March 2011 - Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

Launch Jaws when a Braille display is connected.
by Darragh OHeiligh 21 Mar '11

21 Mar '11

Good afternoon, I have been thinking about how to optomize my productivity and accessibility while in server rooms. what I would like to have available is the following: I Plug in the Focus 40 when I'm at a server and Jaws would automatically launch and show that I'm at the control alt delete screen. I could press a specific command on the display to simulate control alt and delete and I could then log in. This would be fantastic as I'd be able to do away with the need to try to use the network KVM's on each rack and I wouldn't have to cary both a Braille display and a keyboard with me. The focus supports input and output so it would be fine for troubleshooting. Of course, I'd rather have a synthesizer speaking to me but that's not a great idea as I'm still never sure what server the KVM is going to be on. Any ideas? I've heard of scripts that can monitor for certain kernel message ID's that can then start an application however after looking at a few examples it doesn't seem like this will be much of a viable solution as it would need to be constantly running. Of course Jaws doesn't natively support this kind of thing. Interestingly, BrlTTY has had this functionality for years. Thanks Regards Darragh Ó Héiligh Fujitsu Offices of the Houses of the Oireachtas, Fredrick Building, South Fredrick Street, Dublin2 Telephone: +353 (1) 618 3559 Email: darragh.oheiligh(a)oireachtas.ie Internet: http://www.oireachtas.ie

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Launch Jaws when a Braille display is connected.
by Darragh OHeiligh 21 Mar '11

21 Mar '11

Good afternoon, I have been thinking about how to optomize my productivity and accessibility while in server rooms. what I would like to have available is the following: I Plug in the Focus 40 when I'm at a server and Jaws would automatically launch and show that I'm at the control alt delete screen. I could press a specific command on the display to simulate control alt and delete and I could then log in. This would be fantastic as I'd be able to do away with the need to try to use the network KVM's on each rack and I wouldn't have to cary both a Braille display and a keyboard with me. The focus supports input and output so it would be fine for troubleshooting. Of course, I'd rather have a synthesizer speaking to me but that's not a great idea as I'm still never sure what server the KVM is going to be on. Any ideas? I've heard of scripts that can monitor for certain kernel message ID's that can then start an application however after looking at a few examples it doesn't seem like this will be much of a viable solution as it would need to be constantly running. Of course Jaws doesn't natively support this kind of thing. Interestingly, BrlTTY has had this functionality for years. Thanks Regards Darragh Ó Héiligh Fujitsu Offices of the Houses of the Oireachtas, Fredrick Building, South Fredrick Street, Dublin2 Telephone: +353 (1) 618 3559 Email: darragh.oheiligh(a)oireachtas.ie Internet: http://www.oireachtas.ie

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Interesting way of installing an nt6x os
by Ben Mustill-Rose 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

Hey all, I've been playing around with a new way of installing nt 6x operating systems (Vista, 2008 and 7) and I thought I'd post about it in the hope that someone might find it useful. Essentially, this is a script that excepts the path to a windows setup wim file along with a destination drive letter where you want the os installed. It then copies the setup files to the destination and once that drive is booted, the install starts streight away. I originally came across this method when I was reviving a netbook that required a 1.8 hard drive which I was not willing to purchase. The script allows you to install to a usb drive, so in this situation, after a bit of fiddling around in the bios, I was able to boot w7 from a usb drive and the netbook now functions as a local PHP server. The main advantage from an accessibility point of view that I've found is that you no longer have to worry about setting the boot order in the bios. I know that not everyone on here enjoys taking things apart as much as I doo, but, if you had a laptop for example which just wasn't booting from cd, you could remove the harddrive, run this script, reinstall the drive and the install would start streight away. Unattended installs seem to work fine; I've just tested this out on a machine that required a vista reinstall and the setup got to the stage where I could press windows u without it prompting me. I've put the script on dropbox; I don't claim any ownership to this - I found it a few months ago on one of the boot cd forums but I can't find the post again and the author isn't listed in the readme. Instructions: Download the zip at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5152598/installer.zip and extract it. Connect the destination hard drive to your working machine and take a note of its letter. Run the script; the first screen is an intro so press enter. You'll now see a dialog which lets you brows to an install.wim file. This will usually be located at x:\sources\install.wim, x being your optical drive. Note that if you have the wim file stored locally, the script will sometimes fail if the path is too long. Using the subst command to create a virtual drive seems to solve this issue. E.g. at a command prompt, type subst x: c:\longPath\sources\install.wim where x is the letter you want your virtual drive to have. Once you've given it the wim file, your presented with a list of the different versions of windows that the wim contains. Enter the number of the edition that you want and hit enter. The next few screens deel with drive letters. In every case, give the script the letter of the destination drive, regardless of what it tells you. When you are asked if x: is a usb hard drive, only say yes if you are planning to boot the os from usb - if you have the drive connected via a usb adaptor but you intend to connect it directly to the motherboard in another machine, say no. The script will format the destination drive if its not empty and will then begin the process, which seems to take between 10 to 15 minutes with a 7200RPM source drive and a 5400RPM destination. You get a press any key prompt once it's done, at which point you can remove the drive and install it into it's original machine. It's not exactly a game changer, but as I said, hopefully someone will find it useful. Cheers, Ben.

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blocking pornographic web sites, family environment
by David Mehler 10 Mar '11

10 Mar '11

Hello, I've got a Windows xp machine that I've received and it needs cleaning. That however is not the point of this email. It got this way because of visits to porn and other adware carrying sites. I'm needing to block this stuff at the pc level. The place it's going the user's do not have the technical know how to go beyound the machine, install another browser, etc. so block it there probably with IE or Firefox and it's gone. I can not purchase new hardware or software for this project and must therefor rely on open source/free tools and techniques. Some solutions i've tried in the past though this first one is no longer proving effective, has been to drop a hosts file in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc which contains sites and pointers to localhost. The idea is the redirects won't work. Enabling the popup blocker at maximum as well as the phishing filter is standard in my setups. On a home router once I deployed a squid proxy with a squidguard antispam redirector, this was marginally effective. I've also deployed the opensource dansguardian content filter, this slowed things down noticeably. I'm wanting to deploy some of these packages on the local machine itself. If anyone has any suggestions on this issue please let me know. Thanks. Dave.

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vmware and video resolution on emulated card
by David Mehler 06 Mar '11

06 Mar '11

Hello, I'm running vmware workstation. I've got an xp vm that when I alter it's video settings I can get it up to something insane like 1900 by 1024 at 32 bit color. On my host machine I can only pull 1280 by 768. I'm not sure how this is possible given that vmware only emulates the video card it doesn't add another one. Did I miss something here? Thanks. Dave.

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Connecting to a running vm across the network
by David Mehler 04 Mar '11

04 Mar '11

Hello, I've got a vm running on a machine under vmware workstation. In this case it's a Vista vm. I'm wondering if it's possible to connect to this vm from across the network, without installing the full workstation on another machine? Thanks. Dave.

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Blind System Administrators
by Darragh OHeiligh 03 Mar '11

03 Mar '11

Apologies. I registered the same domain as the list name accidently without checking to see if it was a duplicate. I'm hoping it doesn't stand on anyones tows but if it does. I'll register something else. Hello, I would like to introduce you to an exciting and potentially beneficial idea that I‘m mulling over at the moment. Like you, I am a system administrator. I continue to struggle with this job on two fronts. Firstly, I need to battle to work through challenges to software and hardware accessibility and secondly, I need to continually prove that the fact that I am blind has no impact on my ability to work at the same level of any other system administrator. What if we could significantly help with both of these issues at the same time? I think we can. The number of blind system administrators is very small but between us we have a huge amount of technical, procedural and operational knowledge and experience. Each of us has had to overcome barriers to accessibility in order to effectively and independently rise to meet the responsibilities of our chosen roles. Each obstacle to accessibility actually creates three potential benefits. Firstly and of course obviously, we have gained access to the system we are working on. Secondly, we have demonstrated flexibility and resourcefulness and finally, we can use the tools we have found or developed to resolve future issues we encounter. I believe that it is this continued struggle that doesn’t just make us effective system administrators, it makes us better system administrators. Recognising, analysing and solving problems are the most important abilities of a system administrator. When it comes to problem solving we’ve got it nailed! With the right communication tools with each solution we find that enables us to surmount an accessibility related barrier we provide a little more proof to employers that: Yes, we can do this, yes we can work independently and yes we can bring highly developed problem solving skills to your company. Let me introduce you to www.BlindSysAdmins.com This site is an idea I had yesterday that I strongly believe has massive potential. It could help you and me as people already in work and even people aiming to get into the area of system administration. Even more importantly, it could be a practical demonstration of how resourceful and adaptive blind system administrators need to be. Companies considering employing a blind system administrator would instantly see from the site that the applicant would be an effective, resourceful and independent addition to their work force. Accomplishing these objectives is actually not as difficult as it may seem. This is the part where I need your help and input. Don’t worry, I’m not asking for much and if it works, the result will be rewarding for all of us. I am thinking of the following ideas: 1. Individual profiles. If I could get five or six system administrators involved I’m be delighted. All I’m looking for is a really quick introduction to you. What systems do you work on, what you specialise in, how much experience do you have and what kind of environment do you work on. For example, the platform, number of users, number of servers etc. You can make this as brief or as detailed as you like. The key is to make it really positive and to show that you enjoy what you do. 2. Problems that you have overcome. What have you had to do above and beyond the call of duty to get access to a system or fulfil a responsibility? For example, I was the first person to organise the backup solution in this company. It was in operation for ten years before I got here but tapes and other media was never archived correctly. Restore requests were a very time consuming job as when the backup software requested a tape with a specific barcode, the administrator had to search through three storage rooms in three different buildings to find the elusive tape. Obviously for me, this wasn’t a viable set up. I dug out all the old boxes for the VOIP phones and the DLT tapes that I could get my hands on and created a barcode template for each one. This template included an abbreviated building name, the floor number and then an incremented identifier. For example. ABC4030. Tapes from specific libraries were put into specific buildings so I could tell that RK5 tapes should be in BCD3 so if the backup solution requested RK5030 I could look up a spread sheet and see that I had put that tape into the box labelled BCD3095. Armed with an off the shelf barcode reader and a laptop I could independently go to the room, find the box and the tape and load it into the tape library. Restore requests took no longer than 20 minutes with my method therefore the solution I implemented was a major improvement for the company I work for. What have you done? Write a simple account such as the one that I have given that demonstrates how you were able to get a job done using your own initiative to make the system accessible. 3. Step by step instructions. I’d love people to help with this so please consider it. If you have made a script for Jaws or Window eyes or you have found a work around to make an application work more effectively with your screen reader then please write down the instructions to help others do the same thing. For example: In HP data protector Jaws incorrectly load the wrong scripts. The fix for this is very simple but by documenting it I could save someone else a lot of time and effort. 4. Ask questions. There is a fantastic mailing list for blind system administrators and I would in no way like to infringe on this. Without that resource I would have been left stranded over the past few years. I would however like to provide a forum on the site so that people can pose questions. There is method to this madness. By asking and answering questions you are providing assurance to new system administrators and even employers that Blind system administrators are a supportive group of people. We’ve all been there. We’ve all had problems that we need a second perspective on. Just by being aware that there’s a group of people available to help with questions is a massive comfort. I’m not asking for any commitment from any of you. I explain this to show you my thinking behind this site and why I think that all of these ideas could actually lead to a resource that is really useful to both employers and employees. I have other ideas as well but this mail is already too long. I’d like to say thank you for reading. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions I’d really really appreciate hearing from you. If you’re interested in helping with any of the ideas above please reply. I have purchased the domain and I will work on this site over the weekend. IF people are interested in contributing then this could get off the ground really quickly. All it needs is your help. Darragh

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Questions
by Greg B. 01 Mar '11

01 Mar '11

Hello Everyone, I have a small question, in our profession we must work with diagrams, I am looking for a way to deal with diagrams besides using my 10 year old daughter to look at it for me. Does anyone have any tips that would be helpful? Yes, I know use an older person who is sighted but sometimes I don't have that option. Let me know what you think. Greg B.

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script file?
by Ibraam Wahib 01 Mar '11

01 Mar '11

hello my friends: please i need your help in this task. can i find a script let me set computer as best performance, classic start menue.. the things which make xp more accessible and practical? just with enter on it do them all. thanks for any suggestions. ibram

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