Thanks Katherine, this is very useful to hear. I'm earmarking your comment on Server Manager, Hyper-V and recovery mode, and I will definitely pass your feedback on Sharepoint on - if you have more details on the latter, that would be great as well.
Apologies for the delayed reply - CSUN was definitely busier than I anticipated (and in a very good way!)
-----Original Message-----
From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2016 6:50 AM
To: 'Blind sysadmins list'
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Introductions
I'll come in on this ... my preference for management (once I become proficient at it enough where commands will just pop out of my head at
random) is PowerShell. I'm very weak in it by most standards, but I'm using the accessibility struggle as my excuse to get better at it quicker. (I love the command line so much that I drive my GUI-thinking friend crazy most of the time.) I currently have AD deployed both at my place of employment, as well as at my house, and I love it ... using AD, WSUS, WDS (though the only way WDS works for us is with unattended setup files, and even then I'm not sure how they work, since writing those always takes a sighted tester first), and I also have an IIS server at my house, with SQL and Sharepoint running elsewhere. So, you can see I'm all over the place, setting up more stuff than is truly necessary because I want to be versed in as many products from Microsoft as I can. Not only to scout out accessibility issues. Certain areas that need serious work though, are the Sharepoint administration panel, the Server Manager dashboard (many elements don't read checked or unchecked, for instance when installing them, and also, when there are edit fields to type information in, those simply read in screen reader's views as "edit" instead of the actual field name (installing WSUS via the GUI is a good example, for instance, if you want to change the database from the default WID configuration )), and many others. Honestly, not sure why the open source screen reader NVDA's not been included into the Windows setup experience. And, another thing to keep in mind ... installing windows on Hyper-V would be much easier if a virtual sound device could be configured ... instead, in order to get audio, we have to use enhanced session mode, which doesn't help during the installation process. Also the option for speech during recoveries such as emergency console on NanoServer, DSRM, WinPE (for capturing images when unattended setup has not been written), andso on. After all, you guys were the creators of UEFI, weren't you? Use your own process to your advantage to make the BIOS talk ... so to speak. Just my two cents ... will probably have more coming in the not too distant future.
-----Original Message-----
From: Blind-sysadmins
[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Gianugo Rabellino
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 10:16 PM
To: Blind sysadmins list
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Introductions
Thanks Andrew for the warm welcome, and thanks for your context on devops.
Indeed I believe that devops can be a great opportunity: I have to confess my undying love for command line interfaces and scripts rather than GUIs, so no surprise here.
Something I'd be keen to know, in fact, is whether there is something we could or should do on the command line front to make it more accessible and usable. Note that this is no excuse to delay or underperform in providing accessible web and GUI interfaces: I consider that an absolute minimum bar that needs to be applied across the board with no exceptions, and I trust we will get there.
At the same time though, and all things being equal, I wonder if you and others in this community have a preference given the choice of a GUI interface or a console/command line environment to perform typical system administration tasks. In both cases, it would be very helpful for me to understand what are the gaps and where we can work to make the system administration experience more productive from an accessibility point of view.
Thanks again for taking the time to write this, and likewise I'm looking forward to future engagements with this list.
Gianugo
-----Original Message-----
From: Blind-sysadmins
[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 3:20 PM
To: Blind sysadmins list
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Introductions
Hi Gianugo,
Welcome to this group. I am really pleased to see someone from Microsoft join the group, and hope you won't be bombarded with lots of people asking you for access tips or to vent issues with Microsoft products.
I am the group owner, and I came into the sysadmin world with a Linux intro at home, followed by a swift Windows conversion when I joined a company. I have mainly found the Microsoft products really usable with speech, and in fact chose Windows because my sighted friends using Linux were mainly using GUIs, which were in most cases non-standard and the access to those was very sketchy. I am a fan of the remote administration tools, so rather than remoting onto a server and getting the job done, I prefer accessing the server remotely via a remote access protocol (RSAT tools are a very good example of this working well). PowerShell remoting is another way this works well.
Recently I have joined a DevOps team and whilst we are using the Windows stack, the senior guys of the team mainly have a Linux background, and so it is quite a challenge to fit in some of the technologies in a Windows stack.
It is getting a lot easier now, and I find the concept of defining stacks using code really helpful as someone with limited vision, because I just write the code, and can see the end product, which includes infrastructure diagrams etc. Not fully there yet, but we're getting closer.
I manage Office365 tenants for a few organisations (mainly charities that have donations from Microsoft), and I have found the recent console slightly behind in access to its older brother. This may just be because I am new to the new console, and in fact that is one thing which needs to be made clear:
Sometimes there isn't an access issue, but because everything has moved round from where it was, it can take a long time for screen reader users to catch up. I tend to use PowerShell to do most of the work these days, illuminating the need for a console altogether, but it may be something to look at.
Looking forward to future discussions with you on the list, Best, Andrew.
-----Original Message-----
From: Blind-sysadmins
[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Gianugo Rabellino
Sent: 23 March 2016 18:28
To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Introductions
I had just subscribed to this list and I thought I'd quickly introduce myself. My name is Gianugo Rabellino, and I am the newly minted director of accessibility for Microsoft's Cloud+Enterprise division. My responsibility roughly spans all the server side product lineup from Microsoft (Windows Server, Azure, System Center, SQL Server, Power BI...) as well as our developer tools (Visual Studio, VS Code, .NET and more).
As I'm ramping up and learning a lot about a11y, I found this list and I thought it would be useful for me to subscribe and at the same time offer to this group to be a Microsoft point of contact on top of our official channels. While I'm directly responsible for the Cloud+Enterprise lineup, I'm also part of a larger accessibility team across Microsoft, so I'd be more than happy to connect to relevant colleagues if you have questions or issues about other Microsoft products.
My background in the past 25 years has been in open source, and as such I'm very passionate about having discussions in the open and interacting transparently with the communities I'm working with. To that extent, I am currently attending CSUN and I would love the opportunity to meet with anyone on this group who happens to be in San Diego these days. Please don't hesitate to contact me and we will certainly find a time. And if you're not at CSUN, feel free to reach out all the same, on this list or privately: I would really appreciate an opportunity to learn more and work together.
Looking forward to our future conversations,
--
Gianugo Rabellino
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