#159: Zoom Bloat, NVDA Wins, and the Great BlindShell Retreat
Notes
TW 159: Zoom Bloat, NVDA Wins, and the Great BlindShell Retreat
Mike and Damashe catch up on a Wednesday (weird, we know). Damashe wraps up his BlindShell experiment after about three weeks, shares news about a new
commercial office space, and both hosts get into why Zoom keeps bolting on features nobody asked for. Mike talks about his growing comfort with NVDA, useful
add-ons he’s found, and what it took to make the switch feel natural. Plus vibe-coded tools, Stream Deck planning, a great file upload tip, and the state
of LaunchBar in 2026.
In this episode:
• Damashe’s BlindShell experiment wraps up (and why)
• Missing SD cards and the Raspberry Pi graveyard
• Damashe has office space news
• Zoom Pro, Google Meet, and the “why am I paying for this” question
• Apple, Spotify, and platform owners competing with their own marketplace
• Android vs iOS, and the lies people have been telling for 15 years
• Why Gmail on Android is still painful
• Mike’s move to NVDA: what helped, what tripped him up
• The Eloquence voice that made everything click
• Caps Lock as a VoiceOver modifier and the shortcuts it breaks
• Stream Deck planning, vibe-coded utilities, and Farrago timing
• Rogue Amoeba, AppleScript, and why it matters
• New LaunchBar 6.23 with VoiceOver improvements
• VOCR 3.0 beta 2 is broken on current macOS (heads up)
• A killer file upload tip: paste from Finder directly into upload dialogs
• Mac/iOS developers: explain why your app needs Bluetooth and network access
Mentioned in this episode:
• NVDA add-ons: Speech History, Virtual Window, shortcut utility
• AT Guys Eloquence SAPI 5 voices
• LaunchBar 6.23
• VOCR 3.0 beta 2
• Farrago (Rogue Amoeba)
• BlindShell
• Parallels for macOS
• Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon
Guess the mic: Damashe is using a different setup this week. Can you identify the microphone? Bonus points for the interface. Send your guesses to
feedback@technicallyworking.show.
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