ACB Community Replay for 13 June, 2023

by

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>> This has been an ACB Community Call.

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>> This Unmute Presents Community Call was hosted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2023.

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Hello everyone and welcome back to another un-mute.

Good to see you all again.

Couple announcements here at the top.

I want to remind everyone to please be respectful

for their questions and give everyone the same opportunity

you would to get your questions answered.

Also, we’ll take all first-hands.

If we get through everyone first time through,

we will take second hands or second questions.

Also, tonight, Mac Bytes with Bits is at 5 Eastern 8

five Eastern, eight, or five West, and eight Eastern.

And there was a mistake that went out

and that was a different night.

So the Mac Bites with Bits is actually tonight.

All the information is gonna be in today’s email.

So tonight Mac Bike with Bits,

make sure you check that out.

That’ll be a good one.

Also, I wanna introduce you all to Michael Deuz.

He is going to be here with us

and he’s part of the team now

and he’s gonna be helping answering your tech questions.

So if you see him say hello.

And lastly, the question of the day is,

do you prefer iPhone, Android or blind shell?

And what do you like and what do you hate

about whichever your choice is?

And with that being said, you can raise your hand

and let us know your thoughts on that.

And Michael, what’s going on?

How you doing, buddy?

Oh yeah, Bell, we’re going to throw a question of the day out to people.

Forgot to warn you about that.

So just a quick heads up.

Glad you can roll with it.

So we love your participation.

So feel free to raise your hand to answer the question for me, Marty.

I like them all.

I have frustrations with them all, but I like them all.

My primary device is an iPhone.

I am very comfortable on an iPhone in a blind shell, but I can use an Android

device. I like the consistency of iOS.

which is kind of ironic because one of the frustrations that people have is the

inconsistencies of iOS. So I like how if I use the web browser or I’m using my

keyboard then I know what to expect for the most part. That’s not always the case

with Android. So basically in a nutshell is what you’re saying is you

can’t live with them but you can’t live without them. Exactly and then the

blind shell has that really simple interface so I really am used to that. So

So before we get to these hands and jump over to Belle to ask her to tell us who the first

person is, I want to give you a quick recap and this is going to take a little bit longer

than it normally does.

I’ll hand it back over to Marty and he can ask for hands because Marty never told us

which one he prefers, although I already know.

Yesterday we had two episodes that published and real quick caveat if, I’m sorry, yesterday

was only one.

I don’t even know what day it is anymore.

If you are not subscribed to the unmute podcast feed, feel free to get subscribed and you’ll

get all of this content. Some of this content is its own podcast feed. So if you’d rather just get

some of this content, then I will let you know about that when we go over it. And probably right

after convention, you will be able to get more of the information you’re looking for in a granular

form. So if you only want to get a certain type of content, then that’ll be an option in the very

near future. However, let’s talk about the content that we’ve posted since last time we all connected

Yesterday, Technically Working, which is its own podcast feed, we posted the episode 15 with

Demasi and myself called it Focus Rules because we talk a little bit about focus. We talk a little

bit about real life focus and being able to get things accomplished and not overcommitting

yourself, which I am guilty of doing myself. So check that out if you’re interested.

On Sunday evening, we chatted with Michael Doyes and we published an episode called “Stream

ACB Media and Podcasts with the New ACB Link App.” So you can take a listen to that. We talked about

it last Sunday, but we go more in depth about it. And then earlier on Sunday, I showed you how to

use WayAround. So the WayAround tag and labeling system is now available on the Blind Shell Classic

too. So that Sunday, I published a demo walking you through that process. On Saturday, IACAS

WWDC2023 recap wrap up was published. So Marty, Michael and a couple of other people jumped on

there to talk about what Apple announced throughout the week of WWDC. On Friday,

finds, Lynn and Marty sat down and talked about WWDC updates,

AI in tech and virtual reality updates for people with visual

impairments. So check that out. On Thursday, Lucy came and

talked about the magic of Lady A follow up mode, whisper mode and

a few other modes that you’ll want to check out as well. And

then Shellphone Show, which is its own podcast feed on

Wednesday, we made the announcement about the way around

application being available. And then of course, the ACB

community replay for June six was published. So that’s a quick

recap of what we’ve published in the last week, Marty, what’s

your answer to the question of the day?

I prefer iPhone only because I’ve been using it for so long.

It’s what I’m used to. So I’ve been sticking with that. And

like everything, sometimes I love it. And sometimes I hate

it. So

we got first, though.

All right, first up is Kristi.

Hey, Kristi, how you doing?

Hello, how are you doing?

Good, thank you.

Good, good. My question is, I’m looking for an accessible, but kind of cheap air

printer. Any ideas on that? And my phone of choice is the iPhone because that’s all

I’ve ever used. Yes, I do like it. I hate it.

That sounds like it’s going to be the consensus for everyone, I think we’ll see how we go.

Yeah.

Do you have a suggestion, Marty?

So a question for you is in this printer, are you wanting to print wirelessly?

Yeah, yeah, that’s what I mean, like from my phone, and I don’t have a computer.

Yeah, so the first and most important thing when you’re looking is to make sure that it

has the capability to be able to print from iOS devices.

That’ll be something really important.

And it should see that a center.

every single printer has that option. So that’s definitely

something we want to make sure that it does have that. Michael,

what do you think?

So we use a printer and Christy, if you stick around for the next

1520 minutes, I will get the model number. But we have a

printer, it is not fully accessible, and maybe fully

transparent with people. It does have a touchscreen interface to

be able to get it connected to the Wi Fi network. But once

Once you’re connected to the Wi-Fi network, it does have an Ethernet port, so that’s an

option for you as well.

But once it’s on the network with your device, all you have to do is choose the print option,

and then it shows up in the printer list and you can print to it from your phone or your

computer.

And I will look it up.

I believe it’s an app sim, but I don’t remember the model number.

But if you bear with me about 15 minutes or so, I will get that information for you.

So this is my.

  • Wow.

  • Go ahead, Michael.

  • This is Michael Doies on this.

I’ve had AirPrint, they call them AirPrint printers

that work with the iPhone.

And so any printer you’re looking for

needs to have the word AirPrint associated with it.

Some look I’ve had is with HP printers

and they do make them without touch screens.

We have one here that’s an all-in-one

that does not have a touch screen.

And you configure the wireless on that printer

with the HP Smart app.

I’m not sure of the accessibility of that app.

I only have to use it once every two or three years

when I need to reset up the printer on a new Wi-Fi network.

But once it’s set up, it’s just seamless.

It just works really well.

I know Brother and Epson also make AirPrint printers.

And the one that we have here,

no more than $100, if not less.

  • Oh, okay.

And Canon even makes a portable,

like where you could throw it in a backpack printer.

It’s about $250, but it’s air print as well.

So really neat stuff.

  • Right, right.

Yeah, and I’d want something small like shoe.

I mean, something that I think,

I’m not necessarily carried,

but I don’t have a lot of space.

So I don’t want something really heavy and bulky and big.

  • Mm-hmm.

So there you go.

Michael, do you happen to know the model number

for that HP that you have?

  • I do not.

I could see if I could go find it real quick though.

  • Yeah, so stick around and we will see what information

we can give you.

And I’m looking through some of my resources here.

So we’ll share some more information as soon as we have.

  • Okay, I’ll be around.

  • Thanks a lot.

  • All right.

  • All right, next up is Desi.

  • Hey Desi, how you doing?

  • Hey guys.

Okay, first of all, in answer to the question of the day,

I am an Apple girl all the way.

I have my iPhone 14 pro, I have my iPad mini 6th generation and my Mac mini M2.

And I am just having a delightful time.

Awesome.

I’m in your camp.

So there you go.

Yeah.

And I would never go back.

I’m sorry.

I, there’s not much of anything that I like about windows.

And because I’m lucky enough to be of an age where I’m not working anymore, I don’t have

to worry about that stuff. There you go. So, um, so I do have two quick questions. One is, um,

where do I go on my Mac to change the, um, like my, my email notifications are reading out the whole

message every time, um, an email comes in, which I find very annoying when I’m hosting and stuff.

I mean, I’ve got my my voiceover set so that nobody else hears it except me and my headphones

But it still drives me crazy

So I would like to change that and the other thing I have for you is on my

iPad mini I have recently moved to Tennessee and all of my other devices are set up beautifully and

My iPad though in the weather app regardless of what I have tried to do. I’ve gone into location settings

I’ve gone into weather, I’ve gone into everywhere, still gives me all the statistics for Phoenix.

And I don’t live there anymore. Okay. Though it’s interesting, I don’t really always want to know

that. Okay, so here’s the deal with the weather app. What you have to do is do a double click

and hold on the actual weather icon. And then you want to change it a little side menu will pop open.

and you’ll want to change it to local. And then when you do that, it’ll update to where your

current location is now. You’ll notice that when you do that, it’ll be stuck on before you change

it. It’ll be stuck on where you previously were. So once you do that and you update it to local,

then you’re going to be fine. You’ll see, it’ll just update to where you are now.

It’s a weird thing. I actually had that bug for a long time ago and I couldn’t figure it out.

And finally I did.

Okay. Well, that’s awesome because I have not found anywhere where it says to do that.

Yeah, it’s not obvious at all, but Michael is the, you were going to say something.

Yes, this is Michael again. You can actually add as many locations you want in the weather app.

So you could just use a three finger flick left and right to go between them.

It is in the weather app. There’s a, where you can bring up a list and you just go and edit and

and add in that list.

And so like I have Austin twice

because if I’m traveling,

even though it’s my current location most of the time,

I still want it to, if I want to look back

whenever I’m heading home.

And so I add Austin as a location

and add other cities that I travel to,

so I could see the weather in those places.

You could even get push notifications if you add those.

So like my family lives in a town

called Port Neches, Texas.

So I add that town and I see what,

when rain starts and stops where my family is.

So it’s very, yeah, very nice.

  • Do you have a current iPad?

Is it a current iPad Mini?

  • Mine, yeah.

  • So when you update the,

if you’re updated to the current operating system,

when you open the weather app,

you’ll see that if you open the sidebar,

you’ll see those low, the very top one is local.

And then all the cities that you have saved

will also be there in the list.

And if you click on one,

it’ll change the center to show you all the information

of whichever city you click on.

  • Right, so yesterday I had done that

and yesterday it would show me Franklin, Tennessee,

which is where I am.

Then if I went out of the weather app and came back in,

it always still showed me Phoenix.

  • So Phoenix is set to your default location,

so you wanna go play with that, Desi.

And to answer your other question,

because I had to do this for the same exact reason

I wanted to disable my email notifications

from being read out.

So two things, number one, you can always close your email,

which I forget about myself,

and that will stop the notification while you’re live.

That’s the basic solution.

Number two, if you go into system settings

and you go in the table on the left down to notifications,

you can actually disable, what I’ve done is

You can configure them how you would prefer them to be,

but what I did is I just went ahead and disabled

all my mail notifications.

That way when I’m ready to do email, I open email.

And if I get a new email,

I seem to still get the sound of a new email,

but VoiceOver does not read the message like it used to.

  • Oh, okay.

Well, I actually was able to turn off the sound,

so I’m not getting the sound,

but I’m still getting the message.

So yeah, okay.

  • I can click notifications and see if that helps.

  • It’s the table to the left, okay.

’cause I think I went right

and I didn’t even think to go left.

So duh, all right.

Well, thank you so much.

  • Thanks, Dacie.

  • Yeah, you too, thanks.

  • All right.

  • All right, next up is Monica.

  • Hey, Monica, how you doing?

  • Good, how are you?

  • Good, good.

  • I just wanted to make a comment.

I love the new ACVLink app.

  • Oh yeah, you can thank Michael Deutsch for that.

  • Much easier to use and it’s great.

So, and I, for all of you who are Mac users native on the Mac now as well,

and it does work great with voiceover.

I swear I’m my own choice. I love the iPhone. I like the iPhone.

I’m not going to say love. I like it, but it’s the only,

it’s because it’s what I have. So yeah. Awesome.

Thanks Monica. Thank you. All right.

Pam. Hey Pam. Okay.

I too love the new ACB link app.

My phone of choice.

Well, I’m a little like Desi.

I’m an Apple girl.

My computer is a Mac.

That’s all I’ve ever had is a Mac.

And my phone, the only smartphone I’ve ever had,

only smartphones have been iPhones.

And, you know, occasionally, you know, yeah,

I’ll run into a bug or a glitch or whatever,

but overall I love it.

I would not want to go with anything else.

I’ve never used a blind shell.

I understand they’re really nice

and they can do more and more with it now,

but I would not trade anything in the world for my iPhone.

  • All right, well, that’s awesome.

Thanks Pam.

  • Mm-hmm, thank you.

  • All right, who do we got next?

Next up is Pierre.

  • Hey, Pierre, how you doing?

  • Yeah, I have two questions.

The first one is, I’m in ACB leadership

and they send emails and most of them have attachments.

How do I get to attachments?

  • Are you on an iPhone, a Mac, a Windows machine?

What are you on?

  • iOS.

  • So when you open up your email,

you’ll be in the body of the email.

You scroll down to the bottom

and you’ll see there’s a icon there

that’s gonna represent the attachment.

It’ll say the name of the attachment

and then you do a single finger double tap

and it will open up.

Sometimes it’ll take one extra second.

If it’s not actually downloaded, it’ll download,

then you can open it up.

  • Okay, say that again now.

  • When you go into your email,

you wanna go into the body of that email

that you’re looking for with the attachment.

You wanna scroll all the way down to the bottom

and that’s where the attachment’s gonna be.

Typically it’s all the way at the bottom,

kind of on the left side of the screen.

And it’ll tell you there what the name of the attachment is.

If you have more than one, they’ll all be down there.

You do a single, do you use voiceover?

  • Yeah.

  • Okay, you do a single finger double tap

and that will open up the attachment.

  • Okay, and my second question is,

right now I’m using an iPod.

So I realized at the end of this year,

I’m going to have to go to something else. Now, I was reading an article the other day

from CNN and they said that not all phones are going to take iOS 17. So are the phones

like the 2020 and 2021, 23, are they going to take that?

Yes, anything that current will work with the new operating system. I think anything

from the 10 R and back is or what is it Michael?

It’s the 10 and back.

So the 10 R and newer are supported.

The 10 and back are not.

So if you have an X or a 10 or an eight

or an original iPhone SE, those will not be supported

but anything newer than the X will be supported.

Like the 2023 will do it.

The 2022 iPhone SE, if that’s what you’re looking at

will be supported.

Yes.

Okay, good.

Thanks.

Yeah, no problem.

That iPhone SE Pure is going to have a similar form factor to the iPod Touch that you have.

I think it’s going to be slightly smaller. Right, Michael?

The iPod Touch would be smaller than that, but it’s not much different. So it’s very similar in

form factor. I wanted to mention going back to one of the first questions about printers. Mine

is the HP Deskjet 2652. So whoever asked that question in the beginning there, I think it was

Kristy, Kristy, did you get that?

  • 2652, it’s an HP-Jet 2652.

  • Yes, I got that.

Thank you very much.

  • Yeah, no problem.

  • So eight years, so 18, yes.

What is it?

Say it again, please.

  • DeskJet 2652.

  • Yes, yes, 2052.

All right, thank you.

  • 2652.

  • 2652, got it.

All right, thanks.

  • All right, our next hand is Donna.

  • Hey, Donna, how you doing?

  • All right, how are you all?

  • Doing good, thank you.

  • So to answer the question of the day first,

I guess I would say the iPhone is my favorite,

but that’s pretty much any smartphone I’ve ever had.

But I think had the blind shell too been out

when I was looking for a phone, I might’ve considered it.

Except I know it sort of works on AT&T,

but I’d have trouble.

I live very rural and like sprint and stuff is not available.

And so I’d have a hard time with that.

But anyway, I like the blind shell too though.

  • Awesome.

  • Yeah.

But so I don’t know, do you guys have any knowledge?

Oh, I’m sure you have knowledge, but.

Well, I have a Google forms question.

  • Okay.

a form and I have a question that require that has check boxes

and the person filling it out checks all that apply. But then

I want an other and then I want like an edit field for them to

type in their other, you know, can can that be done?

So it can be done. I don’t know. So naturally what you do is

set up the checkboxes so they can check all the checkboxes.

That’s right. You can do is add an edit box after the check boxes. What I think you’re looking to

do though is only conditionally show the edit box if the other check box is checked. That’s right.

And with Google Forms, I don’t know if this can be done. I can look if no one else raises their

hand with an answer. I can tell you how to do it with Gravity Forms, but that doesn’t help you

because that’s only WordPress. But I will check and see and follow up with you. Okay. All right.

Thank you. No problem. Thanks for asking. Who got the next

belt? Our next person is an iPhone. I just gave you the

prompt to unmute. I wonder if they’re favorite from these

iPhone. Hello, my name is Darlene. Hi, Darlene. How are

you? Okay, so I am still kind of in the Windows world, not

willingly, but I’m there. So the most recent big upgrade to JAWS

kind of killed my laptop. And when I call, okay, so it, it locks up and it’s really slow to repeat

what I’m typing. And it has some other issues. And when I call Freedom Scientific, they go,

Oh, your laptop needs a tune up. It’s not us, it’s your laptop. So I’m kind of willing to play along,

but I’m having a heck of a time finding somebody to come and give my laptop a tune up.

Any suggestions? I live in Portland, Oregon. Any suggestion?

Yes, I can get you information of someone actually in Oregon. He’s in Wilsonville,

but they do make house calls. Okay, yep, need that.

I will have to find that information and get that to you. Is there any way you could email us at

[email protected] and I could email you the information?

Okay, let me write that down. Feedback.

at unmute.show. Okay, I will do that. Just email there and I will get you the information.

Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, no problem. Next up is Dan. Hey, Dan, how you doing?

Hi, I’m a new guy to this show. No problem, welcome.

Yeah, thank you. I’m very impressed with what you guys are doing. You’re taking questions about the

Mac? Is that right? Yes. Okay. My question is, how do I bring up or open Spotlight search on a

MacBook Air? I’m using voiceover and running Big Sur. Michael, you want to take this one, Michael

DeWis? Yep. Oh, Michael Babcock or Timothy Michaels. For Spotlight, you know what, I use

spotlight for everything on my computer. And it’s the same

whether you’re using voiceover or not command space will bring

up spotlight.

Well, when I do command space, it brings up Siri.

If you what you probably want to do is change what you’re

pressing to bring up Siri, right?

You’re pressing and holding a little too. Yes. So if you press

and hold the spacebar for more than a second, it’s going to

bring up Siri. So what I would what I tell people is hold the

command key down with one, I hold it down with my thumb, you

can hold it down with whatever you want. And then with your

other finger, just press the spacebar and release it and

then release command. And that will just open spotlight because

if you hold the two of them together too long, it will

activate Siri.

Wait, I’m a little bit confused. Okay, I should hold the command.

He and then release the spacebar. Okay.

Yep. Because then that will avoid you from holding both of

them too long. And then so what I do is I hold Command key, press

and release spacebar, and then I release the command key. And it

sounds like a long process, but it’s really a simple process.

Okay, okay, I will. I will do that. Yeah, thank you. And then

once I get into that, and if I, I type my my search query, it

will automatically bring up the the search results. I don’t have

to try and find a search button.

Is that correct?

That’s correct.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you.

And one more follow up on that Michael D a question for you, because I do not

use spotlight, I use launch bar.

Um, do you need to use your voiceover keys to navigate the results, Michael,

or do you know if you can just use up and down arrow keys?

I don’t remember.

I don’t remember.

I’ve, I’ve really used it with voiceover, but I could try it real quick.

So give me just a second.

Yeah, that would be awesome.

And then I believe you just had to enter to accept the response that it comes up

with, but Michael will chat while Belle tells us who we have next.

Herbie.

Hey, Herbie.

All right.

Well, first of all, Michael, I got to ask you something.

You know, you mentioned gravity forms earlier.

Do you find that they bring you down at all?

Yeah, no, no, they gravity form solves all your problems when

it comes to WordPress forms.

Okay.

Um, two things.

First of all, um, let’s, I want to go back to the spotlight thing.

I think you do have the best results when using the voiceover keys.

But I wanted to mention that you can go into the Siri settings

and change it to something different

so it will not conflict with the spotlight.

So I have my Siri set to option space

rather than command space.

  • And one of the nice things about being on the Mac

is you can just go in and customize

all the keystrokes completely.

  • Yeah, so they don’t,

’cause I don’t use option space for anything

so it doesn’t conflict with anything.

So that is another recommendation.

So they don’t conflict.

Well, first of all, an iPhone user through and through tried the Android a little bit.

It was okay.

Sometimes I thought the keyboard was a little bit more responsive, but then I felt like

I also had more focusing issues.

Maybe I didn’t have the greatest of phone when I was playing with it.

But one of the things I really wish that Apple would do, though, that Android does is I wish

we could have the number row on top instead of under more numbers but um I

you know that I think would be really nice maybe I always have the period at

the bottom you know it’s just those are just some punctuation marks to probably

more likely going to use than others and so you know just I think they can make

things a little bit more intuitive that way but I’m I use iPhone since 2010 it

and I really love how it talks to my Mac and my Mac talks to it and they both

conspire against me but that’s fine. So I really don’t have a question. I

wanted to answer your question. iPhone, Apple, through and through but one thing I did want to

mention which I think is really interesting is because it’s never get

talked about you know and there’s always questions about should you ever upgrade

when and if should you ever upgrade Alexa devices?

So I used to have, at home I have the Echo 4,

like the full-sized one.

And for travel purposes, I still kept it around,

or kept around rather I should say, a dot third generation.

Well, I really, one of the things I noticed

with the three, my dot three versus the four is

there is a major difference in the response time

for some things.

So for instance, I use my echo a lot to set reminders.

And when I was setting reminders on my dot 3,

it was like wading through molasses

on the back of a turtle.

And so I got a fifth echo dot–

the fifth generation echo dot, and the difference

is noticeable.

It understands me better.

It responds to me that much quicker.

And so I just wanted to throw that out there.

Ever wonder, should you upgrade your Alexa devices?

I would say that the answer is yes, there is value in doing so.

Good to know, because I’ve not considered upgrading my Alexa device.

So I appreciate that, Herbie.

I still have one of the second-gen Echos and a third-gen Echo Dot.

And those things have been–

the only thing I’ve updated is the Echo Show.

But most of my devices are just–

because they’ve worked so well.

I will say when I’ve upgraded from second generation Alexis to third generations,

there were some noticeable differences in how the dot was, for instance.

The fourth generation is where I really noticed a difference in the overall way of response to you.

And so that’s where I really noticed the difference in starting with the fourth gen is

the response time is a lot better.

All I can say is may the Echo Tap rest in peace. That was an amazing device.

It was a portable Bluetooth speaker that ran ALEXA. I have so many around here. I know they’ll

activate. So I want to point out you do use the arrow keys with Spotlight with VoiceOver.

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that. I do see we have another hand here. So I’m going to get

that and thank you, Herbie, for that because, as I said, I don’t really think about upgrading

A-Lady devices. That’s definitely something if your things are running a little slow,

you may want to consider and they are affordable. But I do see we only have one hand. So I’m

guessing that means the rest of the probably 15 to 20 of you don’t have opinions on your

favorite smartphone device. If you haven’t shared with us, please don’t hesitate to raise your hand

and engage. Bell, who do we have next? Next up is Jeff. Hey, Jeff, how you doing?

I’m good guys. Thank you. I’ll try to be brief. iPhone 12 Pro Max was my first iPhone

after years of Pixel phones and I would never consider going back. I got really sick of the,

there are so many issues like Bluetooth, build quality. I could go on but I’ll stop there.

And that’s coming from a person like I haven’t been blind

my whole life, but relatively recently.

So I had to learn a whole new system going to the iPhone,

but I still wouldn’t consider going back.

The second thing, a couple of months ago,

you guys helped with, I was having a problem

getting short codes for two factor authentication.

And my carrier is Google Fi.

It finally got worked out.

I don’t, maybe it was because of them,

but after at least a 50 email exchange

and giving them as much information as I could,

about a month after that, they started working again.

So anybody that uses Google Fi,

if you’re having short code issues,

just yeah, make sure you work with Google Fi.

They’re actually really good to work with.

One more thing. – Awesome.

Marty, you helped me a couple of months ago.

I have three Apple TV 4Ks,

like this past generation, current generation.

So the one that just came back

or came out November, December of last year,

they’re all connected via HDMI.

Each one was having sound issues

like where voiceover, the voice kind of drops out.

It sounds like the voiceover voice was getting truncated

and you suggested using the, use the phone.

And I haven’t gotten used to that.

  • Did you put the phone remote app on your phone?

  • Yeah, like I haven’t gotten, you know,

it’s just a preference thing like I’m an older guy.

So I kind of like having that feel of the remote,

maybe not, who knows, but do you have any idea

what that problem, like that truncation problem is?

One other thing is they’re all connected via HDMI,

but they’re all audio wise different.

Like one’s just TV speakers, another one’s a soundbar,

another one is through a receiver

and then, you know, surround sound.

And thank you.

  • Yeah, no problem.

Have you tried using the remote that comes with it

opposed to your phone to see

if that solves the truncate problem?

  • Yeah, I was using the Siri remote to begin with.

And that’s, I mean, I had the truncation problem

from the start.

And so you suggested using the phone

and that is a solid workaround,

but I really like not having to go get my phone

and you know, I thought it was this and that.

  • A couple of things I can suggest,

It’s gonna be hard to go through every single thing

here right now.

You can always email us and we can try and get back to you

via email and see what we can do to help you more.

But I would first to check to make sure all the boxes

are updated to the most recent updates.

And the thing about all the speaker settings

and everything else,

if they’re hooked up to different TVs,

they’re gonna have, you know,

one has soundbar, one doesn’t.

One has external speakers, one doesn’t.

You’re gonna kind of have to go through the settings

find your happy place to figure out what will work best for you

for each one. Unless you have or you get all three identical

setups, you know, then you can make them all exactly the same.

But otherwise, they’re going to all be a smidge different,

because they have different hardware, unfortunately. Sure.

So go Michael D.

So I, I’ve been doing a lot of research into this because I’m

I do gaming and I have all of these devices hooked up to one

TV and so there’s always some issues you know with with sound one thing you know

if you’re using multiple TVs and you’re having this issue one thing to check is

you know possibly the brand of cables if if it’s a sound issue if the phone is

working just fine then it’s definitely an Apple TV problem it could be the

voice but one thing to check is the type of TV how old the TV is and what it

supports as far as HDMI audio and if you’re using, you know,

up to date cables and things like that. So there’s like, like

Marty said, there’s so many things that go into this. But if

it’s multiple TVs, and you’re having the same issue, then that

does sound like more of an Apple TV issue.

And what can help troubleshoot it is if you can capture a quick

recording of it, because I wonder if it’s not truncating. But

if for some reason, your finger sliding across the bottom remote,

And so voiceover starting to read one thing, but then it

skips to the next thing. So there’s some accessibility

things you can change. And and if we had a recording of it, we

could tell if it’s truncating or voiceover jumping to the next

element.

Okay, there is, and along those lines, and started to interrupt

Michael, when, okay, like I have an app that’s called channels.

And so the quickest way to stop the truncation I found is to, you

go back to the home screen, then open channels. And then for whatever reason, in channels,

on a certain screen, it’ll stop truncating immediately.

(laughs)

Well, I’m wondering that when you open up that particular app,

if it pulls down a lot of data when you open it up and it’s just struggling.

So maybe you need to open that up and let it be open for 5, 10 minutes to make sure it gets

whatever it needs downloaded to it. And then when you start using it, it won’t be trying to download

and trying to perform a task at the same time.

That actually also makes me suspect the channels that may be self voicing because there are some

apps that do that. I’m wondering if that’s the other culprit too.

Okay. Hey, I’ll grab the recording and thanks for your time. Sorry to take up so much.

No, it’s all right. Thanks a lot. If you have any other questions,

go ahead and email us and we’ll try and get back to you.

Copy that.

All right, Bill. All right, our next person is, has a phone number starting in 301 ending in 887.

Hi, good afternoon. This is Nate from Maryland. Hello, how are you? I’m doing well and I hope

you’re doing well as well. You’re doing good, thank you. And I use iPhones because, because

our Apple customer service, both are toll free and going into a store and they’ll take a look

your phone and check it out. Google is just not as pervasive in my area, which is Washington,

DC, or… And the question is, I want to use an artificial intelligence app such as chat,

GPT, or something else to learn a foreign language. I’d like to be able to speak with

a computer, have the computer answer me, and just have a conversation as well as have the computer

generate vocabulary lists with English translations.

Is that all possible?

And where would I start?

>> Is this on your computer or your phone,

or what device would you want to do this on?

>> Well, can I do it?

iPhone is easier, but I have a PC.

>> An app called Duolingo.

>> I could sit on the couch and do it.

I have a desktop.

>> Yeah. There’s an app called Duolingo,

which could help with this.

I don’t have any experience with it,

and I suspect they’re using some form of AI.

Marty or Michael, do either of you have ideas?

  • Yes, so Duolingo has announced a new AI component

in their app to help with this.

I just, I’ve never used Duolingo,

so I just do not know of the accessibility of the app,

but I do know that it does have an AI component now.

  • Okay, with the old version,

you had to just like play games on it,

and that’s not my thing, but I’ll check that out.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the more direct app for that.

But that being said, however, with AI and where you’re going,

sounds like a great project for AI.

Doesn’t it, Michael?

Yes.

Thank you.

Also, also your email is the last part of the email address

that’s SHOW or SHOW.

SHOW.

So it’s [email protected].

Thank you very much.

Have a great day.

You too.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

And next is Kathy.

Hey Kathy, how are you?

Hey everybody.

Can you hear me?

Yep.

We can hear you loud and clear.

How are you?

Fine.

You know, you’ve seen me into raising my hand to vote, but I don’t have a question.

That’s okay.

Maybe I do now, but anyway, it’s I’m an Apple person.

I have a Mac and iPad ninth generation and an iPhone 14 pro looking to get another Mac

because it’s a 15 pro, you know, and the screen doesn’t work.

Everything else works.

Brand new 15 inch MacBook Air just came out.

It’s a great computer.

I know.

That’s what I’m looking at.

Yeah.

I’m going to try to go to the Apple store in Lancaster, which is about maybe 50 miles

for me, but I want to have hands on before I do, you know, make

arrangements and all that and talk to them and see what the 13

inch might be big enough. It’s cheaper. But it doesn’t have as

much as thing as this new 15 inch.

Well, it depends on what you’re doing with it. You know, I mean,

you may not do anything crazy. I’m just doing email and, and

word processing and

you could totally get away with the M one. If that’s where you

choose to go and save a few dollars, it’ll still be amazing

for you. I mean, any day to day tasks, any of the M1 processors, whether it’s M1 or M2,

will be amazing for you. Yes. Yeah. I want to be able to have people see me on Zoom if I choose to

put my video on. But right now, even if I… If you’re going from an older machine

that’s got Intel in it, you said yours was put from 15, is that what you said?

Yeah. When you go from a 15 to a current model with an M processor in it, you’re not even going

going to believe how fast it is. It’s just totally a different world.

Yeah. I also want to do a commercial for the Mac training that I received from

Chanel Allen last year. It was amazing. She’s such a good teacher.

And I saw on email yesterday that there were a few slots open.

Anybody’s interested in attending, you know, her class.

Yeah. We try and recommend her for Mac training as much as possible. She’s great.

Yes. So Herbie, tell her I’m working on things I’m still practicing and doing,

but hopefully, you know, I’ll be able to buy a Mac pretty soon. Thank you, everybody.

All right. Well, have a great day. Thank you.

Thank you very much for raising your hand when we were calling for it.

Yeah, you saved me into it. All right. You feel bad yet?

We’re shedding tears.

Bye-bye.

Who do we got next, Beau?

Sandra.

Hey Sandra, how are you doing?

I’m fine.

First of all, the question of the day, I guess, is about the favorite device.

I would say my iPhone 14, I went from an SE to a 14.

I don’t mind that it doesn’t have the home button.

I’m used to that now.

I don’t have any other Apple devices.

I also do have a Zoom question,

if that’s okay for me to ask.

  • Yeah, go ahead.

Any questions?

All right, as long as it’s tech-based.

  • Yeah, okay.

I use the Zoom app a lot on my phone.

I have no problem with that,

but I’ve noticed when I use Zoom on my desktop with Windows,

I can get into the participants list

and look at all the names,

tells me if their video was on or off,

if they’re muted or unmuted,

but I can’t figure out, it doesn’t tell me who is speaking.

And I don’t know if there’s a way to do that or not

to get around that.

  • Are you a JAWS or NVDA user or neither?

  • JAWS.

  • Okay, so there is a keystroke

and someone is gonna correct me

because I’m probably gonna get it wrong.

I believe it’s control shift T

and that will tell you who is speaking.

And if you stick around till the end,

I’m sure someone will correct me if that is wrong.

  • Control shift T.

  • Yes, we have.

Belle, I’m gonna call out on you.

I know you’re not supposed to.

Is that the right keystroke?

  • Yes.

  • Thank you.

So yes, Control + Shift + T.

And that will, what that does is it will announce to you

the person who’s currently speaking.

Now this does work with, I can guarantee 2023 or 2022.

I don’t know about anything earlier than that.

  • Okay. – JAWS.

  • Yep.

  • No, I’ve got the latest, I updated my JAWS.

  • Perfect.

So hopefully that helps you out.

Give that a try.

  • I hope that helps.

Thank you.

  • Just one more tip for you because I wanna preclude

any issues. If you ever find yourself stuck in zoom and you

can’t figure out what’s going on, you can’t get to where

you’re used to try the F six key that will save you because it

will move you to different sections inside of zoom. Okay.

Perfect. Well, thanks a lot. Thank you. F six is the best

windows keystroke ever. Yes, sir. Press.

All right. Next up is Chris. Hey, Chris, how you doing? Hey,

Hey, fellas, how you doing?

  • Good, good.

  • Hey, I’m doing good.

I prefer both personally.

I think that both Android OS and iOS operating systems,

can you all hear me still?

  • Yeah, we can hear you.

  • You know, I think it does both for me

because Android offers some freedoms and customizations

that you just can’t get on iOS.

And iOS also offers that stability of,

hey, if I get an iPhone, no matter what version it is,

generally the software is not going to go crazy on me

and do some crazy changes and things of that sort.

So I prefer both.

But did you guys hear that there was somebody

that took over the source code for Soundscape

and now they’re testing it and test flight

and they’re calling it OpenScape now?

I don’t know if you guys heard that, but if you didn’t,

they are testing out Soundscape.

Supposedly nothing has changed.

All the beacons and audio sounds are still the same.

I guess a gentleman took over that

because Microsoft made it public as far as the source code.

So I just wanted to let everybody know

if you guys are interested, I can send the feedback,

the link to the test flight

if somebody’s willing to try it out.

  • Have they opened it back up yet?

Because I know it got full there for a little bit.

And I haven’t heard it yet.

On yesterday’s double tap, if you search for double tap,

I open up with a 3D audio demo of the OpenScape application

and show people using voiceover,

a quick exploration of the interface,

and then you can hear the beacons and action tips.

  • Okay, so you’re already on it then.

  • Yeah, go give that a listen,

but thank you Chris for bringing it up.

  • No, because some people might not have heard that,

you know, right.

Some people may not have heard it on the call here

that don’t go listen over there.

So just want to let y’all know.

It’s still in testing.

I don’t know if it’s completely open up yet again,

but Soundscape will be coming back,

but it’s gonna be called OpenScape.

So just want to let y’all know.

  • The neat thing about this is that I understand it.

It’s an open project,

so people can contribute to it and things like that.

I’m very excited.

I sent the link to Michael on Saturday

because I saw it, I think, on Mastodon or somewhere.

I don’t know where.

But it’s very exciting.

Michael, did you say that you saw some, a little bit less

accurate accuracy with that compared to soundscapes or?

No. So what happened?

And it, two things.

Number one, I want to preface this and I know we’re getting low on time

with everything that I say is beta.

So please don’t say what I, yeah, take it with the grain of salt.

I also was running it on the iOS 17 beta too.

So that could play into it.

But it didn’t announce right when I got on top of a beacon.

And that was what I noticed.

But I was able to tell when I hit that point and not so.

And keep in mind, this is an entirely new back end for OpenScape.

So if things don’t work exactly the same as SoundScapes, that’s why is they

what Microsoft had on the back end is not the same as what is there now.

This is a complete like the the the face of the app looks the same.

but the back end that makes it work is totally different.

So keep that in mind if you do use this beta

and the App Store version,

there may be differences on how it operates.

So.

  • That’s all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

  • Thanks Chris.

We’re cutting down on time here.

Let’s see if we can get these last couple of people in.

  • Diane.

  • Hey Diane.

  • Yes.

I had something that I kind of wanted to bring this up

because Herbie, I started the discussion with Herbie

and I noticed he was on the call.

On my Mac, I’m trying to download something called

VLC Media Player.

And when I go to that site and I go to the download link,

the screen light jumps around because apparently it

has something on it called Live Regions.

So if I disable the Live Regions,

then it won’t jump around on me.

But I’m also noticing that it won’t read the things

that it’s supposed to read, which is like links to the various versions of VLC media

player that you can download.

It’s not reading any of that.

So I’m wondering if there’s some other setting I’m supposed to change on my Mac or, you know,

how I how I can get this program with, you know, either the either the screen jumps around

or or I can’t read the things that I want to read on it.

So if I’m understanding correctly, Diane, and I’m going to try my best to troubleshoot

this with you, but when you go to the video land website and you choose the download option,

and then it’s not reading the website correctly.

Right, because there’s all the different versions, all different versions has, you know, it jumps

around among them.

It jumps them on.

It’s doing it right now to me.

doing it right now. So what I would recommend doing is if you

go to, so I don’t have an immediate answer for you. I

believe VLC may be available in the app store. Have you looked

in there to see if it’s available there?

Um, no, I hadn’t because I, I’ve always thought that it was

better to go directly to a website, you know, to try to get

something.

If but that, yeah, I don’t necessarily know that that would

be specifically better, but it may be worth looking for VLC in the App Store.

And I just did a quick search for VLC and it didn’t pop right up.

So follow up with us via email.

And we may know.

No, there’s so this is Herbie.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, VLC is not in the app store.

It’s strictly on the website.

I think your best bet on that site is going to be using the web rotor with

VOU going to links, typing Mac, and that should take you

to the download link with the Mac, and then Vio space,

and then Vio space again right away.

And that might prevent it from jumping at least long enough

to download the thing.

But yeah, that site is–

I was just playing with it a minute ago when

I was bringing up the questions.

I’m actually in front of the computer.

And it is definitely one of the jumpiest sites

I’ve definitely come across them.

  • Yep.

  • But shortcut keys are gonna be your friend on that site.

  • Okay, I thought I had tried doing that,

going to the, what did you call it?

You call it VOU.

I did that before.

  • So Diane, real quick, and I’ll give you these steps

’cause I just downloaded the Mac file

and then we do have two more hands in like four minutes.

But real quick, if you go to the Video Land website,

Do VO you to bring up your links type in Mac,

press VO space twice, that’ll take you to the Mac page.

Do VO you again and type in down for download

and then press VO space twice again

and that will download the Mac version of the VLC app.

  • Oh, okay, I’ll try it.

  • Yep, give us an email if it doesn’t work.

  • Okay, all right, thanks.

  • Bill, who do we have now?

  • All right, two more hands, Teresa.

  • Hey, Teresa.

Oh no, we don’t hear you, Teresa.

Hey, there you are.

There you go.

I’ve got, I got it in 2019.

So I don’t know if it’s the second or third generation of echo, but the plug

is messed up and I try to unplug it and replug it to get a, uh, get some,

you know, results and it’s not, there’s nothing happens.

And somebody said, I ought to, I’m better off getting a newer version of the echo.

I would say so because I believe that is the third generation, which I believe is a round

proprietary plug. I could be wrong at this rate.

It’s a square one.

Oh, it’s a square?

Yes.

Okay. I mean, yeah. What do you think there, Marty?

I mean, at this point, you could try to go on Amazon and see if they sell a cable that

you could buy that would replace the one that you have.

But depending on the cost of that,

you might be better served just to get a newer updated one

with that might be newer software and work better for you.

There are not that much, I believe.

I think there are like around a hundred bucks,

I wanna say something like that.

  • Okay, my next, it’s a two-fold question.

When is the rollout gonna be

when the Echos will be compatible with NLS,

you know, with the books on Bard.

  • To the best of my knowledge,

there’s not been any sort of announcements

or release timeframes as of yet.

  • Okay, I know they do bookshare,

but I didn’t know if they did Bard yet.

  • So thank you, Teresa, appreciate it.

And thanks for listening at that point.

It is 57 after.

So we’re gonna go ahead and wrap it up.

And Marty, let people know how they can get in contact

with us and everyone have a great week.

  • Yep, thanks everyone.

If you wanna get ahold of us,

you can reach us at [email protected].

And I wanna say a special thanks to Brad and Debelle

for helping us out today.

We always appreciate it.

And everyone have a great week

and we’ll see you guys next week.

Thank you.

  • Thanks guys.

  • Yep.

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