Hey Darrah: I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, I can very much relate, and it can be frustrating. We don't use the McAfee web gateway product so I don't have any comments there, but as a VSphere administrator I know how frustrating it can be. What kind of things do you find frustrating specifically? I've actually found through some basic Window-Eyes scripting, and a combined use of the VSphere Client and PowerCLI I'm able to do what I need to do for now. We're going to be moving to a product called VCloud Director in the next year, and that's all flashbased. I have no idea how I'll handle that as I already know it won't work with Window-eyes. Adaptive tech companies across the board are in some kind of denial that these alternative interfaces like Flash, Java, etc. are important, I don't really get why, but the level of development on these UIs is just not there, and the level of penetration and testing of major enterprise apps is appoling. I know there's a constant battle of is this, for example, an Adobe or Java issue or a screen reader issue, and those aren't always easy questions to answer. Do you have anything equivalent to section 508 in the US? If so, you might be able to make a case that legally, your organization can't move to the McAfee product because it violates accessibility regulations. Personally I don't think section 508 does much good here, but its worth trying if you have an equivalent. In general I'm very apposed to this approach, but would writing an alternative interface be an option? In otherwords, instead of having a JAWS/Window-Eyes script grafted onto the app, can they develop a completely separate interface? As I said I generally dislike this approach for many reasons, but it is an option to consider. Is there a Powershell module for the McAfee product? If so, there's a good place to start. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh OHeiligh Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 1:25 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Mcafee Secure web gateway. Greetings, I'm encountering another problem with accessibility or the lack there of. Mcafee upgraded their secure web gateway software to version 7 probably about a year ago. We're very slow to upgrade critical systems here so we've been working with 6 for that time. Version 7 is Java based so dredding the worst I have been in no hurry to move onto the upgrade project any time soon. Unfortunately however, as part of a green IT policy this service needs to be virtualized so sticking with version 6 is no longer viable and my desprit attempts at prolonging the inevitable cant continue indefinitly. To say I'm screwed is now an under statement. This version 7 is completely inaccessible. Even with the Java access bridge installed Jaws simply can not navigate around the screens. I know that speaking with Mcafee wouldn't make a blind bit of difference if you excuse the punn. There's nothing FreedomScientific can do about it either because they rely on the Java access bridge and in turn, the Java access bridge relies on developers. This is a very bad time to be pushing responsibilities to other people. My team is now down from three people to two. One of the guys are leaving and although they have promised the fill the vacancy I seriously doubt that will happen. I have been given a lot more responsibilities for systems that I wanted to be more involved with such as the SAN and virtualization. I'm really struggling with the advanced administration of VSphere at the moment. With some scripting I was hoping that I'd be able to get around some of the problems I'm having with that application but I really cant afford to have both problems at the same time. I'm starting to become convinced that with todays accessibility chalanges and the lack of improvement in screen reading technologies such as Jaws, Window Eyes and every other screen reader out there being a blind system administrator is just not a viable long term possibility. Moving to an alternative web gateway application is not an option. There's no way they'd ever consider it and there is so much red tape here that it would take a year for the project to be approved, tested and implemented. 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@oireachtas.ie Internet: http://www.oireachtas.ie _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins