- Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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defrag service, windows 7, ssd and hdd drives
by David Mehler 18 Nov '13

18 Nov '13

Hello, I'm running windows 7 on an ssd, that's the primary drive in this machine. I have read on various sites that having the windows defrag service on for an ssd is unnecessary so I disabled it. The problem is I've got two other drives in the box, hdd drives, and I'm wanting to defrag them. THis isn't happening with the service disabled. Is anyone else dealing with this? Thanks. Dave.

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defrag service, windows 7, ssd and hdd drives
by David Mehler 17 Nov '13

17 Nov '13

Hello, I'm running windows 7 on an ssd, that's the primary drive in this machine. I have read on various sites that having the windows defrag service on for an ssd is unnecessary so I disabled it. The problem is I've got two other drives in the box, hdd drives, and I'm wanting to defrag them. THis isn't happening with the service disabled. Is anyone else dealing with this? Thanks. Dave.

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Article: Employers still reluctant to hire blind employees
by John G. Heim 17 Nov '13

17 Nov '13

This article is a must read for anyone interested in the conversation we've been having about bias against hiring the blind. Note that it says almost exactly what we've been saying -- things are way better but still very bad. One thing I'd add is that the things we did in the 70s and 80s to get us this far won't necessarily help us take that next step. From New York Daily News and AP: employers still reluctant to hire blind employees http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/employers-reluctant-hire-blind… -- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim(a)math.wisc.edu

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What is the best way to dual-boot openSuSE on a Latitude E6530 using virtual hard drives?
by Katherine Moss 12 Nov '13

12 Nov '13

Hey all, This question is honestly more a knowledge question rather than a blindness-specific admin question, but I'm curious. I'd like to set up OpenSuSE 64 bit as a second operating system on my Dell Latitude E6530 laptop, but I want to use a vhdx file instead of having to futz with splitting the physical hard drive I have in here into a bunch of partitions since it's kinda getting full as it is. What's the most accessible way to add the VHD as a bootable drive so that it will be recognized by the YaST installer as a place to hold Operating system files? and what filesystem should I use? I'd like to use EXT3, but will that work? Will YaST reformat a formatted virtual hard drive just like it would a physical one? Now, you guys are probably curious, why I'm not using a virtual machine for this. The answer is simple. I want to give the raw power of my dell Latitude to OpenSuSE, considering I want to use it alternately with Windows as a secondary OS, not just something to play around with. I'd like to learn and use Linux, and I figure that making it a secondary OS along with Windows would be a good idea. I want to one day be as proficient in Linux as I am in windows. Thanks for your feedback and suggestions.

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