If your Samba shares are not showing up under the Network Locations on modern Windows it's because the discovery now require a new service to work. Windows now uses something called Web Service Discovery (WSD).
Hey @Castopod thank you for your wonderful software! Do you know if there is any way to keep away from my instance predatory AI evil corps that want to harvest my copyleft audio files to provide proprietary and copyrighted services?
good to know, thanks. In the meantime I see that my castopod instance has a robots.txt file which is currently empty, I will try to open a shell in the Castopod web container and see if I can add to the robots.txt file the lines suggested on this post for blocking AI crawler bots:
If you're looking for LE Audio, or APTX Adaptive on Windows, look no more! There are two dongles I tried: Ugreen BT501: amazon.com/UGREEN-Bluetooth-ap… and Avantalk C82 LEA : amazon.com/Avantalk-C82-Blueto… Both are great little dongles, although I will negate the Ugreen one for always starting at 100% volume when reconnecting or pairing a new device. This is quite annoying as you'll be blasted with loud audio. Button mapping is also different on these models, so let's get into it. The Ugreen one supports Bluetooth 5.3 - but no LE Audio. It's simple, a long button on the top of the little dongle is your key. Press once for reconnect, twice to switch to headset profile. Long-press for pairing mode (3-5 seconds) and a 10 second hold clears pairings. Simple. The headset profile switch is interesting as it re-pairs it as a new soundcard with microphone input. By contrast, the Avantalk is more complex, but BT5.4. The button is on the side of the dongle here, and tripple-pressing it enters LE mode. The device holds separate pairings in each. So you need to switch and remember which mode it is on. To clear pairing, hold button for pairing mode and then double-press, clears both banks. Latency is equal on these, about 50MS. Not quite as good as wired, gaming headsets, but cuts SBC time in half. LE Audio got me closer to 30-40MS as advertised, but mics didn't work on XM6 when in LE Mode.
soundcard, what? Yes, that's right. Both of these little dongles show up as Windows audio devices, unlike some that require an AUX cable to connect audio. By contrast I've plugged them into my iPhone too and have gotten sound. So yes: If you want AirPods-like portability, this can work, as you can effortlessly move headphones across devices. That might be why I'm now really in love with these. I know folks will ask, so in terms of size: No larger than a tiny fingerprint reader. No pigtails here. Just a little dongle that's a little less than a finger's width. The Ugreen one is slightly wider and sticks out more if you care about that sort of thing.
The Avantalk is also fascinating as it has a firmware updater: dfu-data.avantree.com/avantron… This is a small UWP app, and you may need to hit the alt key to get it to gain focus. It reads the device and updates firmware for that little dongle. They recently (10.7.5) added APTX-Lite, which is a new LE codec Qualcomm is testing. So yes, sadly ugreen doesn't have a firmware updater.
Thanks for the reviews on these. I am still unsatisfied, the latency is still high, but this is progress. Given that they appear to be soundcards, it may be that they will continue to work with 7 and 10 quite nicely, though it's difficult to tell.
@techsinger They’re just USB sound cards in disguise. That’s the key. :) To the host, they show up as a USB Audio Class (UAC) device, that's how they get away with Nintendo support. USB-C vs USB-A doesn’t matter: electrically it’s just USB 2.0 audio; using a USB-C→A data adapter is fine too. In theory even Windows 98 SE should support them, but that would be a bold move xD
Indeed :) Not even I would go that far, but thanks again, this is a step forward, as I said. The problem here is that I want perfection and it's just not on the list.
@techsinger Sadly I think LE Audio is getting us there but darn it's slow progress. Right now only one pair, the XM6, really support it as mainstream, and the one place this is most forward is with hearing aids of course. But microphone support per firmware can vary and they don't test against a few devices, so that's probably why XM6 couldn't do microphone in LE Audio mode. In theory it's much nicer too, no more 8K or 11K downsampling, but darn was hoping to see it for myself.
Between LE Audio and APTX adaptive the difference is so minimal. Like 10-20 MS. So sticking to APTX Adaptive isn't bad, just, well, classic Bluetooth. xD
Even the hearing aids aren't great, honestly, not at least as I see them. I'm on Phonak and I swear they're using SBC and not great SBC, at that. I hope to see auracast actually getting to be more or less normal rather than being a weird upgrade that makes your hearing aid guy look at you as if you're speaking another language, but that may take a while. Keep in mind also that the HA manufacturers have reason to push their own tech, it'll take them a good deal of time to adopt the standard, look at how long it took them to adopt BT in the aids themselves.
So: Shokz probably doesn't support these at all, or at least if so, won't reach the achievable latency figures due to the Shokz own chipset not supporting LE audio - yes, I managed to squeeze that out of the company's support department. And what's more, the OpenMeet's communication protocol is a mix of proprietary and Bluetooth non-LE, as it uses 2.4ghz as a coordination transport but the actual connection is Bluetooth, with about 320ms of perceived roundtrip latency.
Oh and if you want to have fun creating your new public_html site on public.monster, but don't want to hand write your html, you can user wwwobble.org bby @ojack !! 💫
Just make your site in wobble web, download code, rename to index.html and upload to public.monster!
iOS Voiceover Tip with the Rotor. This could have been introduced in iOS 18 and I just missed it, but I think it is new for iOS 26. First, for those that might not know, you can copy to the clipboard the last thing that voiceover says. This can come in very handy sometimes. You would do this with a 3 finger quadruple tap. Well, now you can copy multiple things to the clipboard that voiceover says. Not only that, but now there is a rotor choice called, copied speech, that puts the multiple items that you have copied in a list, and you can then just choose which one you want to paste. This just makes this feature much more powerful! All you have to do is just add Copied Speech to your rotor. Just go to settings. Accessibility. Voiceover. Rotor. In there double tap the rotor items button. Here you will find a big list of things that you can add to the rotor. The last item at the bottom will be Copied Speech. Just double tap it to select it to add it to your rotor. This might not be a feature you use a lot, but its good to know that it is available and a choice! Side Tip. You will notice a reorder button with each rotor choice. This allows you to put your rotor items in whatever order you want. Just double tap and hold on the reorder button for the one you want to move, then drag your finger up or down to move it up or down the list. Hope all of this is helpful! 😄. #iOS #rotor #tip #Voiceover #CopiedSpeech #Blind
For anyone who is blind or visually impaired, that teaches people who are still using vision: you may find this guide helpful. Since I have never seen the icons visually, or interacted with the iPhone in that way, I find it necessary to know how things are done for those who are transitioning from using their vision to using voiceover. This is a guide that I developed with ChatGPT, confirmed images on the Dot Pad X, created a document with lots of descriptions, and then had Aira format it for me. The sections in this document were especially chosen because they contain a lot of icons, or the way of interacting with the phone is substantially different from a sided users perspective. I had ChatGPT describe the visual nature of the processes,and then under each section, there is an explanation of how the same action is done with VoiceOver. Anyone who's interested is welcome to download it from the following link: dropbox.com/scl/fi/txtqp07df27…
I was fixing a few memory leaks in the AT-SPI collection tests and being reminded how clunky the C API is in some ways. Part of me would like to make a version 3 and clean up a few things. On the other hand, I'm not sure if anyone uses the C API directly, so it might not matter much. I could say similar things about the DBus API that libatspi wraps, but then I don't know what we want for the future. If someone picks up Newton and finishes it, then I don't think that we'd want an AT-SPI 2, AT-SPI 3, *and* Newton to contend with...
@matt I don't know what might be available in terms of funding--Federico might know better--but it would be awesome if we could find a way to help you get back to it. I wish I was being more helpful, but, alas, I feel like I have too many balls in the air right now and can't see my way towards giving it the focused attention that I think it would need.
The piss babies on the green site forum whining about the reduced motion setting, wanking themselves to death with "animations are inefficient I disable all of them", or going straight to "people with disabilities should not use computers", like the absolute dickheads they are
Hey man, I really appreciate your work on this! Thank you for spending the time and energy on making Free Software more inclusive and better for everyone!
Ironically enough, I actually like how gnome does animations and they help me in directing my focus, while I absolutely have to turn them off on i.e. Android lest I get uncomfortable interacting with the screen at all.
They complain when settings are removed and they complain when settings are added
Phoronix comments have the entertainment value of a shitty reality TV show so I'll look at them occasionally
The comments on the X11 removal article are a hoot. So much misinfo and just straight up delusion. Apparently we're not going to make the GNOME 50 release on time because Wayland was only ever tested in VMs and we're about to find out the hard way it doesn't work on real hardware and has no clients
@tragivictoria I really don't mind these people, outside of some anthropological interest in the amount of self-delusion of competence that motivates them to write stupid comments in a public forum
Most people with disabilities i know turn off animations, because "smooth and fast" animations are much worse for them than something immediately popping into existence.
Gnome is always very patronizing towards disabled people. Why don't you just ask them, how they feel, instead of making something up in your mind?
Prominent other example: The removal of colors and transition to purely symbolic icons. This does not make it easier for color blind people, it makes it harder.
While we are at the topic of accessibility... how good did your wayland transition go for accessibility software like dwell clickers and on screen keyboards?
A Gnome developer claiming that he cares about accessibility is an insult.
Your software is absolutely horrid in that subject. And you regularly mess things up that make it worse. While claiming the opposite.
It's like someone who beats you up and then claims that the beating is actually good for you.
I want to also add as an aside, people with legitimate issues can get swept into the same bucket as bad faith actors like that.
Just wanna be seen: some who want to disable animations aren't wankers, but rather, people like me with sensory sensitivity issues. I disable any kind of animation I can because those kinds of things really intensely distract me. It can be distressing if I can't avoid stuff like that while trying to work and focus
The Unihertz Jelly Star is two years old, runs Android 13, and still does something no other phone can: make me think before I use it. It’s tiny, awkward, and honest — a detox device that actually works. No one’s made anything like it since. Even Unihertz gave up. I looked for something that could replace it. Nothing exists. Read: The Tiny, Brilliant, Infuriating Phone No One Will Replace fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/the… #Unihertz #JellyStar #Android #DigitalMinimalism #TechCulture #Phones #Detox #SmallPhones #Minimalism #Review
I got a unihertz titan mini in an effort to downsize my phone's footprint in my life. It worked great for the 3 months it lasted before the screen died. Unihertz said they'd send me a replacement screen. 6 months later, still no screen. The form factors they make are fantastic but their quality and support are severely lacking. I wish someone else would try to fill this niche as well.
@pluralistic An article that talks about the killjoy of people using AI for fun activities, like escape rooms. A good read. But the part I like was the author’s playful use of enshittification.
“Killjoy in the MachineWhy do so many people use AI to cheat at fun?” by Michelle Santiago Cortés - link to the article: thecut.com/article/would-you-u…
#IETF124 was, of course, great, but I also enjoyed Montreal a lot. My flight home is only this afternoon so I went for a walk to grab some bagels and check out Habitat 67.
Today, I finished my first longer trail run: It was 28.3 km with an elevation gain of 911 m. There were parts that were as steep as 40%. The average outdoor temperature was 7°C, it rained and there was looots of mud. It couldn't have gotten more pleasant than that. ❤️😅
No shit! :) Congrats. How do you feel physically? My legs and feet get fairly tight around 15 kms so I keep increasing the distances very slowly to build up the capacity.
@zoul how do I feel? I'm lying in the bed and hoping that I'll be able to eat soon. 😀 The first 20 km were fairly OK although the surface and weather were difficult. But the climb to Velký Lopeník (~600m in like 4km distance) completely ruined me. Then it became a struggle to finish it. I was having problems with energy and breath, but the muscles were surprisingly holding quite well. Running became uncomfortable in that regard just in the last km when I got back on a paved road.
@zoul hydration was surprisingly a problem, too. I carried 0.5l and refueled from a spring after 17 km and had a cup of tea on Velký Lopeník, but I still felt really thirty. I put more clothes on than others which was a bit unconformable in the first half when we were keeping the pace and definitely contributed to dehydration, but it came handy in the second half when the pace went down and I basically walk any significant climb.
I was on Lopeník countless times, but only once from the southwestern side and I remember the climb very well, hell of a hill. Congrats! Was this some kind of race? @zoul
@def @zoul No, it was part of Red Hat running camp and I was actually the one who came up with the route. If you'd like to make a round trip, there aren't many options here. The logic behind it was that the 4 km would be brutal, but the rest of the run would be okish. But the climb was more brutal than I expected, or I had less energy at its foot than I expected.
Re: last boost (caneandable.social/@JonathanMo…): Glen Gordon deserves immense respect for his contributions to assistive technology for blind people. During the critical transition to the GUI as the dominant type of user interface in the 90s, JAWS set the standard for what GUI screen readers should be able to do, and as Jonathan said, Glen played a critical role in that. Thank you, Glen, for everything you've contributed and for staying true to your values.
It is impossible to overstate the contribution Glen Gordon has made to the #accessibility industry. More important even than that, his meticulous attention to detail and his understanding that something must be more than accessible, it must be efficient, has helped countless people to be productive at work, at school, and just when living life. Glen devised many concepts that are now just thought of as the way things are done in a graphical user interface. On top of all that, he is one of the nicest, most humble people I’ve ever met and worked with. I have heard from several young people following the National Federation of the Blind’s National Convention, at which we honored Glen with the prestigious Kenneth Jernigan award and he offered some wise advice, that Glen inspired them. You are a legend, Glen. And although the words seem ridiculously inadequate, all I can say in conclusion is, thank you so much for all you have done. I am pasting Glen’s LinkedIn post for those who are not over there. Glen Gordon, Screen reading for the blind software pioneer, 24 minutes ago • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn, 1st Today is a very sad day for me, since after nearly 32 years, it’s the first day that I’m no longer working on the JAWS screen reader. I’ve voluntarily resigned my position at Freedom Scientific/Vispero because I found myself unable to continue working for a company that’s changing in ways that are moving away from my personal values. As recently as the 2025 NFB convention, I was thinking that I’d be working on JAWS far into the future. Much to my surprise, a recent influx of new Executive leaders and customer facing product related changes convinced me that it was time to leave. I leave behind a group of smart and passionate colleagues, and products which are the best in class. It’s been a great journey, and I thank all of you who have been users of Freedom Scientific software for some or all that time. Yes, I’m retiring, in the sense that I’m of retirement age and not actively seeking another job. But I’m resigning in the sense that I felt I needed to take a principled stand. I will continue doing my part to improve the state of accessibility. What that will look like will evolve over time.
I hope Glen takes some time to take a well-deserved break. Whenever he's ready to continue doing his part to improve the state of accessibility, I look forward to seeing what that looks like.
Jonathan's toot (the one I boosted) included a copy of Glen's announcement on LinkedIn, but here's the actual link, in case anyone wants to comment over there (I don't have an account there): linkedin.com/posts/glen-gordon…
Off-topic, but I had an account once, and now I'm locked out of it because my password was compromised in a data breach a long time ago, and they want me to provide a photo ID to prove my identity, and, last time I tried, I couldn't get their page to let me do that. I think that I tried on my phone and ended up in an endless loop where I was bumped back to the login screen or something like that.
Yes, I am immensely grateful to him for working on Jaws for all those many years, especially during the 90s when a lot of us wondered if the windows platform would be accessible to us. I remember sitting in a meeting room at a blindness convention, where we discussed this very thing. I wish him all the very best in his retirement and if he chooses to work with accessibility, I look forward to seeing what he does, as well!
(1) Wenn Menschen gute Bücher und Online-Texte wahrnehmen, kaufen, lesen, besprechen, empfehlen, dann werden weiterhin gute Bücher und Online-Texte gemacht. Sonst nicht.
(2) Wenn Menschen Clickbait-Inhalte, deren einziger »Sinn« es ist, performatives Aufregungsmarketing zu sein, »kaufen« (anklicken), konsumieren, »empfehlen« (aufgebracht teilen), dann werden weiterhin Clickbait-Hetz-Inhalte produziert. Sonst nicht.
It is impossible to overstate the contribution Glen Gordon has made to the #accessibility industry. More important even than that, his meticulous attention to detail and his understanding that something must be more than accessible, it must be efficient, has helped countless people to be productive at work, at school, and just when living life. Glen devised many concepts that are now just thought of as the way things are done in a graphical user interface. On top of all that, he is one of the nicest, most humble people I’ve ever met and worked with. I have heard from several young people following the National Federation of the Blind’s National Convention, at which we honored Glen with the prestigious Kenneth Jernigan award and he offered some wise advice, that Glen inspired them. You are a legend, Glen. And although the words seem ridiculously inadequate, all I can say in conclusion is, thank you so much for all you have done. I am pasting Glen’s LinkedIn post for those who are not over there. Glen Gordon, Screen reading for the blind software pioneer, 24 minutes ago • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn, 1st Today is a very sad day for me, since after nearly 32 years, it’s the first day that I’m no longer working on the JAWS screen reader. I’ve voluntarily resigned my position at Freedom Scientific/Vispero because I found myself unable to continue working for a company that’s changing in ways that are moving away from my personal values. As recently as the 2025 NFB convention, I was thinking that I’d be working on JAWS far into the future. Much to my surprise, a recent influx of new Executive leaders and customer facing product related changes convinced me that it was time to leave. I leave behind a group of smart and passionate colleagues, and products which are the best in class. It’s been a great journey, and I thank all of you who have been users of Freedom Scientific software for some or all that time. Yes, I’m retiring, in the sense that I’m of retirement age and not actively seeking another job. But I’m resigning in the sense that I felt I needed to take a principled stand. I will continue doing my part to improve the state of accessibility. What that will look like will evolve over time.
@menelion That is sad to hear and fully agree re Glenn's contributions to the accessibilityindustry. I'm sure though Glenn will continue to do great things.
I'm curious if my current way of setting a minimum font size of 12 points, while respecting the user's settings, works for you: divtune.com/ Yes, it's a really simple page layout with mostly text (plus one video).
The way it works - in my experience - is that it doesn't matter what method the developer uses to set the font size. If my browser is set with a minimum that is larger than what the page says it will use what I set in the browser.
Most often this breaks CSS styled buttons because the developers use pixel sizes for the button styling that don't expand with text size but my fonts are too big to fit.
more amused than I should be that this is the Rt Hon Paul J Martin (named after the _father_ of former Prime Minister and Canada Steamship Lines CEO Paul Martin) 😅
By day, I'm the CXO of saleor.io, the free commerce engine that's ready for everything—headless, composable, agentic. By night, I'm the Head of MX at public.monster. That's right, HEAD OF MONSTER EXPERIENCE.
Get the latest from Bruce here! https://brucespringsteen.lnk.to/newsletter-subscribeIDOfficial Video for "You Never Can Tell" by Bruce SpringsteenListen to B...
Castopod
in reply to Carlo Gubitosa • • •Carlo Gubitosa
in reply to Castopod • • •good to know, thanks. In the meantime I see that my castopod instance has a robots.txt file which is currently empty, I will try to open a shell in the Castopod web container and see if I can add to the robots.txt file the lines suggested on this post for blocking AI crawler bots:
cyberciti.biz/web-developer/bl…