[NFBCS] Bragging on Curtis and a General Thank You

Thu Oct 17 18:06:30 UTC 2024

Hello to all.
This is my first message to this list although I have been lurking for a while. So by way of brief introduction, I began working with the National Federation of the Blind in late August, and am thrilled to be here. I have met with several of you as I work on a few projects that President Riccobono has asked me to take on, and no doubt I’ll have the privilege of working with many more of you in the years ahead. Thank you very much to everyone I’ve met so far who has been so welcoming.
Now, I thought I would chime in regarding Maurice’s VPN question.

VPNs have several benefits.
They can encrypt your traffic and keep you secure when you are connected to an open wireless hotspot, such as when you’re at a café, airport or some hotels.
They can make computers think you are in a different location. This can be useful for accessing content that’s geoblocked. Quite a few blind people are using them for this purpose at the moment, because the Meta AI component of the Meta Smart Glasses is only available in a small number of countries. So I’ve provided a lot of assistance to blind people around the world who haven’t concerned themselves with VPNs before these glasses came along.
And yes, they can also serve as an intermediary that blocks trackers and other identifiers.
When it comes to deciding whether a VPN is the best option, it’s worth considering the use case. For example, if you want to use a VPN to access streaming content from a particular country, changing the DNS in your router or device to point to a DNS for this specific purpose might give better results, because traffic channeled through a VPN is likely to be slower and a bit less responsive. One example of an entity that serves this purpose is https://SmartDNSProxy.com.
If the main concern is eliminating trackers as well as clutter that can make life difficult for screen reader users, there may be viable alternatives to a VPN as well. Maurice, since you are in the Apple ecosystem, there are Safari extensions and other tools that seek to do this. There are a lot of them and I’ve not tried them all, although I have installed a few. One that seems to be particularly effective is a tool called 1Blocker. It’s available for iOS, iPadOS and macOS, and it’s a universal purchase, so once you’ve bought it, it works on all your Apple devices.
What I like about this particular tool is that it installs itself as several Safari extensions and then gives you granular configurability over what you want to block. It has a VPN profile although it’s only using that profile to work some magic locally on your device. The VPN profile approach allows the app to block some trackers and unwanted content even within apps, not just browsers. I’ve found that it has sped up my browsing significantly and eliminated clutter, which means some sites have become easier to navigate.
There are similar extensions for Windows browsers.
There are many VPN providers out there, and I hunted around to find one that was even remotely well behaved on Windows. Express VPN is quite good in Windows and iOS, the two platforms on which I have it installed. They also have a generous policy in terms of how many devices can be running it at one time.
Hope that helps and would be interested in others’ experiences.
Jonathan

From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Maurice Mines via NFBCS
Sent: Friday, 18 October 2024 5:18 am
To: NFBnet NFBCS mailing list mailing list <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Maurice Mines <maurice at mmines.org>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Bragging on Curtis and a General Thank You

Good morning to my good friend Curtis Chong, I was about to add to all of the thank you Post thinking something scary might've happened to our friend and colleague. So it was good to see him explain the reasons why everyone was posting thank you emails.

Now a question for the list and I'm sure Curtis will chime in on this potentially is it a good practice to run a virtual private network either software or hardware or my case both. I found that by running one I ain't get fewer commercials commercials on the web, and or via spam and or fishing laden emails. So I think using a virtual private network set up has been very helpful. But is this real or is it just because it's made it tougher for the bad guys to actually do anything to mess with my set up somehow. Any thoughts? By the way for sake of clarity and faithfulness. Many on this list or Microsoft Windows users, I am a mac user for about 80% of my computer usage time. I do use Windows when I need to dictate things that are serious in terms of writing, some on this list no I have a written expression disorder. I can read fine I just cannot spell to save my life says a very strange testing many years ago.

Be well everyone and enjoy the rest of your Thursday. Catching up on things after spending quality time in San Francisco at the rideshare Raleigh.

Maurice A. Mines.
President National Federation of the blind deaf blind division.
Amateur radio call sign kd0iko.

PS please be aware that the text above has been dictated to the computer using Apple dictation system. There may in fact mistakes in the text above, yet there's something you truly don't understand please reach out to me and ask me what my original intent may have been. Thank you all very much for reading this email.

On Oct 17, 2024, at 15:34, Curtis Chong via NFBCS <nfbcs at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbcs at nfbnet.org>> wrote:

Good morning everyone:

I very much appreciate the positive comments posted on this list from Joe, Michael, and others. Although I do feel quite flattered, may I say that Harry Staley, my co-participant on the panel, as a working I.T. professional himself who has been (as it were) in the trenches contributed a lot more in terms of practical suggestions and real-world experience to this presentation. I am glad that the people who are coming up are like Harry. May I also point out that Harry Staley is, himself, an NFB scholarship winner, having been awarded the big scholarship at our 2018 national convention.

Warm regards,

Curtis Chong

From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Joe Orozco via NFBCS
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2024 8:32 PM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbcs at nfbnet.org>>
Cc: Joe Orozco <jsorozco at gmail.com<mailto:jsorozco at gmail.com>>
Subject: [NFBCS] Bragging on Curtis and a General Thank You

I want to take a moment to brag on one of our fellow subscribers. Curtis Chong generously gave up his evening today to talk to my high school and college mentoring students about technology options, how to advocate for them, and the essentials of using them. His responses were thorough, thoughtful, and absolutely relevant to their experiences. I mean, the guy still sounds like he did 25 years ago and is clearly every bit as sharp as he was back then. I don’t know if Harry Staley is subscribed here or not, but he was the younger representative and was just as potent at his wiser co-panelist.

I share this with the list, because last summer I requested people who would be willing to provide informational interviews to some of my students. I had more than a handful of volunteers. We had logistical issues crop up, but I still have those messages and will be following up again in the near future.

It’s a beautiful thing when working professionals give of their time to give advice to the younger generation, particularly in a field as critical as computer science and information technology. I am very grateful for the offline support like what our mentoring program experienced this evening and for the excellent support exchanged here on the list on a daily basis.

Very grateful,

Joe

--
Joe Orozco: Your Message, My Mission
https://joeorozco.com/services/<https://joeorozco.com/services/>

_______________________________________________
NFBCS mailing list
NFBCS at nfbnet.org<mailto:NFBCS at nfbnet.org>
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbcs_nfbnet.org<http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbcs_nfbnet.org>
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for NFBCS:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/maurice%40mmines.org<http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/maurice%40mmines.org>

Disclaimer

The information contained in this communication from the sender is confidential. It is intended solely for use by the recipient and others authorized to receive it. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in relation of the contents of this information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.

This email has been scanned for viruses and malware, and may have been automatically archived by Mimecast Ltd, an innovator in Software as a Service (SaaS) for business. Providing a safer and more useful place for your human generated data. Specializing in; Security, archiving and compliance. To find out more visit the Mimecast website.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/attachments/20241017/5a4f86ee/attachment.htm>