August 2016 - Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

Facebook groups
by Jad Wauthier 03 Jun '17

03 Jun '17

I have created two Facebook groups. the first is Tech Makers. My objective with this group is to provide a convenient medium for people who are technology creators to discuss relevant topics and get feedback from peers. I hope that anyone who is interested in collaborating about tech topics will join and add others who might be interested in participating. The other group is Project Connect. the goal for this group is to provide a convenient medium for developers, admins, and others to discuss and share ideas about their projects. Sometimes, you have a project you are excited about, but you don't know how to get others on board with it. Other times, you might want some side project to work on, but you're not sure of what things other people are doing. I hope that people will join this group and share their ideas and possibly connect with others. -- Jad Wauthier | Problem Solver Phone: 512.290.3494 Fax: 512.367.5925 It's all in the perception.

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Asus RT-N66u router guest network connection difficulties
by David Mehler 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

Hello, If anyone has this router please get back to me. I've just got this router and have updated it's firmware to the latest Asus firmware. I've configured it and everything is working great! Performance is awesome! All of this with one exception, guest network, I've set it up yet no one can connect to it, either with a laptop/desktop, or wirelessly phones. With a phone I just get connecting and nothing else, if I have an open authentication setup on the guest network I get acquiring ip address and then it just repeats. Connecting to the standard wireless network occurs without an issue. If anyone has any ideas or has this working i'd love to know about it. Also, if anyone has a nonstandard firmware, like ddwrt, tomato, or something called merlin, going on this router I'd love to know that as well. Thanks. Dave.

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Asus RT-N66u router guest network connection difficulties
by David Mehler 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

Hello, If anyone has this router please get back to me. I've just got this router and have updated it's firmware to the latest Asus firmware. I've configured it and everything is working great! Performance is awesome! All of this with one exception, guest network, I've set it up yet no one can connect to it, either with a laptop/desktop, or wirelessly phones. With a phone I just get connecting and nothing else, if I have an open authentication setup on the guest network I get acquiring ip address and then it just repeats. Connecting to the standard wireless network occurs without an issue. If anyone has any ideas or has this working i'd love to know about it. Also, if anyone has a nonstandard firmware, like ddwrt, tomato, or something called merlin, going on this router I'd love to know that as well. Thanks. Dave.

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Accessibility implications of the secure boot leak
by Ben Mustill-Rose 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

Hi all, Bit of an interesting one here: By now some of you will have heard that Microsoft has leaked what's being called a golden key relating to its secure boot process. For those that haven't, essentially, on newer UEFI based computers that are prebuilt & the Surface RT tablets you're unable to boot anything that hasn't been signed by Microsoft. On normal laptops & desktops you're usually able to just turn it off in the UEFI but obviously this presents accessibility issues for us. I'm not going to post any links as I'm assuming that this is a bit of a grey area legally & replies off list about how to do it will respectfully go unanswered, but suffice to say that after a bit of Googling I was able to download a script that disabled secure boot for me on a computer where it was enabled which allowed me to boot a talking PE disk. The script is kicked off within Windows and the process is more or less fully accessible. My understanding is that MS are pushing out updates that try to stop the tool from working but at the time of writing they appear not to be overly effective. Obviously if we look at the bigger picture, in terms of security this is a *huge* issue. Never the less, for us, it is a small, all be it unintended win in terms of accessibility. Have fun, Ben.

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Accessibility implications of the secure boot leak
by Ben Mustill-Rose 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

Hi all, Bit of an interesting one here: By now some of you will have heard that Microsoft has leaked what's being called a golden key relating to its secure boot process. For those that haven't, essentially, on newer UEFI based computers that are prebuilt & the Surface RT tablets you're unable to boot anything that hasn't been signed by Microsoft. On normal laptops & desktops you're usually able to just turn it off in the UEFI but obviously this presents accessibility issues for us. I'm not going to post any links as I'm assuming that this is a bit of a grey area legally & replies off list about how to do it will respectfully go unanswered, but suffice to say that after a bit of Googling I was able to download a script that disabled secure boot for me on a computer where it was enabled which allowed me to boot a talking PE disk. The script is kicked off within Windows and the process is more or less fully accessible. My understanding is that MS are pushing out updates that try to stop the tool from working but at the time of writing they appear not to be overly effective. Obviously if we look at the bigger picture, in terms of security this is a *huge* issue. Never the less, for us, it is a small, all be it unintended win in terms of accessibility. Have fun, Ben.

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bitlocker accessibility
by Chamandeep Singh Grover 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

Hi All, I am emailing on behalf of a friend who works at a company where bitlocker is used for encrypting devices. As you may know it requires the entering of a personal pin to login to the machine, however it is not possible to determine when the login screen is visible on screen. I wanted to ask if anyone knows of a setting to enable any audible beeps or similar to enhance the accessibility of this? Thank you Chamandeep singh Grover

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bitlocker accessibility
by Chamandeep Singh Grover 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

Hi All, I am emailing on behalf of a friend who works at a company where bitlocker is used for encrypting devices. As you may know it requires the entering of a personal pin to login to the machine, however it is not possible to determine when the login screen is visible on screen. I wanted to ask if anyone knows of a setting to enable any audible beeps or similar to enhance the accessibility of this? Thank you Chamandeep singh Grover

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debian Linux failing to install?
by Carter Temm 10 Aug '16

10 Aug '16

Hi, I'm trying to install debian. More specific Kali. When I boot and press s, it guides me through the installation. that's done, but the issue comes when the machine actually boots up. I don't know how to get speech so I can continue the installation. thanks for help

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Hyper-V or VMWare workstation on Windows 10.
by Darragh Ó Héiligh 09 Aug '16

09 Aug '16

There have been a few changes in relation to Hyper-V and Windows 10 lately. In the event you have tested hypervisors running under Windows 10 would you mind telling me if Hyper-V is still not a workable Hypervisor for screen reader users please? It's been over a year since I've tried it but there was something incompatible with exclusive mode I think. I cant fully remember what the problem was any more. I'm sure a lot has changed since then. Has anyone used Hyper-V recently? Specifically on Windows 10 please. Alternatively, have you used VMware workstation on Windows 10 lately? What is it like? I know Jaws for example was working really well with VMware workstation at the start of the year. I go through periods of mad activity on virtual machines. I'm going to get into one of those times between now and Sunday. Thanks Darragh

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Hyper-V or VMWare workstation on Windows 10.
by Darragh Ó Héiligh 09 Aug '16

09 Aug '16

There have been a few changes in relation to Hyper-V and Windows 10 lately. In the event you have tested hypervisors running under Windows 10 would you mind telling me if Hyper-V is still not a workable Hypervisor for screen reader users please? It's been over a year since I've tried it but there was something incompatible with exclusive mode I think. I cant fully remember what the problem was any more. I'm sure a lot has changed since then. Has anyone used Hyper-V recently? Specifically on Windows 10 please. Alternatively, have you used VMware workstation on Windows 10 lately? What is it like? I know Jaws for example was working really well with VMware workstation at the start of the year. I go through periods of mad activity on virtual machines. I'm going to get into one of those times between now and Sunday. Thanks Darragh

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