The Post and Video Excel is one of the programs I use frequently so a post on X by Microsoft’s Satya Nadella talking about Copilot in Excel and Agent Mode caught my attention. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s original post is available at this link. In the post, an Excel ad from the 1990s was recreated using Agent Mode in Excel. Dialog alone to me does not convey enough information and I really wish when the…
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Since writing about The Image Description Toolkit (IDT) 4.0 Beta 1 in February, a lot of work on the toolkit has been happening. A new beta is out, new models have been added, the prompt library has grown, and I found a perfect real-world dataset to put the whole system through its paces: NASA’s Image of the Day collection. This post is about what I learned, what the data showed, and why the right prompt…
2 CommentsThis is a textbook example of a complete lack of accountability from both Fidelity Investments and Elan Financial Services for a fundamental accessibility failure. On January 11, 2026, I reported a serious accessibility issue to both Fidelity and Elan around the website used for a Fidelity-branded credit card from Elan. Fidelity confirmed the issue via email to me on January 16, 2026. I’ve had no response from Elan. Two months later and there is no…
One CommentBackground Virtual machines, running one computer as an application inside another, still give me that “kid in a candy store” feeling. They allow me to test, experiment, and safely break things; if it all goes horribly wrong, I can just delete the virtual machine and start over. There is no risk of losing computer access or screen-reading functionality. For the past couple of years, my primary environment has been Parallels on a Mac. I mainly…
Leave a CommentA 4.0Beta1 release of my Image Description Toolkit is now available. If you are unfamiliar with this project, it provides apps to handle image description using Ollama AI models that can run locally. The toolkit is specifically aimed at handling large numbers of images and videos. The toolkit offers both a command line (IDT) version and a graphical version (ImageDescriber) and allows you to generate descriptions based on a series of predefined prompts or add…
One CommentWith the end of the year approaching, I was doing some tax prep. I asked the Windows version of Copilot to convert a final pay summary from my last employer into something that was more readable. To Copilot’s credit, it converted the PDF into a highly accessible Excel spreadsheet. That’s the positive. It is really handy. Unfortunately, that’s not the full story. In reviewing the conversation, here is how the entry providing my answer reads…
Leave a CommentA 3.6.0 release for my Image Description Toolkit is now available. The release features a new –redescribe option as well as support for two Microsoft Florence-2 models via Hugging Face. Redescribe The redescribe option can be used with the command line version of the toolkit to redescribe the same set of images without the need to extract video frames or convert image files to JPG from HEIC. This can save time and allow you to…
2 CommentsUnreal, I read today that Microsoft has started rolling out table support for Notepad. But guess what, if you are using a screen reader, the fact that you are in a table when editing is not communicated at all. This despite the fact that Office has clearly communicated tables when editing for many years with screen readers, including Narrator. So, clearly technical solutions exist and have been used for a long time. Why is something…
2 CommentsIf you follow me on social media, one of the themes you’ll find I talk about fairly often related to accessibility is how text that isn’t shown visually needs to have better verification. This can be anything from alt text on web pages, to the accessible names used in different applications for controls such as menus and more. For several months now, the Windows Copilot app has had a serious problem that fits in this…
2 CommentsWith more AI-driven development I have another sizable update for my Image Description Toolkit or IDT. There is a full What’s New document available. Highlights for this beta release include use of geolocation data when present in images, the ability to download images from a specified web address and have them run through the image description system and numerous other enhancements. You can also keep current with all my projects from my Projects page.
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