Techstravaganza Afternoons

Key Takeaways

• The session was a Techstravaganza workshop held on Wednesday, October 14th, 2026, focused on demonstrating the Flip app for finding grocery and retail deals.
• Siena walked participants through core Flip features: browsing flyers by store and category, clipping deals, building a shopping list, using the watchlist for deal notifications, and managing account settings.
• The group confirmed a platform switch from Zoom to G...

Key Takeaways

• The session was a Techstravaganza Afternoon Workshop focused on demonstrating how to use Google Meet as the group prepares to transition from Zoom to Google Meet on November 4th.
• Siena Trigiani led a live tutorial covering how to install Google Meet as a Progressive Web App (PWA) on Windows and Mac, and demonstrated key keyboard shortcuts for both JAWS and NVDA screen readers.
• Lily Frederiksen participated as a live ...

iCatcher podcast app navigation and search features

• Aliasgar Moosa demonstrated podcast search functionality and subscription management within iCatcher.
• Aliasgar Moosa reviewed list filtering options by status and specific categories like hockey.
• Aliasgar Moosa demonstrated batch deletion features to remove multiple unwanted podcasts simultaneously.

Playlist management and custom rule configuration

• Aliasgar demonstrated co...

Key Takeaways

• The session was a Techstravaganza tutorial focused on the Humanware Mantis Q40 braille display, hosted by Siena with co-presenter Amanda.
• Amanda covered the standalone features and menu overview of the Mantis Q40.
• Siena demonstrated the physical layout, keyboard shortcuts, editor, braille editor, library, calculator, date/time, settings, speech features, and terminal mode.
• The Mantis Q40 was compared to the Brailliant...

Key Takeaways

• The session was a live demonstration of Ray-Ban Meta Glasses (Skylar model, Gen 1) for accessibility purposes, hosted by Siena and Ali as part of Techstravaganza Afternoons (September 9, 2026).
• Meta Glasses were demonstrated for reading gift cards, restaurant menus, product manuals, and identifying objects — with mixed results depending on lighting and print size.
• Participants shared practical tips on using Met...

Key Takeaways

• The session was a live workshop under the "Techstravaganza" series, focused on AI tools for productivity and creativity, hosted by Siena and Ali.
• Three AI assistants were compared: Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, across tasks including PDF text extraction, document summarization, file conversion to RTF, and song generation.
• ChatGPT performed best at verbatim text extraction and RTF conversion; Gemini required...

Key Takeaways

• The session was a Textravaganza afternoon workshop held on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, focused on Android accessibility using TalkBack.
• Siena led a hands-on tutorial demonstrating TalkBack navigation, gestures, app management, and text-to-speech settings on a Motorola Moto G 5G running Android 15.
• Participants discussed and compared their experiences with Android (TalkBack) versus Apple (VoiceOver), sharing personal ...

Key Takeaways

• The session was a tutorial on using the Native Mail app on Mac with VoiceOver, held on Wednesday, August 19, 2026.
• Topics covered included adding/removing email accounts, reading and navigating messages, composing, replying, forwarding, and attaching files.
• A notable discussion arose around Hotmail/Outlook's aggressive spam filtering, which persists even after users set rules, add senders to contacts, or mark emails ...

Key Takeaways

• The session was a Techstravaganza workshop held on Wednesday, August 12th, 2026, focused on demonstrating the Humanware Brailliant BI40X braille display.
• Ali Moosa demonstrated how to switch between connected devices, navigate the device menu, and explore settings including speech and voice options on the Brailliant BI40X.
• A key recommendation was made to keep the speech feature enabled on the braille display for ext...

• The session was a "Techstravaganza" workshop focused on iPhone troubleshooting and factory reset procedures, hosted by Siena and Ali.
• A bug in iOS 27 Beta was identified where VoiceOver activities revert to the default "Samantha Compact" voice instead of the user-set "Alex" voice.
• The recovery mode button sequence changed in iOS 27: it is now Volume Up → Volume Down → Hold Side Button (previously Volume Down → Volume Up → Hold Si...

The session was a live tutorial held on July 29, 2026, focused on using the Mac Finder and Dock with VoiceOver accessibility.

Siena demonstrated how to navigate the Dock, add and remove applications, use keyboard shortcuts, and manage files and folders within the Finder.

Participants asked questions throughout, contributing tips and clarifications, including a helpful ergonomic keyboard shortcut suggestion from Roueida.

The originally...

The session was a Techstravaganza workshop held on July 22, 2026, focused on using the iOS Mail app to add email addresses and phone numbers to contacts.

Siena demonstrated step-by-step how to add a sender's email address to a new or existing contact directly from the Mail app on iPhone.

Ali noted a shortcut: simply activating (single double-tap) the From field achieves the same result as a double-tap-and-hold.

The process of copying ...

* The session was a Techstravaganza tutorial held on July 15, 2026, focused on navigating the iPhone home screen using VoiceOver accessibility features.

* Topics covered included opening and closing apps, navigating the App Switcher, using the Control Center and Notification Center, moving apps between pages and folders, and deleting apps.

* Participants were encouraged to ask questions during designated Q&A segments.

* A practica...

* The session was a Techstravaganza workshop held on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, focused on a tutorial of the Goodreads app using VoiceOver on iPhone 15.

* Siena led a comprehensive walkthrough of Goodreads, covering the Home tab, My Books tab, Discover tab, Notifications, account creation, and adding friends.

* The team confirmed that Zoom will remain the platform of choice for all Techstravaganza sessions going forward.

* Upcoming even...