Hi,

My husband and I are both totally blind and just had a nightmare of
installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 so that we could get the latest
build. Before this we were happily using Real Speak Tom with the
latest build of NVDA as this is the best voice for me, with a slight
hearing impairment. We can't seem to get this voice installed where it
needs to go so that it can be used. I'd heard there were some voices
that could not be used anymore with the latest Windows build. Please
tell me this is not one of them and if it can still be used, please,
would someone help me in doing this? Please? Thanks. We're currently
using Microsoft Mark as it's better for me than David, but I still
have some trouble with it and would appreciate any help from anyone
that could.


On 1/19/2018 7:21 PM, Joseph Lee wrote:

Hi,
Fragmentation will happen as long as new information is written in
places that'll cause problems for fast reading later. Also, while
something is running, the operating system will still need to access
things on disk if asked by the program.
As for swapping configurations: in theory, yes as long as the
versions are compatible enough to not cause visible side effects. For
example, if one swaps configurations between stable and next
branches, that could raise problems in that some things required by
next snapshots might not be present.
As for the add-on being the culprit: could be. One thing to try
though: what if Roger runs his portable copy with all add-ons
disabled? If that improves performance, then it could be an add-on,
if not, we should try something else.
Implicating file systems: Roger did say this is an internal drive,
hence I put more weight on possible fragmentation and data movement
issues.
Cheers,
Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of
Didier Colle
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 3:40 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Portable version degrading

Dear Joseph, roger, all,


@Joseph: not sure to understand what point you try to make. Is your
suggestion there is indeed a filesystem problem as the root cause?


trying to recapitulate a few things:

* "it can make it appear that the add on is defective or has a bug while
it really doesn't."

@Roger: for any further meaningful diagnosis, I believe a more concrete
symptom description is needed? (how does such "would be" bug manifestate
itself? Is it always the same "would be" bug or do many "would be" bugs
appear randomly? when do such "would be" bugs appear (during loading,
during execution of the add-on)?)

* "there's no file system errors"

I guess that means there are no issues with the
physical/electronic/magnetic integrity of the storage medium itself (or
that the filesystem has set them aside such that they are not used
anymore). In case corrupted/broken blocks on the storage medium would be
the root cause, something should be found in the logs as loading the
relevant python modules should throw an exception (if these exceptions
are not logged, it should be possible to do so). Therefore, I dismiss
storage medium/filesystem corruption as root cause of the above
mentioned "would be" bugs (assuming bugs have to be interpreted as
broken functionality).


* "I also notice a few functions of nvda either don't work at all or
nvda gets very sluggish in responsiveness"
@Roger: again, for any meaningfull diagnosis, provide a more concrete
symptiom description. What functions are you exactly speaking about?
What does "not work at all" exactly mean: do you mean sluggishness with
extremely long / infinite response times? Or do you get errors? or ...
Is the sluggishness general or does it happen in those specific
functions? What do you mean by sluggishness: response in only a second?
A few seconds? A minute or more? When does sluggishness happen: at time
of loading add-on/modules or continuously or ...?
* "... nor any fragmenting.". Statement from Joseph: "In case of Roger's
issue: a possible contributing factor is constant add-on updates. He
uses an add-on that is updated on a regular basis, .. ..., potentially
fragmenting bits of files ..."
The two statements appear to me as contradictory. Fragmentation may be a
root cause of sluggishness, but only when access to storage medium is
needed and not during general execution which typically takes place from
RAM rather then from disc. Therefore, fragmentation issues appear very
unlikely to me.

* "while the installed version is always stable as a rock." and "I use
the portable copy to test a couple add ons"
@Roger: how much do you use one and the other? How much usage does it
take before the portable copy gets degraded?
The two statements suggest there is a problem with the portable copies.
However, there seems to be nobody else experiencing the same problem.
Thus, I would translate this into the following question that you would
need to test/investigage further: is there a conflict between the
portable copies and your specific system setup, or is the issue caused
by the add-ons under test?
To test the former possibility, why not using a fresh portable copy
replicating the setup of your installed version instead of that
installed version for a while?
To test the latter that would probably require moving the add-on testing
to the installed version: I guess you are using the portable version for
this purpose, exactly to avoid messing up the installed version. Would
you have the possibility to do the testing in for example a virtual
machine, such that you can test on an installed instead of a portable
copy version, while not messing up your main system with this testing?
Joseph, anyone else: is there a (possibly more cumbersome) way to
perform testing on an installed version while keeping at all times a
possibility to revert back to a stable/clean situation? (e.g., having a
.bat script that swaps configuration file and add-on directories between
stable and testing versions and that can easily be executed in between
exiting nvda and restarting it?)
In case none of the above options is tried, my suggestions would be then
to regularly take snapshot copies of your portable copy such that when
degradation takes place a diff between stable and degraded version can
be taken and investigated.

In summary, I believe:
1) a much more concrete/detailed/... symptom description is needed
before any meaningful statements regarding diagnosis is possible;
2) with the info I have, filesystem/storage medium problems/corruptions
are very unlikely.
3) further testing/investigation is needed in order to support/dismiss
certain hypotheses.

Kind regards,

Didier

On 19/01/2018 18:19, Joseph Lee wrote:

Hi,
It'll depend on what type of drive it is. If it's a traditional hard
drive,
it'll degrade as data moves around, creating the need for
defragmentation.
This is especially the case when data is repeatedly written and the
file
system is asked to find new locations to hold the constantly
changing data.
In case of solid-state drives, it'll degrade if the same region is
written
repeatedly, as flash memory has limited endurance when it comes to data
reads and writes.
In case of Roger's issue: a possible contributing factor is constant
add-on
updates. He uses an add-on that is updated on a regular basis, putting
strain on part of the drive where the add-on bits are stored. Thus,
some
drive sectors are repeatedly bombarded with new information, and one
way
operating systems will do in this case is move the new data
somewhere else
on the drive, potentially fragmenting bits of files (I'll explain in a
moment). Thus one solution is to not test all add-on updates, but
that's a
bit risky as Roger is one of the key testers for this add-on I'm
talking
about.
Regarding fragmentation and what not: the following is a bit geeky
but I
believe you should know about how some parts of a file system (an in
extension, operating systems) works, because I believe it'll help folks
better understand what might be going on:
Storage devices encountered in the wild are typically organized into
many
parts, typically into blocks of fixed-length units called "sectors". A
sector is smallest unit of information that the storage device can
present
to the outside world, as in how much data can be held on a storage
device.
For example, when you store a small document on a hard disk drive
(HDD) and
when you wish to open it in Notepad, Windows will ask a module
that's in
charge of organizing and interpreting data on a drive (called a file
system)
to locate the sector where the document (or magnets or flash cells that
constitute the document data) is stored and bring it out to you. To
you, all
you see is the path to the document, but the file system will ask
the drive
controller (a small computer inside hard disks and other storage
devices) to
fetch data in a particular sector or region. Depending on what kind of
storage medium you're dealing with, reading from disks may involve
waiting
for a platter with desired sector to come to the attention of a
read/write
head (a thin magnetic sensor used to detect or make changes to magnetic
fields) or peering inside windows and extracting electrons trapped
within.
This last sentence is a vivid description of how hard disks and
solid-state
drives really work behind the scenes, respectively.
But storage devices are not just meant for reading things for your
enjoyment. Without means of storing new things, it becomes useless.
Depending on the medium you've got, when you save something to a
storage
device, the file system in charge of the device will ask the drive
controller to either find a spot on a disk filled with magnets and
change
some magnets, or apply heat pressure to dislodge all cells on a
block, erase
the block, add new things, and fill the empty block with modified data
(including old bits). You can imagine how tedious this can get, but
as far
as your work is concerned, it is safe and sound.
Now imagine you wish to read and write repeatedly on a storage
device. The
file system will repeatedly ask the drive hardware to fetch data from
specific regions, and will look for new locations to store changes.
On a
hard drive, because there are limited number of heads and it'll take
a while
for desired magnetic region to come to attention of one, read speed
is slow,
hence increased latency (latency refers to how long you have to wait
for
something to happen). When it comes to saving things to HDD's, all
the drive
needs to do is tell the read/write head to change some magnets
wherever it
wishes, hence data overriding is possible and easy. But operating
systems
(rather, file systems) are smarter than that, as we'll see below.
In case of solid-state drives, reading data is simple as looking up the
address (or sector) where the electrons comprising the data you want is
saved (akin to walking down a street grid), so no need to wait for a
sensor
to wait for something to happen. This is the reason why solid-state
drives
appear to respond fast when reading something. On the other hand,
writing or
injecting electrons is very slow because the drive needs to erase
the entire
block before writing new data. In other words, just changing a
letter in a
document and saving it to an SSD involves a lot of work, hence SSD's
are
slower when it comes to writing new things, but because of the
underlying
technology in use, it is way faster than hard disks.
As hinted above, file systems are smarter than drive controllers to
some
extent. If data is written to a drive, the drive controller will
process
whatever it comes along its path. But file systems won't let drive
controllers get away with that: file systems such as NTFS (New
Technology
File System) will schedule data writes so it'll have minimal impact
on the
lifespan of a storage device. For hard disks, it'll try its best to
tell the
drive to store file data in consecutive locations in one big batch,
but that
doesn't always work. For SSD's, the file system will ask the drive to
storage new information in different cells so all regions can be used
equally (at least for storing new information; this is called ware
leveling). One way to speed things up is asking the drive to
reorganize data
so file fragments can be found in consecutive sectors or trim deleted
regions so fresh information can be written to more blocks (for
HDD's and
SSD's, respectively), and this operation itself is tedious and
produce bad
results if not done correctly and carefully.

I do understand the above explanation is a bit geeky, but I believe
you need
to know some things about how things work. It is also a personal
exercise to
refresh my memory on certain computer science topics (I majored in
it not
long ago, and my interests were mostly hardware and operating
systems, hence
I was sort of naturally drawn to screen reader internals and how it
interacts with system software).
Cheers,
Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of
Roger
Stewart
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 7:58 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Portable version degrading

The problem with this discussion is my portable version is on an
internal
hard drive.  So why is this degrading?

Nothing else on this drive has any trouble and I've checked, and
there's no
file system errors nor any fragmenting.


Roger












On 1/19/2018 8:28 AM, Antony Stone wrote:

USB drives do need to be unmounted before removing them, otherwise
there

is

the risk of file system corruption. Precisely the same is true for

external

hard drives, floppy disks, or any other writeable medium you can

temporarily

attach to a computer.

I've never seen a USB thumb drive fall apart, and I think they're

considerably

more robust than floppy disks, which is basically what they
replaced.  You

can

also drop them on the floor with a good deal more confidence of them

working

afterwards than if you drop an external hard disk.

Yes, they're vulnerable to static electricity; that's why most of them

have

plastic caps to put over the contacts or a slider to retract the
contacts

into

the body.

My experience is that if they're treated reasonably they work very
well.

If

they're mistreated they'll give as many problems as any other
mistreated
storage medium.


Antony.

On Friday 19 January 2018 at 15:17:36, tonea.ctr.morrow@faa.gov wrote:

A few years back, I had a job for three years where people brought me

their

files on USB thumb drives. These things are horrible in terms of
long-life. The really do have to be unmounted prior to removing
from the
computer or they get corrupted. They physically fall apart easily.
And,
the hardware inside seems to be more vulnerable to static electricity

data

loss than other portable drives, certainly more vulnerable than most
computers.



I would think that would be the problem.



Tonea



-----Original Message-----

I've noticed over the past couple years that my portable install
of nvda
will sometimes degrade or get a bit corrupted over time all by itself
while the installed version is always stable as a rock. Does
anyone know
why this is and is there any way to prevent this from happening? 
I use
the portable copy to test a couple add ons and if the portable
version
corrupts, it can make it appear that the add on is defective or
has a bug
while it really doesn't.  Deleting the portable copy and making a
new one
will clear it up.  I also notice a few functions of nvda either don't

work

at all or nvda gets very sluggish in responsiveness and this all gets

back

to normal after a complete flush and remake of the portable
version.  As

I

say, this never has happened at all with my installed copy on the
same
computer.





Roger

Hello,

I posted a comment on this blog about sounds in future Firefox (see it) and MR Zehe replied me, that he has not known Navigational sounds addon until now and there is currently no plan to embed sounds into Firefox. So if we want this feature, we must contact developers and politely request this feature.

regards, Jožef

I never found any extra checkbox on the 7 home machine, but did on the pro 7 machine, which is most peculiar.
Brian

bglists@blueyonder.co.uk
Sent via blueyonder.
Please address personal email to:-
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk, putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Shaun Everiss" <sm.everiss@gmail.com>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2018 6:37 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Two cautionary tales, beware and a laugh.

Yeah, you need to tab twice to a checkbox and uncheck it and just make sure to do it the first time round else you will have to exit and relaunch the installer.

ccleaner is part of avast now so we are stuck with it now.

You just have to be awake, the first tab will mention something about security, tab again and there is the checkbox, overshoot and the installer will look like normal and you have to exit and come back in.

I usually update first thing in the morning but if you are half a sleep you will probably miss it.

Sadly a friend used a lot of free cleaners, cleanmaster, puron, ccleaner, and his admin decided that all the free software he loaded including ccleaner was malware filled.

And told him to use norton which his work uses.

Trouble is the interface is rather to complex.

For whatever reason some of my friends used norton at home and still use it.

Especially with the cpu slowdowns and patches, norton is just not something I'd use.




On 23/01/2018 1:00 a.m., Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io wrote:

Firstly the latest version of Ccleaner is becoming a pest. it seems to be able to unilaterally decide to install avast anti virus without telling anyone until its too late. Unchecky did not spot it and yesterday, I twice had to take a machine back a day to get rid of it as I'm sure you are all aware how unfriendly the uninstaller is to screenreaders. Its left bits all over the machine, including in some folders labelled Cisco for some reason.
I fell that I need to warn folk about this unacceptable behaviour of ccleaner. It claims, apparently to be easy to remove but not for us.

Secondly the laugh.
Microsoft Security Essentials is something we use in Windows 7, but a person I know was having issues with it crashing, so he sent me a dictated email about it via his Iphone. This wonderful software has renamed this Microsoft program as
Microsoft Security Squirrels.


OK fine, so I had this wonderful picture of the innards of my machine with all These squirrels inside burying viruses all over the place.
Brian

bglists@blueyonder.co.uk
Sent via blueyonder.
Please address personal email to:-
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk, putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.

Hi,

When something like this happens, try the usual troubleshooting steps, starting with restarting NVDA to see if fixes this. If not fixed, talk to me on the list so we can troubleshoot this.

Cheers,

Joseph

Hi all!

I am running Win10 1709.

I downloaded the latest master development version of NVDA:

Master 14785

I have the latest development version of Win10 apps assentials:

When I press the Windows key, NVDA will not bring up results when I search, and NVDA will not do anything, in the start area,  when I try to tab to the mike, to the all apps, or any of that. I have to do object navigation in there, and that does not work well.

I just thought all of you would like to know, and if any of you have noticed this behavior in the start area with these latest development versions.

Take care, all!

David Moore

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Hi,
Fragmentation will happen as long as new information is written in places that'll cause problems for fast reading later. Also, while something is running, the operating system will still need to access things on disk if asked by the program.
As for swapping configurations: in theory, yes as long as the versions are compatible enough to not cause visible side effects. For example, if one swaps configurations between stable and next branches, that could raise problems in that some things required by next snapshots might not be present.
As for the add-on being the culprit: could be. One thing to try though: what if Roger runs his portable copy with all add-ons disabled? If that improves performance, then it could be an add-on, if not, we should try something else.
Implicating file systems: Roger did say this is an internal drive, hence I put more weight on possible fragmentation and data movement issues.
Cheers,
Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Didier Colle
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 3:40 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Portable version degrading

Dear Joseph, roger, all,


@Joseph: not sure to understand what point you try to make. Is your suggestion there is indeed a filesystem problem as the root cause?


trying to recapitulate a few things:

* "it can make it appear that the add on is defective or has a bug while
it really doesn't."

@Roger: for any further meaningful diagnosis, I believe a more concrete
symptom description is needed? (how does such "would be" bug manifestate
itself? Is it always the same "would be" bug or do many "would be" bugs
appear randomly? when do such "would be" bugs appear (during loading,
during execution of the add-on)?)

* "there's no file system errors"

I guess that means there are no issues with the
physical/electronic/magnetic integrity of the storage medium itself (or
that the filesystem has set them aside such that they are not used
anymore). In case corrupted/broken blocks on the storage medium would be
the root cause, something should be found in the logs as loading the
relevant python modules should throw an exception (if these exceptions
are not logged, it should be possible to do so). Therefore, I dismiss
storage medium/filesystem corruption as root cause of the above
mentioned "would be" bugs (assuming bugs have to be interpreted as
broken functionality).


* "I also notice a few functions of nvda either don't work at all or
nvda gets very sluggish in responsiveness"
@Roger: again, for any meaningfull diagnosis, provide a more concrete
symptiom description. What functions are you exactly speaking about?
What does "not work at all" exactly mean: do you mean sluggishness with
extremely long / infinite response times? Or do you get errors? or ...
Is the sluggishness general or does it happen in those specific
functions? What do you mean by sluggishness: response in only a second?
A few seconds? A minute or more? When does sluggishness happen: at time
of loading add-on/modules or continuously or ...?
* "... nor any fragmenting.". Statement from Joseph: "In case of Roger's
issue: a possible contributing factor is constant add-on updates. He
uses an add-on that is updated on a regular basis, .. ..., potentially
fragmenting bits of files ..."
The two statements appear to me as contradictory. Fragmentation may be a
root cause of sluggishness, but only when access to storage medium is
needed and not during general execution which typically takes place from
RAM rather then from disc. Therefore, fragmentation issues appear very
unlikely to me.

* "while the installed version is always stable as a rock." and "I use
the portable copy to test a couple add ons"
@Roger: how much do you use one and the other? How much usage does it
take before the portable copy gets degraded?
The two statements suggest there is a problem with the portable copies.
However, there seems to be nobody else experiencing the same problem.
Thus, I would translate this into the following question that you would
need to test/investigage further: is there a conflict between the
portable copies and your specific system setup, or is the issue caused
by the add-ons under test?
To test the former possibility, why not using a fresh portable copy
replicating the setup of your installed version instead of that
installed version for a while?
To test the latter that would probably require moving the add-on testing
to the installed version: I guess you are using the portable version for
this purpose, exactly to avoid messing up the installed version. Would
you have the possibility to do the testing in for example a virtual
machine, such that you can test on an installed instead of a portable
copy version, while not messing up your main system with this testing?
Joseph, anyone else: is there a (possibly more cumbersome) way to
perform testing on an installed version while keeping at all times a
possibility to revert back to a stable/clean situation? (e.g., having a
.bat script that swaps configuration file and add-on directories between
stable and testing versions and that can easily be executed in between
exiting nvda and restarting it?)
In case none of the above options is tried, my suggestions would be then
to regularly take snapshot copies of your portable copy such that when
degradation takes place a diff between stable and degraded version can
be taken and investigated.

In summary, I believe:
1) a much more concrete/detailed/... symptom description is needed
before any meaningful statements regarding diagnosis is possible;
2) with the info I have, filesystem/storage medium problems/corruptions
are very unlikely.
3) further testing/investigation is needed in order to support/dismiss
certain hypotheses.

Kind regards,

Didier

On 19/01/2018 18:19, Joseph Lee wrote:

Hi,
It'll depend on what type of drive it is. If it's a traditional hard drive,
it'll degrade as data moves around, creating the need for defragmentation.
This is especially the case when data is repeatedly written and the file
system is asked to find new locations to hold the constantly changing data.
In case of solid-state drives, it'll degrade if the same region is written
repeatedly, as flash memory has limited endurance when it comes to data
reads and writes.
In case of Roger's issue: a possible contributing factor is constant add-on
updates. He uses an add-on that is updated on a regular basis, putting
strain on part of the drive where the add-on bits are stored. Thus, some
drive sectors are repeatedly bombarded with new information, and one way
operating systems will do in this case is move the new data somewhere else
on the drive, potentially fragmenting bits of files (I'll explain in a
moment). Thus one solution is to not test all add-on updates, but that's a
bit risky as Roger is one of the key testers for this add-on I'm talking
about.
Regarding fragmentation and what not: the following is a bit geeky but I
believe you should know about how some parts of a file system (an in
extension, operating systems) works, because I believe it'll help folks
better understand what might be going on:
Storage devices encountered in the wild are typically organized into many
parts, typically into blocks of fixed-length units called "sectors". A
sector is smallest unit of information that the storage device can present
to the outside world, as in how much data can be held on a storage device.
For example, when you store a small document on a hard disk drive (HDD) and
when you wish to open it in Notepad, Windows will ask a module that's in
charge of organizing and interpreting data on a drive (called a file system)
to locate the sector where the document (or magnets or flash cells that
constitute the document data) is stored and bring it out to you. To you, all
you see is the path to the document, but the file system will ask the drive
controller (a small computer inside hard disks and other storage devices) to
fetch data in a particular sector or region. Depending on what kind of
storage medium you're dealing with, reading from disks may involve waiting
for a platter with desired sector to come to the attention of a read/write
head (a thin magnetic sensor used to detect or make changes to magnetic
fields) or peering inside windows and extracting electrons trapped within.
This last sentence is a vivid description of how hard disks and solid-state
drives really work behind the scenes, respectively.
But storage devices are not just meant for reading things for your
enjoyment. Without means of storing new things, it becomes useless.
Depending on the medium you've got, when you save something to a storage
device, the file system in charge of the device will ask the drive
controller to either find a spot on a disk filled with magnets and change
some magnets, or apply heat pressure to dislodge all cells on a block, erase
the block, add new things, and fill the empty block with modified data
(including old bits). You can imagine how tedious this can get, but as far
as your work is concerned, it is safe and sound.
Now imagine you wish to read and write repeatedly on a storage device. The
file system will repeatedly ask the drive hardware to fetch data from
specific regions, and will look for new locations to store changes. On a
hard drive, because there are limited number of heads and it'll take a while
for desired magnetic region to come to attention of one, read speed is slow,
hence increased latency (latency refers to how long you have to wait for
something to happen). When it comes to saving things to HDD's, all the drive
needs to do is tell the read/write head to change some magnets wherever it
wishes, hence data overriding is possible and easy. But operating systems
(rather, file systems) are smarter than that, as we'll see below.
In case of solid-state drives, reading data is simple as looking up the
address (or sector) where the electrons comprising the data you want is
saved (akin to walking down a street grid), so no need to wait for a sensor
to wait for something to happen. This is the reason why solid-state drives
appear to respond fast when reading something. On the other hand, writing or
injecting electrons is very slow because the drive needs to erase the entire
block before writing new data. In other words, just changing a letter in a
document and saving it to an SSD involves a lot of work, hence SSD's are
slower when it comes to writing new things, but because of the underlying
technology in use, it is way faster than hard disks.
As hinted above, file systems are smarter than drive controllers to some
extent. If data is written to a drive, the drive controller will process
whatever it comes along its path. But file systems won't let drive
controllers get away with that: file systems such as NTFS (New Technology
File System) will schedule data writes so it'll have minimal impact on the
lifespan of a storage device. For hard disks, it'll try its best to tell the
drive to store file data in consecutive locations in one big batch, but that
doesn't always work. For SSD's, the file system will ask the drive to
storage new information in different cells so all regions can be used
equally (at least for storing new information; this is called ware
leveling). One way to speed things up is asking the drive to reorganize data
so file fragments can be found in consecutive sectors or trim deleted
regions so fresh information can be written to more blocks (for HDD's and
SSD's, respectively), and this operation itself is tedious and produce bad
results if not done correctly and carefully.

I do understand the above explanation is a bit geeky, but I believe you need
to know some things about how things work. It is also a personal exercise to
refresh my memory on certain computer science topics (I majored in it not
long ago, and my interests were mostly hardware and operating systems, hence
I was sort of naturally drawn to screen reader internals and how it
interacts with system software).
Cheers,
Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Roger
Stewart
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 7:58 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Portable version degrading

The problem with this discussion is my portable version is on an internal
hard drive. So why is this degrading?

Nothing else on this drive has any trouble and I've checked, and there's no
file system errors nor any fragmenting.


Roger












On 1/19/2018 8:28 AM, Antony Stone wrote:

USB drives do need to be unmounted before removing them, otherwise there

is

the risk of file system corruption. Precisely the same is true for

external

hard drives, floppy disks, or any other writeable medium you can

temporarily

attach to a computer.

I've never seen a USB thumb drive fall apart, and I think they're

considerably

more robust than floppy disks, which is basically what they replaced. You

can

also drop them on the floor with a good deal more confidence of them

working

afterwards than if you drop an external hard disk.

Yes, they're vulnerable to static electricity; that's why most of them

have

plastic caps to put over the contacts or a slider to retract the contacts

into

the body.

My experience is that if they're treated reasonably they work very well.

If

they're mistreated they'll give as many problems as any other mistreated
storage medium.


Antony.

On Friday 19 January 2018 at 15:17:36, tonea.ctr.morrow@faa.gov wrote:

A few years back, I had a job for three years where people brought me

their

files on USB thumb drives. These things are horrible in terms of
long-life. The really do have to be unmounted prior to removing from the
computer or they get corrupted. They physically fall apart easily. And,
the hardware inside seems to be more vulnerable to static electricity

data

loss than other portable drives, certainly more vulnerable than most
computers.



I would think that would be the problem.



Tonea



-----Original Message-----

I've noticed over the past couple years that my portable install of nvda
will sometimes degrade or get a bit corrupted over time all by itself
while the installed version is always stable as a rock. Does anyone know
why this is and is there any way to prevent this from happening? I use
the portable copy to test a couple add ons and if the portable version
corrupts, it can make it appear that the add on is defective or has a bug
while it really doesn't. Deleting the portable copy and making a new one
will clear it up. I also notice a few functions of nvda either don't

work

at all or nvda gets very sluggish in responsiveness and this all gets

back

to normal after a complete flush and remake of the portable version. As

I

say, this never has happened at all with my installed copy on the same
computer.





Roger

On Jan 23, 2018, at 10:19 AM, Lino Morales <linomorales001@...> wrote:

See Sarah gets it! I 2000 percent agree with you Sarah. Brian in England can’t get rid of his security blankie. I’ve been using FF without any sounds at all for years. It does get in the way.

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: Sarah k Alawami
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 1:14 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Blog post on Firefox 58.

 

I really don't see why you need navigational sounds. I mean you have our heading nav and you can tell when a page loads etc. To me they are  more of a pain than helpful. I'd say learn how to use your key strokes and pay attention to what's going on around you rather than rely on sounds.

 

Take care

On Jan 23, 2018, at 9:43 AM, J.G <jozko.gregorc@...> wrote:

 

Hello,

I posted a comment on this blog about sounds in future Firefox (see it) and MR Zehe replied me, that he has not known Navigational sounds addon until now and there is currently no plan to embed sounds into Firefox. So if we want this feature, we must contact developers and politely request this feature.

regards, Jožef 

 

 

See Sarah gets it! I 2000 percent agree with you Sarah. Brian in England can’t get rid of his security blankie. I’ve been using FF without any sounds at all for years. It does get in the way.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

I really don't see why you need navigational sounds. I mean you have our heading nav and you can tell when a page loads etc. To me they are  more of a pain than helpful. I'd say learn how to use your key strokes and pay attention to what's going on around you rather than rely on sounds.

When you say reset, what does that mean?  Did you do a system restore, or use the feature that places a clean copy of Windows on the machine and you told the feature to keep all your programs?  Or are you using the word reset to mean something else?

 

Gene

----- Original Message -----

From: Shasa

Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 7:58 AM

To: nvda@nvda.groups.io

Subject: Re: [nvda] Nuance Sounds Error (My Resested PC)

I use the voices of Tiflotecnia.

There was no problem before the computer reset.
23/01/2018 15:13 tarihinde Rui Fontes yazdı:
> Hello!
>
> Which Vocalizer Expressive you use?
> From Code Factory or from Tiflotecnia?
>
> Regards,
>
> Rui Fontes
> Tiflotecnia, Lda.
>
>
> Às 09:39 de 23/01/2018, Shasa escreveu:
>> Hello Friends,
>> I have not been able to use Nuance's voices since I reset my
>> computer. I'm pasting NVDA's logs below.
>> All versions of Microsoft C ++ until 2015 are installed on my
>> computer. NetFramework is also installed.
>> The log indicates that a DLL is not found.
>>
>> My system information;
>> Windows 10 version: 1709,
>> OS Build: 16299.192.
>>
>> Error in log:
>> ERROR - globalPluginHandler.initialize (23:50:18.966):
>> Error initializing global plugin <class
>> 'globalPlugins.vocalizer_expressive_globalPlugin.GlobalPlugin'>
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>    File "globalPluginHandler.pyo", line 32, in initialize
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\globalPlugins\vocalizer_expressive_globalPlugin\__init__.py",
>> line 192, in __init__
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\globalPlugins\vocalizer_expressive_globalPlugin\utils.py",
>> line 19, in __enter__
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\synthDrivers\vocalizer_expressive2\_vocalizer.py",
>> line 171, in initialize
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\synthDrivers\vocalizer_expressive2\_vocalizer.py",
>> line 131, in preInitialize
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\synthDrivers\vocalizer_expressive2\_veTypes.py",
>> line 298, in loadVeDll
>>    File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 444, in LoadLibrary
>>    File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 366, in __init__
>>    File "pythonMonkeyPatches.pyo", line 25, in _dlopen
>> WindowsError: [Error 126] The specified module could not be found
>>
>>
>> ERROR - synthDriverHandler.getSynthList (12:26:38.926):
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>    File "synthDriverHandler.pyo", line 54, in getSynthList
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\synthDrivers\vocalizer_expressive2\__init__.py",
>> line 60, in check
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\synthDrivers\vocalizer_expressive2\_vocalizer.py",
>> line 252, in postTerminate
>> AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute
>> 'vplatform_ReleaseInterfaces'
>> INFO - synthDriverHandler.setSynth (12:26:39.608):
>> Loaded synthDriver eloquence
>> ERROR - synthDriverHandler.getSynthList (12:27:03.750):
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>    File "synthDriverHandler.pyo", line 54, in getSynthList
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\synthDrivers\vocalizer_expressive2\__init__.py",
>> line 60, in check
>>    File
>> "C:\Users\emre\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\vocalizer_expressive_driver\synthDrivers\vocalizer_expressive2\_vocalizer.py",
>> line 252, in postTerminate
>> AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute
>> 'vplatform_ReleaseInterfaces'.
>>
>> Your help will make me happy. Happy Days.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

How about something integrated with cloud OCR add on? I mean that already uses the cloud and is awesome.

I really don't see why you need navigational sounds. I mean you have our heading nav and you can tell when a page loads etc. To me they are  more of a pain than helpful. I'd say learn how to use your key strokes and pay attention to what's going on around you rather than rely on sounds.

On Jan 23, 2018, at 9:43 AM, J.G <jozko.gregorc@...> wrote:

Hello,

I posted a comment on this blog about sounds in future Firefox (see it) and MR Zehe replied me, that he has not known Navigational sounds addon until now and there is currently no plan to embed sounds into Firefox. So if we want this feature, we must contact developers and politely request this feature.

regards, Jožef

On Jan 23, 2018, at 9:47 AM, Joseph Lee <joseph.lee22590@...> wrote:

Hi,

For everyone else who’re wondering what’s up: yes, it is a cloud-based image recognition technology at work. Deep within is artificial intelligence (AI) network that processes images and sends back textual descriptions. As this is a cloud-based service, internet connection is a must, and NV Access should raise funds to use it if it’ll cost money to do so. Ideally, it should be an add-on first before being considered for inclusion in NVDA.

Cheers,

Joseph

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Robert Mendoza
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 1:58 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: RES: [nvda] Microsoft's object recognition technology and Cloud questionsfor NVDA

 

Hi Alexandre ,

It was not that as clear to recognize some of the pictures but, somehow they are like similar in terms of recognition. I think in the orientation or the platform on mobile is not similar as for desktop or laptop. Though, you may still try the OCR still by activating the narrator, then once you heard the voice of the narrator you simply used the key command to capture the image by pressing Shift plus Caps lock plus D. Again, you have to make sure that the cursor is pointed to the graphics and the narrator gives you some description but, again not that full to describe images with compare of the Seeing AI app for mobile. I still believe that this will be more improves on the future releases of Windows 10. For now that is the only thing I've got for you or perhaps others could shed some details for this one. 

Robert Mendoza

On 1/23/2018 5:16 PM, Alexandre Alves Toco wrote:

Hello!

Are you saying that narrator can now describe a photo’s contente as seeingAi?

If so, it is a very interesting feature!!!

How do you acomplish this?

 

 

Enviado do Email para Windows 10

 

De: Shasa
Enviado:domingo, 21 de janeiro de 2018 14:47
Para: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Assunto: [nvda] Microsoft's object recognition technology and Cloud questionsfor NVDA

 

Developer friends and all NVDA users, greetings.

 

Microsoft has introduced a description feature that allows Windows 10 to 

recognize objects, images, and other non-resolvable content on its 

screen reader.

Is this open source by Microsoft? Can not we do this with the same DLL 

as we do in the same OCR?

 

Finally, Python has great capabilities in the visual part. Legends 

emerged especially with the development of artificial intelligence. Can 

we deal with a cloud system?

 

 

 

 

Hi Alexandre ,

It was not that as clear to recognize some of the pictures but, somehow they are like similar in terms of recognition. I think in the orientation or the platform on mobile is not similar as for desktop or laptop. Though, you may still try the OCR still by activating the narrator, then once you heard the voice of the narrator you simply used the key command to capture the image by pressing Shift plus Caps lock plus D. Again, you have to make sure that the cursor is pointed to the graphics and the narrator gives you some description but, again not that full to describe images with compare of the Seeing AI app for mobile. I still believe that this will be more improves on the future releases of Windows 10. For now that is the only thing I've got for you or perhaps others could shed some details for this one.

Robert Mendoza

Hello!

Are you saying that narrator can now describe a photo’s contente as seeingAi?

If so, it is a very interesting feature!!!

How do you acomplish this?

 

 

Enviado do Email para Windows 10

 

De: Shasa
Enviado:domingo, 21 de janeiro de 2018 14:47
Para: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Assunto: [nvda] Microsoft's object recognition technology and Cloud questionsfor NVDA

 

Developer friends and all NVDA users, greetings.

 

Microsoft has introduced a description feature that allows Windows 10 to

recognize objects, images, and other non-resolvable content on its

screen reader.

Is this open source by Microsoft? Can not we do this with the same DLL

as we do in the same OCR?

 

Finally, Python has great capabilities in the visual part. Legends

emerged especially with the development of artificial intelligence. Can

we deal with a cloud system?

 

 

 

 

Hello all,