menelion

menelion, 2 months ago to windows

today I've heard for the first time about the #RigelA open-source screen reader project for #Windows written in #RustLang. Unfortunately only Readme has an English version, all other documents and code comments are in chinese, but the project seems very promising. Use Google Translate or another translator if you, like me, don't speak Chinese. https://gitcode.net/mzdk100/rigela

menelion, 1 year ago to random

Yesterday at #SightCity I met a Ukrainian man who lost his remaining sight one and a half months ago. One can talk about blind pride, about all the things a blind person can do, but, being blind from birth myself, I have deep empathy towards people like him. I know there are many deaf and deaf-blind people and they live their full life like we do, but whenever I imagine losing my hearing, I shiver in fear.

menelion, 5 months ago to ukrainian

A very merry and happy #Christmas to everyone who celebrate! Especially to my fellow #Ukrainian friends who now officially celebrate Christmas together with all of the Western world!

menelion, 9 months ago to latin

It seems, I've already asked it on Mastodon, but now I really need the answer, if it exists. Does anybody know if there is some kind of a #Braille standard for #Latin vowels with macrons? For more context: In some texts, especially for learners, long vowels in Latin are marked with a macron, i.e., a horizontal line above the vowel. Is there any convention about how to show them in Braille? Thanks! #Blind #Help

menelion, 3 months ago to random

Re last: Please please please, don't use #HCaptcha! We blind people call it HateCaptcha, and it's for a reason. Their accessibility so-called innovative technology is simply broken and doesn't work reliably. You can't imagine how much time I spent fighting with this so-called accessibility cookie. Please don't use it, for goodness sake. #MastoAdmin

menelion, 4 months ago to random

Hi @JonathanMosen! I have a very important piece of news to share: As @ToniBarth mentioned in one of his recent posts, newer Zoom H6 series recorders will have voice feedback in their menus. To be honest, I've been waiting for that for years and years now, since the only "talking" recorders were made by Olympus, and their lack of pop filter and more advanced technologies always disappointed me. If you have any info or, better, an opportunity to contact Zoom and get a unit for review, all the blind community, I'm sure, will be super grateful. Thanks!

menelion, 4 months ago to France

Basically that's it, folks. My work at #InterNations ended today, my apartment in Mannheim is returned to the landlord. There are of course some things to do in Germany (mostly give them money of course), but that's already it. Officially goodbye, Germany. Bonjour, #France!

menelion, 10 months ago to Help

Dear Masto people, I need your help. I need a pair of wired headphones that would comfortably sit on my head and have this function to listen to the outer world, I don't remember its name: when you switch it on, built-in mics allow you to hear what's going on outside. Any ideas, does that exist not in Bluetooth form-factor? USB is OK, I need it for my PC. Thanks! #Help #Headphones #Gadgets

menelion, 1 month ago to random

I've just tried to call #HumanWare Europe in the UK. Guess what they told me to do? Call on the 2nd of January. Thank you so much.

menelion, 10 months ago to random

My first serious feature for #TweeseCake landed in the master branch today. There are places for improvement, but still it's a step forward, I'm far more familiar with the code and with Mastodon protocol now. #Development @app

menelion, 11 months ago to apple

Re last: I don't like many laws pushed by @EU_Commission, but this USB-C law rejoices my heart! Although #Apple already seem to have found a hole in it, it's still super important and will make lives easier.

menelion, 1 year ago to random

A stupid question to #blind #AppleWatch users. Is there a way to know time really silently? I have a Samsung Galaxy Watch 1st generation, and although it has a mode where it conveys time with haptic feedback, most of the cases it unlocks the screen and starts talking. So is there a way to make it show the time without pronouncing a single word? Thanks!

menelion, 11 months ago to random

It's time to make another account for non-English stuff? Or not?..

menelion, 5 months ago to random

I have a #Dell laptop where some internal black magic corrupts (they think "improves") the sound coming even from an external USB sound card (I use my Samson Q2U as an external sound card). I don't wonder even why (because they reckon they know better what I need, of course), but I wonder how! It's not Realtek, it's not a built-in thing, how do they do that?

menelion, 10 months ago to Windows11

For some reason, I started seeing those ugly new #Windows11 context menus only today.

menelion, 1 year ago to fediverse

Question to #Mastodon #Admin people: How much resources do you need for a decently operating instance? How much CPU, RAM, disk space? Thinking about spinning up my own server but I'm really perplexed. Thanks! // CC @admin

menelion, 1 month ago to music

If someone of you didn't hear that, you should, it's a true gem, astonishingly beautiful and pure. #Music #ACapella https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmM1ATJgQE4

menelion, 6 months ago to random

Who is coming to #Rehafair2023 in #Marburg? #Blind #Exhibition

menelion, 11 months ago to TwitterMigration

Ну раз сегодня массовая миграция русскоязычных в Мастодон (если это не так, во всём виноват Алексей @skobkin, который бустит первые посты людей :)), представлюсь снова и по-русски.
Меня зовут Андрей, я разработчик и гик из Украины. Сейчас живу с женой в Мангейме, в Германии. Люблю читать, в основном фантастику и фэнтези всех жанров и научпоп; люблю слушать очень разную музыку, особый интерес питаю к традиционной этнической музыке всех народов мира и классической/академической музыке где-то до начала XX века плюс современный минимализм. Имею жёсткую проукраинскую, проамериканскую и проевропейскую позицию. В свободное время (которого сейчас почти нет) изучаю иностранные языки, так как по образованию я лингвист-переводчик. Не вижу с рождения, хотя обычно не заостряю на этом внимания. Эксперт по адаптивным технологиям и доступности технических решений для незрячих. В этом аккаунте посты в основном по-английски (в Твиттере было два отдельных аккаунта). Всем добро пожаловать. #Introduction #RussianLanguage #TwitterMigration

menelion, 11 months ago to random

Here's today's #RandomLinguisticFact.
"I am a student". A normal English phrase, right? However it might sount strange or redundant in other languages. I have already told you that many languages lack articles, but many languages also lack copula verbs, i.e., the verb "to be" in such phrases. So in Polish, for example, you say nearly the same ("I am student", since no articles exist), but in Russian you'd say "I student", that's it.
Other languages (called pro-drop languages) have the verb "to be" in this place, but they tend to omit the pronoun. So, in Spanish you would usually say "Am a student". And the daily question "How are you?" becomes quite bizarre from an English perspective: "How are?".

menelion, 1 year ago to random

One more #WindowsTerminal tip. Remember I had four tabs open? However it was a bit inconvenient to remember which tab is which, thank gods JAWS announces a tab's number when you do Ctrl+Tab ("Open SSH Client, 2 of 4"). I knew that the second tab is my dump server. However, what if we could have meaningful titles? And you know what? We can! Press Ctrl+Shift+P to open command palette, start typing "rename", arrow down till you hear "Rename tab title...", type a new name and voilà! You have meaningful tab names.
If you are not blind, it's even easier: you need to click the needed tab, then right-click and select Rename Tab.

menelion, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to iOS

Hi dear #iOS users! I have a Health widget on my home screen. Is there a way to make it show steps instead of calories, percentage and what not, or it will be reason number 7001 why I don't like Apple's policies? And if it's the later, please suggest a #VoiceOver accessible app for that? Thanks!

menelion, 12 days ago to github

Hi #blind folks, especially software developers! I'm taking part in a #GitHub research meeting and I hope to raise as many #accessibility points as I can. I was told this fact is not at all confidential, so I may gather feedback.
Here's what I remember: multiline comments are inaccessible (eternal story); sometimes menu roles are used where they shouldn't be (watching repos, reactions etc.). Anything else that really bugs you at GitHub? Thanks!

menelion, 26 days ago to php

Dear #PHP community! Could someone with power please raise an RFC to make the strict parameter of the in_array() built-in function true by default? It's really annoying to remember putting true as the third parameter every time, and not doing it might potentially lead to weird bugs. Thanks!

menelion, 7 months ago to vscode

If you need to use #Atlassian #Confluence at work and you struggle like me because its editor is not accessible for #blind #screenReader users (and they removed the source code editor and don’t want to bring it back), but you still want to create fancy wiki pages without bothering your colleagues and begging them for help, I have a lifehacky solution:

1. Open your favorite editor, mine is #VSCode.
2. Write your wiki page in plain HTML. I mean, with tags and everything.
3. Save it as an HTML file.
4. Open it in a browser.
5. Select all and copy the whole thing. Note to fellow #JAWS users: Make sure you have "Copy full content" set in Quick Settings (JAWSKey+V).
6. Paste your page in the Confluence editor. You may check that the formatting is there by skimming through, it should read headings, lists and so on, akin to how it does it in Microsoft Word.
7. Enjoy and make your colleagues enjoy too!
   P.S. Atlassian products are still a piece of brown substance accessibility-wise, and it’s not chocolate, as far from that as you can imagine.