Darragh Ó Héiligh blog and accessibility guides

I've just noticed that the OpenSuSE weekly news has referenced the OpenSuSE11IndependentlyWithAccessibilitySupport.aspx" target="_blank">audio walk through of the installation of OpenSuSE 11 on this site.  Nice to see people are taking note of it.

Installing BRLTTY is very easy however you would be forgiven if you believed that you had problems.  If you followed my installing ESpeak guide you'll see that libspeak is installed with ESpeak however BRLTTY doesn't see it.  Even if we didn't install it, unless you want to use ESpeak with BRLTTY, you'll not need it.  So, to install BRLTTY, do the following:

• Download BRLTTY:
  wget http://www.mielke.cc/brltty/releases/brltty-3.10-1.i386.rpm
• Install BRLTTY.
  rpm -ivh brltty-3.10-1.i386.rpm --nodeps
• Run BRLTTY with the command:
  brltty

If you don't put the --nodeps switch in wiht the install command, you'll see the dependency error shown below:

error: Failed dependencies:
libbrlapi.so.0.5 is needed by brltty-3.10-1.i386
libspeechd.so.2 is needed by brltty-3.10-1.i386

Enjoy.

Good morning all,  I've taken a small break from using the Mac this morning as I wanted to get sum work done on my Linux" machine.  When I say work though, I don't mean that the installation of Fedora needs anything done to it, I just needed to write up a few things while on the train this morning and I rather use OpenOffice than Nisus writer pro on OSX 10.I have to admit though, this is possibly more because I'm familiar with how OpenOffice does things now and I'm still getting use to all the commands on the very different Mac keyboard.  However, I have to say, I much prefer the Mac keyboard to the one on this laptop. 

As you'll see from my previous post from last night, I've submitted the second walk through for OpenSuSE 11.  I was shocked at the responses that I got from the first walk through.  I originally thought that the most I could hope for was to raise awareness of the new accessibility features within OpenSuSE 11 however from what I'm seeing in my in box most days; people are really interested in using this distribution.  Mainly because of its links to SLED and SLES, the more professional and enterprise targeted products.  I only hope now that people who use it will go on over to the OpenSuSE Bugzilla site and submit as many bugs that they find as possible so that OpenSuSE 11.3 builds upon the success of version 11. 

Sticking with the topic of Audio walk throughs and even text based instructions, what would you like to see next?  Of course, I'll continue to try to record a walk through when a new version of Ubuntu or OpenSuSE is released to ensure that new users have a source to follow if they require it but I'd also like to challenge myself as well.  Let me know what you’re finding hard to configure or get working and I'll see what I can do.  I'm not promising that I'll have any more success than you've had but as they say, two heads are better than one. 

With the aim of illustrating that the OpenSuSE Linux" distribution is becoming a more viable option for visually impaired computer users with each new release, I have released a second audio walk through that will guide listeners through updating the operating system, navigating through the Orca preferences dialogue, using firefox 3 and of course, installing the ESpeak synthesizer. 

This walk through will get you up and running with OpenSuSE with a synthesizer that is easy to understand and responds to your commands quickly.

Get the second OpenSuSE 11 walkthrough here.

If you have yet to listen to the first walk through guiding users through the installation of OpenSuSE, get it here.

I think I posted a few weeks ago about how it is now possible for a person who is blind or visually impaired to independently install the OpenSuSE distribution thanks to the enhancements in version 11.  Because of the benefit that this new accessibility brings I felt that it was very important to create an audio walk through to guide new and more experienced users of Linux" through the installation of this very powerful and widely used distribution. Students studying Novell related topics often find that the accessibility of this distribution needs improvement.  A lot of their crys have been acknowledged.

This review also demonstrates the first ever accessible boot menu.  For the first time that I know of, the boot menu is now completely accessible to people who cannot see the screen.  Simply wait for the short beep when you turn on the PC and before the operating system even starts, press F9 to launch a very cut down screen reader.  this will enable you to read the boot menu and the added functions accessible by using the F keys.  Example, the language menu accessible with F2 or the video mode menu accessible via F3.

As always, your comments, suggestions, questions or of course, complaints are welcome by Email or by leaving a comment to my blog.

Get the audio walk through here:

On my googling travels, I came across this site: http://www.lioncourt.com/  through here I've determined that Microsoft Office 2008 has not implemented the correct accessibility infrastructure in Office therefore it is currently not accessible to people depending on the accessibility tools that Apple has created.  I should stress that this is not due to a fault on Apples side.  MS have been furnished with the tools to create accessible applications however they just couldn't be bothered to use them.

It should also be noted that looking at the big picture, Windows and Office aren't accessible either.  They support something called UIA or User Interface Automation formally known as MSAA or Microsoft Active Accessibility however this only exposes a small amount of information to screen readers.  Normally Screen readers for Windows need to drill down and use hacks and tweaks to hook into components of the operating system and applications to provide information to a blind user.  It's therefore not really surprising that MS couldn't be bothered to consider accessibility in their 2008 line of products for the Mac. 

I'm going to try the Nisus editor later.  From what I gather, it’s fully accessible.  So is Open Office so I may have a gander at that too.

Thanks to Emma by the way for finding some fantastic resources with thousands of keyboard commands for the Mac.  I'm really starting to like this platform.  The Mac book pro that I'm using feels light, sturdy and well made.  The user interface is unbelievably intuitive and is much faster than any windows installation I've ever used. 

I don't think I can see my self moving over to this platform as my primary operating system at home, Linux" is doing very well at this and I find it more accessible than OSX but it's certainly got potential and I've not even used it for two days yet.

Thanks to try-it.ie, I have the fortune of learning about using a Mac!  Cat, I’m converting to the dark side!  First it was Linux" now it’s the Mac!  Unfortunately I’ve only had time to mess around with it for a few minutes here and there since I collected it on Monday evening.  Oh, and to be truthful, I didn’t have much look on Monday night and I was exhausted from not getting much sleep the night before so I didn’t bother too much.

Yesterday while on my break at work I looked through some of the documentation to get more familiar with navigation through the Mac using the keyboard.  Unfortunately though I didn’t take the laptop with me so I couldn’t really try it out until last night. 

Yesterday evening things started to go right.  I got it connected to my home exchange server, I connected and successfully had a conversation on GMail using IChat and more importantly, learned how to navigate through the system and had a good look at as much as I could armed with my limited knowledge.  There are a few similarities between OSX 10.5 and Linux" but the user interface conventions are unique.

I’ll try to report on as much as possible as I’m going along.  At the moment, I’m trying Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.  All the menus and dialogs are accessible using VoiceOver however I haven’t figured out how to read the text area yet.  I’m trying to research as little as possible and instead work as much as I can out for my self using the onboard help and experimentation.

The cost of assistive technology for people with any disability is very high.  Everything from Magnifiers to Screen readers to Braille displays to light displaying door bells to synthesizers for people who cannot speak to memory training devices are very expensive.  Furthermore, there is a lot of choice in this market in some areas.  Equipment or alterations that suit some people will not suit others even though their disability may be the same.  For this reason, it is often very difficult to know what you need.  People comfortable with researching technical reviews and asking questions on public forums are fortunate as they can get a better idea of what is capable by using assistive software or hardware however nothing beats actually using it.  It's very similar to when someone is buying a car.  You can read reviews, talk to other owners but nothing beats getting to know it during a test drive.

The day of test driving assistive technology is finally here!

Thanks to www.try-it.ie, you can now look through their extensive resource of assistive hardware or software for a wide range of disabilities and if it's in stock you can apply to try it.  The idea is simple but the effect is powerful.   There is a lot of choice out there but unfortunately the majority of people don't take advantage of it.  Outspoken for Mac OSX 10.5, Orca in Linux", Window Eyes in Windows are three examples of screen readers for visually impaired people that most people haven't even thought of trying as their comfortable with Jaws and Windows and until now the facility hasn't been there to do this without spending a lot of time or money.  I'm sure that people with other disabilities are the same!  They get use to one adaptation or assistive technology and because of the cost involved with testing new options they cant justify trying anything else. 

Unfortunately my experience in adaptive technology is focused on the narrow field of visual impairment however the resource on www.try-it is not.  I would urge any of you who know anyone with a disability to take a look.  Tell as many people as possible about this and make it a resource that is used.  As they say.  Use it or loose it.  It's your choice.

www.try-it.ie

Greetings all,

I randomly had a look through some old files on my computer a few minutes ago.  I've stumbled upon a script that I wrote for the Jaws screen reader that will search through the folders in Outlook 2003 and tell you what folders have new messages. 

It's perfect for someone like me who is subscribed to quite a few mailing lists.   Each mailing list has an associated rule that sends mail into a specific folder.  I can instruct the screen reader to look at the folders and let me know what folders have recieved new mail and how many unread messages are in each.  It's a very obvious function but one that has never been included in the product.  

So, here goes.  If you need help inserting this into your outlook scripts let me know and I'll write up another post with instructions. Oh, by the way, This may work in Outlook 2007 but I've not tested it yet.  When I get a few minutes this weekend I'll do it. 

Script getnumberofunredmessages ()
var
string item1,
string item2,
int num1,
int tester,
 int iUnReadMessages,
 int iBold
let num1 =1
let tester =0
SpeechOff ()
SaveCursor ()
SetFocus (FindWindow (GetAppMainWindow (GetCurrentWindow ()), "NetUIHWND", ""))JAWSHome ()
JAWSHome ()
JAWSHome ()
JAWSHome ()
{p}
While (num1 <= 22)
let num1 = num1 + 1
let iBold=GetCharacterAttributes () & ATTRIB_BOLD
Let iUnreadMessages = GetTreeViewLevel ()
If iBold && iUnreadMessages   Then
SpeechOn ()
SayWord ()
Say (IntToString (iUnreadMessages)+scUnread, OT_STATIC, FALSE)
let tester = 1
EndIf
SpeechOff ()
NextLine ()
EndWhile
RestoreCursor ()
If tester == 0 then
SpeechOn()
 SayString ("No new messages")
SpeechOff()
EndIf
{ctrl+shift+i}
{tab}
SpeechOn ()
let item1 = ""
let item2 = ""
let num1 = 0
let tester = 0
let iUnReadMessages = 0
let iBold = 0
EndScript

Until now, I've been unable to get ESpeak working with Gnome Speech in OpenSuSE however after installing OpenSuSE 11 onto a PC in work last night I've finally got it!

Here are the instructions.  As always, feel free to Email me directly with questions if your stuck.

• Download the ESpeak sources.
  wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/espeak/espeak-1.37-source.zip
• Install the required package dependencies
  yast -i make, autoconf gcc-c++ gnome-speech-devel portaudio
• Decompress the archive containing ESpeak
  unzip espeak*
• Change to the ESpeak directory.
  cd /espeak*
• Make a new directory for the ESpeak files
  mkdir /usr/share/espeak-data
• Copy the files directly to this new directory.
  cp espeak-data/* -rf /usr/share/espeak-data/
• Now change to the source directory.
  cd src
• Make a backup of this file.... Just in case.
  cp portaudio.h portaudio-backup.h
• Override this file with the version for PortAudio 19.
  cp portaudio19.h portaudio.h
• Start the compilation process
  make
• Now copy the binary files to the required directories.
  cp libespeak.so.1.1.37 /usr/lib/
• and again.
  cp speak_lib.h /usr/include/
• Update the system so these new libraries are recognised.
  ldconfig
• Make a symbolic link to a file that does not contain a version at the end so Gnome-Speech can see it.
  ln -s /usr/lib/libespeak.so.1.1.37 /usr/lib/espeak.so
• Change to your home directory
  cd
• Download the Gnome-Speech sources.
  wget ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/gnome-speech/0.4/gnome-speech-0.4.19.tar.gz
• Uncompress the downloaded archive.
  tar -xzvf gnome-speech*
• Change to the gnome-speech source directory.
  cd gnome-speech*
• Prepare the sources for compilation. Tell it where to look for ESpeak.
  ./configure.sh --with-espeak-dir=/usr/share/espeak-data/
• Compile the sources.
  make
• Remove the running version of Gnome-Speech.
  rpm -e gnome-speech
• Install the compiled binaries.
  make install

Note, I've used the star (*) sign a lot during these instructions. This is mainly because I was too lasy to go looking for the version strings every time I wanted to go to a directory. You can either type star or press tab on the command line to autocomplete. If you have not come across this before, don't panic. There is plenty of documentation out there on making your life easier while using the Command Line Interface (CLI) for short.

I recieved an Email a few days ago asking a few questions:  Does TTSynth work with Fedora? If a user has a .deb package, can this be used in Fedora? Does TTSynth work with Orca?

Because I rather answer questions publicly to answer them for other users who may be wondering the same thing, I thought I'd post the answer here.

Firstly. Yes, The TTSynth text To Speech synthesizer  (TTS) for short works with Fedora, Orca and anything else that supports Gnome speech and / or speech-dispatcher. 

In Fedora, you need the RPM package to install this.  If you only purchased the .deb package, contact the seller over at www.ttsynth.com and ask them for the .rpm package.  I had to do this last year and I didn't have a problem at all.

To get TTSynth running, first install compat-libstdc++-296 using yum install compat-libstdc++-296 then just install ttsynth-core-1.0 using rpm -ivh ttsynth-core*.rpm

To get TTSynth running with Gnome, use yum install gnome-speech-ttsynth* then restart Orca.  Once running, just configure Orca to use the TTSynth synth instead of Festival or ESpeak.  If you want ESpeak, Festival and TTSynth support, you'll need to install gnome-speech from source.  Not a difficult task so if you want instructions, drop me another mail and I'll talk you through it.

You think that's complicated, try installing it on OpenSuSE!  That distribution will have you balt from tairing your hair out after hours of frustration!  In the end, just install TTSynth with the rpm --nodeps option after of course installing all the documented dependencies.  Nine times out of ten, it works. Installing Speakup is easy enough as documented previously on this blog too. 

Thanks to a generous person with a Holux GPS receiver, I’ve been able to test out WayFinder access with much better accuracy.  I have to say firstly that this really does make a huge difference.  It is able to determine when your about to turn much more efficiently.  However, there’s always a but…  I’m really not impressed with its pedestrian mode.  If it’s pedestrian, it should know that when you come to a t junction, regardless if the road markings show that the road to the left is one continuous road, you still need to give the user an idea what direction to walk in.  This morning, while walking from Connolly to Kildare Street I decided to let WayFinder lead the way I have to say it did very well however there were a few roads where it gave very poor direction.  For example while crossing O’Connell Bridge it told me to take a right.  That would have taken me down the key.  What it should have said was go straight and veer to the road on the right. Oh, plus, it didn’t call it by its road name; it called it E1/N11 or something stupid like that.   If you’re going to market software for the blind, the least you can do is make sure it’s actually going to give information that’s relevant for a pedestrian and not someone in a car!  The only way you’d know to go straight and veer right is if you knew where you were going which is absolutely pointless as that defeats the purpose of a GPS solution!

I see great potential in GPS systems for visually impaired users but I really hope that the competition out there such as Street talk for the Pac Mate and Trekker by Humanware are much better at what they do than WayFinder.  I can confidently say now that I will not be purchasing it and if you are a pedestrian, regardless if you’re visually impaired or not, I wouldn’t suggest you do either.  Certainly not until they get this problem resolved.

Now, does anyone have a trekker I can borrow? This is much more expensive than WayFinder, approximately €1600 so I’d much rather test it before buying.

I should probably say that I admire the route that the supporters of WayFinder are going down.  I believe that all hardware and software can be adapted to meet the needs of the visually impaired and where possible, non-specialist alternatives should be used.  However, there are times where we need different queues or pointers than sighted users therefore unfortunately we need to admit that in some cases we cant always get what we want and therefore need to give into the crazy prices of the assistive technology market. 

Morning all. 

This is the first post from the train on my freshly installed version of Fedora 9!  It's taken a while to get this far but finally, after a week of playing around, I have almost everything that I want working.  There are a few things that I'd like to figure out. The screen should detect that it's been rotated and change it's layout to match however this doesn't happen yet.  It's going to be handy as I'll map the buttons on the screen to up and down arrows so I can read without using the keyboard therefore using a much smaller space while on the train.  The second thing I want to get working is the finger print reader.  It's not an absolutely necessary feature however I like to have it as it cuts down on typing lengthy passwords so if there's a way of getting it to work then I'd like to investigate it. Finally, I'd like to get the touch screen to work properly.  At the moment, it's recognized however not calibrated.  It's not something I particularly need but again, it's a feature of the laptop so I'd like to have it usable. 

In terms of accessibility, I've everything working now I think.  I've updated Orca so it's using the latest version from SVN, I've installed the Espeak synthesizer so I don't have to put up with that horrible Festival voice any more, I've configured it so Espeak works even when other sound is playing and I've even got speakup up and running with the TTSynth synthesizer for the console!  Now, that last bit took a bit more work than I expected!  In previous versions of speakup the keyword for software speech was sftsyn.  In this version, 3.3, it's soft.  That would have been fine but there was no documentation of this that I could find on the installed system so yesterday after giving up trying to figure it out I sent amail to the Speakup discussion list. Another thing that confused me was that speakup was no longer in /proc/ and instead was installed into /lib/modules when running.  I got a hint of this while independently trying to determine what had changed in this release as I saw files such as speakup_soft in there.  Another thing has changed also, to start speakup; the command is no longer speakup_synth-sftsyn.  It's now speakup.synth=soft.  Oh,fortunately though, to stop it getting in the way of boot up and trying to speak everything, you can add the switch speakup.quiet=1 to shut it up.  When you start your synthesizer it will start talking normally.

One thing that really drove me crazy over the weekend while setting up speakup was the Nano editor!  The stupid thing kept putting things on the next line when I typed too much and it didn't seem to give me a command for turning off line wrap.  So, for ages, I couldn’t figure out why grub wasn't booting the speakup kernel until I finally used the MCEditor program instead.  I wish MC was more accessible.  I love its functionality.  I use to have a custom version of that a few years ago that worked really well with BRLTTY but I've no idea where it is any more.  I really need to set up a SAN, Storage Area Network at home.  I've so many applications and packages for both Windows and Linux"; a lot of it gets deleted when I'm working on other things.  The problem is of course that I usually come back to Windows or Linux" after a while and I need the same programs or packages again.

So, in conclusion, if you’re thinking of setting a HP TX 1020 laptop and you’re having problems, good luck!  You’re going to need it!  A lot of the hardware such as the screen, rotation and finger print reader seems to need a lot of work to get going properly.  At the moment though I'm really happy with how it's performing in Fedora Linux".  Much Much better than it was in Windows anyway!

Finished doing all the tapes today in an hour and twenty minutes!  That’s an hour less than normal!  Hands are just flying along.  It’s great stuff.

Rotating the tapes is slightly complicated when you can’t read the barcodes. 

First, I go into backup exec and look at each tape loader. I count the number of empty tapes and note down what slots their in.

Next I write the last barcode number that was used for that tape loader.  Mainly so I know where I should be starting from this week. 

I stick that into a notepad file and send it over to my phone.

I count up the number of DLT and LTO tapes I need and label them for each rack / tape loader. 

To save carrying a laptop and barcode reader around with me, I separate them into piles for each tape loader.  Example.  test-server-1 might have a rack number of 4 so all tapes beginning with four are put into a pile in ascending order.  I do that so I can put them all in in order so at any one time I have a very good idea exactly what slot and what loader their in.

When I’m over at a rack, I look at my phone to see what slots have blank tapes.  I remove these from the rack and keep them in order in front of me.  I take the other tapes out afterward and put them to one side again still in order.  Now I put the tapes that are blank back in at the start of the rack in order with the new tapes I’ve just labelled after them in sequence.   Then it’s just a matter of putting the used tapes back into cases and bringing them back over with me.

To make things even more complicated, the tapes that come back with me are left in a certain place so I can put dates on them, put them in excel along with the box that their in.  Tapes for each rack and each building are stored in different places. 

The result is that if someone requests a restore from the first of July 2001, I can go to backup exec, set up the job; it will tell me the tapes required for it by giving me the barcode labels.  I can then search via Excel for that barcode and it will tell me what box their in.  Again, because I label each box with a barcode. 

By knowing the box their in, I know the building and room that their stored in so I can easily go and grab it.   Again, because their all in sequence, I can tell by the excel sheet exactly where they are.  Example, I had a restore from three months ago to do on Monday.   I was able to go to a certain room, the last box on the right, second box down and know that when the box was facing me I was looking for the fifth and sixth tapes.  Because the system is very new, I chose to bring a barcode reader and laptop with me but that was for my own assurance more than anything else. 

It took about a week to set up this new system but as a result I now know where all three thousand five hundred plus tapes are and within a short space of time, I can easily grab any one of them.

Here’s something to think about. 
Would you imagine that someone who can see would be more efficient than me with this process? I’d argue that they wouldn’t.  My reason is simple.  Because I can’t see the barcodes on each tape, I’ve had to adopt a completely new system.  As a result of this, the backup system in here is now more organized than it ever has been before.  Because I have no other choice but to remember a lot and be very organized, I can pull out any tape you ask for within ten minutes.  Even if you had an off site rack system you would be pushed to get performance like that.  I’m not blowing my own trumpet.  I’m just making the point that just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I’m not just as productive.  I say that because while writing this, I was remembering that when I started here first, my manager thought that he’d have to let me away with working in the server rooms as their in hard to reach parts of the building. Funnily enough, they’ve gone from worrying about accessibility to watching me run around this place every day.  Nice how things work out isn’t it?  Hah!

As I planned a few weeks ago, I installed Fedora 9 Linux" onto the HP TX 1020 ultra portable laptop I have here. I had Ubuntu 8.04 on it before this but had a lot of problems getting the wireless card working.  It took me a while to find the right windows driver to use with the NDISWrapper. I did get it working in the end though and I have the INF file saved on a USB hard drive in case I need it again. 

Fedora has worked on it well so far however I’ve not tried out wireless yet.  Fedora 9 is using Kernel 2.6.25 where as Ubuntu 8.04 is using Kernel 2.6.24 so I’m hoping that the Broadcom modules have been fixed in the later version.  2.6.26 is also out so I might install that from source.  I’ll see how it goes.

The one thing I noticed from an accessibility perspective when I installed Fedora 9 was Orca was broken. 

To fix it though, just install gnome-common and intltool then download Orca from the 2.22 branch on SVN and it will work as expected.  Commands are similar to the following:

su
yum update
Good idea to do that to make sure your system is up to date...
yum install intltool gnome-common
svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/Orca/branches/gnome-2-22 orca
cd orca
./autogen.sh
make
make install
exit

Their from memory but I’m reasonably certain their accurate.

I hate the festival synthesizer so the second thing I did was install Espeak.
Simply:

yum install espeak gnome-speech-espeak*
Orca key + q and confirm the quit with alt q.
Kill gnome speech by typing
killall gnome-speech
Restart orca by pressing alt F2, type orca and hit enter.

Go into the orca preferences, into the speech tab and select the ESpeak synthesizer.

The next task I’m working on is installing Speakup.  I’ve installed the TTSynth synthesizer but getting speakup to run is a bit trickier. I can see that it’s compiled into the kernel so it should be running but it’s not created anything in /proc where normally, you should find /proc/speakup if it was loaded into memory. I added the command to run it in /boot/grub/menu.lst however I noticed this morning that it actually says to add it in /boot/grub/grub.conf.  I actually thought this was a typo originally but I’ll pull out the laptop when I have time and try it again with that conf file instead of menu.lst. 

I’ve also installed the firefox navigation plug in that was released via the Orca discussion list and Firefox 3 is working really well!

The resulting set up should contain open office, pidgin messenger, firefox a media player or two and speakup in the console so I can use text based apps more easily.  It’ll not be the most powerful set up but perfect for working on the train and connecting to the internet when I’m away from home.

Just a quick update for the N95. 

I’ve noticed that the internal GPS works much better in the car than in pedestrian mode.  I’ll try an external GPS receiver during the weekend and report back with any progress.

When in the car it was accurate up to the meter! So, I’m almost convinced that with a better GPS receiver it will be much more accurate on foot.

Lately, I’ve been playing with my nice new shiny Nokia N95 phone.  It’s got tuns of features in a smaller body than my old N91 so I’m really enjoying messing around with it.  I could call it experimenting or researching but fuck it.  I’m enjoying it too much to call it something as serious or boring as research. The first thing I did was throw on about 6 Gigs of music.  That took a while by the way; I usually keep all my music in Wav format because I hate the sound of compressed music so I hat to do loads of conversion before copying it all across.  On the up side though, I found a CD that I’d copied to the N91 but later forgot about that I’m really enjoying.  It’s from a group called Téada.  I’ve no idea who they are or when I bought their CD but I like it!   Anyway, it’s great not to be restricted by the same old 4 Gig of stuff for a change.  I know I could have put other music onto the N91 but I was lazy!  Converting music takes time and its more hastle than I wanted.  Plus, the N91 was starting to see the end during the last four or five months so I knew that I was going to have to update sooner than later. 

The one feature that I was looking forward to using was the integrated GPS receiver in conjunction with the Way finder GPS application.  Way Finder Access is an adapted version of this software that provides information in textual format as apposed to the standard map form.  Basically that means it’s much more accessible to someone like my self who doesn’t particularly like maps as my screen reader won’t read them.  It took a good while to get it working but finally, after leaving the phone on a windowsill for about an hour it found my position and displayed some local road names and points of interests.    However, everything was not as straight forward as I’d anticipated.   I took it outside and got into the car but before I could drive off I had to wait for the GPS to connect.  Five minutes later, still nothing.  Ten minutes.  Still nothing!   I was getting a bit frustrated at this point so I just left it and did what I needed to do.  Later though I was more successful so I took it for a quick strole.  Although I’m from Drogheda, a lot of road names still escape me.  In fact, scratch that, most road names escape me.  I can direct you to almost anywhere in the town however give me a road name and I’ll give you a clueless Darragh. So, it was nice to hear the phone chat away telling me where I was as I walked.   I gave it a very simple route first though to see how it worked.  I also took the cane with me as I didn’t want the dog to suffer while I got use to navigating with this additional mobility aid. To conclude, I was very happy with how that went. 

When I tried the system in Dublin, I was completely out of luck.  The stupid thing wouldn’t get a lock at all!  It was disappointing as I really wanted to get an idea of what points of interest it had in its database around here.  Although I know the area reasonably well, I was hoping it would expand my awareness of what’s around me and allow me to more confidently venture out to other areas. That wasn’t to be though as it seems that the limited efficiency of the N95’s GPS receiver couldn’t handle the built up environment of Dublin.  Once I got a lock when I left the phone at the window for two hours in the office but as usual, when I ventured outside it lost it and wouldn’t re-establish it again.

Last night, while staying in Crumlin, I finally got a good lock and found a few points of interest.  I plotted a route from Stanaway to the Stat oil Garage on the Crumlin Road.  The GPS said it was about a mile and a half away.  That was perfect as I assumed it would give me plenty of opportunity to test its direction around corners etc. 
I walked out of Devenish, onto Stanaway and it immediately kicked in and told me to take a left onto Sun drive.  It said a hundred and twenty feet but it was much more like four hundred. For some reason, I always operate best with feet and inches instead of Meters.  I’ve no idea why.  Anyway, I turned left onto Sun drive and after a few seconds it told me to turn left after 0.2 miles onto Cloher road.  This certainly wasn’t 0.2 miles away but I followed its directions.  Fortunately, there were no crossings between Stanaway and Cloher road on the right so it was an easy road to find.  Plus, I kind of know the name of that road so I was reasonably confident that I was going the right way.  Oh, I should say that I know this area reasonably well but I had no idea where the Crumlin road was or where the destination was either. So, I was completely reliant on the directions the GPS was providing.  I turned onto Cloher road and it said that I should turn left after 0.5 miles.  Problem was, there were a lot of left turns before that so frequently I had to walk left, verify the road I was on with the where am I function then turn back onto cloher road and keep walking.  The problem with that method was that frequently, the where am I function would just tell me that I was in Dublin!  How helpful was that!  Now, granted, I could look at the cross roads page of the software but that really confused me.  Mainly because I am still learning about how it expects to orientate its user.  After crossing a very busy road with no crossing I went over a bridge that I recognised as a bridge over the canal.  Immediately, it told me to turn left.  I know that was impossible though because I know someone who use to live down that road and it’s a dead end down that direction.  I kept walking and it told me to turn left again.  When I turned at the next left though it told me that I was off course and it tried to reroute me.  Again, it told me to go back onto Cloher road and go straight so I did!  Across another busy road with no structured crossing or lights over another bridge.  At this point the instructions it was giving me made absolutely no sense so I decided to turn around and retrace my steps back to the house. 

When I got back, I was told that the second bridge I crossed was Dolphins Bridge.  From what I gather, it’s an area to be avoided.  Especially late in the evening as there are a lot of problems there at the moment with gangs and drugs.  Glad I didn’t know that at the time!  I stood for about five minutes trying to figure out what the GPS was telling me at that bridge where I‘m told they regularly deel right under. 

I’m hoping that the main problem with this is the internal GPS receiver in the N95.  It didn’t seem to be able to track my position well.  That left turn it told me to take was actually the left before the bridge over the canal.  When I got closer to the turn it should have told me but it gave me very little indication where it was. 

Another problem I found was with the software.  When you go off course and it tries to reroute you back the way you came it doesn’t tell you to turn around.  It’s very disorientating.  It also took a very long time to realise that I was off course but again, I’m hoping that’s down to the internal receiver in the N95.

One feature I’d like to see in Way Finder Access is assurance that when you reach a turn during a route it tells you to go straight or right.  Some kind of reinforced instruction to allow you to be confident that the way you’re going is the right way.  I’d also like the screen reader to customise its key map while in Way finder so you could determine the street you’re walking on by just hitting one key. 

Over all, I like way Finder Access and I’m really hoping that the problems I’ve experienced are related to the integrated GPS as for it’s advertise functionality, it’s by far the cheapest GPS solution on the market for Visually impaired users.  The Trekker, Humanware and Freedom Scientific solutions are much much more expensive and they necessitate that you carry much more hardware around with you.  One aspect that attracts me to Way Finder Access is that at most you need your phone, a GPS receiver and a speaker / headset.

If you’ve had any experience with Way Finder access I’d really like to hear from you.  I’m thinking of purchasing an external Bluetooth receiver and the licence for the application but I don’t want to go in blind.  Excuse the pun.  I want to be fully aware of the benefits and pitfalls of this application in comparison to the competition.

On the way to work this morning I had a read of Marie Borans blog supplement in the Irish Independent. I like her writing! I’d possibly disagree with some of her conclusions when assessing technology for SiliconRepublic.com as in my opinion the conclusions should be less personalized however; I really appreciate her giving this little site a mention! So, Marie, if you’re reading, I owe you a pint!

Now, the one thing that’s got me thinking is her focus on the fact that I’m blind and I occasionally write about issues directly effecting blind people. My aim while writing this blog is to keep it as unrelated to stuff regarding blindness as possible. Of course, as I’m learning about something or setting a new application or operating system up it will invariably come up as a point to note for anyone who finds my experiences helpful but it’s very rarely my intention to write about something that only appeals to the small group of visually impaired readers that visit this dodgy domain.

At some stage while in a more reflective mood I must read back over some posts to try to assess exactly what image this blog and indeed I portray. As I said in a post in March, my reasons for blogging are complicated, different and yet as normal as all the other bloggers out there however I think my main aim is to illustrate through this medium that because I’m blind, there are occasionally tasks where I need to apply slightly different methodology in order to succeed in completing them. Applying that positive and optimistic policy of believing there is always a way of adapting your self or the tools available for a given task in my hope will assure that I am never recognised by the fact that I cant see and instead recognised by my flexibility to adapt to any situation / task / environment and interact with it with the same efficiency as any one else. I suppose to a reasonable degree that necessitates a certain amount of content where I refer to different techniques that I use for adapting to various environments however I’d hope that this is only viewed as a side note and not the most prominent attribute. It’s possibly a balancing act. What do you think? What is the most prominent topic in your opinion on this blog? What do you get from it? Why do you bother reading? What brings you back? Is this a blog orientated toward people who are blind? God that would be ironic wouldn’t it?

You know, I think this is a bug I’ve caught from other bloggers. Spending an entire post blogging about blogging. Its crazy isn’t it? I should just get back to writing the same old nonsense as normal.

Thanks for giving me something to think about…

Oh to finish up, there are a few things I need to correct. Not just in the Irish Independent mention but in the blog in general. Their more updates than corrections really.

Firstly, I no longer work with Novell. Even when I was there I never worked directly with accessibility. I took this on as a side project that I worked on when I had the time and outside work hours. My ongoing work creating Audio walk throughs for new users of Linux" is done in my own time and only for the benefit of this very worthy cause.

At the moment, I’m working with a company contracted by the OIREACHTAS. The Houses of the OIREACHTAS is basically the centre of Irish government. I’m working here as an IT administrator primarily responsible for backups and supporting members. Members are TD’s, Senators and their employees. My job takes me to Kildare, Lenster, Phoenix and agriculture houses on a daily basis. I really like the job as I have a lot of exposure to everything from rooms packed with racks and racks of servers to Members PC’s to testing new laptops and software for future implementation. Coming from the previous company I worked in, coming to work doesn’t feel like I’m actually working. I suppose that’s the best way to have it isn’t it? One final note that could actually get me into trouble with some people, I’m employed by a company contracted by the OIREACHTAS. This means that I did not get in because of my disability. I got this job by working very hard, building on my qualifications and proving via experience with other companies that I was the right person to meet their requirements. I don’t mean to say this to belittle anyone working in the civil service however I recently got an email from someone praising the Irish government for taking someone on with and: I quote: “My problems”. So, I felt it necessary to make that clear. Sorry, minor rant over.

My work does not involve accessibility however I’ve had to do a bit to make this environment accessible to allow me to work with the same efficiency as everyone around me. This involved ensuring that my screen reader was on every server and work station in these offices and purchasing a bar code reader to allow me to read tape labels used for organizing backups. Funnily enough, these were the only two changes that were required and I purchased both adaptations my self. Not because they were not offered by my employer but because I believe that if people with disabilities expect that they should be considered equally it is unfair to expect perspective employers to shell out for costly adaptations. If needed of course, there are grants that can be sourced from employment organizations such as Fas to cover this however I haven’t needed to go down this road in quite a while. As you can probably guess, this is not something that many blind people agree with.

Just thinking, maybe I should change my blog slogan to: Dodgy Darragh, trouble maker!

I still like playing with OpenSuSE and when it is launched tomorrow I'll be one of the first to grab it.  I've been using the beta's and even the alfas since they were released.  I've also been part of the development discussions on irc.opensuse.org on the Gnome board so I'm hoping that accessibility will be greatly improved in this release.

I know some of you are using Lotus notes at work so I thought this might come in handy.

I've installed notes 8.5 in work here and find it's as accessible as Notes 7.  A few government departments are looking at updating to Notes 8 so you might want to keep the following pointer in mind.

All the configuration options that were used in Lotus  Notes 7 should also be used in 8.  However, to make the type ahead functionality accessible when looking for an address while composing a new message, you need to select the "Disable type ahead for all name fields and use the notes basic type ahead.

You might also want to label the new graphic for unread messages as this has changed in this version.

Other than this you'll have no issues upgrading to this version.

I haven't really followed this program but I got slightly interested in the last few weeks.  Last night, they seem to have finally found earth.  However, for the last five minutes there was no dialogue and only pictures.  My poor mother dropped over to say hello on her way past and was nabbed to provide some audio description for me!  Thank god for mothers! I'd have been completely lost!  Although, thanks to sky plus, I'd had it recorded as well so I could enlist Emma's help later if I needed to.  I hate when programs do that.  One of the most significant parts in the entire season and it's all visual!  Do they have no consideration? 

Fair play to you Michael Hughes if your intent is to go in to that stupidity with the aim of improving the perception of visually impaired or blind people but, to those who are trying to make it out that him being in  the house will change the view of blind people in the general public and those around you, stop seeing your identity as being defined by your disability and start trying to consider that it’s actually possible that people may now have the sense to judge you on your character, your individuality, your accomplishments, your humour or lack there of.  Yes.  Of course, there are still people out there with this strange notion that being Blind makes you different and in need of their constant pity and help but that’s a small minority at this stage and one that you will challenge by proving with actions that you are absolutely no different to anyone else they meet.  I think at times, we bring on this perception of us because of the way we portray our selves.  I say our, because it’s inevitable that we all do it.  None of us our perfect and we all have our own perceptions about those around us and more significantly, our selves. If Michael’s aspiration is to go into that house with the aim of enjoying him self and maybe breaking down a few barriers, then great! But, I’m not going to hold my breath.

The RNIB posted a news article on their website about this.  Now, I think it’s important to read what their saying in this next quote, to me, the most important paragraph on the entire page.  In my reading of this, I think they might actually be disagreeing with what I’m saying but not entirely.  Notice, it doesn’t say blind people.  It says blindness. So, the perception of your disability is one thing, but the perception of you as an individual who has this disability is something completely different. 

A blind person appearing in such a high profile show presents many opportunities to challenge perceptions of blindness.

See what I mean?  This man is not representing me.  He may be perfectly nice and I have nothing against him at all.  My gripe here is with Blind people excepting that he is representing them and the media who is portraying him as a blind person first and a human with loves, hates, passions, aspirations and every other characteristic that anyone else has regardless of impairment.

Rant over……. For today anyway.

Ah.  Maybe I'm just idealistic.  Maybe I'm wrong and everyone around me does see me as Blind first and a person second.  I choose not to believe that though and in my humble and let's face it, meaningless opinion, I think that if perseptions really are that negative then I think this refusal to acknowledge their importants to us or to even acknowledge their existance is the only way for us to step away from this possible Blind stereotype.  In short. When we start believing that we are people first and blind second then I firmly believe the way we portray our selves will change, our aspirations will change, our demand for equality and inclusion will become more heard with the increased intensity and therefore this possible negative perseption that people seem to think the ***General Public*** have will be quashed.  It's all up to us.  Not the actions of one person who happens to be blind on Big Brother who may have some luck changing the possible perseption or attitude of the sighted masses.

Funny, it's actually possible that the one person who will possibly disagree with this is the person who has unknowingly reaffirmed this belief.

What do you think?

Due to a request one of the listeners to my audio walk through's sent to me, the review of Linux", installing Ubuntu and configuring Orca walk through's are now hosted on www.blindcooltech.com

Emma told me to blog so… here goes.

There’s a lot happening but not much you’ll really be interested in. 

Last weekend, I went down to a good friend of mine in Carlow as his girlfriend organized a surprise for him for his birthday.  The poor fella’s getting old so it was the least I could do. I have to say though, I really enjoyed my self.  I’m spreading things very thin at the moment as I’ve just so much to do but the break last weekend really did me a lot of good.  That is, excluding the lack of sleep I managed to catch up on last weekend.  Because I’m travelling a lot during the week and up at absolutely crazy times in the morning, usually before 6AM, I like to have nothing to get up for during the weekend.  That’s not to say I sit around doing nothing, I just like to wake up when I’m ready as posed to an alarm clock screaming at me at an unmerciful hour.   What can I say! I like my Sleep!  If sleep can’t be had, coffee is very regularly a good replacement.  Oh, I had a great cup of coffee this morning. It was only instant and I made it my self but it just really hit the spot.  Sorry. I’m just rambling.

I’m not playing enough music at all at the moment!  I’ve not played regularly in months.  It’s something I’m going to have to pay more attention to.  I don’t want to let things slide like they did a few years ago.  Music is a very important past time for me and if I don’t keep it up I feel guilty and more importantly, my fingers start to get tight and the ornamentation that I want to use just won’t work!  I’m thinking of going to a few gigs and classes that the pipers club are organizing this weekend, but I really need to do some practice first! I must also get to a few sessions with Maurice Lennon again.  I usually enjoy his music so it might get me motivated again.

On the technical front, I’ve moved away from Linux" somewhat and am now focusing more of my energy on windows 2003 server for my administration needs.  AS YOU CAN SEE FROM MY EARLIER POSTS RELATREGARDING Orca and Ubuntu, I’m still reasonably involved when I get time however as my new job focuses more on the windows side of things I need to prioritise and learn as much about Windows server technologies as possible in a very short space of time.  Would you believe actually, the accessibility of Windows Server technologies is much worse than that provided in Linux"?  With Linux", on my laptop, I had speakup in the console when I was sitting in front of it and when accessing it via SSH, I had access via what ever screen reader I was using.  Essentially, I could SSH to any remote machine and start using it without needing to install any additional assistive software.  Here, where I work now, there are dozens of servers.  All of which I need regular access to.  So, I therefore need to install Jaws onto each one.  I fortunately don’t need to install a full version.  They don’t need servers or anything like that however it’s a real pain none the less!  The servers don’t even have sound cards so I can’t access them with any ease while standing in front of them.  The best thing I can do is take a laptop around with me to remote desktop into them.  That’s basically what I’m doing at the moment anyway.

At home, I’ve decommissioned my Linux" server and in its place I’ve installed a shiny new Windows 2003 SBS operating system complete with Exchange 2003, IIS, Sharepoint, and all that other stuff. I have to say, although it’s exceptionally easy to set up, I’m not overly impressed with its flexibility.  In Linux", I had things set up really well, customized to meet the needs of my self and Emma.  We both had different set ups because we both have different requirements.  In Exchange, there’s a standard way of doing things and if you want to go outside that, exchange is no longer your friend.  In saying that, there’s certainly a reason why it’s so popular.  That is, anyone who’s got any experience with Windows conventions can set it up.  If you know that right clicking on absolutely everything will get you a lot of options, you’re going to be able to set it up.

On the work side of things, I’m still really enjoying my self.  I’m still having problems with remote access, a topic I think I wrote about last week or the week before but accessibility related problems are slowly but surely getting a bit easier to handle.  My main thing at the moment is finding an alternative way of reading bar codes for all these tapes I’m managing.  There are six very active tape servers at the moment and labels for each tape.  Each server takes a minimum of twelve tapes with a maximum of 24.  That’s a lot of labels!  Backup Exec, the application that we use for managing these backups will give the bar codes when a tape has been processed but that’s far from an efficient way of obtaining that information. So, I’m on the hunt for a more accessible solution.

OH, on the Linux" accessibility side of things, I’ll be working on another few recordings soon so if your interested, stay tuned.  If your not, you should be!  Linux" is the future!  It’s coming and there’s no escaping it!

This process is not very difficult however I've been as descriptive here as possible to allow users who have listened to my configuring Orca in Ubuntu 8.04 walk through to access these commands in a more friendly format.

1. Go into a terminal. Press alt + F2, type gnome-terminal then press enter.
2. at the command prompt: ($) use the su command to change to the root user.
3. Firstly, install an easy to use text editor such as Nano / Pico.
   

   apt-get install nano

   
   If nano is not found, replace this with pico. These are escentially the same editors just different versions.
4. Create a .orbitrc file in your /root directory by typing the following:
   

   nano /root/.orbitrc

5. Insert the following two lines into this file:
   

   ORBIIOPIPv4=1
   ORBIIOPUNIX=0

6. Save and exit this file. First press the key stroke: Control + x. When asked for the file name you want to save this as just press enter. Then press Control + C.
7. Change the permissions on this file so that only the root user can read and write to this file and the root group and all other users and groups can read it.
   

   chmod 644 /root/.orbitrc

8. Turning our attention to /etc/sudoers, first allow write access to this file.
   

   chmod 777 /etc/sudoers

9. Edit this file using nano by typing:
   

   nano /etc/sudoers

10. Arrow down to the line containing the words: "env_reset". Just after this line, insert the text below:
    

    Defaults env_keep+="GTK_MODULES"

11. Save and exit the file. Control + x, hit enter to accept the name /etc/sudoers. Hit control plluss c to quit.
12. Change the permissions on this file again to secure it against attacks on your system using the following command:
    

    chmod 440 /etc/sudoers

13. type exit to return to your own user account.
14. Change to your home directory by typing:
    

    cd

15. Create another .orbitrc file:
    

    nano .orbitrc

16. Insert the following two lines into this file:
    

    ORBIIOPIPv4=1
    ORBIIOPUNIX=0

17. Save and exit this file. First press the key stroke: Control + x. When asked for the file name you want to save this as just press enter. Then press Control + C.
18. Change the permissions on this file so that only you can read and write to this file and the users group and all other users and groups can read it.
    

    chmod 644 .orbitrc

19. Exit the terminal window by typing the exit command.
20. Log out of your session. Press alt f1, Press the right arrow twice, press up to quit then enter. Alt and l will activate the log out button or alternatively, tab over to it and press enter.
21. When you log in again, access an administration tool such as software sources by doing the following:
22. Press alt f2 and type gnome-terminal then hit enter.
23. Change to the root account by typing su then hit enter
24. Restart orca with root privlidges:
    

    orca --no-setup --disable main-window

25. Orca will start and welcome you however will not speak yet. Press alt f1, left once, down twice, right once then up seven times to software sources and press enter. (Confused? ) Don't be. it's something you'll ge tuse to.
26. You will be prompted for your password. Type the same password as you used to log into the system.
27. You should now recieve feedback from orca.
28. To start orca normally again, press Alt+F2 and tyetype orca in the launch application dialogue box.

The second in this series of recordings for the Ubuntu 8.04 Linux" distribution is now available.  This recording will guide you through configuring Orca via the Orca preferences window, Updating Orca via SVN, Configuring Orca to provide access to administration tools, the Software sources window where you can select or deselect software repositories and finally updating Ubuntu 8.04 via apt-get.   The recording is available at www.digitaldarragh.com/linux/configuring-orca.mp3 and as always, you'll find this and all other recordings at www.digitaldarragh.com/linuxat.asp  Enjoy and let me know what you think.

After a lot of talking about wanting to do another recording, I’ve finally got around to doing it! Over the last few days I’ve been getting things ready.  Last night I finished it and uploaded it to the web server.

This recording will walk you right through the installation of Ubuntu 8.04 with screen reader support right from the start.  It also begins to describe the installed system and skims over web accessibility with the Firefox web browser.

The audio file is available at http://www.digitaldarragh.com/linux/installing-ubuntu-8-04-with-orca.mp3  Of course, like before you can access and previous recordings at www.digitaldarragh.com/linuxat.asp

All your comments and suggestions are welcome by email at d@digitaldarragh.com or via commenting to this post.

Part two of this installation detailing the configuration of the system will be released soon.

Remember a while ago while testing Ubuntu 8.04; I spoke about the problems that it had introduced for users of the Gnome assistive technologies? Well, I was really relieved to see that the released version seems to install without any problems and Orca, the screen reader for Gnome worked great. Without this screen reader, I would have had to depend on sighted assistance during every installation of the product. That is something that I find completely unacceptable so you can imagine my excitement when it came up talking as it should.

Before explaining the problem that now exists with Ubuntu 8.0, I should explain a bit about how Linux" systems control access to system administration components.

When you break it down to its simplest form, Linux" has two levels of permissions.  Standard user and root.  Standard users are the normal every day accounts used by everyone.  Root is the account used by administrators.  Processes launched by a user can be manipulated by the root user however processes launched by root are accessible to other administrators but in general; they are not accessible by processes running at the user level.  Therefore, if you run an administrative application for doing something like adding or removing software sources and you have Orca running as normal, Orca will not be able to read the Installation sources application.  For some reason though, when Orca is run as root, it will not access applications run at a user level.  That’s something that can be explained but it takes a bit more thought so I’ll leave it for now.

The problem is that Orca is not reading these administrative windows. I should be able to unload Orca, change to the root user then relaunch the screen reader again before starting the administrative tool however that doesn’t work.  The tool launches without any issue however Orca does not read it. 

This is a particularly critical flaw in my opinion and it is one that has really turned me off using this version of the distribution.  I think I’ll stick with 7.11 for the moment.

Ok.  I’ve not blogged properly in a good while so I’ll try to do some updating in this post.

Firstly, the new job is going really well.  I’m basically one of seven system admins supporting the houses of the Oireachtas.  That means that on a daily basis, I solve problems from locked out log ins, to Lotus Notes ID problems to fixing the air conditioning in a server room because the air humidity is too high to configuring remote RAS solutions for remote offices.  It’s not all sitting at a desk either.  There’s plenty of freedom to access a machine remotely or walk to someone’s office and fix it directly.  It’s a really nice change.  In one way its help desk department but in another way there’s so much exposure to server equipment and so much flexibility to move about that it’s completely different.

I’ve had a few very difficult challenges here though.  Accessibility to some of the systems is a real problem.  For example, VNC is used for remote access but VNC will not work with my screen reader.  Even if I could get VNC to relay the sound from the remote PC to the local computer I’d be happy enough but as it stands it gives me absolutely nothing.  It’s making my job very difficult.  Another problem I’m having is because I do so much with the servers, I need to use VNC or remote desktop.  As again I need to use Jaws, all the servers in the Oireachtas first need to be restarted.  This is an obvious problem.  There is a restart schedule but waiting for it is not exactly nice when there are things that you must therefore hand over to someone else.  I hate depending on people.  Especially when it’s so crucial to very clearly illustrate my independence and ability to do everything that this job requires.  The people I’m working with are fantastic however I still need to be on my guard.  The last problem that’s worth mentioning is when accessing servers on site.  I.e, when I’m in front of the terminal in one of the server rooms.  How do I get access to it?  There’s obviously no sound output.  They don’t need it.  Plus, windows server operating systems disable sound output by default!  Plus, if one goes down, how do I read the bios and other screens that are shown before Windows starts?  I’ll not beat around the bush.  These accessibility problems are going to be very hard to get over.  If I can’t get over them I hope my new employer isn’t going to take it badly.

Still though, although this is something that is constantly at the back of my mind, it’s not hampered me much yet.  I’m really enjoying the work and I’m constantly learning.

Speaking of learning, I installed Windows Small Business Server 2003 at home during the weekend.  It’s possibly going to replace my Linux" server running OpenSuSE 10.3.  I never thought I’d actually replace that Linux" server.  It’s still running with only using 3.4GB of disk space and the processor performance never jumps above ten per cent.  That’s very impressive considering everything its doing.  But, in saying that, the Windows server integrates everything on the network so well that it’s really hard to justify using Linux" again.  I was actually thinking of connecting the Windows and Linux" servers to make some kind of cross platform type domain system but I’ve not really found any kind of need for this yet.  Even if there’s not a need but something that could be interesting I’d still do it but there’s just nothing that comes to mind at the moment.  Any ideas?

Anyway, the installation and configuration of the Windows server basically took me 5 hours in total.  That included installing the operating system, configuring DNS and the domain, setting up exchange, configuring the pop3 connector, setting up Stunnel and OpenSSL. The server is currently acting as the networks DHCP, DNS, Domain, Mail, Web, FTP and soon, Antivirus and Proxy server. That has all been done with very limited knowledge.  I know a bit about Windows Server but after yesterday I know realise just how much I need to learn.   I really want to do more with group policies and the GPO.  Exchange is another beast I want to tackle too.  I think it has a lot of power and it would be really good to try to pull more out of it.  At least now though, with it up and running at home I have the resource there to use. 

Oh, on the Linux" front, I’ve also updated to Ubuntu 8.04.  Give it a test drive.  You’ll be really impressed! You can even install it using windows without repartitioning!  I think this is a really excellent way for new users to get started.  With the installer, you can also enable accessibility so when you boot into Ubuntu, it will come up talking right away.  I’ve had a few problems with Ubuntu’s accessibility of administration tools but I’ll do some more testing before I write about that further. 

In the next two to three weeks, I need to do a few more audio reviews and tutorials for Ubuntu and Fedora.  I just need to set the equipment up at home again.

Ah, speaking of home, that brings me nicely onto my last topic for this morning.  The house is coming on well.  I’m *Still* waiting on Emma to resize those pictures she has but I’m sure she’ll get around to it eventually. We’ve been in the house two weeks now.  The floor in the living room has now been put down and the walls have been painted.  Once I get the skirting boards sprayed and lacquered I’ll get someone to put them down so we can start moving in furniture.  Who knows, all going well that will happen some time this week.  However, my Granny is kind of unwell at the moment and was in hospital yesterday so depending on how things are going, I might not be in a position to get much done at all this week. Not that she’s that bad.  She’s got an infection as a result of an operation she had about a month ago.  It’s just that I’d say my mother will be kind of busy and she’s coordinating the preparation of the man who’ll spray the skirting boards.

The bedroom is almost done.  There’s just one more thing for me to do and I need to get around to it soon.  I need to paint the wardrobe doors.  Yes people, you heard it right.  I’ll be painting the doors.  It’s not that shocking really.  Doors are easy enough.  Just follow the grain of the wood and your grand.  Because their smaller than a wall, obviously, it’s not really possible to loose track of where you painted last.  Unless you get distracted.  I’ve restored the wardrobe by sanding it down and painting it to match the room.  It’s a built in wardrobe that hopefully will only be needed for a few years but from what I gather, now that it’s been painted and cleaned up it looks well so who knows.  Maybe it will do for a while.

The kitchen, as I said the last time is now fully tiled.  We just need to under coat it.  Emma’s sowing room has been under coated and probably needs one more coat to get it read for the colour.  I also need to get someone to fit that floor.

There’s a bit to do yet but we’re getting there. It’s just a slow process when you’re working full time and the budget isn’t a bottomless pit. 

Now, that’s all for the moment.  I need to write up a document that describes a new system that was rolled out last week and I’ve a few emails to respond back to later as well.