Chit Chat Across the Pond

Latest Episodes:

CCATP #682 – Doc Rock on Apple Spring Loaded Event Apr 21, 2021

Show notes

This week's guest is Doc Rock to talk about the Apple Spring Loaded Event. Doc's background in all things Apple as well as high end live video makes him the perfect person to talk about this event. He explains to me how this color calibration of our TVs using our iPhones and an Apple TV will work, we talk about whether the cool colors of the iMacs might be a distraction to photographers, how the coolest thing that got nearly zero air time was having Ethernet over a MagSafe connector, how much we'll all want the new keyboard with Touch ID but how it will only work with M1 Macs, and Doc tries to convince me that I need a 1TB 12.9" iPad Pro.

The discussion is not a linear walk through the event, but more of a meandering talk about what interested us and to tell stories to each other. I had an absolute blast, and I can prove Doc had fun too because he suggested we get together after the next two Apple events this year. I think you'll get a big kick out of this conversation.

Everything good starts with docrock.live!

* YouTube: docrock.live/YouTube

* Facebook: docrock.live/group

* LinkedIn: docrock.live/linkedin

* Instagram: docrock.live/insta

* Twitter: docrock.live/twt

During the conversation when we talked about the Mini LEDs of the new iPad Pro, I said I'd put a link in the shownotes to Tom Merritt's Know a Little More episode about Mini LEDs.

CCATP #680 – Gregg Vanderheiden on 50 Years in Accessibility Apr 06, 2021

Show notes

This week our guest is Gregg Vanderheiden, Professor and Director Trace R&D Center at the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland.

Listen to Gregg talk about Morphic at 19:40 on the NosillaCast
You can find more about the Trace Institute at trace.umd.edu/...
The Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure at gpii.net/...
His work on the Morphic project (coming into beta in just two weeks) at morphic.org/...
You can follow Morphic on Twitter @mymorphic or Gregg's very infrequent tweets at @Greggvan.

CCATP #678 – Matt Campbell on Accessibility Overlays & Cloudflare Remote Browser Isolation Mar 29, 2021

Show notes

Matt Campbell is a blind software developer who has specialized in making computers more accessible to blind people for over 20 years. He was the lead developer for Serotek for 15 years, where he developed several affordable and easy-to-use products, including a Windows screen reader and an online community for blind people. More recently, he was a developer on the Windows accessibility team at Microsoft, where he contributed to Narrator, the screen reader built into Windows. Now he’s the co-founder and chief technology officer of Pneuma Solutions, which is working to make online meetings and documents fully accessible.

Matt wanted to be on the show to talk about two things: Accessibility Overlays and Cloudflare's Remote Browser Isolation project. Accessibility Overlays are intended to help companies pass accessibility standard tests, but according to Matt, they often actually make websites _less_ accessible. He's written an open source browser extension for Chrome and Edge called Accessibyebye that will disable these overlays if they make your web browsing problematic. In the conversation he references a blog post about the problems at adrianroselli.com/...

He's also trying to raise awareness about a huge problem with a product from Cloudflare called Remote Browser Isolation. This technology is designed to help companies protect their employees from browser-based attacks, replacing VPNs. But the way it accomplishes this is problematic for accessibility. The idea is that your employees browse to a website but the URL request goes to Cloudflare instead, where it navigates to the site. Cloudflare renders the site, and then sends only JavaScript draw commands to your browser. This means the original elements are not sent to your web browser, which means screenreaders have nothing to read, and mobility tools have nothing to connect with. Matt is in the beta and has tested it himself, and I've signed up for the beta so I can see this for myself.

You can find Matt on Twitter at @mw_campbell

CCATP #676 – Jill McKinley on Windows to Mac Conversion Mar 20, 2021

Show notes

This week our guest is Jill McKinley, aka Jill from the North Woods. I’ve been using a Mac since 1984, and other than a 3-year stint using Windows Vista at work, I’ve been heads down in the Mac operating system all that time. Jill has recently bought her first Mac, which as is usually the case turned into a second Mac purchase. She is still straddling both operating systems and honestly not using macOS too much yet. I thought it would be fun to have her come on and chat about what it’s been like to learn macOS and the differences and challenges she’s finding.

If you'd like to chat with Jill, the best place is in the Podfeet Slack. Join us at podfeet.com/slack.

CCATP #675 – Working from Home Part 2 – Allister Jenks & Lindsay Tondee Mar 13, 2021

Show notes

In the last Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Lindsay Tondee made her debut appearance where we talked about working from home. After the show published, Allister Jenks wrote to me and told me that halfway through listening he had to stop and start writing down notes for a recording he would have to make talking about his views on the same subject.

I forwarded Allister's message to Lindsay and then I connected the two of them and before I knew what was happening they had decided that we were going to do a three-way Chit Chat Across the Pond! Allister comes from a completely different perspective as someone who has worked far from his team for many years. We talk about what works and what doesn't for him in his capacity doing IT support, from a technology perspective and even from a "how to stop people from asking you questions they could find answers for on their own" perspective.

@idahomonkees

zkarj.me

@zkarj

CCATP #674 — Cooking Like a Programmer Mar 06, 2021

Show notes

Bart Busschots joins us for Chit Chat Across the Pond in an episode of what he calls "Programming Adjacent". It's not about programming, it's actually about cooking and not wasting food. But Bart, being a programmer, approaches the problem like a programmer. I guarantee you that no one else on earth approaches cooking and food inventory in the same way as Bart. It was great fun to learn how he does it and to contrast it to how in my house, two engineers have come up with a completely different systems.

CCATP #673 – Lindsay Tondee on Working from Home Feb 27, 2021

Show notes

Lindsay Tondee, Senior Manager in Quality Assurance at a global pharmaceutical company, joins us to talk about whether it's a good or a bad thing that companies are thinking about having their workforce continue to work from home indefinitely. I originally thought this would be a great thing because we'll have fewer cars on the road, less traffic and pollution, office buildings won't be needed and people gain hours of their life back because they're not spending it commuting in their cars.

Lindsay explains what is missed when you work from home and the benefits of a blended model where people work only partly from home. She talks about the issues surrounding building relationships at work that help people get things done, and how the fun activities of her office have been transformed into safe-distance fun. She also talks about how much more challenging it becomes if two people are working from home in the same small house.

We don't come up with all the answers but I found it to be fascinating to throw these ideas around with someone who is currently in the middle of figuring this out for herself and for her employees.

And one more thing, Lindsay Tondee is a frequent attendee of the live NosillaCast - known as "Lindsay (the daughter)". If you want to chat with her, the best way is through the live chat on Sunday nights at 5pm Pacific time podfeet.com/live and you can follow her on Twitter at @idahomonkees.

CCATP #672 – TTT 37A of n – SSH Agents Feb 20, 2021

Show notes

In 2017 on Taming the Terminal installment 37 of n, Bart taught us about SSH agents and the advantages of using a passphrase to further protect your SSH keys. In the intervening four years, things have changed a bit in macOS, so we decided to do a supplemental update to installment 37. We review a bit about what SSH Keys are (from installment 30) and then discuss how much easier and cleaner things are on macOS with the clean integration of your identity, passphrase and Apple's Keychain.

You can find the replaced show notes for TTT 37 at ttt.bartificer.net/...

If you've downloaded the Taming the Terminal book, please go to podfeet.com/tttbook to get a fresh version.

CCATP #671 – Allison Sheridan on American Council of the Blind Radio Feb 14, 2021

Show notes

This week the tables are turned and you'll actually hear me being interviewed. I was asked to be on the Magic Mac Show, which is on the American Council of the Blind's streaming radio channel. Hosts Tyson Ernst, Katie Frederick and Jason Castonguay asked me on so they could learn about how I got interested in accessibility and what it's helped me do.

During the latter part of the show, they do something terrifying - they allow live audience listeners to call in and ask questions! I've always been afraid of that, but Debbie Hazelton, managing director for ACB Radio does a great job of moderating the callers.

You can learn more about ACB radio at [www.acbradio.org/...](http://www.acbradio.org/community) and more about the American Council of the Blind at ACB.org. With that, here's the interview, at the permission of ACB Radio.CCATP #671 – Allison Sheridan on American Council of the Blind Radio

CCATP #670 – Ken Ray on Apple's Record-Breaking Earnings Call Feb 02, 2021

Show notes

This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Ken Ray, host of the macOS Ken Podcast, hosted at[ macosken.com](http://macosken.com). You may have been wondering why Ken had never been on Chit Chat Across the Pond before, but I just wanted to make sure he was going to stick with it. Since he just hit his 15 year anniversary of doing macOS Ken, I decided it was probably safe to have him on the show. I asked Ken to come on the show to walk us through Apple's record-breaking quarterly earnings call and what the big numbers mean. How big IS $110B? What drove Mac sales up 21%? What drove the services numbers so high?

You can find Ken Ray on Twitter @macosken [https://macosken.com](https://macosken.com)

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