I want to say upfront the vast majority of the code here was written using prompts to ChatGPT. I wanted to see how the AI tool worked for a simple coding project and jump start my own use of Python. Once I started with ChatGPT, I found making adjustments in the scripts myself and then working with ChatGPT became a challenge so for this effort, I opted to use prompts to ChatGPT exclusively. I suspect…
One CommentThe Idea Place Posts
While the digital world offers an abundance of online news sources, accessibility is still a work-in-progress far too often. It is commonplace to spend more time navigating to content than reading that content when using screen reading technology. Poor heading structure, Ads lacking accessibility that are mixed in with the news story, multimedia that plays silently and grabs focus and much more take away from the reading experience. A public library card and a resource…
Leave a CommentNote: I have tried to make it clear in the text here but everything in this post starting with the text “### blog post” and beyond is a direct copy and paste from ChatGPT and not authored by myself. As AI is introduced into more and more of society, I use it myself for a range of tasks. There’s the obvious picture descriptions, where as someone who’s blind, AI has made meaningful enhancements to many…
Leave a CommentA few months ago, I wrote about audio ducking in iOS 18. Since the initial release came out, there has been a small refinement to what I originally described. The ducking choices themselves remain the same: off, when speaking and always. The ducking amount, however, has been moved to a separate setting by the name of Ducking Amount that you can add to the VoiceOver rotor. To find this setting, open Settings, Accessibility, VoiceOver, Rotor…
One CommentAs a matter of choice, not necessity, I try from time to time to use the various speech and voice input systems in operating systems. My ideal scenario is still to be able to use the computer by voice entirely as well as running a screen meter. I’ve not found a reliable solution as of yet that meets my needs completely. I know there are combinations of solutions that have made great strides in this…
Leave a CommentMicrosoft released the Recall feature for users of Windows Insider builds. I gave the feature a try and made an audio recording with a roughly edited transcript. The short version of my experience is that I can get around Recall but am still trying to figure out how to read search results effectively with a screen reader, hence the title of No Big Finish. Since this blog post is about an AI feature, I’ll offer…
Leave a CommentSometimes you make a handy discovery that makes you wonder why you did not know about it long before. I just had that happen with PowerToys Run, one of the toys included in the full suite of items in the electronic toybox known as Windows PowerToys. PowerToys are a set of utilities that allow you to customize different aspects of Windows and offer functionality that is not directly built in. You can learn more in…
Leave a CommentFlying home from a recent vacation, I had a first for myself. I independently used the in-flight entertainment system to track my flight, listen to music, and watch a movie with audio descriptions. I even played a bit of trivia for a bit. How fun! I’m not sure when United Airlines added accessibility to their in-flight technology, but it was available on the return flights of my trip. The system used TalkBack and a two-finger…
Leave a CommentI’ve written previously about tracking a fantasy football draft in Excel. The 2024 version of my Excel Tracker is now available. My podcast, The Podcast To Be Named Later, also has a demonstration of using the 2024 version of the tracker with a screen reader.
Leave a CommentOne of the larger changes I’ve encountered in the Mac OS 15 betas is not immediately obvious unless you know to hunt for it. The VoiceOver Commanders item within VoiceOver Settings has been replaced with an item named Commands. But this is far more than just the renaming of the same old controls. The various tabs for the different commanders such as Numpad and Trackpad have been replaced with check boxes to turn control on…
Leave a Comment