Why does all the software for amazing hardware absolutely fucking suck? I have a Logitech MX Keys mini. It's a great keyboard, but my Bluetooth card sucks, and wireless is faster anyways. So I get a LogiBolt. Well guess how you pare it? You don't just plug it in and it works, like y'know... literally any other dongle on the face of the planet. You have to install Logitech Options! This annoyed me, and I remembered that you can unpack this installer and just get the LogiBolt configuration tool out of it as an installer. Got that, and installed it. And, surprise surprise, it's inaccessible. Button, button, button. 0 button. Button. R button. Fuck this noise. I hate this. I hate all of this. Why does it all just suck?
@miki@TheQuinbox Even the worst companies deserve to have their good points stated, so, after many long years, the MX keys and MX keys mini have finally gotten the fn+escape hotkey, which allows you to toggle the "use F keys as F keys rather than media" without the software. I have no clue who thought the software only method was a good idea, but it no longer applies, at least to a few of their boards.
@miki@TheQuinbox Sorry to hear that. My K600, K380, and k810 required the software, I just use FN+key since I hate to have it installed. The K360 has the F keys properly, fn+f keys does the media stuff, as I think it should be. As I said, sorry to hear about the K320, I've never seen it.
Absolutely do not get me wrong, I love modern vision tech like Be My AI, Seeing AI, or Google Lookout. They've helped me do things I would've needed someone sighted for on multiple occasions. But sometimes it's trying to do the most trivial of things that shows you where it still falls short. I just spent over five minutes trying to get cooking instructions for a pack of Ramen, and somehow managed to capture every single damn thing about it, sans how to fucking cook it in the 9 photos I took in total.
@TheQuinbox There isn't, if I may say so, any contradiction between saying, on the one hand, "it's far better than nothing", and, on the other hand, "compared to real vision, it absolutely stinks". Both may be true and, in the case of these programs, I think both are.
I really wish there were a way to quickly pause #NVDA's speech output while testing #ScreenReader navigation without having to close the whole application. (Is there perhaps a way to do that which I haven't figured out?)
@mikemccaffrey Sorry, I'm not as confident as I should be in knowing what you're after, but perhaps one of these two methods might help? NVDA+S cycles between speech, beeps, and silence. NVDA+shift+Z puts the screen reader to sleep for the application, I believe.
You can never have too many USB-C ports, right? It's rubbish having a cheap laptop with only a single USB-C port. So, the good folks at Mokin have sent me a gadget which turns your single and lonely USB-C port into FIVE USB-C ports. Along the side you get 4 USB-C 3.1 port…
@Edent Sorry to disturb again, at least it's not an obvious visual question this time. Have you tried this unit with interuptions of power? If so, does it support what I've heard called "fast role swap" or "fast role switching"? Supposedly, everything USB 3.x does, but I've seen some that claim to be 3.x and obviously don't, file transfers fail, just for example, when power to the hub is lost. Thanks again for all the work.
@Edent Sorry for not being clear. The file transfer thing was just an example. Let's say you have the hub, and therefore the computer attached to it, attached to power through the hub's power port. You also have, at the same time, a file transfer, or some other continuing process, going on with a peripheral through one of the hub's other USB C ports. 1/3
@Edent You then pick up the laptop and walk away, disconnecting the power from the hub, though obviously keeping everything else attached so as to keep the continuing process/file transfer running. With "fast role swap", the process just goes on, the hub switches from providing power through the power source to providing its own power to the peripheral devices. Without fast role swap, all the devices disconnect and then reconnect a few seconds later, stopping any continuing process. 2/3
Supertoys last all summer long! But batteries do not. The last set of rechargeable batteries I had leaked everywhere, and I could never find the right charging lead for the gizmo which pumped power into them. So let's cut out the middle-man and plug a USB-C cable straight into our batteries! What? These were the […]
@Edent I'm sorry if this is visually obvious, I'm blind and just want to be absolutely sure I'm reading correctly. You seem to say these can be plugged into any USB c cable, not just the odd cable which came with them. Is that correct? If I plug them into my own USB C cable, even from an A port, will they charge? Thanks for the review.
@TheQuinbox If you have a few minutes to post about it from an access POV, I'd be very interested. I've wanted to get into it but don't know how much soldering is needed, depends on the project, I daresay, and am not sure what sort of IDE is used. The closest I've come is using a tasmota plug.
A while ago, I wrote a set of Python scripts to restart NVDA on a remote machine (e.g. if your NVDA Remote died). It was pretty kludgy though, and something I did for a friend. I've just rewritten them in C++, and also written a fairly basic readme, so it's an actual thing now! https://github.com/TheQuinbox/kill-nvda-remotely/releases/download/1.0/kill_nvda_remotely.zip
@TheQuinbox Seriously, I can't thank you enough. I've used eventghost to do this, I've tried psexec, and they work but they're painful. I haven't tried yours yet but it would be lovely to have something specific for this rather than having to fiddle with other apps which are painful, unreliable, or both. Thanks again.
@TheQuinbox Sorry to bother you about this but is there a way for server.exe to run in the background without being open on any sort of desktop? From reading the batch file, it looks like it leaves the window open, or am I misreading? Thanks.
@TheQuinbox Thanks for letting me know. Honestly, I wouldn't mind at all if it didn't have any interface at all, it's so wonderfully simple that if it was just in the taskmanager as killnvdaserver.exe, I would be fine with that, though people who know more than I do about software might think differently. Again, thanks for working on this.
@TheQuinbox That would be great. I also see from the client that I can set the IP for each command, which is great, I have a bunch of machines and VMWare boxes which I will be using this on. Thanks again.
@TheQuinbox@spaciath@Faylen I really hate subscriptions but if he offered a subscription, even with the poor support, I would buy it for QRead. There are just some programs which are beyond useful, they make the computer worth using. How do I put this. They're like the phone app on a phone or the screen reader for a blind user. QRead is like that for me. Great program, but horrible support, in my experience.
Have never understood why #blind people insist on using third-party or less than popular apps to access info even though official and well-known apps are certainly #accessible enough. Seems to me it could be a cultural or stick-it-to-the-man thing more than anything… 🤔
@AuroraNebulosa Can't speak for all #blind people, but I use third party apps because the goal isn't "accessible enough". The goal is ease and perfection! I think blind people work too hard, generally. If the sighted user had to jump through the hoops we do, he'd toss the service. Blind users sometimes settle for less or work harder for the same result. If I can avoid that, I do. As for sticking it to the man, I honestly doubt it. I'm of no importance, who cares what app I use?
#blind#HomeAssistant users can, probably, be counted on the fingers of one hand. There may well not be any #DeafBlind HA users here at all. However, just in case someone's out there... As you know, it's sometimes hard to know whether a particular device is running. Those of us with #HearingAids and telecoils can listen to devices or cables to note whether current is flowing but this depends on the quality of hearing, shielding, interference, etc. tactually available fans may be absent or off.
That is, one can guess the answers to questions like: is the desktop actually booting or just on and somehow halted, is the device charging or done, what USB C PD profile is actually being used, and so on. I have only been playing with this for a little while so don't understand it as well as I ought to, and have plugged in quite a few devices but intend to try a few more, particularly those using odd permutations of USB like QC with their own chargers. #HomeAssistant#blind#DeafBlind
Obvious question, but research is turning nothing up. Is anyone using homeassistant with a locally controlled plug that can monitor the energy passing through out of the box? I want to avoid flashing hardware with pins/grounding, as I'm blind and don't have sighted help here all the time, as well as wanting local control, avoiding connection to any cloud. Thanks. #blind#homeassistant#smarthome