Simon Jaeger

The post about maximizing windows reminds me of something else many blind people forget or don't know, which is that a screenless Windows computer will always default to a very low resolution (640X480). When an app or a webpage detects a lower resolution, it assumes there's less physical space available, so even a maximized window will lack the full-screen controls because it's trying to fit itself in a tiny rectangle of space. This also affects screen recording and sharing. A laptop with its lid closed counts as a screenless computer.
To check your display resolution on Windows, you can go to display settings. If the tab key never finds a setting to adjust display resolution, that means there's only one choice, which is often a sign that your resolution is locked to 480P. You can use screen reader review commands to check it. It's right after the "Scale" option.
I solve this by buying an "HDMI dummy plug", which is a tiny device that plugs into the HDMI port and pretends it's a real monitor. Many of them support more than one resolution--mine goes all the way to 4K, though that causes noticeable lag on older hardware so I always keep it at 1080P.
@darrell73@mastodon.online@procrastodon.net

If you try to use an iPhone to join (financially support) a youTube channel, you'll find that the youTube app wants to charge 20% more for each membership tier, but the youTube website refuses to show you the join button if it detects you're using an iOS browser. It effectively forces you into the in-app purchase lane for some reason, upcharges you without telling you, and blocks any attempts to circumvent this. You will pay more without knowing Apple is taking a cut. This is one time when both Apple and Google have a moral responsibility to inform the user that part of their purchase goes to Apple, not the content creator. Either or both of them have chosen not to do this.
Apple doesn't force companies to block purchases in Safari. So why is Google doing it? Who the fuck knows. This is just tech in 2026.

The more I think and hear about it, the less I like Eloquence as a manditory subscription. I think CodeFactory should charge for major upgrades, or add a lifetime option, even if it's ten times the cost of the original Eloquence. I've already been burned more than once by Vocalizer randomly deciding I don't have a valid license anymore, forcing me to connect to the internet—which was pretty difficult when my phone refused to say anything except "Please register this copy of Vocalizer TTS." So I think I can be forgiven for not wanting that again. If there's no way to actually own a copy of this new Eloquence, I really hope someone cracks it. But I also know that if someone does crack it, many people will use the crack even if they can afford to pay for it. To be clear, I'll still pay for the subscription, because I want to support continued development of this stuff and no-one else is doing it. I don't even care if the subscription is $10/month. But if this gets abandoned the way everything else has, it will effectively die, and we won't have a leg to stand on because we paid for a month of usage, not perpetual usage. I have phones that still run the version of Eloquence I bought 10 years ago. If CodeFactory ever shuts this down, it'll be instantly gone. So mostly, I hope CodeFactory offers a one-time purchase option—even if it's expensive—so there's less of a need to do any of that. If that doesn't happen, and no one has worked out a way to bypass the activation entirely, I'll need to really think about whether I want my primary synthesizer to be in such a precarious position. @accessibleandroid@mastodon.social @accessibleandroid@mastodon.social