You don’t always need to see it, to believe it.

It's Friday, 4:50PM, a power spike has just knocked out your monitor and lights…….

Your back is against the wall, as your boss wants you to configure that 3,000 user AD and all the groups before you go home! You can't find your way out in the dark, when you suddenly remember that Windows Server 2012 R2 has an accessibility program called Narrator.

Slowly progressing through the Azure Web UI, trying to work out how to configure a VM when you only have the speech of Narrator and lack the context you are used to seeing on screen is incredibly tough.

And then... you remember PowerShell, its simplicity is made to match the synthesized speech of Narrator.  So you climb into your Azure PowerShell, and start scripting your way out of a late night by remoting in to your cloud VM.

And then export it

You can then add this to your cloud service with

So this cert will be trusted on your machine and by azure so you should be able to do the following to run azure commands on vms in the cloud service...

Configuring AD in PowerShell from an imported CSV is so much quicker than through the UI when you load it using cmdlets and that's why Lewis Crack and Andy Radcliffe are rising technical stars of Computer Products Ltd. Both Lewis and Andy are visually impaired engineers who have mastered the use of Windows Server 2012 R2 using voice synthesizers and a Braille Display to work quicker and smarter than the 'mouse junkies' that they sit alongside.

Following an 18 month project to enhance the in-house skills of IT/Wifi Specialists Computer Products Ltd (CP for short). The work conducted by the team of Microsoft certified technicians has led to the successful on-boarding of 1000’s of Office 365 users and numerous lucrative contracts to deploy and support business critical Microsoft Cloud Services - Both Andy and Lewis have faced challenges in employment previously, although not due to accessibility or difficulty in performing as ably as sighted candidates. The real problems have arisen when actively seeking employment, with many organisations clearly lacking the confidence to accept IT staff with severe visual impairments.

Our hope is that through this article, and with the excellent work that both Andy and Lewis continue to perform - the word will spread, hopefully making the job application process for further IT wunderkind to gain the roles they deserve… regardless of their impairments. CP were open enough to spend a little time in getting to know the challenges of recruiting a staff member with an impairment and can wax lyrical about the gains that they have made. By adapting the interview process to a practical, hands on skills and accessibility focused discussion with a follow up work placement it became clear really quickly that a well-trained visually impaired staff member can be a quicker and smarter worker than their YouTube watching peers. 

CP Ltd based in Kettering, UK have (since 2006) provided cutting edge IT support and solutions to hundreds of Businesses, Schools and Colleges and continue to develop their offerings around Microsoft Cloud Services and Software Packages, counting the Royal Hospital Chelsea (Home of the Chelsea Pensioners) and The Big Lottery Fund as clients.

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• Anonymous
  November 24, 2014
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