159th episode of the Blind Android Users podcast has landed on your favorite podcatcher of choice. This episode features Conversation with Rastislav Kish from RScan accessibleandroid.com/podcast #Android #accessibility #podcast
This December, if there’s one tech New Year’s resolution I’d encourage you to have, it’s switching to the only remaining ethical web browser, Firefox. According to recent posts on social media, Firefox’s market share is slipping. We should not let that happen. There are two main reasons why switching is important. “Red Panda” by Mathias Appel is marked with CC0 1.0.
1. Privacy
Firefox is the only major browser not built by a company that makes money from advertising and/or selling your personal data. There’s been a lot of talk about websites tracking users using cookies, fingerprinting and other nefarious technologies that hurt your privacy. But owning the browser puts Google, Apple and Microsoft in a position where they don’t even need those tricks. We need to use browsers that are independent, and right now that means Firefox.
2. Browser engine monopoly
Wikipedia lists four browser engines as being “active”. Browser engines are the bits that take a web page’s code and display it on your screen. Ideally, they conform to the official W3C standards, and display all elements as it describes. If that’s the case, web developers can easily write sites that work on all browsers. No proprietary vendor lock-in nonsense, just glorious open standards at work.
It’s happened before
In the early 2000’s, Internet Explorer had a massive 95% market share. This meant that many sites were only developed for use with IE. They’d use experimental features that IE supported, in favor of things from the official HTML standard. This was a very bad situation, which hindered the development of the World Wide Web.
Currenty, Chrome, Safari and Edge all use variations of the closely related Webkit and Blink engines. If we want to avoid another browser engine monopoly, we need to support Firefox, and its “Gecko” engine.
Firefox is actually really good
If Firefox would be a bad browser, I would not recommend you to switch. It’s fast, has a nice user interface, and feels every bit as modern and elegant as its competition. I’ve been using it as my main browser for a couple of years now, on Linux, Windows, MacOS and Android. As a web developer, I usually have at least three browsers open, but when I go look something up on the web, I pick Firefox.
For my non-European readers, here is an excerpt of what the GDPR means: (emphasis mine)
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all
One of my Christmas presents for Bonnie is a custom-built Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. But it’s not quite hear yet, so I produced this little Suno AI song to introduce it to her on Christmas day.
You press the "personalise" button (or similar name) on the relevant Lenovo product page, choose your custom options, and check out as normal. @JonathanMosen
Младшая кошка моей сестры, Стеша. Но не Степанида, как можно было бы предположить, а Стефания. Любопытина и недотрога. Но невозможно удержаться, чтобы хотя бы не попытаться её потискать. Стеша некоторое время терпит домогательства, а потом деликатно выворачивается и уходит. Но недалеко, потому что любит находиться в компании. Просто не трогайте.
> if there is a security-related bug in OpenSSL or cURL. With FSD every maintainer, that uses the affected library has to update his individual package
This is wrong. OpenSSL, cURL and libwebp are part of the base Flatpak runtime which is shared between apps.
A runtime is basically a distro without Linux and systemd.
The European Commission explains that accessibility overlays aren't able to make sites accessible, and can make sites **less** accessible. Promises of an easy solution that skips the work of making a site accessible don't stand up.
Web accessibility overlays are tools or technologies that aim to improve the accessibility of a website. However, claims that a website can be made fully compliant in an automated fashion are not realistic.
This Christmas, I've finally bitten the bullet and done some serious contributing to @openstreetmap (and also joined the OSM Foundation while I was at it). Honestly, I think it's one of the great wonders of the #OpenSource internet, so I wrote a blog post about why I'm contributing (and you should too)
You would make me very happy with a mention owf mapcomplete.org . It is a thematic OSM-viewer and editor in one, geared towards making it easy for newbies and non-tecnical people to contribute. And there are specific maps about trees, ATMs, shops, bicy le pumps, toilets,...
On this day in 2009, I recorded this incredibly silly thing using my Yamaha Motif and a microphone from a Western Electric 2500 telephone through autotune,, because I thought it was a funny juxtaposition of technology, using something so obviously modern with something that was obviously not.
Ésta noche nada de charlas de política con cuñados. ¿Vale? Yo por ejemplo he puesto este mantel navideño. El mantel... 😂😂😂😂 #navidad #Mantel #Nochebuena
An amusing story of someone solving a 22-letter anagram in a few minutes that had resisted other efforts for 13 years. (I just tried the letters on new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anag… and it found 113637 solutions, though some prudent exclusions might have helped.)
As it is a long, long tradition Conversations is available for free on the Google Play store for the last week of December.
This tradition was originally born so that when I meet people at Chaos Communication Congress and they ask what I do, they have an easy way to install Conversations. In that regard it's a very special year as we are seeing the return of CCC.
However if you are meeting loved ones to celebrate something else these days that’s fine too.🎄
F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
Today I’m inviting you to walk with me through a photography session that took place in Nepal a few weeks ago. I’ve saved all my RAW files from that shoot an...
Thirty-four years after it was first released, the same year a movie was made about it's origin story, a thirteen-year-old Twitch streamer named Blue Scuti has become the first human to beat Tetris.
On Thursday, 34 years after the game's original release, a human player crashed NES Tetris for the first time. The game's original programmers assumed that nobody would get past the 'killscreen'...
I think a simple change in nomenclature could help Mastodon incredibly. Servers is an inaccurate term and instance is unfamiliar and vague. Both create tension for new users. Why not simply call Mastodon instances what they are: Communities. Ask users which Mastodon community they'd like to join. Have community rules, community policy, and community leaders. Not server rules, instance moderators and administrators.
In 2014, my children’s wonderful Mum, Amanda, who is now a teacher of blind children, approached me with a problem of great significance.
She was teaching a blind girl who had written to Santa. But the child was worried that Santa wouldn’t be able to read the letter she had written, because it was in Braille. Amanda did her best to assure the child that Santa would have no problem with Braille, but the doubts remained.
Remembering the stories I used to tell our own children when they were younger, Amanda wondered if there might be anything I could do to help.
Well, it certainly made a pleasant change from my regular writing sessions trying to figure out technology and then explain it to other people.
The result was "Louis, the Blind Christmas Elf", which I gave to Amanda in written form.
Amanda loved the story, but came back and said, "why don't you do an audio version? You'd be good at that," again remembering all the funny voices I'd use when reading to our kids.
So, back I went into the studio, to create the narrated audio version.
The reaction to this little story has been so special, and heart-warming. I've heard from so many people. Teachers, parents, grandparents and consumer leaders have all written to me telling me how much the story has meant to them. And every year at this time, I get requests for it. It has now been translated into other languages and even turned into a play.
I'm deeply touched and honoured that it has meant so much to people. In the spirit of being proud to be blind, I offer you this festive story and wish you a merry Christmas.
It's really a wonderful Story. I translated it to German and we read it for a CD for the members of our local blind organization while the pandemic. This year this recording was presented at a special Christmas broadcast on @Ohhfunk.de, a internet radio station mainly made by blind people. We want this story to reach as many people as possible, for it is so great. Thank you a lot for it.
Wonderfull story guys. Huge thanks. @Fanny Bui can you please post a public link to that Ohhfunk station if one already exists? @Jonathan Mosen or anyone else, are you aware of translations of this story published somewhere? I have found the original at mosen.org
@pvagner Ohrfunk.de is a German internet-radiostation. Their website is www.ohrfunk.de. The station hosts the low vision charts (www.lvcharts.de). Disabled people can send their own music, which is introduced once per month and than you can vote. The inventers of this show did a Christmas broadcast and asked the listeneers to submit contributions so we submitted the story.
LibreOffice
in reply to JRelland :flower: • • •