AI-Generated Transcript
Marci
Hello everyone and welcome to AskBits for Saturday, January 3rd, 2026. Wow, the first Saturday of 2026. Can you believe it? We are AskBits and we are here to answer your tech questions. If we have answers that you need, we will absolutely be happy to answer them for you by email. We also invite you to bits chat to make appointments with us so that we can meet with you in a breakout room to answer your questions. so that email is ask@bits-acb.org. I’ve got some wonderful people helping me today. On the panelist we have Brad Snyder, we also have David Edick, and we have Kliph Miller. Our host today is Mike Hartwig, and our streamer, broadcaster, and clubhouse moderator is Diane Scalzi. So I have an icebreaker question that I’d like to ask the panelist and I encourage you to answer as well. We have a video of a perfect occasion that just took place. It can be described perfectly by AI for you just as soon as the video is done, or you can wait a week and have it described by a close friend. Which one would you do? And let’s start with David. Which one would you do?
David
I would do both because you can go through immediately and your friend’s going to give you a much different perspective so you get the best of both worlds and you should sort of know what’s going on if you were there but yeah. Okay. The description will help from AI as well. So you can’t pick just one, you would do both. Nope. I’d have to pick one immediately and that’d
Marci
be the AI but yes I definitely follow up with my friend. Okay Brad which one would you do?
Brad
Well, before we started the call, you told me the icebreaker question. And of course, I want AI because, you know, I don’t want to wait. I want it now. But David does bring up a good point. A live a live person, especially someone who’s familiar with the people in the video, may have an additional perspective. So, you know, I’ll probably do the AI right away. And then later on, when the opportunity presents itself, I’d probably have a friend or family member look at it, give me their perspective as well.
Marci
Thank you. And you kliph, which one would you do?
Kliph
Well, I told you I don’t have any friends. So AI would have to be it. You do too. So if I had to, you know, get some family or friends to do it, like David and Brad said, you get a fresh perspective. They can call somebody up by name and be like, why are they tying their shoe in the middle of the ceremony? Why is that person on their phone and they’re supposed to be helping you read your vows or whatever the case may be. But yeah, I would definitely do AI but get that perspective from a friend or family member to see You know extra details that AI may miss or not think is important because they’re not Personalized with you like a friend or family member is so
Marci
See I was thinking that I would wait that we can get that personalized perspective from the friend or family But yeah, it’s really nice that we have AI available now to describe videos and to let us know what’s going on right now Mike, which one would you do?
Mike H
well you guys have basically said the same thing that I would say. So I agree with all of you
Marci
guys. All right. So let’s get to those technical questions. Let’s get to those questions that people have to ask. So Mike, do we have hands? And if you would please say who’s asking and
Mike H
who is following them. All right. We have first we have Eric and then we have Michael.
Speaker 6
I have a lady that works with my thermostat and it’s working good. But I got a Toshiba microwave. It’s supposed to be a lady accessible and I can do it manually, but I can hook it up to a lady and I had a side of friend who worked for a computer company and stuff and he can hook it up either. Who should I reach out to?
Kliph
Did you download the app for the?
Speaker 6
Yeah. Yeah. We have, I have downloaded the app. to I have downloaded the app and doesn’t want to work. He went on YouTube like like five different tutorials and stuff how to do it. And it’s the long don’t want to communicate.
Brad
Hey, Brad, I was gonna say that you make sure they’re both connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
Speaker 6
I say yes, we did. Yeah, we we entered the Wi-Fi stuff in. Yeah. I mean, and it’s okay. So you
Brad
know they’re both the same because like I have two Wi-Fi networks in my house. No, I already have one. Okay, good. And that solves that. Okay. Well, that’s the only thing I could think. The other one, I’m not a big A-Lady user, but you might want them.
Speaker 6
That’s a generation five. Generation five.
Brad
Okay. Well, that should be pretty new. I would reach out to either Toshiba support or most likely, I would think that Amazon has accessibility. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good answer.
Speaker 6
Amazon accessibility, right? Uh huh. Yeah. They have a number and you can call them.
Brad
They can be very helpful for those of us who need accessibility help. And the number is on the
Kliph
home page of Amazon. That’s actually like one of the first or second things that puts up when you go to their amazon.com. It’ll say for accessibility help dial this number and You know, you can click it in a call or ask for your number and you can call them.
Speaker 6
Yeah, I think that’s the biggest best route. It’s your product. So yeah. Well,
Brad
connecting to the a lady device would be under their realm. And if your to sheba device says it’s supposed to be compatible or it is well then yeah, I would be like a cardboard thing in there.
Speaker 6
Touch it. Touch it. What the commands are and stuff with a lady. The only other thing I might
David
suggest is are you using Alexa plus? No, you’re probably in good shape. I just, I’ve heard issues with compatibility when you’re using. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 6
Yeah, something no, and it had worked out the bugs yet. I said trouble where we get something new like eight plus and this thing and that thing didn’t have worked out the bugs yet.
Marci
Let us know how it goes when you reach out to Amazon.
Mike H
Okay. Up next is Michael followed by Nora.
Michael B
Good morning. My answer to your question is AI because I am very impatient and I want results right now. And using friends and other people might incur costs and requires me to talk to people. And that’s my answer.
Marci
AI all the way.
Michael B
AI all the way. Yes ma’am. All right. Thank you guys.
Marci
Thank you. Nora, hello.
Speaker 8
Hello. With that in mind, I would have a friend, first family member or friend, if I wait for the AI. That would be great. My question about the check is, when I tap, like when I’m on the computer on Google, I do a quick way of doing things instead of shimmy-tapping.
Marci
So what exactly do you want to do?
Speaker 8
I was saying when you look shopping up on Google, like, Google, like, like, karaoke music, like, like, say, the song called, the first Noel, for example, I was doing so many calving, what do I —
Marci
You could use the H quick key with NVIDIA N jaws because most of your search results come up under headings. >> Okay. >> You could use the H quick key.
Speaker 8
You know, living out in VGA.
Marci
Yeah, the age quick key should help you find those results quickly.
Speaker 8
Okay, great. Thank you.
Marci
My pleasure.
Mike H
Up next is Jane, followed by Christine.
Speaker 9
Mine has to do with, um, well, the Mac, first of all, and maybe Cliff, if I can contact you later. That’ll be good. But also on Windows is there possibly a dongle that I can use that has USB-C for the male side and the USB-A connection for the female side because I’ve been working on a friend’s computer who has a Windows 10 machine but that they don’t have any USB-C ports on it.
Brad
Brad? If you go to Amazon and in your search query write “USBC to USB-A adapter”, you should find a number of them. I have some that I have purchased off of Amazon. They are Anchor and I believe they, when I paid for them, I’ve had them a while. They were like two for $8.50 and that should work just fine on your Windows PC.
Speaker 9
So on one hand is the USB-A where the flash drive goes, but I need that end to be on the other side so that my USB-C flash drive can go. In other words, it has to be reversed.
Brad
you need, I thought you said you wanted the USB-C male and the USB-A to be a regular female. You didn’t say the word female, but I would assume that if one end is male, the other end would be female. And you want to use this so that you could plug a USB-A flash drive into a USB-C port, correct?
Speaker 9
No, no, no my the computer that I was working on Does not have any USB C ports on it in other words I need to be the connections to be in the opposite
Brad
Then then in your search query, right? usb a male male usb C female Adapter and see what that gets you And he’s specific in your search query and it might help out and this is David. Yes, you should be able to find
David
Almost anything you need for USB C to USB a I found When I started you using USB C especially for the iPhone I found all kinds of different connectors from USB C They’re very good. Jane. I’ll look for something and send you an email as well Jane
Kliph
No, cuz she asked me she asked me about Getting in contact with me. So oh well still come back to this chat or something. I’ll catch up with it there
Mike H
Okay, Christine and then a biz Janet. I
Speaker 10
Would as everybody has said I would definitely do both AI because yeah, I want to know what it thinks right now because it can and then be I want to get that inside perspective from the the folks so there you go and I I want to make Dynamic Island go away on somebody’s phone that I’m working on. I don’t know why it’s there because it did not disappear.
Kliph
You cannot get it to go. Yeah, I don’t think it’s there. You just about to say, Brad, it’s specific to app developers implementing it per se.
Speaker 10
So why do I not have it anymore? That’s great. But why? How would that be? Are you sure? What phone do you have? The E is it 16? Yeah, 16.
Brad
It should be there. It may not be there. I’m so glad it may not be there when you are in an app
David
No, it’s not on the 16. It’s not there at all. It’s not there. I know my phone
Brad
It is not okay. You’re right. That could be it. It’s not on the 16 e Okay. All right that answers that I can’t make it go away. Okay But no, it does not go away if you have a phone that has one and I’ve already had more than one phone that’s added. I have a 16 Pro. It’s there.
Speaker 10
And one more quick thing about setting up that once you have to deal with the glass, what are the best settings for us? What do you mean the glass? The new, that’s a visual thing. Liquid glass.
Kliph
They’re totally blind. It’s not yet.
Speaker 10
Yeah, but it’s irrelevant. It has been, so I just was curious.
Brad
- Okay, well, it supposedly, it can’t be, it doesn’t affect voiceover. But if you want to get rid of it, you can go to settings and then accessibility and go, let me see if I get this right. I never remember these things exactly, but I know when I see them under display, and I think it’s display and text or something else. But anyway, if you go in there and there is a setting for what is it, increase contrast? Oh, come on, tell me, there’s two of them in there. There are, right next to each other. And reduce, make things reduce contrast to make things more legible. Yes, and if you turn that on, or yes, you turn it off in order to turn, you turn it on in order to turn off liquid glass. And there’s another setting in there as well. I turn on bold text too, but not that I can see it. I just do it. But that should take care of it. And that just totally knocks it out. And there’s another setting under regular, under just regular settings display and something else. And it allows you to tweak it a little bit. But if you do the other thing under accessibility, it makes that other stuff totally irrelevant. And it’ll even tell you if you go in there and you have the increased contrast turned on, yet you must go turn that off in order to adjust these settings. So that’ll make it go away. Thank you. It’s the same one on the Mac as well.
Mike H
All right. Up next is Janet. Followed by followed by spam. Okay.
Marci
Hi, Janet.
Speaker 11
Hello. I just want to thank to whomever told me about the total back case for the Braille-Saint-Six yesterday through the Aspitz. And do you know if there is a USB-A cable that I can connect a, I have my blind six hardwired, if I wanted a hard wire, hard wire instead of wirelessly. Thank you.
Brad
- This is Brad, you want a USB-C on one end that connects to your Braille Sense 6, right? And then a USB-A on the other end?
Speaker 11
- No, no, no, no. The network cable that goes from here that you can connect to your modem or your router or your– – Oh, okay.
Kliph
- Oh, the Ethernet cord. – Or your connector.
Brad
- Yeah, you should find Ethernet cables pretty easily in a variety of links.
Speaker 11
- That has a USB-A thing that you can connect to the USB-A port at heart so you can connect that to your – Oh, I don’t know what they’ve been saying.
Brad
- You might be able to find one on Amazon. I mean, I’ve got one that came with a APC battery backup that was used to connect it to a computer so software can, you know, boot and do things like that. – To hardware or your… – Yeah, I would try again, go to Amazon, search for Ethernet, or what is it, RJ45? What’s the ethernet? I just would put ethernet to USB-A mail, if that’s what you want, mail. Probably it’ll default to mail, but I’d put it in the search criteria anyway. Ethernet to USB-A mail.
Speaker 12
- Good morning, Pam. – To answer the icebreaker question, I too would do both because, again, you get a different perspective with each. I don’t really have a tech question, but I think the other setting, somewhere I’ve read this or heard it or whatever, I think the other setting to get rid of the liquid glass or whatever that crazy thing is called, I think it’s reduced motion. And that is under, it’s under, Well, it’s under accessibility. And then you just scroll down to– it’s not under voiceover, if I remember correctly. It’s just in that long, long, long list of accessibility settings. It’s there somewhere.
Brad
Yeah, it’s there somewhere. That’s not the one that I have turned on. That might do it as well. OK. I’ll look and see what I got.
Kliph
It probably does. Maybe that’s why I never see it. because I always turn that off.
Speaker 12
So I think it’s off my default.
Kliph
It may be, but I think if you set up a phone as new, it’s always automatically on. But my settings have been the same since probably iOS 12, because I like my phone the way it is.
Marci
So. Oh, yeah. Got you. OK. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate that very much.
Brad
It’s under accessibility. It’s display and tech size. And I have increased contrast turned on and I have bold text turned on. Those are the two that I have and there’s other things in there, but I think either one or the other may take care. Certainly increased contrast is the one that’s going to kill liquid glass. That’s probably the only one that really matters. And then the other stuff is just more icing on the cake.
Mike H
Carla is next. I just want to thank you again and again for what you guys do.
Speaker 13
I mean you really are a lot very supportive to several you know do lots of people. So an answer to my icebreaker. My answer is going to prove to you that I’m an old baby boomer. I am quite used to an okay with delayed gratification. So I would really rather have a friend or family member describe the video or the you know, the incident for a couple reasons. First of all, you know, you might get hallucinations from your AI and they’re just gonna, the AI is just gonna be real, you know, generic and say, there’s a man smiling at a woman on a blue sofa, and odd and odd and odd. That doesn’t mean anything to me. And, you know, I think things are worth the wait. Sometimes I think we do too much because we can’t delay or we get, you know, we’re in the remote control generation. And I’m not exactly, I would rather. So that’s my answer. And I have two quick questions and I know that I hope these are both quickies. First of all, last fall when I was having all that trouble with my computer and had to clear off my hard drive and you guys helped me with that, I got a two terabyte hard drive and I think it’s called something like 9 Pro X. Anyhow, when I connect this thing to my computer and do what I’m gonna do with it, move things to it, or get things off of it, or look at things on it. Then I go to log off of it. It does not allow me to safely remove it. I mean, I’ll go to the menu, the context menu, and usually I can do a J to eject it, and there’s no J there. It won’t let me eject it. So I’ve just had to take it out, and it doesn’t say it’s damaging it in any way, and I wanna know why. And the second thing that I want to know why about is, I love that control windows K, where you can set a bookmark and mark the beginning of a text and then do that layered command with JAWSM to form the end of it and cut and paste or do whatever you want to do with this text. And I want to know why it doesn’t always work, why there is text that I’ll put in there that it won’t let me cut and paste. ‘Cause I really like that so much better than the office and the Microsoft commands where you have to highlight this and that. And so I found it a lot easier to deal with. So those are my two questions. And again, thank you and happy new year.
Speaker 9
- So thank you.
Marci
Last question first, the file has to be saved before you use it in Microsoft. You cannot copy and paste this way, the way marking text to copy. If your file is not saved, your document has to be totally saved, then you can copy from it in the way that you’re talking about marking it.
Speaker 13
- But I’m trying to do sometimes where it’s not even a document like out of a, you know, a PDF or off the web. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Marci
- So off the web, you can only copy, you cannot cut.
Speaker 13
- What you copied, does it go into the, it doesn’t always go into the clipboard so I can paste it elsewhere, you know what I’m saying?
Kliph
- Are you verifying that it’s not in the clipboard? ‘Cause sometimes y’all doesn’t speak that prompt.
Marci
So I was going to say, there is a command, Jawskey space, and then C. That would bring up a virtual window that lets you know what’s in the clipboard.
Speaker 13
Oh, so it’s Jaws?
Marci
Jawskey space. Listen for the click.
Brad
Layer command.
Marci
And then C. And then C will show you the clipboard text. OK, thank you very much.
David
I might have an answer to your first option. I believe that– I’ve seen this on other large drives– It’s showing up as a, like a local hard drive instead of a removable thumb drive. And so we don’t get the J prompt, you know, the J option in the start menu. I mean, that’s applications menu. It happens on my drives a lot. And I just let it sit there for a few minutes and make sure it’s done writing and should be fine. Yeah.
Brad
You should be able to put your hand, tell, well, it’s an SSD or is it a spinning? – Yeah, ’cause yeah, this SSD is not gonna make any sound.
Kliph
- It doesn’t make any sound, but it does still make a little vibrating sound when it’s spinning or what.
Brad
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re right. I don’t know, I have one, but it’s way behind my machine, so I can’t easily get to it. But–
Speaker 13
- So I should put my hand on it and see if it’s vibrating.
Brad
- Well, that’s only gonna vibrate. You might feel a little vibration, but yeah, little twiddle. You know, at the same time, you just leave it connect.
Marci
Yeah, that’s what I was going to leave it connected all the time.
Brad
It shouldn’t matter.
Speaker 13
Well, I have to port it to other systems sometimes.
Kliph
The other thing you could do. I’m sorry, Brad. I don’t think you could do. I mean, it’s a little cumbersome, but you could just shut down your machine. Wait, let’s shut down it then unplug it. Yeah, that’s true.
Brad
I don’t do it.
Speaker 13
Okay. All right.
Brad
I just, you know, you use it on other machines, but when you’re done with the one you’re using. Like Cliff said, wait, you’ll wait number one, wait a while, and then you know it should be done writing. It should write pretty quick. And, you know, unless it’s a super big file, but it’s still after a couple of minutes, it should be done. And if you are able to close the document or window or whatever it is that you were, you know, had opened it was, you know, saving to that thing, you should be able to just close it. I mean, on Windows, I have ignored that safely remove. I mean, it’s just like a safety net that’s it just helps people who aren’t able to figure it out for themselves. Uh, cause I’ve always ignored that thing for years, but, uh, but again, like we said, if you shut your machine down, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not doing anything.
Speaker 13
And on the same note, sometimes when you, when you take a thumb drive or one of those cartridges from NLS and you get it and you safely remove it, it still shows it, but other times it doesn’t, you know, it’s just totally disappeared. And, you know, it’ll say like removable drive, but it doesn’t, you know, it still shows it, but it doesn’t, you know, it. So I don’t understand that either.
Brad
Again, it’ll go away when you shut your machine down and restart it. But that’s that that’s – That’s a sure way to make it right. – Yeah, but if you know you have copied something to the cartridge and you give it, I don’t know, a good period of time, certainly a minute or two. I mean, I don’t know how slow these things are. I’ve never had one. It should, you know, it’s solid state. It shouldn’t, you know, even if it’s slow, it’s got to, you know, those books aren’t that big. It’s your copying multiple items.
David
Yeah, like 16 gigs to a 16 gig dress. Yeah, you might want to wait a while on that
Kliph
500 gigabytes on dating
Brad
Yeah That could take a while start it and go to bed and come back in the morning. It should be done
Speaker 14
Donna. Okay, so I have a couple things. Um, first of all Um to answer the question, I would rather have a friend or family member. I’ll wait for I’ll have delayed gratification too because It’s more fun to get descriptions from friends and family members because you can laugh about it and sometimes they don’t know exactly what they’re You know Their perspective you might be looking for something else and they’re describing something and then you’re asking questions about it And they’re laughing trying to figure out how they’re describing it. So you’re understanding what they’re talking about And so that’s the fun part of that. I want to give Y’all some constructive feedback. I have been you know as Some of you may or may not know I signed up for the life membership at bits, but I do not Do that lightly and I mean My thing is if I’m going to be involved in an affiliate. I’m going to do something. I’m going to Get involved. I’m not just going I’m not one of these people that just oh it’s a good price for a membership So that’s great, you know, um I Came in I’ve been coming into chat a couple of times. I’ve been greeted. It’s been fine but Chat and I understand people want to keep it free flowing and everything but chat gets very It’s just chaotic.
Marci
People are– – So we are making some changes. And those changes will come about in the new year. ‘Cause I understand exactly what you’re saying. – Yes. – And we are making some changes. And these changes you’ll hear about as soon as the board gets. So we’ve written some policies that we want people to abide by, hosts and participants as well. So we are making some changes. Please know that we are thinking about you and thinking about all participants that come to chat.
Speaker 14
- Yeah, because if people are quieter, I’m not one of these people that’s gonna come in there and start screaming, hey, I wanna talk to somebody. And I wanna know, I wanna blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t get any chance to ask my question.
Marci
- So, and the ability to raise your hand is always there. Hosts know to recognize when a hand is raised. But yes, we are making some changes. We know how people are feeling about chat. So please look forward to some positive changes in the future.
Speaker 14
- Okay, so I’m gonna ask my question here. I actually have two questions and it’s okay if I have to meet with other people outside of here is fine. I would like to know how I can find out about committees, what the committees are doing, what, you know, to be able to talk to the chairs. And the other constructive feedback I wanna share is that I know, like for instance, somebody put out a, Tyson put out a thing about the education committee, but it would be real helpful if we knew like when some of these committees meet, because, you know, obviously, like I’m busy outside of, you know, the affiliate maybe and I also have other affiliate obligations. So it would be helpful if we had like a list of committees and when they meet and who the chairs are and what type of thing they’re looking for, especially for new members, that might be something that would be helpful to be published or.
Marci
Okay, we can definitely make that happen or put that feedback to the committee that we want.
Brad
This is Brad. I would suggest that if you have a concern like this, you write our president, Jeff Bishop, directly. I don’t think this is an IT issue, so I wouldn’t communicate with them. They’re busy with IT things. But if you write Jeff at president@bits-acb.org and let him know what your interests are, if you’re interested in getting involved in committees, you can either ask Jeff to contact you directly. He’s very personable and he will do that. Or if you have a question and you’re interested in getting involved with a particular committee, he can probably put you in contact with that committee chair.
Marci
And also if you know the first and last name, it’s firstname.lastname@bids-acd.org. – At bids-acd.org, yes, that’s also very good.
Mike H
- And we don’t have any hands right now.
David
- I have a comment and a follow up to some of the answers that we’ve heard about the icebreaker. But the first is a comment about chat. Feel free to raise your hand. And there are some people that don’t do well with noise and they go to a breakout room And maybe it works as well if they know that there’s a breakout room and chat open. But my follow up to the icebreaker, for those that chose to delayed gratification and wait for a friend, would you then ask AI to describe the video or picture so that you could get a different perspective?
Marci
Ooh, that’s great. So after hearing from your friend, would you then ask AI?
Kliph
Why are you gonna have to come up with another way to break the ice? Pickin’ both. Exactly.
Marci
I know. I expected them to pick only one. I didn’t want them to pick both.
Kliph
Yeah, I think we gotta be a little forceful. You gotta say one of the others can’t pick both. It’s like a radio button. If one’s true, the other one is not.
Marci
I want everybody to know that we are currently testing the mentor applications and that the The mentoring program will soon be available to you. We’re testing the mentor. We want to test them in tea as soon as they get those up.
Kliph
- That is perfect on the Mac, Marcy. I did it this morning, so.
Marci
- So we’ve found one challenge, but we’ll let IT know about that.
Kliph
- On the Mac side or just in general?
Marci
- In general.
Kliph
- Okay.
Marci
- On which operating systems can you teach instead of check boxes, it’s radio button.
Kliph
- Oh, okay. That should be a check box, not a radio button. Yeah. – ‘Cause Brad can always teach one anyway, but we’re not gonna. – Stop. (laughing)
Brad
- That’s debatable. I don’t do Chrome, that’s for sure.
Marci
- You don’t do Chrome box?
Brad
- Yeah, you know, I bought a Chrome book a few years back. It was very interesting, but it just didn’t do anything for me.
Marci
- There is an add-on that you can put on Google Chrome that will make Google Chrome function like the Chrome box on the web.
Brad
- Yes, I’ve seen that. Yes, you can. It works when you’re in the Google Chrome browser. Yeah, it does. – Yeah. – But if I’m on–
Kliph
- One thing I issue I have with Google Chrome on the PC is the way that you access history because I hate to give Microsoft credit for anything, But when Internet Explorer, the way that you access history was so easy. But when you do it in Chrome, it wants you to select a check box or a radio button and then go down to the date and the time. I ain’t got time for all that. Just give me a list of my history. I don’t like the way it does history in Chrome. I prefer Safari when it comes to that there.
Brad
Well, you have Microsoft Edge.
Kliph
Don’t eat bread.
Brad
But you’re talking about using Chrome on your Mac. No, actually, no, I’m not.
Kliph
Oh, no, I absolutely hate Chrome on the Mac. I will only use Chrome on the PC Safari is the only way I go on the Mac. You know that Brad don’t play with me
Brad
there are times though when I will go to a website like for example bits has a Promotional a fundraiser we’re doing with city pop popcorn and I ordered some During my Christmas shopping this year And I found their website Right. I wouldn’t say it was unusable, but it wasn’t very usable on Safari. But when I went and opened it in Chrome, it worked like a charm. So I think these things have — I’m not a web developer, and I know enough about it to be dangerous. But I think a lot of these things have to do with the way a website is coded. That is why it is always a good idea to have more than one browser on your computer. On my Mac, I choose Safari as my primary. I use it 99.9% of the time, but there are times when I go to a website just doesn’t work right on Safari and I will open it in Chrome and it’s a different experience altogether.
Kliph
Now take a different approach. I just pick up my phone because me and Chrome on the back, no. I’ve tried it and it’s just the layout. just clunky to me or at best but that’s just my one man’s opinions. Any more hands, Mike?
Speaker 9
We do not. There’s no place like home. We do not have any hands at this time.
Marci
Stop it, David. There was a person who asked a question on Aspitz. Do you guys know of any accessible? So somebody deleted all of their documents from the recycle bin. Emptied them from the recycle bin? From the recycle bin and they hit shift delete and they wanted to know if if there were any accessible windows file recovery.
Kliph
- The only way I can think of is if they did restore, right, Brad? I mean, go back to a previous date where the documents were still in.
Brad
- You might, yeah. I mean, technically the stuff is still there. It’s just ones and zeros. And until that part of your drive is overwritten, the stuff is still there.
Marci
- But how do we get it accessibility?
Brad
- That’s a good question. Like Cliff said, you may choose a restore point. First of all, you need to do it pretty quick. Because once you delete something, the ones in zero still may be there, but that space on your drive is marked as unused. And so stuff may immediately start overwriting it. Right. It could, it may, and it may not. But yeah, I would try that first. Go to a restore point. Other than that.
Marci
I thought that restore points only restored programs.
Brad
You know, that’s a good question. I’m not sure.
Kliph
I don’t know because I would say if it’s in the recycle bin during that restore point it may still be there
Brad
It may come back to the research. Yeah, but I’m not Dave. What about you? You’re the window person. I always That’s why I’m a big advocate inventory or Well, yeah that too, but inventory your recycle bin before you delete I mean things you end up there that you didn’t read accidentally you didn’t realize were there. I mean I know people that will go long periods of time and not empty their recycle bin and then you’ve actually got too much in there to quickly inventory, but It’s a good idea to go through your recycle bin make sure you know it’s in there before you Empty it because once you empty it, it’s that’s why that thing pops up It says are you sure once this is done? It is not reversible
David
So yeah, I’d recommend if you had to go somewhere get cited assistance and use a tool called R undelete it is paid but it should be able to do a scan and see tell you what it can recover It’s not perfect and the more you write to it the less you can get but That’s that’s one solution
Marci
R undelete, okay
Speaker 15
And michael is our hand laura it is thank you very much brad for your presentations on the mac I really enjoy them with you and Shree. Thank you very much for Cliff and all your help. I have a quick question and I haven’t heard anybody ask anything of this kind lately. I have an Apple Watch Series 9 and I like it very much. I wondered if, for instance, I’m on Zoom right now. If I decided to do my walking program or my indoor cycle, can I do it at the same time that I’m on Zoom?
Brad
- Should be able to because I don’t believe the Zoom is gonna have anything to do with your watch except that it may show up as now playing. But that would be no different than, for example, if you were listening to, obviously you’re on Zoom, what, on your phone, right?
Speaker 15
- You’re right.
Brad
- Or on a Mac.
Speaker 15
- The amount on an iPhone 14 or 15th row.
Brad
- Okay, well, it would be no difference than if you were listening to a podcast or listening to an audio book or music or something on your phone and they now playing may show up on your watch as well, but I would think it’s going to record your walk or we’ll call it your workout information on your watch just fine. what it’s designed to do, actually.
Speaker 15
Okay, just to know if they would, if they would conflict with each other.
Brad
No, I’m not gonna conflict with each other at all. Like I said, that’s what’s designed to do. Just make sure you start the workout. That’s always a good idea. It may, it may detect your activity and say, Hey, looks like you’re, you know, doing this or that workout. Do you want me to start the workout? And, you You know, or do you just start it manually is probably the best thing to do.
Speaker 15
Thank you.
David
Yeah. Many of that, many times that automatic workout starts when I get done with it.
Brad
I had to turn it off when I go to New York and visit my son, we walk a lot. And my son only knows one speed, which is, you know, fast. And, um, it will constantly pop. But it looks like you’re doing it after a walk. old and he’s 33, but he’s been, he’s been leading me around since he was five.
Kliph
So he, yeah, my kids, my kids only know one speed too.
Brad
Well, he’s, he’s pretty good. He’s pretty good.
Mike H
All right. Let’s go to the next hand of Deanna.
Speaker 16
I am in a Royal mess. So I need to find out how I get someone to go on rim with me and help me straighten out the mess I’ve made. I got a new computer this past week and I finally got it put together and I tried to get everything from my laptop transferred over to it by using one drive and a couple of other ways of getting stuff but none of my links on my desktop work so my Zoom host you know the scheduling portal. All of it is there, but it doesn’t do anything. And so I, first of all, need to go write community and ask them to send me all the links again, because of course, I cannot find the email where they originally were sent out.
Brad
What links are these for?
Speaker 16
Oh, it’s for hosting stuff. You know, we have the scheduling portal, we have the community And so you’re looking for links.
Brad
Yeah, I need to get those.
Speaker 16
And I can get those from community. Michael can send them to me.
Brad
But yes. But you have the files that those are linked to, correct?
Speaker 16
I think so.
Brad
Like you’re looking to play recordings and things like that, correct?
Speaker 16
Yeah, I’ve got those on there and they work.
Brad
I mean, the recordings.
Speaker 16
The recordings themselves, the links.
Brad
On your new machine, you can always go to the file in a folder wherever you’ve got it and open the context menu and look for, I believe it’s send to. And it’s then when you, it’s got a submenu and when you open it, one of the options there should be desktop create shortcut and it will send a shortcut to the desktop and you can then rename it if you choose or just just go with whatever it calls it. It’ll call it shortcut two and then state the file name. And you can, you know, hit F2 and rename it if you want.
Speaker 16
- Could be in my Dropbox. I think I saved them to my Dropbox.
Brad
- That should be fine. – So, the better where they are. – Yeah, especially if you told your Dropbox to make available offline, which means it’s gonna–
Speaker 16
- I’ve got more than that. I’ve got the, all of my leasy stuff, I stopped loading it because my laptop was overwhelmed and it kept locking up. It was a Windows 11, but it didn’t have enough RAM to handle all my peripherals. So I had to start unplugging stuff just so I could do Zoom.
Brad
And with Lacy, you could reinstall it or I would suggest that you write Brian Harchin if you have questions specific to Lacy. That kind of thing. You paid for it and it will help you out.
Marci
Yeah, everything is a mess. You can download it directly from the page. To rim with one of us, you’d have to probably come to chat. Okay. Those are usually the times that we’re available to go into a breakout room with you.
Speaker 16
Okay. Because I am totally overwhelmed.
David
So I would recommend sending an email to ask@bit/acb.org and see if you can coordinate when someone could meet you in chat.
Speaker 16
Thanks. That’s what I wanted to know because I can do some of this other stuff because if I get the links recent to me, I can just take them off my desktop and reset them from the email like I did when I first put them up on my desktop. I know how to do that. I just
Brad
Said their files correct
Speaker 16
No, they’re links to like the Google dogs They’re working links that I have to have to do my job
Marci
Those are like website links, yes, but she wants to put them as shortcuts on her desktop correct. I understand
Kliph
They’re alright. They’re just not working. Yeah, they don’t do anything I’d love to see that.
Brad
Yeah, that’s because those are kind of machine specific.
Speaker 16
And yeah, that’s what happened. I think is when I transferred them, they didn’t really work.
Kliph
Because if they’re a URL, it shouldn’t matter. You would think, you would think.
Brad
But I have had the experience where they sometimes don’t.
Speaker 16
Well, this is a brand new computer. I just got it. It took me two weeks to figure out how to connect everything together. And in the meantime, I was still using my laptop.
Brad
Right, Cindy or Michael and they’ll send you those.
Speaker 16
Or you get those reset.
Kliph
Yeah. Or you can just get a Mac and make everything easier.
Speaker 9
Yeah. That’s the learning curve for an old 77 year old brain. We just about do me. I want to see an ID. You’re not 70.
Speaker 16
We can make it happen. Yeah. So I’m having a learning curve just moving from 10 to 11.
Kliph
Right.
Speaker 16
Don’t kill me. He’s in a different operating system right now.
Kliph
- Well, just don’t ask Brad. I mean, I’m joking. But yeah, email askbits@acv-organ.wig. We can set something up for you. – Thank you. – And you know, we’re in chat Fridays and Saturdays from 7th central to whenever. So we’ll just come in here anytime.
Speaker 16
- Yeah, I can go in tonight. It’s not like I’m doing anything else ’cause I can’t do anything else. I can barely write and find my stuff in Dropbox and I can’t figure out how to save stuff without it going somewhere else. I don’t know.
David
Yeah, we’ll get your help.
Speaker 16
Yeah, we can do it. So my writing is stalled. My Zoom stuff is stalled. I can read my email, which I need to because I’ve got over 700 email.
Speaker 9
No, that’s not that I know. We would end out.
Marci
Can you get the link to the bits? Chat, would you be able to come into the chat?
Speaker 16
Yeah, I’ve it’s in it’s in the email. Yeah, I just have to find it in that Everyday anyway, so you know, yeah, send it out frequently. Yeah, so I’ll be fine. I’m just Overwhelmed Okay, love you guys. No, thank you
Kliph
Yeah, if I could throw out and a few of you have heard me talk about this I just want to give people who may be listening another option for a a cloud backup/storage thing. It’s called Pcloud. P is in Paul Cloud. And the reason I like to serve it so much is a few reasons. One, you start out with 10 gigabytes of free storage. On top of that, if I recommend 10 people, Marcy Brad, Mike, whoever, up to 10 more gigs for free, each person I recommend that signs up. Third, it doesn’t take up space on your system. So right now I have four terabytes of storage and I have probably about two and a half terabytes of information or data in that that that service, that cloud store, that folder. And it takes up zero space on my Mac and PC. And the last thing I love about it is they have sales around the holidays Christmas 4th of July labor Memorial Day And it’s one and done you buy you pay for it once and you’re done You it’s not a subscription like Dropbox or iCloud and all that were Google Drive where you have to pay 10 15 whatever it is a month when you pay for this storage. It’s done. You’re that’s it You know you pay for it zero more I paid once and I don’t pay anymore But I still have all my files all my storage and another thing is I can send and I have actually sent Marcy and David a link to download something and they don’t have to be a pCloud Subscriber so and you can also send people a link to upload stuff if you want to get it from them And they still don’t have to be a subscriber. So that’s my little spew on pCloud Another option for people to use. I know it’s not as popular dropbox, but to me it’s a little bit better
Marci
That you don’t have to pay a subscription Yeah
Kliph
Yeah, it’s pcloud.com is that one word no hyphen Yep, and the other thing is to they have great great customer service they they are support I emailed them a couple of times about some voiceover issues on the Mac and they got back to me within 24 hours Sent me a different URL asked me to send them a recording. They listen to what sticks to within a week So they’re really great with support also
Speaker 17
And we have a hand Scott ever go ahead. I gathered that this peak cloud Services cross platform or it’s an entirely web based. Oh, no, it’s cross platform. You can you can use it on your phone
Kliph
iPad Mac I don’t know about Linux because I don’t use it, but no you can use a cross platform and that’s the other things I’m glad you said that you are not limited drop box to how many Devices you can be signed in on I’m signed in on six. So there’s no limit. There’s no limit
Speaker 17
What you put in of course once you what’s the free tier? Is there a few gigabytes just to okay? And then you get a bite and then you get a gig for everybody you refer Okay, up to 10 and then you buy more by just paying one time
Kliph
Exactly and I recommend buying it during the holidays because they have you know up to 8% off and stuff like that Because it’s a better deal that way the full price is it is a lot But again, it’s only one and done but I recommend doing it around the holidays They have an email list that you can get it and if you have it installed They also have push notifications that come to your device to tell you when they have a sale
Speaker 17
Is it is it P cloud dot com? Yes.
Kliph
P is in fall cloud as you got. Yep. P cloud. Yep. P cloud dot com. It looks good to do about. Thanks.
Marci
Well, we have about five minutes and I see no hands. So I want to thank everybody for being here because we would not have this call without you. I want to thank my panelists, Brad, David and Cliff. And I especially want to thank Mike, my zoom host and Diane, my streamer, broadcaster, moderator. Thank you all so much for being here. We invite you to join us for the next AskBits on the 17th of January. So have a great rest of the weekend everybody and you can close us out. Mike?
Mike H
Alright, I’m shutting the room down as of right now.