[nfbcs] Helping a software engineer keep his job

Thu Nov 13 00:57:52 UTC 2014

Hello,

I use JAWS and a Braille display for Windows, and through SecureCRT
(http://www.vandyke.com/products/securecrt/) I have ssh character-based
access to Linux.  

If you wish to use Eclipse on Linux, then you must use Orca
(https://live.gnome.org/Orca) which will have to run on a Linux machine.  I
do not have any good answers for accessing the Linux graphical user
interface on remote machines.

Regards
Louis Maher
Phone 713-444-7838
E-mail ljmaher at swbell.net

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Suzanne Germano
via nfbcs
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 5:35 PM
To: Graham Mehl; NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Helping a software engineer keep his job

Hi Graham

Have you contacted any blindness organizations in your area that may have
people to teach you the technology. For example I am in Phoenix and we have
Foundation for blind Children and they do tech assessments and training. I
would think some formal training on jaws would get you up to speed faster
than learning on your own.

Good luck!

Suzanne

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 4:05 PM, Graham Mehl via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> Hi Fellow NFBCS listers,
>
> As Gary Wunder indicated I was monitoring the various posts in this
thread.
> There has been a lot of good information discussed. I would have 
> posted sooner, but I had a couple personal matters to drew my 
> attention like trying to find a new job position before getting laid 
> off.  Now that I have secured employment I can provide my post.  Thank 
> you for your patience and understanding.
>
> I have been trying to rack my brain on what is performance and how I 
> can change or improve my performance at work.
>
>
>
> Medical background:
>
> - anaridia since birth; causes extreme sensitivity to light (think 
> bright white computer screens)
>
> - functional sight until 2006
>
> - right eye has light perception only due to retina detachments
>
> - left eye has 20/200 vision on good days; averages 20/400
>
> - left eye has a k-pro (artificial cornea)
>
> - high contrast screen needed to read; 10x handheld magnifier 
> sometimes but barely helps
>
> - I can see some shades of colors but am not color blind
>
> Personality background:
>
> - strong willed,
>
> - hard worker,
>
> - perfectionist,
>
> - detail oriented,
>
> - meticulous,
>
> - relentless in activities I am passionate about,
>
> - have perseverance,
>
> - analytical,
>
> - strong faith in God,
>
> - does not like [major] change,
>
> - enjoys performing community service,
>
> - received the Boy Scout Eagle Scout award,
>
> - earned a masters degree in computer science specializing in software 
> engineering,
>
> - was an avid hiker when I had more time, enjoy doing genealogy,
>
> - am married and have two young (kindergarten and preschool) children,
>
> - have been employed by the same company for the last 17 years.
>
>
>
> My Technological environment and challenges:
>
> I am primarily a java application developer, and have done 5 years of 
> C programming. I feel my area of expertise is in J2EE applications 
> development, a variety of databases, and a mastery of shell scripting. 
> And as a means to an end, I have done some web development. I also 
> have maintained, configured, deployed apache and tomcat web servers. 
> For a short period of time I developed Weblogic applications too. I 
> have programmed on Solaris, Linux (Typically Red Hat or CentOS), and 
> windows platforms where the applications were deployed to the same set of
platforms.
>
>
>
> What tools do I use?
>
> - With doing java development the preferred tool by peers is the IDE 
> Eclipse. Eclipse has a few plug-ins that help with coding standards 
> and software build and CM tools.
>
> - text editors vi and emacs - both not very screen reader friendly.
>
> - notepad as a scratch pad for things usually with performing email 
> tasks and status reports and not necessarily for coding.
>
> - build tools ANT and Maven and the old fashion manual way with java 
> commands.
>
> - CM tools are SCCS, CVS, subversion (SVN), git.
>
> - Software ticket tracking tools include Track, VersionOne, and Jira. 
> I have used HTML, wiki and confluence for documentation .
>
> - IE and Firefox web browsers depending on what platform I was 
> developing on and application restrictions.
>
> - Some projects have used IM chat tools, like Microsoft Lync, heavily 
> for team communication and user support.
>
> - Pageant to load my PKI certificates for single sign in.
>
> - Putty and SSH and remote desktop Console (to connect with RFPs and 
> VDIs) tools to remote connect to remote VMs.
>
> - Some experimentation with cygwin.
>
>
>
> My job position requires me to use Microsoft Office products like 
> Outlook, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, and to be able to read PDF files 
> usually with Adobe Reader. These tools, except for cygwin, are tools 
> my peers and I use on a regular basis if not daily.
>
>
>
> I more often then not use my vision and a mouse with a magnified screen.
>
>
>
> More and more development is being done in VM (virtual Machines). The 
> machine on my desk is a windows machine and I have to remote to a 
> Linux machine. In order to connect to remote systems, a secure 
> connection is required, typically using SSH technology and PKI
certificates.
>
>
>
> A number of projects I have worked on are moving to a thin client 
> environment. The IT group providing the VMs in the thin client 
> environment do not want to put the JAWS software on the image load due 
> to the increased size of the image load. JAWS supports the ability to 
> have two JAWS instances to communicate between each other such that 
> screen on the remote system can have its screen read to an individual. 
> Unfortunately, the remote system needs to be persistent with JAWS 
> running. Having a persistent VM sort of defeats the purpose of a thin 
> client environment. So the IT group does not want to support VMs that 
> are persistent.
>
>
>
> Because of what I work with and where I work, closed networks and can 
> only be connected to at work locations. Work / files cannot be taken 
> home and worked on and brought back. Any work performed for the 
> purposes of the contract has to be billed to the customer. I mention 
> this only because there were a few posts that indicated putting in a 
> few extra hours to compensate for our disability accommodations. There 
> was a sub-thread about how much time should a person with a disability 
> put in. I too find myself falling back to my limited vision.
>
>
>
> I am a salary employee and get paid for my 40 hour work week, and any 
> time I put in above the 40 hours I personally do not get paid for, but 
> customer gets billed all the hours. The customer wants the task / job 
> done and does not care if the person working the task is disabled or 
> not. At some point the customer will care how much they are paying for 
> stuff.
>
>
>
> Earlier I mentioned closed network systems, which supports general 
> users, developers,  and operational teams. More often than not I also 
> have a second system at my desk that allows me to access  the Internet 
> which, to be clear, this system does not have connectivity to the 
> closed network.
>
> To date my company has purchased or provided
>
> - a 30 inch Dell monitor,
>
> - a CCTV for reading hardcopy material,
>
> - Zoomtext 9.1 Magnifier / Reader software,
>
> - 3 user licenses of JAWS software (which I am not very proficient at 
> using),
>
> - Kurzweil 1000,
>
> - a Cannon flat bed scanner that will eventually replace the CCTV when 
> my vision is completely gone
>
> - a company owned laptop, so I can go home and do other company 
> required activities and still get company IT support when needed,
>
> - a second scanner to use with the laptop,
>
> -a  standard keyboard with a smart card reader to connect with the laptop.
>
> My company uses RSA id tokens to authenticate, which of course is digital.
> The only alternative solution for this is to use a company issued 
> smart card, hence the card reader keyboard.
>
>
>
> There is no training mentioned for these tools, so I have had to 
> figure it out on my own. To my knowledge there is no organization 
> within my company that solely supports disabilities. The customer does 
> have such a organization, but due to legal and contractual reasons as 
> a contractor I have limited access and support from them. Generally I 
> am on my own unless I I can personally find someone else that is 
> disabled that can help me.
>
> So now I circle back to how do I perform better and remain competitive 
> with my sighted peers? I am struggling to keep up with peers because 
> of the time I spend figuring out things on my own, using systems that 
> are not completely compatible with accessibility tools, and time 
> needed to learn accessible tools and shortcuts.  I just don't seem to 
> have enough hours in a day on the job or at home.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Graham Mehl
>
> blind at trailstone.com
>
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