Hi Andrew: I'm a little surprised the Cisco stuff is going webbie, most Cisco people I know love the IOS commandline, or perhaps the ASAs don't run IOS? Cisco products have had web UIs as long as I can remember, but I always remember them being secondary to the CLI. That said, our Cisco guy where I work swares by the web UIs whenever he can. Personally, so long as the UI is accessible, I don't really care if its web or CLI. I'm conserned about the move to Java as well, I think the key phrase is cross platform compatability, to grab all of those sysadmins sitting in front of MACs at work you know. All of our HP servers have these ILO cards which would really be cool to work with, if only the interface weren't Java. Window-Eyes had some reasonable Java support, but it was being done by a third party, not GW-Micro, and I've not seen any updates to it recently, not sure what's going on there. Almost more disturbing than Java is the Web 2.0 trend. My hope is screen readers will eventually be able to overcome this, but so far it looks like we have a long way to go. We recently purchased a product from VMWare called Lab Manager, which is an add-on to ESX that lets endusers quickly deploy and undeploy whole configurations of machines for testing software and other purposes. The UI for everything is this really fancy Web 2.0 application. Large parts are accessible, and again large parts aren't. For example, I can't use any combo box in the entire app, they're all custom designed combo boxes. I don't know what was wrong with the standard HTML combo box but hey. That's not the only case, the old ticketing system my prior employer used was really bad and difficult to follow. My current employer uses Heat which is much more accessible so that's good. But in my life, these Web 2.0 apps are almost more of an annoyance than Java. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 2:43 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] does anyone else hate the trend to web GUIs in network equipment? Hi, ASA still has the CLI, but I do notice that some features are being farmed out to the GUI, and that a lot of the tutorials are showing the GUI rather than the CLI. I believe if you study for the exams, that you are still shown the CLI primarily. I find it more disturbing the proliferation of Java based admin tools on hardware, rather than the web interface themselves. A good accessible web interface is better than the Java stuff that is being shipped out by a lot of these manufacturers. At work, for example, I was evaluating a spam catch appliance that used a totally unnecessary Java front-end, making most of the config inaccessible. Java support is one thing I wish that screen reader manufacturers spent more time with, rather than small features like sound management, dictionary lookups and the like, because I am concerned that it is only going to get more widespread. Andrew. Andrew Hodgson Senior Systems Administrator/Projects Engineer Direct Line Tel: 01432 852332 Email: andrew.hodgson@allpay.net Please do not print this email unless absolutely necessary. -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: 04 August 2009 21:48 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] does anyone else hate the trend to web GUIs in network equipment? I'm a little disturbed by a trend in network hardware where everything has to have a web front end to configure. Even gear like the Cisco ASA has this totally inaccessible java based ASDM thingy that sucks on a whole new level. (even to sited users) What's happening to the command line? It's so much better and more efficient for working with network elements and frankly for servers. Everyone tell your Cisco reps that this is a bad thing. (tm) _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins -- allpay achieved PCI DSS and ISO 27001 certification in 2008 Registered in England No. 02933191. UK VAT Reg. No. 666 9148 88. Telephone: 0844 225 5729, Fax: 0844 557 8350. Website: www.allpay.net Email: enquiries@allpay.net This email, and any files transmitted with it, is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the allpay Information Security Manager at the number above. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins