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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
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completely blind computer geek, lover of science fiction and fantasy (especially LitRPG). I work in accessibility, but my opinions are my own, not that of my employer. Fandoms: Harry Potter, Discworld, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Buffy, Dead Like Me, Glee, and I'll read fanfic of pretty much anything that crosses over with one of those.
keyoxide: aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
Location Ottawa
Birthday 1987-12-20
Pronouns he/him (EN)
xmpp fastfinge@im.interfree.ca
keyoxide aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
blog https://stuff.interfree.ca/
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Yup, Nova Launcher has already made my life significantly better. And the tip about not using volume fixed my issues with accessibility voice typing and gemini. Apparently the secret to using Android is just replacing all of it.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexchapman Interesting, I'll let you know if I notice any changes.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@J3317 Yeah, Nova is on my list to investigate.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Android Days two and three: There has to be a way to make this better. Where I become frustrated with the out of the box experience and try to improve things: stuff.interfree.ca/2025/05/27/android-23.html
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
First post from tusky!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@talon @jscholes And yet, at least in my experience, NVDA is the screen reader with the fewest number of these sorts of bugs. Apple isn't interested in fixing anything; they have fifty new features to ad to voiceover. Jaws needs to add AI everywhere to justify making the software a yearly subscription, and have started regularly just listing bug fixes as new features to justify a new major version. Narrator gets one or two new features a year, and maybe a bug fixed every once in a while. And if NVDA doesn't add stuff like this, people will complain that they're falling behind. Honestly I hope they can add extra optional AI features like translation, image description, cloud preferences syncing, etc, as a subscription feature, to make NV Access a bit of money. The NVDA Spanish guys are doing it right with a paid subscription to access their LibreTranslate. The model also seems to work for ZDSR and jieshuo: offer a free screen reader, with subscription AI addons. In all of these cases, the payment and licensing infrastructure is awful. But NV Access could get this right, and hopefully unlock a funding model that isn't just begging for donations.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@tjolsen @Jage @jscholes @jcsteh @talon The problem is I'm pretty sure this is Microsoft's fault; I experience excel freezes with Narrator pretty frequently, ttoo. The only place they don't happen is jaws, so they're obviously doing something custom to work around it that they're not going to share with the rest of us.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Uh, Amazon? Your AI is drunk! Take it home and let it sleep it off!

Recommended for you in Religion & Spirituality:
* Succubus Summoner 3: A High Fantasy Romance by Virgil Knightley
* The Familiar Stranger: (Re)Introducing the Holy Spirit to Those in Search of an Experiential Spirituality by Tyler Staton

One of these books is not like the other one...
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@J3317 @alexchapman It doesn’t. It also doesn’t seem to see them all. Like I can’t get to the full app list the way I can in talk back.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexchapman One would hope. All there games are major bug fests. That’s why I decided to try csr first.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexchapman Does it have fewer bugs than ranger legend? Lol
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexchapman Is prudence better? It looks less feature complete?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexchapman I’m looking at csr. But it looks like it doesn’t support talk back actions?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexchapman Tomorrow I’m going to investigate third party screen readers. There has to be a way to make this better.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@JamminJerry I wonder if it’s the sounds? iOS speaks at the same time as the sounds. Android seems like it doesn’t.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexchapman I tried espeak in hopes it would make talk back less laggy. It did not.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@JamminJerry My biggest struggle right now is that explore by touch just completely stops working every 30 minutes or so. I have to lock the phone and unlock it again to make it start working. It’s infuriating. I can’t even type when it happens because only flick works. That and talk back is just! So! Slow! 1.5 seconds to scroll a list. Lag when typing. Etc. I thought Google tts was the issue, so I switched to espeak. No change. Voiceover is faster on my iPhone 8. What can I do to make talk back actually responsive? Because this is killing me.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@tardis @dhamlinmusic I got the Pixel 9A
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Android Day One: How do I go home?
The phone arrives, and I unbox and turn it on.
stuff.interfree.ca/2025/05/24/android1.html
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Has anyone who is or using a had any experience with the VR-n76 handheld? Is the app with ? Can you use most functions through the app (IE, it would be possible to use the radio without seeing its screen)? I'm thinking about one for a summer trip, if only I knew I could use it. www.verotelecom.com/VR-N76-Dual-Band-Handheld-Radio-p2511333.html
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