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Donations | FAQs | Labs |
Links | Main |
Off
Hours
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The
following is a sample of the type of work we're involved
with daily. The
responses may help point you in the right direction for a
timely fix or give you a better understanding of your
situation.
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Email
Exactly how do we Entourage
users look up addresses?
Your Entourage client will have to be setup for LDAP
lookups. I will send someone over right away to get you
connected. If you are more adventurous, I can send you a .pdf
file outlining how to do it.
I don't know how to use Comcast photo thingy or how
to email a photo to the correct size. I send huge pictures
and can't figure out how to do it. It's probably so easy
but I'm lazy.
I will send someone right over to
coach you on resizing photos/attachments in order to make
them suitable for email or web page use. It may not be
intuitive at first, but it becomes quick and easy with
practice.
This morning was the first time I came in and my computer
had 109 messages. I deleted all of them and deleted the
deleted. Did everyone get this or just me?
Our SPAM
filter probably hiccupped and everyone received hundreds of
SPAM messages. Our system blocks about 65,000 messages
daily. A brief period off will produce a lot of bad mail for
the end user.
Last week I bought a plane ticket on Expedia. My
credit card was charged, but I never received an email
confirmation. Can you check if our spam filter blocked the
email? My credit card was charged on May 21.
Our SPAM filter really likes to block
travel sites and offers. It is best that you use your
personal email account (GMail, Hotmail, Comcast Email, Yahoo
Mail, etc.) for all personal and private matters.
Would it be possible to add a distribution group
called LG-xxxx? It would just have the five of us rather
than all 12 - 15 people in our department. For now, I've
made my own personal distribution list.
You bet. Email me the names of the
people you want included in your new LG-xxxx distribution
list.
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| Hardware
Hey there, I thought I had a working laptop for a
video for our concert Monday night (the 4th) but it
seems to have died. Is there anything that can play a
DVD with a VGA out that we can use tonight?
We typically have a loaner
system on the shelf for just such an emergency. Stop by
and I will hand the system over.
Any tips? my headphones have decided to stop
working (they are USB) they show up on the screen, but
all I get is speaker
I will send our AV tech
right over. He is really good at debugging these types
of problems.
The audio/sound is not working on my computer- I
have tried everything I know to try to fix it. I am calling
on a higher power
► You. I have this
great career website: colorful, interactive and missing the
sound.
I will call on an even higher
power ►
our
AV Tech. He will swing by your room shortly.
Do
either of you have 2 wires to connect speakers…the speaker
in the computer is muffled…I have 2 speakers no wires
Let us figure out the mess and get you
back on track - AV Tech guy to the rescue!
How can I get access to
the computer on the desk? (I still have my laptop PC but
would like to potentially switch over now that I get to stay
put).
I'll swing by so we can discuss and
schedule a change over to the new system.
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Internet
In case you
haven’t listened to my voice mail we can’t get
to outside websites. Goggle is fine but trying
to link to any other sites like adobe,
physicsclassroom, NY Times, etc. don’t work.
Our content filter
updates itself automatically. Sometimes the updates
contain profiles that are a little too
restrictive. Send me an email with your problem
URL and I will whitelist it.
My browser doesn't always show the
pictures that are associated with a certain web
page. (It will show a red x or a question mark
where the picture should be) Any ideas why? It's
kind of annoying.
Looks like our
content filter is getting in the way of your
browsing experience. Email me the affected URL
and I will fix the issue.
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Networking
Please turn on internet port 219-17-18 in
L5.
You got it.
Can you please activate the ethernet
port #1.008 in room 30? Thanks.
Will do.
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Printing
We're having
some printer issues - when I tried to print,
nothing comes out and I get an error message on
my computer. I've tried to print to another
printer and also the upstairs printer, and it
happened on both. Is there anything easy that
we can do to fix it (other than restarting the
printers)?
Sounds like a network problem. I will have to
visit your building to see what's going on.
My printer is in the correct physical
spot. I haven't connected any wires yet. I will
be gone this week (Tues - Fri), if you have an
opportunity to set it up.
Great! Our AV Tech will be
over to configure and test your new printer.
Is the cost of printing B&W on the
color laser comparable to printing B&W on a
regular laser? I am thinking about putting the
color laser in so-and-so's office and having her
print B&W (unless color is needed). Does that
make sense?
For whatever reason,
printing B&W on a color printer is always more
costly than printing on a B&W only printer. It
appears the toner on dedicated B&W printers is
geared towards volume single color printing,
while the Color printer's toner is designed to
be mixed with several other cartridges.
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Projectors
I believe the bulb on our Epson PowerLite
53c is going. Another staff member said
the transmission was coming and going…and, later
when I used it, it was all blue. Is that a sign
that the bulb is burning out? If so, how do we
proceed? Do you have extra bulbs? Do I transfer
funds to your computer account to get a bulb?
Or, do we order a new one from our vendor?
Could be the bulb and/or
could be the projector itself. Our AV tech guy
will need to look at it to see what the deal is.
If it is the bulb, we might have a spare and we
will make the swap. If it needs a different
bulb, we will get you a quote. You will have to
make purchase out of your department funds or
use a 3rd party source. If it is the projector,
we will advise you on several courses of action
you can take.
I need the new computer in my room to be
hooked-up (permanently) to the LCD Projector system. Can
this be done by Wednesday morning? My sub will be
showing a movie.
You bet. Our AV tech will be right
over to make the hookups.
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Saving Files
Hi! After
checking with Chuck we discovered that "all" the
files had been deleted on our computers in the
library -- they were probably wiped out sometime
this week. We always try to remind students
that if they're going to save a document, that
they've created in the library, they need to use
some type of saving device (i.e., USB, diskette,
etc.) or e-mail the document to themselves.
Please remind
students to save their document/s to an outside
saving device (or e-mail it to themselves). The
key point here is that the school library
computers are more like the public library
computers and NOT like students' home computers
-- "Yes, we've even had students who have wanted
to save documents to the desktop."
Perfectly said. Please
note that only staff has access to secure and
reliable server storage. Additionally, our
server storage is backed up nightly and copies
are stored off-site as we follow
disaster-recovery guidelines.
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| Security
I am suppose to change my
password? Every time I open my computer it is telling me I
have so many days to change it? Is there something wrong?
We share our network with
3,400 other users. As such, we have induced password
time-outs to help keep your system secure. When prompted,
change your password. It's easy and is one of the most basic
steps we can take towards safe computing.
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| Servers
Is the server down?
That's a loaded question. We have
dozens of servers - eMail, attendance and grading, library
checkout, textbook tracking, LGHS website, staff storage,
SPAM system, content filtering, voice mail, and so on. I
have set up a System State
chart that gives you key information about the servers that
you use the most. I try to maintain perfect uptime and as
such need to perform regular maintenance on these systems.
Planned downtime as well as unforeseen outages will be
indicated on this chart.
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| Software
Hi! Please ask your department members to make their
students aware that if they use a different word processing
(WP) program (or any other software program) at home other
than the ones that are compatible with our software at LGHS
they will NOT be able to print out their documents at
school. We have had frustrated students coming up to us in
the morning the last week or so complaining that they can't
access/print out their homework and/or assignment for this
very reason.
Also... Hey, I
have this frustration all the time at home, too! Just
yesterday, my wife couldn't send a readable copy of her
resume to anyone. Evidently our Apple software is just not
readable in too many locations! So there went over an hour
of time!
All of our lab (public) and
teacher computers, PC and Mac, have Microsoft Word,
PowerPoint and Excel on them. Several labs have Microsoft
Publisher too. Staff and Students need to save their
documents so they are compatible with Word/Excel/PowerPoint
2003 or 2004 if using Mac.
All of the students computers' each day wants them to
download shockwave to run their Plato programs. This wasn't
happening before. When they or I try and download Shockwave
but it says that it needs an administrator. I take it that's
you? So, is it possible to set up the computers with
shockwave and other plug-ins, so that they remain on the
computers when they shut down at night?
Both the AV Tech and I have
administrator passwords that are needed for lab system
installs. While you might be able to perform a successful
install yourself, the software will not remain on the system
for longer than a day. Let's schedule a time to go over your
software needs and timing for the install.
I think I've asked this before…but, is there a way
to change text in a PDF? The County Office of Ed has created
some PDF's for us with bad data. They say that we can use
Adobe Writer to change the info, but I'm skeptical.
Thoughts?
The County Office is correct. We have
a site license for Acrobat 8 Professional. We will install
it on your system and give you a tutorial on its use.
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Video
Hi...Are you in charge of cameras/tripods?? If so,
may I check out these all next week..to film my
student's debates? Or, refer me to the right person?
As of today, we don't have camera
or video equipment to loan out. Perhaps one day soon.
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| Viruses and Malware
Today I had a problem with the
teacher's computer in the lab. Internet Explorer froze up on
me. It was consuming 100% of the CPU, but the Task Manager
was not reporting "Not Responding". It happened the first
time I tried to use the browser. I decided to reboot and
that fixed the problem, allowing me to get into the browser.
When I exited and then tried again to get into the browser,
the same thing happened again. There were many occurrences
of IEXPLORE.EXE in the Task Manager list of processes --
maybe ten of them.
The computer probably had a
student using it recently. The teacher stations are not as
locked down as the lab systems to allow for teacher
flexibility. As such they are posted "Teacher Use Only".
Please make sure to keep students off of all teacher
stations. I will be by later to fix this system.
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Webmail
Could you give
me the address to access our LGHS email from
home? We lost everything on our computer and I
can't remember what it was.
With an internet browser, go
to
webmail.lgsuhsd.org
...then
type your username and password.
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Website
OK, so it might not be super urgent, but I
would like FTP access so I can upload my
website. I have never had FTP access, so I am a
new user. I keep telling my students that they
will be able to access info on my website, but
I'm afraid it's never going to happen!
I coordinate with
our webmaster in setting up users with FTP
access to our website. The process usually takes
several minutes to get you up and posting.
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Other
Does this mean the
internet in general will not be working? Will I be able
to get email on Monday if Sunday is a holiday and you're
working on Sunday? Do you get paid double overtime to
work on Sunday? I have other issues besides email.
Will you be able to address those? When?
Might I
suggest a tad more decaf in the morning coffee.
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