Hi Andrew: While I agree with you on a best practices standpoint to avoid using RDP, I don't see RDP as an accessibility issue. Actually I have to use RDP quite a bit to set up new servers, install various required software, etc. We have a copy of Window-Eyes installed on all our templates, and when I deploy a new server using the template, it just comes up, I find out the IP address then can RDP right in, launch Window-Eyes and I'm going. So, strictly from an accessibility standpoint RDP is fine. Its kind of annoying working with servers in remote offices where the network connection is bad. Last week I had to set up three new ESX hosts and some VMs on each that were going to be new DCs. RDPing into those DCs was quite a paine, but in the end it worked. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 2:43 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] SCCM 2012. What a surprise Hi, I am in a similar boat re diagrams, graphs and different charts. These are being required a lot more to impress the directors etc, a lot of proposals I spend time writing up, referencing etc just don't get read, where as other proposals which work on a gant chart or similar are taken up. For the SCVMM stuff I have emailed a friend of mine at Microsoft who is also visually impaired, he may not be able to do anything, but I hope at least he can forward our concerns onto someone who can help us further, it may be a long road though. I am also in a fairly small company and control the environment tightly, however, products change and become less usable. For example, I am a big fan of the Mimecast services, but their web interface has become very tiresome to use now they upgraded it. I did forward my concerns onto the tech reps, plus also talked to the account manager about this when they did a review with us, but I haven't heard anything about this. My view on this is that we will do better in smaller companies where we can make the decisions and work as we find best, in larger companies it may be more rigid or there may be ways of working that don't go well with us which aren't going to change. One example I use here is RDP, whilst we can use RDP with Jaws I try and avoid this wherever possible, using remote admin shell, file sharing and remote admin tools wherever possible. I also believe this is better security for the server, as you aren't tying up resources for RDP sessions, and you are using your own system and GUI to do all the admin work. However, I realise it isn't yet a way that most people do their jobs, they like to RDP into the system and run from there, even if they only need to change a file etc. An example here is SQL Management Studio, I really don't know why anyone uses that on a server directly, when on your desktop you can do so much more with it, for example, researching queries, copy/paste, sav! ing to your documents folder etc. However, when I install a SQL server without the management tools, the DBAs always complain that they can't manage the server, and yesterday one of the guys needed to run a single truncate table query, and they needed RDP access to do that! Luckily on this score I think Microsoft are going with the remote admin option, so hopefully this mindset will change. Andrew. ________________________________________ From: Blind-sysadmins [blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] on behalf of Brian Moore [bmoore@screenreview.org] Sent: 14 February 2013 03:49 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] SCCM 2012. What a surprise Hi Darragh. no, it certainly isn't only you who is in this boat. I do admin for a small org and less and less stuff is usable to administer. simple things like the gui interface on nas devices. Used to be a big supporter of synology products for small business. their raid implementation works well and they were really good for setting up granular permissions on storage volumes etc. as of now, the interface for all their products is completely ajax based and completely unusable with any screen reader I have tried which is most of them. new quote system same deal, gui is completely unusable. fortunately, we are still using sugar as a crm and that is somewhat usable as most of it can be manipulated with a shell. However, when I work with clients, more and more stuff is appearing that our tools just can't deal with. I have been looking hard for admin jobs with larger organizations, Government departments, banks etc and in all cases, there are lots of vmware vsphere and other tools which we can't work effectively with i.e sccm 2012. There is also the issue of people don't take you seriously unless you show up with lots of fancy powerpoint type things with lots of graphs and things to wow them. don't know about the rest of you but I can do the basics of that stuff and not much else. Never thought making nice slide show thingys would be a required skill in system admin stuff. Perhaps this is much different in large organizations that actually have an it staff unlike my 1 man shop but this stuff is turning into a real struggle. at this point, I am quite uncomfortable with the amount of things I am having to ask other people to do that properly are my job. NOt so much in this job because we are a small company so I can control the environment to a large extent but if I were to move to a bank or another large organization with things already in place would be interested in others thoughts on all this stuff as well. Brian. On 13/02/2013 4:34 PM, Ryan Shugart wrote:
Hi Darragh: Its not just you. I've been complaining about SCCM 2012 for over two years now. I've been talking to Microsoft for over a year in one form or another. I'm seeing the exact same things you're seeing in the industry, and it scares me. VMWare will be in the same boat once the next major version comes out because the traditional VIC is going away to be replaced by a Flash-based web client. I'm getting us on 5.1 now so I can have some time to come up with a game plan. I keep testing SCCM 2012 builds, and have made it clear to Microsoft we will not be upgrading until these issues are fixed. Granted MS doesn't care but hey. I think both your conclusions are correct. I don't know why, but I get the impression screen reader vendors are more and more overwhelmed. Either they don't know what to do about it or there is nothing they can do about it. On the other hand, mainstream companies (with a few notable exceptions) do not see a need for accessibility and don't take the time to put it in. The System Center team at Microsoft has no idea how to test properly for accessibility. They do do some testing, but they don't have any actual blind users on staff using the System Center sweet and working through tasks, so the people at Microsoft honestly have no clue what to do either. Its a giant catch 22. Also, there is no one UI team developing the SCCM 2012 console. The ribbon control you're having issues with, for example, is actually developed by the .Net team and the System Center people have very little visibility into that code. On the screen reader company side, I'm having little success. I think its these people are just overwhelmed, and I think are slowly losing the edge. I'm having better luck with the actual software vendors, but not by a huge amount. As I mentioned last week, I have a PSS case open with Microsoft on the accessibility issues with SCCM. Its SR112042659740455. Darragh, I know you said you'd rather not go this route, but I think this is going to be our best shot at getting this fixed. I really think it would be good for you to figure out who your TAM is, contact him or her, and get your organization added to this case as well. If the Microsoft people see more people than just me are impacted by this then they will work harder to get this resolved, and the best way to do this is to attach everything to this support request I think. Ryan
________________________________________ From: Blind-sysadmins [blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh OHeiligh [Darragh.OHeiligh@Oireachtas.ie] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 10:39 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Cc: Blind-sysadmins Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] SCCM 2012. What a surprise
Hugely dissappointing doesn't come close to what it is.
Seriously. I keep saying this on this list. Am I alone in my experience? I said a few months ago that I'm running out of systems. It's only gettting worse now! SCOM 2012 and SCCM 2012 are a right off. Considering I was the main administrator of these systems in the 2007 version that's two more systems that I can no longer administer.
So. lets look at the past year. Secure web gateway. lost last year. Secure mail gateway. Lost about six months ago. Diskeeper 12 clients. Lost three months ago. Whats up gold. lost access to the alerts console last year. Zenprise. Just implemented. Hundreds of unlabeled buttons. VSphere 5.1. Lots of unlabeled buttons. Web based version is no bettter. HP EVA. Tree view is partially broken since last update 2 months ago.
Now, last year I was in a team of two. The other person was quite new and I was taking on the bulk of the work. He had the simple things like group policy and active directory. Now, one of the people who used to work here has come back. That in itsself is brilliant because he has a lot of experience and he took over from the newby. We have another person on the team now. He's been promoted from the service desk. I'm absolutely delighted for him. He deserves the promotion and the oppertunity.
However, within no time he'll be passed the newby jobs and he'll be looking at the interesting systems.
I used to read about people on various lists where they'd find that gradually systems became less accessible and after some time they'd simply find themselves surpluss to requirements.
I am in danger of this happening to me at this stage.
I don't have many systems left. I'm deliberitly holding back projects and upgrades because the new systems aren't accessible to me.
So, tell me. What would you do in my situation?
Regards
Darragh � H�iligh Fujitsu
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From: "Barry Toner" <Barry.Toner@clanmil.org.uk> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org>, Date: 13/02/2013 17:28 Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] SCCM 2012. What a surprise Sent by: "Blind-sysadmins" <blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org>
Thanks for the warning.
That's hugely disappointing.
Barry
-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [ mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh OHeiligh Sent: 13 February 2013 17:12 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] SCCM 2012. What a surprise
So, Today was my first day really using SCCM 2012.
Unfortunately, if your thinking of using it, just forget about it.
It The Ribbin isn't accessible. Neither is the summary list on the bottom of the screen. There are a huge number of tab stops but yet you cant access the bottom left of the screen. Tab stops seem to be randem. The tab control gets focus in the most unusual situations. Oh, and the great thing? The stupid Jaws cursor doesn't work in the application.
Why is it that more and more applications are becoming inaccessible? Is it just me who is having more problems? Think about it! More applications written in Java, Installers aren't accessible. More so now than ever.
So, either screen reader developers aren't keeping up with modern technologies or companies who make these products are doing absolutely nothing when it comes to accessibility.
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