July 2023 - Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

Losing focus in terminal all the time
by Andrew Hodgson 21 Dec '23

21 Dec '23

Hi. Latest JFW and Windows 11 builds on multiple machines, I lose speech output in the terminal or command prompt when navigating to and from the window. What I mean by this is I am not hearing the output of commands or what I am typing into the window. This is really starting to stress me out now and I can't believe I am the only person experiencing it. Its been happening since the beginning of the year since a Windows update I think. Any suggestions? Thanks. Andrew.

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Vibor
by ashudrya＠gmail.com 26 Jul '23

26 Jul '23

Hello, Anybody had any luck making vibor on windows desktop accessible? No matter what I try, JAWS, NVDA or Narrator, nothing seems to be working. I am trying googling for JAWS scripts to no avail. -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software. www.avg.com

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CCNA Exam, packet tracer
by David Mehler 26 Jul '23

26 Jul '23

Hello, Do we have anyone who has taken and/or passed the CCNA exam? If so how did you handle packet tracer? Is it accessible? Thanks. Dave.

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help us make AI more inclusive
by Ryan Shugart 25 Jul '23

25 Jul '23

Hello everyone, I wanted to pass the following along as I felt there may be some on this list who may be interested. If so, please fill out the survey linked below. I can say some of those "future" opportunities are coming up pretty quickly. Feel free to forward on as appropriate. We are working on improving our Azure AI development experiences to make them as inclusive as possible for all developers. We want to make sure the age of AI is accessible to all developers! If you use Azure AI or a similar technology as part of your work and identify as having a disability, we would love to hear from you. Please fill in this sign-up form<https://forms.office.com/r/6GZhZE9Q2N> and we hope to reach out to you with future research opportunities. Thanks a lot. Ryan Ryan Shugart Senior Program Manager, Cloud+AI Accessibility Microsoft Corporation 425-705-1262

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JAWS and windows 10
by Zameer Mahomed 14 Jul '23

14 Jul '23

Hi List, For those using jaws and windows 10, Do you perhaps have some advice for me please, with the following issues I experience below? I find that JAWS is not reading search results in the start menu, I don't hear items in combo boxes, I'm not able to review text in edit boxes in apps like Whatsapp, and I can't use the Microsoft store reliably. It sounds like a video accessibility driver issue but I'm not too sure. Clean install of windows 10 up to date. Ensured that I'm using the correct and up to date display driver. Have done a reinstall of jaws, latest version. I've enabled the start menu, access out of process option. Use accessibility display driver for capture option is checked. This is also happening on my work machine using windows 10 but I could get by with it for now. The only reason why I am still sticking with windows 10 is because I find that there is less of a lag compared to windows 11, where all works just fine. My home machine does not support windows 11 officially, but if I install it anyway, all seems to work fine. Any help would be much appreciated, apologies for posting such an unrelated question to this type of list. Kind Regards

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Accessible encryption windows hard/ssd/thumb drives at use and at rest?
by David Mehler 13 Jul '23

13 Jul '23

Hello, I just dodged a big bullet, which could have had identity-stealing implications if I hadn't got lucky. That being the case I'm looking for accessible encryption methods, free is best, for windows drives, complete drives, hdd/ssd/m.2/USB/sd/if I plug it in it's a drive. I'm needing it to be accessible when the system is booted up in windows, but if the machine is shut down or powered off, basically if the drive is removed it's at-rest encryption so that if someone were to pull it out of a computer (which happened) they would not be able to read anything on it, so I'd be out a drive and not the valuable data that goes with it. Thanks. Dave.

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Output of continuous integration (CI) systems
by Andrew Hodgson 05 Jul '23

05 Jul '23

Hi. Anyone got any tips for accessing the console output from a CI system job run? I'm talking about Azure Devops and Github Actions which both have the same issues. I have fairly verbose jobs that I need to get info from fairly quickly. Back in the golden days I could open the console output from the job in Edge or whatever and do a find on page using JFW's find feature, and the piece of text I wanted would come up and I could arrow around to read the log. These days both of these systems are doing something different. I typically can't just do a search anymore on the log window. In Azure Devops I can view a raw log, but it has timestamps which I have to skip through in order to get to what I want. In Github actions I have to download the log locally and go through it there. Arrowing through the log in the log viewer doesn't help either, I can sometimes turn off virtual PC cursor and get text out that way. Even worse is when I want to copy text from the log to the clipboard, its virtually impossible for me to select what I want and do ctrl+c to get it in the clipboard and elsewhere. Anyone got any tips for navigating these systems? Thanks. Andrew.

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The scale of software accessibility
by Samuel Barnes 01 Jul '23

01 Jul '23

Here's something a little different. I've been kicking around the idea of a numeric score to grade the accessibility of software. It still needs work, but this is what I have so far: 0. Deliberately inaccessible: The developer purposely hinders the program's accessibility. Example: Some books on Amazon kindle will specifically announce their incompatibility with screen readers. (I'm guessing this is fallout from the Authors' Guild complaining about the Kindle's use of TTS supposedly cutting into audio book sales). 1. Completely inaccessible. The program cannot be used by screen readers. Example: old Flash and Java apps. 2. Accidentally accessible. Some parts may be accessible thanks to the various software libraries or platform used, but the devs aren't deliberately trying to make the software accessible. Often this accessibility is only achievable through workarounds. Example: Navigating from comment to comment on Reddit requires you to jump from downvote button to downvote button. 3. Acknowledged inaccessibility. The devs know the software is inaccessible, and acknowledge it in some way by pointing to 3rd party workarounds or alternative software that is accessible. Example: VanDyke software (who makes SecureCRT) just has a page pointing to some 3rd party JAWS scripts. 4. Mostly accessible. The program is usable enough to rely on in a workflow, and the devs make an effort to keep things from breaking, but accessibility bugs aren't given the same level of care as other issues. Example: Microsoft Office. 5. Accessible. Every part of the user experience is accessible. The devs may even pay attention to little details like sound cues and button colors. But as above, sometimes issues arise and aren't dealt with as quickly as one would like. Example: some of Apple's first party apps. 6. Completely accessible. Not only is every part of the software accessible, but any bugs that hinder accessibility are treated with the same urgency as bugs that would hinder the software's usability for the general public. An update is never shipped unless accessibility has been confirmed. Example: I literally can't think of one. So yeah, just a bit of fun. What do you think?

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