November 2013 - Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

FW: How to sell yourself to employers as a blind, but capable technologist
by Katherine Moss 02 Jan '14

02 Jan '14

-----Original Message----- From: Katherine Moss Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 2:47 PM Subject: How to sell yourself to employers as a blind, but capable technologist Hello all, My name is Katherine Moss, and let me tell you. Boy do I wish I had discovered this list years ago. I have been a technologist/administrator for the past ten years dabbling in everything from Windows to most recently Linux. I'm wondering what you guys have done to sell yourself to employers during interviews to get hired at your fulfilling jobs. I desire greatly to become a paid systems administrator and not just have technology as a hobby. I have a degree in English, though I'm planning on getting a certificate in network technologies and administration at Bunker Hill Community College (I am from Massachusetts). As of right now, regardless of the fact that I do have experience, employers are getting tripped up by my lack of official vender certifications, as well as my blindness. I will admit that I'm very open about my blindness, using it as a jumping off point to launch accessibility awareness campaigns rather than brooding over it. I'm wondering if my openness during the first interview at a job could be hurting me? I ask this because qualifications can't be the problem since I'm a member of a couple of user groups here in New England, and not many of us have computer science degrees at all. What has been your take on this? Thanks.

17 105

VM Under Windows
by Steve Matzura 26 Nov '13

26 Nov '13

Has anyone had experience setting up a virtual machine on a system already running Windows 7? I may have the need to do this for purposes of running labs for an online class a group of folks for whom I consult might be setting up. I have two choices for doing so--Microsoft Virtual PC, or Oracle VirtualBox. Would be keen to hear of your experiences with either of these, especially with regard to using them with screenreaders. TIA

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Recommendations for blind people to repair laptops
by Katherine Moss 24 Nov '13

24 Nov '13

Hey guys, I'm big on the hardware side of the equation as well as the software side of it, so I'm wondering if you can provide some pointers on how visually impaired folks repair laptops with as little sighted assistance as possible? Desktops and servers I can usually do just fine with, though laptops are harder since every manufacturer is different, and I never want to just start taking screws out willy nilly, for I don't want to end up destroying something in the process. What do you guys usually do when a laptop has a hardware problem? Have any of you devised a method to be able to take apart laptops? I mean, sometimes it's easy to do without the diagrams by using common sense, though for example, take this Dell Latitude E6530 I have. Getting to the back of it is easily done; there is only a singular panel that needs to come off; gosh, I changed the ram out on this one without any help at all. But getting to the keyboard? I couldn't figure out that without sighted assistance if you paid me to. The manual instructs you to pry up on the medal framing around it (the entire keyboard is surrounded by aluminum), but they don't specify in a very good description where, and my CompTIA A+ certified friend can't even figure it out. And when he tried to, he had a sighted tutor with him, and the tutor couldn't figure it out without the manual. Another example is my CA. 2005 Toshiba laptop, and that thing had supposedly a dead clock battery and a dead hard drive. I'm not sure what happened, but the thing clearly died. I just had to throw it in the garbage today since it was giving off a burned electronics smell before I managed to figure out what else was wrong with it, and after replacing the clock battery and hard drive, the motherboard basically died of me and my sighted, though more hands-on than technical herself, friend and I handling it. Every sign was there, and I stopped worrying about a disconnection; since it was smelling, it had to be DOA when my friend returned it to me four years ago when it had been in his possession. But the point is, every laptop is different, and since those little wires in there are tiny, so how do we keep track of them? Those tiny slots and connectors; even my sighted friend was struggling with the Toshiba, probably part of the reason why the board fully died (before we had attempted to fix it, it was smelling bad, though the laptop was basically working, though the time was wrong and there was, of course, no OS installed). I mean, replacing a CMOS battery is of course a bigger deal on a laptop than it is on a desktop or server, so how do you go about it? Do you just leave the deep repairs to the sighted? If so, then we should change that.

3 20

Recommendations for blind people to repair laptops
by Katherine Moss 23 Nov '13

23 Nov '13

Hey guys, I'm big on the hardware side of the equation as well as the software side of it, so I'm wondering if you can provide some pointers on how visually impaired folks repair laptops with as little sighted assistance as possible? Desktops and servers I can usually do just fine with, though laptops are harder since every manufacturer is different, and I never want to just start taking screws out willy nilly, for I don't want to end up destroying something in the process. What do you guys usually do when a laptop has a hardware problem? Have any of you devised a method to be able to take apart laptops? I mean, sometimes it's easy to do without the diagrams by using common sense, though for example, take this Dell Latitude E6530 I have. Getting to the back of it is easily done; there is only a singular panel that needs to come off; gosh, I changed the ram out on this one without any help at all. But getting to the keyboard? I couldn't figure out that without sighted assistance if you paid me to. The manual instructs you to pry up on the medal framing around it (the entire keyboard is surrounded by aluminum), but they don't specify in a very good description where, and my CompTIA A+ certified friend can't even figure it out. And when he tried to, he had a sighted tutor with him, and the tutor couldn't figure it out without the manual. Another example is my CA. 2005 Toshiba laptop, and that thing had supposedly a dead clock battery and a dead hard drive. I'm not sure what happened, but the thing clearly died. I just had to throw it in the garbage today since it was giving off a burned electronics smell before I managed to figure out what else was wrong with it, and after replacing the clock battery and hard drive, the motherboard basically died of me and my sighted, though more hands-on than technical herself, friend and I handling it. Every sign was there, and I stopped worrying about a disconnection; since it was smelling, it had to be DOA when my friend returned it to me four years ago when it had been in his possession. But the point is, every laptop is different, and since those little wires in there are tiny, so how do we keep track of them? Those tiny slots and connectors; even my sighted friend was struggling with the Toshiba, probably part of the reason why the board fully died (before we had attempted to fix it, it was smelling bad, though the laptop was basically working, though the time was wrong and there was, of course, no OS installed). I mean, replacing a CMOS battery is of course a bigger deal on a laptop than it is on a desktop or server, so how do you go about it? Do you just leave the deep repairs to the sighted? If so, then we should change that.

1 0

Accessibility of SCCM 2012 - was: Remotely deploying software
by Darragh Ó Héiligh 22 Nov '13

22 Nov '13

Catherine and Ryan, I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time in relation to SCCM 2012 accessibility. I cant find the forum now as the technet site has been removed that hosted it. I got speaking to a really nice man in Microsoft who has been working with me very closely on SCCM 2012 accessibility. He didn't get everything finished that I needed. There's still a few tree views that I cant access but overall, he has done a fantastic job in clearing a lot of things up. It's most certainly a work in progress though. It's funny. I contributed to that forum at the time thinking that it would fall on deaf ears. I couldn't have been more wrong. People from large univercities in the US and large companies in Europe including the one I worked for at the time as well as a few governments responded to my message. The response was overwhelming. Every single person who responded were amazed that Microsoft had dropped the ball so badly. I was working on a contract in the Irish government at the time. The minister here who is meant to be responsible for this kind of thing wouldn't have anything to do with it however. I had the ear of a few key people so the head of IT in the Oireachtas and the head of IT for our courts system also contacted their TAM's in Microsoft. It was a very interesting time as similtainiously, I had a fight on my hands with Mcafee. The later versions of their secure web gateway and secure mail gateway applications became fully Java based and were not at all accessible. In a lot of ways, I had more people fighting with me to make some progress on this but Mcafee really dragged their heals. I sware they actually deliberitly went out of their way to find it hard to understand the problems I was having. Although Peter Corn is no longer working on the Java access bridge team, I even got him involved. I even went down to Bill Hanemens house and looked at the interface so that he could give his suggestions to Mcafee. He also worked with Sun around the time that the Java access bridge was started. I had some seriously loud voices behind me that time but I may as well have been talking to a wall. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: 21 November 2013 21:30 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software What are the major accessibility issues anyway? I've honestly never touched it. I've wanted to, though I've not gotten around to downloading a trial. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 4:23 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software Katherine: How recent is this? The SP2 release of SCCm 2012 did include several accessibility improvements, but there are still a number of issues in the product that make it difficult to navigate. I'm running the latest SCCM release, SCCM 2012R2 on a Windows Server 2012R2 test machine, and accessibilitywise its about the same as the SCCM 2012 SP2 release. No change either an improveing or worsening things. I can navigate it for the most part, but doing so in an environment where its managing thousands of computers? I'm not sure there. Ryan ________________________________________ From: Blind-sysadmins [blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss [Katherine.Moss(a)gordon.edu] Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:32 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software If I may speak from monitoring technical forums and article repositories? I think there are fixes coming out soon if not already for SCCM 2012. A blind person mentioned it on the SCCM forum, and amazingly, Microsoft actually heard and responded to their call. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 3:37 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software Hi: Are you in an AD environment? Is the package you want to push an MSI? If so, then you can just use AD to push the package out when users log in or when the computer starts up. The industry standard for this kind of thing is Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, it does software push, inventory, update management, software metering, etc. The 2007 version is very accessible. The 2012 version, I'm still figuring that out as it's a learning curve. However, it is kind of the industry standard, so, get used to it. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Wheat Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 11:43 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software Hello, I am wondering what you all use to remotely install, inventory and remove software from windows machines. We have looked at a couple of free tools like PDQDeploy, but so far haven't found something that works with a screen reader. I could very well be missing something obvious because while I have been a programmer for many years my new job is requiring me to do some windows/server/network administration and I am still at the lower end of the learning curve. Thanks for any help! Scott _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

3 20

Accessibility of SCCM 2012 - was: Remotely deploying software
by Darragh Ó Héiligh 21 Nov '13

21 Nov '13

Catherine and Ryan, I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time in relation to SCCM 2012 accessibility. I cant find the forum now as the technet site has been removed that hosted it. I got speaking to a really nice man in Microsoft who has been working with me very closely on SCCM 2012 accessibility. He didn't get everything finished that I needed. There's still a few tree views that I cant access but overall, he has done a fantastic job in clearing a lot of things up. It's most certainly a work in progress though. It's funny. I contributed to that forum at the time thinking that it would fall on deaf ears. I couldn't have been more wrong. People from large univercities in the US and large companies in Europe including the one I worked for at the time as well as a few governments responded to my message. The response was overwhelming. Every single person who responded were amazed that Microsoft had dropped the ball so badly. I was working on a contract in the Irish government at the time. The minister here who is meant to be responsible for this kind of thing wouldn't have anything to do with it however. I had the ear of a few key people so the head of IT in the Oireachtas and the head of IT for our courts system also contacted their TAM's in Microsoft. It was a very interesting time as similtainiously, I had a fight on my hands with Mcafee. The later versions of their secure web gateway and secure mail gateway applications became fully Java based and were not at all accessible. In a lot of ways, I had more people fighting with me to make some progress on this but Mcafee really dragged their heals. I sware they actually deliberitly went out of their way to find it hard to understand the problems I was having. Although Peter Corn is no longer working on the Java access bridge team, I even got him involved. I even went down to Bill Hanemens house and looked at the interface so that he could give his suggestions to Mcafee. He also worked with Sun around the time that the Java access bridge was started. I had some seriously loud voices behind me that time but I may as well have been talking to a wall. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: 21 November 2013 21:30 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software What are the major accessibility issues anyway? I've honestly never touched it. I've wanted to, though I've not gotten around to downloading a trial. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 4:23 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software Katherine: How recent is this? The SP2 release of SCCm 2012 did include several accessibility improvements, but there are still a number of issues in the product that make it difficult to navigate. I'm running the latest SCCM release, SCCM 2012R2 on a Windows Server 2012R2 test machine, and accessibilitywise its about the same as the SCCM 2012 SP2 release. No change either an improveing or worsening things. I can navigate it for the most part, but doing so in an environment where its managing thousands of computers? I'm not sure there. Ryan ________________________________________ From: Blind-sysadmins [blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss [Katherine.Moss(a)gordon.edu] Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:32 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software If I may speak from monitoring technical forums and article repositories? I think there are fixes coming out soon if not already for SCCM 2012. A blind person mentioned it on the SCCM forum, and amazingly, Microsoft actually heard and responded to their call. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 3:37 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software Hi: Are you in an AD environment? Is the package you want to push an MSI? If so, then you can just use AD to push the package out when users log in or when the computer starts up. The industry standard for this kind of thing is Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, it does software push, inventory, update management, software metering, etc. The 2007 version is very accessible. The 2012 version, I'm still figuring that out as it's a learning curve. However, it is kind of the industry standard, so, get used to it. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Wheat Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 11:43 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Remotely deploying software Hello, I am wondering what you all use to remotely install, inventory and remove software from windows machines. We have looked at a couple of free tools like PDQDeploy, but so far haven't found something that works with a screen reader. I could very well be missing something obvious because while I have been a programmer for many years my new job is requiring me to do some windows/server/network administration and I am still at the lower end of the learning curve. Thanks for any help! Scott _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

1 0

Remotely deploying software
by Scott Wheat 21 Nov '13

21 Nov '13

Hello, I am wondering what you all use to remotely install, inventory and remove software from windows machines. We have looked at a couple of free tools like PDQDeploy, but so far haven't found something that works with a screen reader. I could very well be missing something obvious because while I have been a programmer for many years my new job is requiring me to do some windows/server/network administration and I am still at the lower end of the learning curve. Thanks for any help! Scott

3 11

Blind Admin web site.
by Sean Murphy 19 Nov '13

19 Nov '13

Hi all. I have been kicking around an idea for a while now. I think we need a web site that we can share articles, how to's, best practises, knowledge articles, etc for people with vision impairment for admin on any area of IT. Also we could provide a section for programming. Utilising resources that are already out there would be good. any thoughts people? Sean

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Nageos
by Darragh Ó Héiligh 18 Nov '13

18 Nov '13

Hello, I want to learn a lot more about Nageos. Would you have any good places to start from? Or, is there anything that you did while learning about it that you recommend that I don't do? Thanks

2 1

Nageos
by Darragh Ó Héiligh 18 Nov '13

18 Nov '13

Hello, I want to learn a lot more about Nageos. Would you have any good places to start from? Or, is there anything that you did while learning about it that you recommend that I don't do? Thanks

1 0