bmoore123

rowdyamerican, 4 days ago to random

There will be a demo of Glide in Toronto. It will take place on June 21st. For more info, or to register use the following link: https://glidance.io/glidance-demo-day-toronto-june-2024/

podcast, 4 days ago to random

Review: Sonos Ace sets the new standard for prosumer headphones [Video]

https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/03/review-sonos-ace-sets-the-new-standard-for-prosumer-headphones-video/

ahimsa_pdx, 8 days ago to random

From The Washington Post:

"IRS Direct File is here to stay. All 50 states are invited.

The Biden administration hopes to eventually make the free tax filing site an option for most Americans."

#GiftLink = https://wapo.st/3KmYkNR

"Republicans have criticized it as a costly and unnecessary government alternative to private-sector offerings… "

But of course they did 🙄

1/2

#USPol #USTaxes #IRS #Taxes #DirectFile #GiftArticle

DavidGoldfield, 8 days ago to random

Marking Column Headers and Row Headers in Excel with NVDA https://vi.ie/marking-column-headers-and-row-headers-in-excel-with-nvda/

deconspray, 10 days ago to webdev

Understanding the Role of ARIA Role=alert: Best Practices and Common Issues

https://buff.ly/3UZiFxk

#ARIA #WebDev #WebDevelopment #DigitalAccessibility #A11y #Accessibility

mgeist, 10 days ago to random

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Why Bill S-210 Could Mandate CRTC-Backed Age Verification For Streaming Services Like Netflix, Crave and CBC Gem
https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/05/curb-your-enthusiasm/

Mason, 11 days ago to random

My website has officially moved. A link will be at the end of this post. Things that have received an update today are Shooter, CrimeHunter (Available on request), WeatherMonitor, and Blind Nerd Toolbox (BNT). Also on the legacy page, CH 1 has been updated to 1.6.1, and Endless Runner and SBRW have been uploaded as password protected 7Z files. https://masonasons.me

puneetsiinghal01, 13 days ago to disability

Did you know that the employees with disabilities often have to go above and beyond to navigate and devise solutions for inaccessible environments?

This additional effort comes with significant mental health costs for these employees.

The burden leads to heightened daily stress levels.

Many people may take these basic necessities for granted, making it challenging for them to empathize with our experience of living in a world not designed for us.

#Disability #HumanRights

lilithsaintcrow, 16 days ago to random

"But barf bags are special because they’re not meant to be collected. In fact, they weren’t originally even intended for vomit in the first place." https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/airline-barf-bag-collectors-history

DavidGoldfield, 16 days ago to random

Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2024: On-Demand Webinars and Videos https://www.tpgi.com/global-accessibility-awareness-day-2024-on-demand-webinars-and-videos/

aardrian, 17 days ago to accessibility

Folks.

I am once again a bronze supporter of Inclusive Design 24.

I want to see all of you presenting cool stuff (and making me look good as a result), but you won’t get that chance if you don’t submit before 7 June.
https://inclusivedesign24.org/2024/

Prior years are up there if you want to see the range of talks that have been accepted in the past.

#a11y #accessibility

munchkinbear, 17 days ago to random

I was going to put this on the blog, but after recording it, decided not to because it's faster to post it here, on May 21, 2024 I received as a review product a BT speak from @BlazieTech, in this recording, we unbox it, examine it, power it up, bungle our way through some basic things, including connecting to wifi, and upgrading the unit. This was recorded using the h1 Essential, using the bmc3 master series microphones from Sound professionals. This recording was made on May 21, 2024 not the 20th as I said in the recording, and when I mention where the power button is, I mention the left side, instead of the right side where it actually is. This recording was normalized in sound forge, other than that, This, in no way is polished, or edited, so if it happens, or if I make a mistake, you hear it in all it's glorry! I tried really hard to kepe this family friendly, and unless I missed something, I kept it family friendly. So enjoy this unboxing thing! https://randomaudio.shaned.net/2024-05-21%20unboxing%20and%20first%20impressions%20and%20setup%20of%20the%20bt%20speak.mp3

BlazieTech, 19 days ago to random

When ordering products on the Blazie Technologies Web site, you now have the option to use PayPal to pay for your purchase. Using PayPal has several benefits, including the ability to complete your purchase with installment plans. Here are some examples of some plans which may be available to you through PayPal.
• Pay in 4: Pay in 4 interest-free payments, subject to pre-approval from PayPal
• Pay Monthly: Pay Monthly is subject to consumer credit approval. Payments may change based on shipping, taxes, updates to your purchase, or missed payments.
Please note: these payment plans are offered, determined and controlled by PayPal and not by Blazie Technologies. You may need to be pre-approved and/or undergo a credit check in order to qualify for these payment plans. Please see the PayPal Web site for full terms and conditions for these payment plan options. Any questions or issues regarding these payment plan options should be directed to PayPal and not to Blazie Technologies. Also, PayPal purchases must be done online and cannot be handled by phone.
We are happy to be able to offer PayPal as an additional payment option when purchasing products and accessories from the Blazie Technologies Web site. We hope this will make it even easier to order a BT Speak and other products from us.
www.blazietech.com #BTSpeak
DG

TheQuinbox, 25 days ago to random

My laptop's sound driver, among many others, has this absolutely infuriating behavior where it puts the sound card to sleep after a particular amount of silence (mine's seemingly after 5 seconds), causing a screen reader user to miss the beginning of speech, an audio file, a notification, or anything else they may be trying to listen to. To solve this, I wrote this little program. Simply run it, and it'll start piping silent audio through your default sound card, which has fixed it on every machine I've tried. It should also respect device changes (e.g. unplugging headphones). To close it, simply click on the tray icon. It doesn't get much simpler than that. https://quinbox.xyz/files/SleepSoundly.zip

TechDesk, 25 days ago to retrocomputing

If you remember a time when using floppy disks didn’t seem weird, you’re probably at least 30 years old. Floppy disks or diskettes emerged around 1970 and, for a good three decades or so, they were the main way many people stored and backed up their computer data.

However, it’s now been over a decade since the last floppy disc was made, and it wouldn’t even have enough capacity to store a modern smart phone picture. So why do some people still love using them? BBC Future speaks to some of the floppy disk faithful to find out.

https://flip.it/3MUG.h

#RetroComputing #FloppyDisk #Nostalgia #Tech #Technology

bermudianbrit, 27 days ago to random

A microphone shoot-out between the Jabra Evolve 75, Steelseries Arctis Pro and Audeze Maxwell low latency wireless headsets.

bryansmart, 1 month ago to random

For all of the blind people who just lost access to the Sonos app, and everyone else who’s accessibility done gone away, I dedicate The Accessibility Blues.

wiljames, 1 month ago to random

The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional. Scroll down for each answer.

The questions are NOT that difficult. But don't scroll down UNTIL you have answered the question!

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?

Wrong Answer.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door.
This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend... except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there.
This tests your memory.

Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests
whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct
answers.

Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.

baethyn, 1 month ago to random

So I regularly order drink mixes from True Citrus. Not long ago I received a promotional email that was nothing but a bunch of graphics and the stock text of address, and what not at the bottom. I really wanted to take advantage of the offer. Unfortunately I couldn't because the promo code was in one of those graphics and as much as I tried I couldn't even get it to OCR properly.

I contacted customer support about it and purely by coincidence left an item ion my cart on the website. Before an email response could be sent back to me I received a text message triggered by the fact that there was something in my cart I guess. When they asked, "Is there anything I can help you with?" I took a chance and responded to the text message. It turns out that was a good decision. She asked me to send a screen shot of the email and after explaining the whole deal about not being able to see the images except as the text tag of "graphic" she sent me back an apology, the promo code in text and promised to look into it.

I didn't think too much about it since I had that support email in and well... I'm a cynic. Except when I checked my email the next day I had a response that asked for the emails to be forwarded so they could cross reference or whatever. I had to dig them out of my trash, but it was worth it.

Today I received a mother's day promotional email. I didn't expect much, see above description of me. I was however happily surprised when as I read through the email that every picture had alt text. I can even use speech history to get the code. It isn't perfect and they should probably use text instead of pictures of text, but given the turn around I am very impressed by TrueCitrus and will continue to give them my money for wonderful drinks.

simon, 1 month ago to random

In case you think you're having a bad accessibility day today, or you wonder how much things like the ADA actually matter, @hmaealdeza is currently locked out of the #1 payment app in the Philippines because they introduced a non-optional face verification, and randomly decided to log her out. The app asks you to take a selfie, but now requires you also look at the camera and blink at the right time.

JonathanMosen, 1 month ago to random

It appears Sonos is about to become less useable by screen reader users. The CEO should stop it now, but here’s how to protect your investment if he doesn’t
https://mosen.org/sonos2024/

brianhartgen, 1 month ago to random

Regarding Zoom. I run two Email lists relating to Zoom conferencing and on those lists, I expressed my frustration as to this horrible calendar interface for setting up meetings. Fortunately, a contributor came to my assistance. I applied his solution and everything is back to the way it was. This is what he says. While the changes to the Zoom user interface are certainly frustrating, there is a way to return the interface to how it was before the recent update.
This involves unmerging the Meeting and Calendar tabs as follows:

1. Go to the
   Zoom.us
   website in your browser, and sign into your account.
2. Once you have signed into your account, go to Settings > Meeting > In Meeting Advanced.
3. Here you will find a heading labeled Merge Meetings and Calendar Tab, with a toggle to unmerge the tabs, and restore the interface to as it was before
   the recent update.

I deal with 3 different Zoom accounts on an almost daily basis, and have followed the above instructions to restore each of these accounts back to how
they were before the update.

DavidGoldfield, 1 month ago to random

Insights from a Blind User: Online Banking Accessibility https://blog.usablenet.com/banking-online-while-blind-3-best-practices-for-web-accessibility

cariefisher, 1 month ago to random

Excited to share a new blog post detailing GitHub's journey in fostering accessibility through our in-house Champions program. Learn how we empower accessibility advocates within our organization to drive positive change and gain insights for fostering accessibility in your own organization! 🙌

https://github.blog/2024-05-01-empowering-accessibility-githubs-journey-building-an-in-house-champions-program

x0, 1 month ago to random

NVDA users that also use some form of eloquence, whether that be CF or IBMTTS or whatever. Add this to your voice dictionary.
Pattern: (.)[\ufe00-\ufe0f]
Replacement: \1
Comment: whatever (I call mine strip variation selectors)
type: regular expression.
This will suppress Unicode variation selectors, U+FE00-U+FE0F) which are used as combining characters with many emoji. This is responsible for eloquence adding a question mark intonation when encountering some emoji, especially involving gender and/or skin tone selection. This allows, for instance, 5 red hearts, which often include a variation selector, to be pronounced as 5 red heart rather than reading them all out with question marks in between.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Perhaps I should open an issue against NVDA about how this affects the symbol repetition algorithm, and maybe against IBMTTS to strip upon input so such an entry isn't needed.
#NVDASR