, to try and copy links or I’ll go to the link.
Speaker 3
Yeah, but if he’s trying to share a post from Facebook anyway, then that’s where he wants them to go anyway.
Speaker 2
But I understand what you’re saying about the podcast. Yeah, yeah. Well, not necessarily because if there’s an inspirational quote, he may not necessarily want them to go to Facebook. But I want you to see this quote. So it’s just a good thing to check and to figure out, okay, can I share a link or should it be text?
Speaker 6
And we got quite a few hands up. So up next is Nora and then Diane.
Speaker 1
Nora, what’s your question?
Speaker 12
Okay, well first of all my answer would be for those who want to delete something on their computer with just put type of alt F or if you want to get all the get out to escape from a window but my question whenever windows and my question is on my laptop computer I like to record my phone my karaoke and I I recorded my phone or recorded something and I was checking it. But when it comes to sharing, how do you share? My question is, how do you share that recording while on your laptop? Because when I press share, it says open up your other devices for sharing. So I’m not sure what to do about that.
Speaker 1
What are you recording in and which kind of computer are you working with?
Speaker 12
I’m working on a Dell laptop with Windows 10.
Speaker 4
So, Nora, if you know the location of your file, put your cursor on it and copy it, and then when you’re sending an email to somebody, in the body of the email, paste that file, and that song is attached.
Speaker 12
No, I’m not talking about that part. I’m talking about… No, I’m sorry. My question is, I have a computer’s recorder, and it’s called voice recorder, and I can record on it. But it’s not through the email. It has nothing to do with that.
Speaker 4
It’s just a… So when you record, it saves the file and it calls it norasong.mp3 or fileabc.mp3, right? No.
Speaker 13
After you finish?
Speaker 4
No? No.
Speaker 12
What I’m trying, it’s hard for me just to explain it. Let’s say if I’m on my computer and I put a computer’s voice mail, not voice mail, voice recorder, and I record myself for when I say one, two, three or something, and then I stop recording, and then when I click on share, it asks me to open up some other devices to compare with the recorder. I have a recorder, a computer recorder, not the recorder from the iPad or phone. And when I click on share, I have to go through what you call a workaround, where I have to open up my other devices to pair my devices with that recorder. I have to see I don’t have anybody here to show me, but I’m trying hard to explain. I know you don’t understand it either.
Speaker 2
Are you saying that you want to take your recording and transfer it to another device or you want to email it to someone?
Speaker 12
No, what I’m trying to say is, let’s say I do my recording from the computer’s recorder, the voice recorder, and I’m on the laptop and I type voice recorder and then I get to that window on the computer and then I click record and then when I’m done I stop recording and then I click on share, but after I click with share, click on the share button, it tells me to open up my other device, to pair my other devices that are opening, like my iPad or my smartphone. It won’t share to, I mean it won’t tell me, after I put the word share, click on it, it won’t take me to an email to share. onto an email. So it’s very complicated to me.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I would just share it a different way. I would share it with the email, the way Marcy was explaining earlier.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I would just ignore what it’s saying because it sounds like it’s trying to get you to connect other devices, to network other devices to it when all you want to do is email it. So yeah, I agree with David completely.
Speaker 6
okay you guys ready for the next hand i think so all right diane followed by rosanna um i thought i
Speaker 14
heard something the other day that eventually all of the amazon you know smart smart speakers are going to be upgraded to that Amazon Plus, Alexa Plus, whatever it’s called. And that once that happens, you won’t be able to disable it and go back to the other one anymore. So I’m wondering if that might be, you know, what’s going on. But it sounds like people are still going to be able to disable it until everything is all updated. Is that true or am I imagining it?
Speaker 4
So it sounds like that’s what we learned from Holly. If we switch to English Canada right now, it’ll go back to the regular. Now, Amazon may disable that later, but right now that’s how she’s done it.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I haven’t seen that announcement yet.
Speaker 6
Okay, up next is Rosanna, followed by Angel.
Speaker 15
First of all, about a keystroke, one that I’m surprised that no one has mentioned is, and I guess, yeah, insert or NPDF12, which would be to tell the time.
Speaker 4
That’s because we were waiting for you to mention it, Rosanna. Thank you.
Speaker 15
As far as the Ms. A+, I actually also have a Prime Amazon account. And so I did the, I tried it, you know, the Plus. And I don’t remember anything specific. I can’t really point out anything specific, but I totally, it almost seemed to mess up my devices. so i was all i did was say disable uh the name then plus and it worked for me i did not have to do any workaround yeah that works on the device but mike was talking about
Speaker 6
or people were talking about the app this morning it does it that does not that does not work on the iphone um i was told by customer care at amazon that all of the apps have been or a lot of them have been switched to that so i would um if you have it on the phone and you don’t want it i would try to disable it or use holly’s advice okay
Speaker 16
and who’s next don okay i have an iphone 13 pro and i i’ve done all the updates and i kind of wish I hadn’t because a few updates ago, I use the music app a lot and it’s display. It’s not displaying at all properly. And it’s even it’s hard to describe because it’s like random letters and words that I kind of have to put together trying to figure out. I looked at it on the Braille display. The letters are like all over the place. I’m just wondering if anybody has had this happen. And I went into settings and I tried turning on and off some of the settings. And that didn’t really do anything. And it’s a little bit different from one time to the next. But it’s not. And I’ve been navigating it for years with no problem. So I’m just wondering if there’s anything else I can try. What Braille display are you using? Braille Edge. But even without the Braille display, like if I have it turned off and I’m just using voiceover, it’s a mess.
Speaker 3
what about screen recognition is that on it was on i turned it off i thought that that kind of fixed
Speaker 16
it i went in again and it hadn’t so i went back and go well maybe it turned back on no it hadn’t turned back on you said i find the screen recognition i have to keep turning off on every app
Speaker 3
because it makes it worse you don’t need screen recognition for every app you should only turn that on as needed but what braille display did you say you were using braille edge when i’m using it
Speaker 16
but I’ve tried it both ways.
Speaker 3
Okay, yeah. I’ve never used that one, but no, I’ve… Yeah, I don’t know. Darcy, do you use the brother’s play at all? I do not. And while you’re there, somebody is texting me about where the stream at on the A-Lady. What trend are you guys on? We’re on six. On six, okay.
Speaker 5
This call is always on six.
Speaker 1
anybody else have any thoughts for don i’m wondering if he should contact have you tried
Speaker 4
contacting apple accessibility because they can see what’s on your screen
Speaker 16
yeah i’m gonna do that they’re always very very helpful i haven’t had the time to do it but yeah
Speaker 3
marcy i wasn’t gonna ask you because we know you have a whole tech lab over there so
Speaker 1
All right, who’s next, Mike? Angel.
Speaker 17
Now, over the past several days, I have heard that Scott Dunhill was interviewed on NPR. So I used my A-lady to play Sunday Morning Edition, but it wound up playing Sunday, it wound up playing Morning Edition, but it did not play the one that I wanted. It played something way different. So what should I say to my A-lady so I can play the right podcast. Because I kept on saying, hey, lady, play Sunday morning edition from NPR podcast, but it won’t play. What’s going on?
Speaker 4
So Morning Edition did a single recording or a single interview of Scott’s, and they sent it to us on the lists. So we just have to get it to you so you can play it. But I’ve seen the link to the conversation and I actually played it. So I’ll get it to you.
Speaker 6
Pamela is up.
Speaker 4
Good morning, Pamela. Yes. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 18
Yes, I just had to unmute it. I have an Echo up in my bedroom that my husband uses mostly for playing music. But I wondered if there’s a way to use an Alexa app like on my iPhone or iPad.
Speaker 3
that’s actually the way you’re supposed to set it up so i i don’t i i mean you you have to have the app in order to set your alexa up because it’s connected to wi-fi and stuff like that but yeah
Speaker 18
there is alexa app yes there is um he must have it hooked up on his iphone okay but you can
Speaker 3
download it to your phone or ipad and sign into the same account or if you choose to use a separate
Speaker 18
separately, then I guess set up your own account and use it that way. Okay. Is there a fee for the Alexa app? No. No. Okay. For some reason, like when I look at the app store, it says in app.
Speaker 3
Oh yeah. You can also have the same account, but a different profile. I was just reminded. So yeah, you can have the same account, but set up your own profile. So you can have your profile,
Speaker 18
your husband’s profile. Right. Now it says in app purchases. Doesn’t that mean there’s a fee? No, that means you have to.
Speaker 2
What does that mean?
Speaker 1
It’s an optional add-on.
Speaker 2
It means we’re all very eager. Everybody’s chiming in.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
So, like, let’s say that you want to enable a skill that allows you to play, I don’t know, a game every day. And there’s a cost of $4.95 a month. That’s what would be referred to as an in-app purchase. Okay. So some of those different skills would have a charge. The thing you have to look for with the App Store is if it’s a download, a redownload, or a get button, if the button itself is a price, then that’s how you know that the app is a paid app.
Speaker 3
Which 99% of them aren’t anymore. So it’ll say get in-app purchases, which means you have to additionally purchase whatever is going to be the add-on.
Speaker 2
You might really need to purchase it to run the app, or it might be something you don’t care about.
Speaker 3
okay right because there are paid because there are paid skills like for instance there’s this audible clock that somebody recommended but you have to pay for each clock if you want it to chime every hour so it’s only 99 cent a month but any more hands mike we do
Speaker 19
and good to be here excellent program um what is the best way to listen to the olympics with audio description on the iPhone. I’ve got Direct TV and I went to, you know, Direct TV and found the programming and selected one and it said closed caption and it said the default was audio. And I’m just wondering how to do that. All the broadcasts don’t seem to be audio described. I’m a little disappointed in that.
Speaker 3
DirecTV has some but if you want true audio description you’re probably better off with Hulu. You could go into your iPhone settings go under settings accessibility and go down to audio described and toggle it on and what that’ll do is anytime you go to any service whether it’s DirecTV, Paramount+, whatever it’ll automatically do audio described for you so you ain’t got to look
Speaker 19
for that button, but DirecTV is one of them that doesn’t have very much. Yeah, yeah, I’ve noticed. Okay, okay, I’ll try that. Is Hulu, how much does that cost? Is there a charge for that? You can get
Speaker 3
it for $9.99 with ads, and I think there’s a Disney Plus Hulu bundle that is a little cheaper. They want you to get them together, so they make it a little bit cheaper. Google is your friend on that one because I don’t use them anymore, but.
Speaker 19
Oh, so wait, you said Hulu with what now?
Speaker 3
Hulu with ads, which means it’s going to be like a 30-second clip probably every 20 or so minutes.
Speaker 19
What about Peacock? You know, that…
Speaker 3
That’s NBC slash Universal, and they have a lot of audio described stuff. I love the Chicago PD, Chicago Med and all of them. Most shows that they do now have audio descriptions. So, yes, you’ll be good with Peacock.
Speaker 19
Okay.
Speaker 3
Paramount Plus, anything they release these days is audio described.
Speaker 19
Okay. Well, right now we’re limited to the iPhone because our TV is not hooked up. So anyway, thanks so much. Appreciate it. No problem.
Speaker 1
And do we have any more hands, Mike? Sabita.
Speaker 20
Morning, Sabiha. Hello. My tip of the week. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I love that. Yeah. Curve to car. Really simple. but um you know how it i’m like uh using uber or lyft i can just hear my voiceover um speak the make and model i and the one thing i really wanted to point out i always do me and doing for a while now uh you know the gesture for a copying speech you can make it simple because it would never register my four fingers somehow there’s always a me a finger short and it would do zoomer blah blah so it would register only three fingers i went into settings accessibility voiceover gestures blah blah and changed it to uh just a three finger single tap things you know makes things so much easier you can customize gestures if you know something that’s not commonly used you
Speaker 3
can change it to what you would like it to now you do know that one is already assigned right the what you do know that that gesture you just spoke of is already assigned right
Speaker 20
that’s what i’m trying to say every gesture may be a sign every finger every combination but if
Speaker 3
it’s not one that you use it’s fine i’m just i just want people to know that that is a gesture
Speaker 20
that is always when you go in there it’ll tell you what it is and so if that’s what you don’t like and of course you can change it yep but you know then i just go into the kerb to car in the edit box just single tap go to my voiceover rotor um whatever and find a copied speech and bam it’s done and then find my car and it’s so much easier yeah so the tip to be able to change voiceover
Speaker 4
gestures is an amazing tip yeah because people can change those voiceover gestures to make them what they want them to be and that is wonderful so just as she said if it’s not used you know when not used often it’s a really good thing you can make it what you want it to be and that customization
Speaker 1
of voiceover gestures good tip excellent tip thank you absolutely and mike who do we have next Petra. Hey, Petra.
Speaker 21
I have a question about AirPods. Excuse me, not AirPods, AirTags. Is anyone familiar with those? I just got a set of four of the new, updated, brand-new, louder, more precise AirTags, and I have been trying to set them up, and my voiceover jumps. I’ve worked with Apple Accessibility. In fact, they’ve escalated it to engineering because my voiceover jumps over the add button. They can see it on the screen, and if I swipe right, it jumps over it. If I swipe left to go back, it jumps back over it. Has anyone else had a problem with setting up AirTags, or is it my phone?
Speaker 1
I personally have not. It has been a while. I don’t have the new ones, but it has been a while since I set them up. I usually navigate the screen to find the button if I can, instead of just swiping. So that would be my suggestion is to see if you could move your finger across like you are when you’re finding a key on the keyboard to find that. The pair. OK. Connect button.
Speaker 5
Yeah. If I if it’s OK, if I talk. OK. Yeah. I am probably your best. That’s I was going to say the same thing, David, is that you want to just explore the screen. And chances are, I don’t remember because it’s been a while since I’ve done the air tags myself, but probably the add button is probably going to be in one of the corners, right? Like it’s probably maybe up at the top on the left or on the top right. Just kind of explore because, yeah, sometimes swiping back and forth will just do weird stuff like that. So you should be able to find it. It should be fairly prominent and easy to find.
Speaker 1
Yeah, probably near the bottom of the screen.
Speaker 5
Carla is next.
Speaker 13
Oh, I just joined. I couldn’t get in. It kept sending me to Google Chrome. Oh, no. I’m glad you’re here now. Yeah, I wrote to Ask Bits about this. So anyhow, so, okay, you know, that’s going to become my question. Then you can disregard if I get it in. Okay, so what’s happened? And it seemed to happen with all the links. And then I used Michael’s new schedule, and it quit happening. But I tried to change it. What happens is instead of launching Zoom, when I click on the link, it goes into Google Chrome. Google Chrome doesn’t talk anymore. And then, so I, that didn’t work. So I went to my Zoom account and I went in there and they wanted, of course, the web ID and the passcode. Well, the passcodes don’t seem to be listed anymore in the community schedule. You get the web ID, but no passcodes. I wouldn’t let me in that way. So I’ve got two questions. I think I might’ve done something to my computer when I was trying to get it to play the Olympics on iHeart radio. I may have inadvertently switched a setting. What can I do to make this not happen anymore?
Speaker 4
Or is this too complicated? No, it happened to me as well. I had to click join from Zoom workplace first, and then I had to click OK that I wanted to come on to the meeting. But the reason there is no passcode is because we’re in a webinar. So all you have to do is enter the meeting ID if you
Speaker 13
decide to join from Zoom. Well, it wouldn’t let me in without a passcode. It said required, and it wouldn’t let me in.
Speaker 4
And if you go down further, I know we’re spoiled by the quick links, but if you go down further in the schedule, the IDs and passwords are recorded.
Speaker 13
I went to the end of the entry and I didn’t see it. So maybe I missed it. I don’t know. But what can I do to prevent this? Because my biggest fear is I teach my classes online and I hope it doesn’t happen because it’s quicker for me to enter from a link from within a message I send out. Otherwise, I got to go and look for the meeting. And you know how cluttered the screen is. I don’t use the same repeated link every week because we got Zoom bombers. And so I send a new link out every week so that that doesn’t happen. So anyhow, is there a way of preventing this from happening? Was there a setting that I might have checked wrong or done wrong? Can you give me any advice? Because I’m so afraid it’s going to happen again, and I won’t be so lucky the next time.
Speaker 4
Yeah, I’ll let the guys talk about it. But every time you click on a Zoom link, it opens a web browser page. Every time. It’s not a new thing. I always go and close that browser page. Go ahead, you guys.
Speaker 1
I would have said the same thing. For me, I actually joined on my phone and switched over to the computer because I wasn’t finding the link fast enough on the computer.
Speaker 3
I cheat. I use an app called Meter that I’ve told people about before. It’s M-E-E-T-E-R, and it’s available on everything but Windows. So it’s your iPhone, iPad, Mac, of course. And what it’ll do to you, what it’ll do is it will look on your calendar for any web meeting, whether Zoom, Teams, WebEx, whatever. If it’s a video call, it’ll find it. And it’ll remind you two or three minutes, or you can set it to remind you when the meeting is. But the nice thing about it is even if you missed the notification, you can go into the Meter app and you can hit join meeting. And it takes you directly to the meeting. No webinar or no passcode, no Chrome browser, no nothing. It just brings you right into the meeting.
Speaker 4
So, Cliff, your assignment is just like Jeff wrote a new ACP link for Windows. You got to tell him to write meter for Windows.
Speaker 1
There you go.
Speaker 4
That’s your assignment because Carla’s on Windows.
Speaker 1
I used perspective meetings on the iOS as well.
Speaker 3
Is there any more hands, Mike? Because I was going to say something else. Yeah, we have some.
Speaker 6
Carla’s got her hand back up. I’m going to allow her to talk because we don’t have any other hands after that.
Speaker 1
And I was also going to mention you could create a shortcut on the desktop, but it’s still up in the browser window.
Speaker 4
Okay. That’s a good way to prevent it. I thought there was an okay button that you could always join this. But if you put a shortcut on the desktop, but it’s going to be a different shortcut every time. That’s the challenge.
Speaker 13
Yeah, but it still goes to the browser. It used to open up in Zoom Workplace and just let me join. Right. And it’s not doing that anymore. No, it always goes to the browser. Always. I mean, it says to me Zoom. It gave me a choice before about joining in Zoom or from Chrome, and it went to Zoom.
Speaker 2
I think I saw the same thing happen today with it, you know, talking about joining through Zoom Workplace. And I had to do it a little differently today. It could just be a Zoom, like an update, a one-off thing. So I would say just hang in there, you know. And if you’re experiencing the same problems, you know, somebody can likely walk through it with you and say, oh, no, this is the way it should be. This is familiar. Or, oh, you’ve got, you know, you’ve got a problem.
Speaker 13
Okay. And what was the icebreaker? I might as well answer it while I’m on you.
Speaker 1
What’s your favorite tip, screen reader tip or other tip shortcut that you would feel is important to share with everybody?
Speaker 13
I still like the Windows, you know, Control Windows K to select text and set a bookmark and paste things that way. And it’s a lot easier than some. And you can use it in different places besides just Office. So I think that’s become one of my favorites. Yeah, that’s a good tip.
Speaker 4
Control Windows K to mark the beginning of text and then JAWS key space M to mark the end of text. And then you can copy.
Speaker 1
And that’s just a JAWS.
Speaker 4
Yeah, that’s true.
Speaker 6
Angel
Speaker 22
Yes I would just think I’m going to use my lady to listen to Scott Tolham so what should I say to my A lady so I can get to the right interview so that it can take me to the interview of Scott Tolham because I really want to hear it on my A lady
Speaker 4
Yeah it’s a specific interview that they actually took and sent to us so I don’t know if you can ask for a specific NPR podcast for, you know, for that interview, but I’ve got it. So I can share it with you.
Speaker 6
Carl.
Speaker 13
Okay, I’ve got another unrelated question. Supposedly, you should be able to listen to audio from the Olympics on NBC Olympics, iHeart, you know, the iHeart station. They have NBC Olympics Plus and NBC Olympics. They will not play on my Alexa. It’ll play on my BrailleNote Touch on the iHeart app, but Alexa will not play it. Is there any way to get Alexa to play it? Because it did for the 2024 Olympics. There was a link you could listen to the events live. And that’s probably how I messed up my computer, trying to get it to play the opening ceremonies because I couldn’t watch it on NBC because of the cable dispute with Verizon. So I finally did get it to work. But does anybody know how to get that station? And why certain radio stations that are iHeart will not play on Lady A’s?
Speaker 1
That’s probably a contract issue right there. But I’m not an expert at that. So I’ll let anybody else answer.
Speaker 6
There are stations that are blocked when certain content is playing as well. So be aware of that.
Speaker 3
I already got too many ads for me so I don’t listen to them
Speaker 1
well with only a couple minutes left I’d like to thank everybody for joining us and if you have any further questions please email ask at bits-acb.org and we’ll be able to answer the question if you have anything that didn’t get answered today join us in a couple of weeks for the next one which will be on the 21st. And really appreciate that. And we remind you to check out the BITS website, joinbits.org or join us in the BITS chat this evening. And thanks everybody for listening and your questions.