brianhartgen

brianhartgen, 14 hours ago to random

I'm sometimes asked what we did in the days before mobile or cell phones. I just play them the song Knock Three Times. We used to bang on the pipes.

brianhartgen, 2 days ago to random

I cooked a chicken for an hour last night, but it still didn't tell me why it crossed the road.

brianhartgen, 3 days ago to random

I have just registered my interest in Glide. Hopefully they will get back to me with pre-order information when they have it.

brianhartgen, 3 days ago to random

I agree with this. Having human narrators has always been, and will continue to be, a good thing. But if this new technology could make the difference between us having access to a book faster, or even older books, with natural sounding speech, that could be worth doing. Quoting Lulu Hartgen: I just read an interesting article about AI voices making audiobooks possible more quickly at lower costs, especially for self-publishing authors. I agree basically with what it says, which is that an AI voice can never replicate human immotions in the way that a real person can. Having said that, I did some experiments with Eleven Labs when I first heard about it with stuff I'd been writing, and while it's far from perfect, it didn't do a bad job, and I gave it passages where a lot of expression is needed because I wanted to test it. A human reader of course could do way better, but the result I got didn't sound like a machine or a speech synthesizer reading a screen, and to be able to have a book in audio at the same time everyone else can read it without having to wait three, six months, maybe even more is a good thing in my book. Also, I've heard readings of audiobooks by real people that I wouldn't have made a dog listen to and deeply resent having had to pay Audible's prices for! So I think there's going to be a place for AI narators in the future for sure, and I'd like to see a lot of the dreadful, awful, hopeless narators in the industry forced to do something different, if I'm honest. @lulu_bear

brianhartgen, 3 days ago to random

I have a couple of Thunderbird questions if anyone can please help.
I am using Thunderbird Beta Version 127.0.

1. When the client launches, unlike Outlook, focus does not move to the list of messages in the Inbox. I've disabled the start page but it doesn't make a difference. Is this just what it does?
2. How please can I change the order of items displayed in a mail folder? The subject is displayed first, then the author.

brianhartgen, 5 days ago to random

If you use Remote Incident Manager, one of its best kept secrets is its voice conversation feature. Starting this from the RIM menu means you can have a conversation with the person rather than using a service like Zoom or a phone call. I was training someone today in the use of Dragon voice input software. Because I was using the RIM voice conversation feature, I could quietly prompt her with voice commands to keep her on track if she forgot what to do. Speaking in this way meant that the microphone did not capture my voice; only what she was saying. A great solution.

brianhartgen, 6 days ago to random

Looking through the ACB sessions, there's a session listed here I had better turn up for. 11:00 am - 12:15 pm AI in the Workplace (Virtual) no fee
Are you a JAWS user? This session is for you. Learn tips, tricks, and techniques to take advantage of AI across products and services. World-renowned technologist, Brian Hartgen, will join us where he will share many techniques to optimize your use of AI tools and services. If productivity, efficiency, and profound improvement in usability are what you crave, then learn from a truly creative individual as Brian shares his vision of where we are in the use of AI with assistive technology. It just not all about prompting with AI tools, it is also about collecting that data in ways that allow you to be most efficient in your daily work. Co-sponsored by BITS and the Employment Committee

brianhartgen, 9 days ago to random

For fans of Mike Batt. Wombling USA, the new Wombles single, is out on 21 June. Well it's not actually new because it was recorded a long time ago, but it's not been released before. There's also a new Wombles album coming out containing all the singles.

brianhartgen, 16 days 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.

brianhartgen, 18 days ago to random

Morning everyone. Good song on Boom: Stephen Bishop - On And On. Have a good day!

brianhartgen, 27 days ago to random

I've just seen something mentioned elsewhere on social media and I thought I would mention it here. I haven't played much with this but it seemed useful and others may like to try it. Everything seems accessible and self-explanatory so it is just for information. https://voicenotes.com

brianhartgen, 29 days ago to random

#TrueStory. 18 April 1930. The BBC’s evening news report simply
said “there is no news” and then played piano music for the entire segment.

brianhartgen, 1 month ago to random

I've been re-reading a few of the detective books I enjoy by Elizabeth George. She was born in Ohio, and then her family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area of the US.
Given her books are set in Britain, I've always been interested inn how she gets the dialog absolutely perfect, down to our colloquialisms and little tricks of speech.
Yesterday I gained a good insight into that.

She first became interested in England in the 1960s when the Beatles made their initial invasion into pop culture in the United States, together with a number of other British pop music groups, and fashion in the person of Mary Quant, modeling in the persons of first Jean Shrimpton and then Twiggy, and film making, with such British-films as Alfie, Georgy Girl, The Collector, and The Family Way.
She goes onto say:
I began studying Shakespeare and, in 1966, I made my first trip to England in the summer in order to take part in a Shakespeare seminar that was taught in London. We were given the freedom to explore the city, and I fell in love with it. I returned to England for a second visit in 1971, and I've traveled there ever since.
In college and at the university, most of my reading was in English literature rather than in American literature, and when I first became a teacher, I taught Shakespeare Studies. This further cemented my love for British literature.

So now I know. I like most of the characters in her books apart from Barbara Havers. She really is a bit of an oyk but her heart is in the right place. But Elizabeth George is able to write exceptionally well with good plots.

brianhartgen, 1 month ago to random

I've just been listening to the recent FSCast from Vispero, containing the March FSOpenLine.
There was a question from Steve Cutway regarding accessing descriptions of graphics in Outlook Email messages. There are just a few points worth baring in mind.

1. It was suggested that, prior to locating the graphic of interest, UIA mode should be enabled. The question was then asked whether there is a negative impact in enabling the said mode.
   It was suggested that in the most part there is not, but actually there is. In quite a number of messages where tables exist, UIA mode does not render the information as tables. This would not be such a problem except for the fact that if you regularly look for tables with the letter T and expect them to be there, they won't show up.
   You need to arrow down or do a quick find for a phrase denoting the first element of the table with Control+Insert+F, and that is time consuming.
2. If you really care about the images, and if you have Leasey, the best approach is to press ALT+Windows+A. This will allow you to download any of those images. You can then run Picture Smart on any of those. There is then no ambiguity of intervening text getting in the way because the Picture Smart is only going to be applied to that specific file.

DavidGoldfield, 1 month ago to random

@news Hi. Is TTT now being released on Fridays? I just noticed that last week it was slightly delayed and I can't locate a March 21 or 22 issue. I'm in no way complaining but just wondering if there's a schedule change.

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

Aira Announces New Access AI Feature at CSUN! https://aira.io/aira-announces-new-access-ai-feature-at-csun/

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

For those people using Remote Incident Manager, I just want to highlight the importance of Remote Accessibility. This allows you to work on a machine without a screen-reader running and is most useful.

Yesterday, I had a customer who was using some kind of bluetooth headset. There are quite a number of occasions where the audio does not come across the remote connection in such a situation. Of course if the user is working with a headset, there's no chance of hearing the audio even over the phone if it does not come across.

Fortunately there is a menu item in RIM, Stop JAWS On Target. So having invoked that, I started Remote Accessibility. Then I went into Sound settings, changed the default audio source, then restarted JAWS via the Run dialog and it all worked fine.
Obviously I had to do the reverse when I had finished, but I would have been really stuck if I hadn't had Remote Accessibility.

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

I've just read A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother by Christie Barlow.
Description. Ever had the pleasure of collecting your children from the school playground? Even if you haven't, this is a hilarious must-listen.

Fed up with the playground mafia at her children’s school, Rachel Young is desperate for a change. With her family and various pets in tow, a picture-perfect village in the countryside beckons. There, Rachel’s children will be able to keep chickens and skip through fields, and she’ll bid farewell to the botoxed, fake-Gucci wearing Mumzillas forever. But at the new school the mums are even worse, and before long, Rachel finds herself contending with a motley crew including Mrs High School Musical, The International Sex God and The Frisky Pensioner. While the children are practicing their sums and perfecting their reading, Rachel is learning some harsh lessons on the other side of the school gates - and ruffling plenty of feathers along the way.

That's the official description but it's not accurate. Mrs High School Musical and The International Sex God appear before she moves to the country, but still, a good read and funny in many parts.

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

This app shows an enormous amount of promise. It has some very nice features. Bri: The first public beta of Weather Monitor is here! Weather monitor is an accessible program for Windows for checking and monitoring the weather, in either one or multiple cities. It has support for temperature/condition change monitoring, as well as government issued alert watching, all on a per city basis. It also has support for viewing forecasts for cities. https://brynify.me/softs/WeatherMonitor.zip. @Bri

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

Jim Snowbarger's JAWS scripts for REAPER updated to build 75. Edit box names in ReaComp are now spoken properly again>
New key stroke, JAWSKey+c, when ReaComp is open now takes the invisible cursor to the gain reduction field, so you can watch gain reductions in Braille, which drasticly improves your sense of the dynamics of the compressor action. Return to the PC cursor to resume normal operation.
When rapidly slewing some slider values, random beeping was sometimes heard. This is intended to indicate that you have reached the end of the slider, and should work properly now.
JAWSKey+PageDown now properly reports transport status again.
This installer will not alter your JAWSKey+z, o options. Some of those were inadvertently set by the installer in version 72, so you may have some options enabled now that you don't prefer. You may like to review those options. http://www.snowmanradio.com/reaper.html

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

Earlier this week, Computer Room Services gave me a link to download updated firmware for the Evo E12 audio player, dated July 2023. This was not available via Check for Updates. This considerably improves the quality of audio playback when increasing the speed. It's just as good as the Stream. Now that is resolved, it really is the ideal player for me in every way. #Evo

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

Morning everyone. Listening to Boom Radio as usual and having coffee. A bit of a late start this morning but everything is good. Have a good day!

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to rant

And while I'm on a rant, there was a news story today about Fiona Bruce hosting BBC's political audience participation show Question Time.

Fiona Bruce allowed an audience member to ask a question. She commented that the audience member was wearing "sunglasses" before making a quip about the brightness of the studio lights.
She said: "Yes at the very back, there are two people. You’ve got sunglasses on I can see. I know these lights are bright, I didn’t know they were that bright! But anyway off you go."
Well of course the RNIB weighed in on this and are saying how upsetting it is and mentioned so-called Ableist language. Hello? It, was, a, joke. Fiona was making a joke in a high pressure situation. She immediately apologised. The audience member wasn't flustered by it. It didn't stop her posing her question in a highly articulate manner.

I'm really glad to see people here in Britain making comments such as:
"Everyones apologizing nowadays. What a mess."
"Innocent remark and apology was made immediately; no problem here."
And
"Yawn".
"What a lot of fuss over nothing".

I unsubscribed from a podcast recently because they kept going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about Ableist language. It's so bloody boring OK? In this particular case, the RNIB need a dose of a medicine called a sense of humour. #Rant

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to rant

Definitely going to unsubscribe from an Email list. The number of people who are banging on about the new Zoom product manuals not being absolutely 100 percent accessible is getting annoying. This, is, a, mainstream, product. Get with the programme. It's not going to be absolutely top notch. If you want a manual which is top notch, use something like Scribe from Pneuma Solutions, or ask CoPilot or Gemini to give you a description of the buttons, or listen to a tutorial. There's enough of the things about now. If I buy a coffee machine which has speech prompts, I'm not going to expect the user guide to be 100 percent accessible. That's not how things work. On this list they're talking about making sure the PDF is tagged, adding descriptions. There is an argument to say that a small company might think, why the bloody hell did we get into this? I'm afraid I don't accept the argument advocating that we're just as worthy of getting an accessible manual as someone who buys the product. That's just hard cheese. If we want something that badly, we can usually find a way of learning about what we've got. If you're going to buy a mainstream product, you have to take the rough with the smooth. #Rant

brianhartgen, 2 months ago to random

I particularly recommend the event on 14 March regarding new upcoming changes in JAWS 2024. In fact, the phrase "I Recommend" should be placed in capital letters. Quoting David Goldfield: Join Us for Our March 2024 Training Events – Freedom Scientific Blog https://blog.freedomscientific.com/join-us-for-our-march-2024-training-events/ @DavidGoldfield