Failure to Communicate

On Wednesday, I arrived at the office at 730am and left the office at 715pm.

I had two main things on my agenda for Wednesday: 1) Get the iMac lab set up with Parallels/Windows/APSCN for Thursday's workshop, and 2) Get the Smart Board moved and projectors set up.

I've got Parallels ordered, but have not received the licenses yet, so I downloaded and installed the trial version.  Trish (our DL Coordinator) helped immensely with the set-up and install throughout the day and even stayed after hours to lend a hand getting the 26 iMacs up and going. 

Around lunchtime, the Video Reality guys came (they had to stop at Blevins before coming to the co-op).  We went to the old building, where they dismantled the old Smart Board (from classroom) and the sound system (conference room).  The board we had installed used a 200lb cement block as a counterweight that allowed the unit slide up and down.  It was very cool to demonstrate, but for our purposes, basically unused (we always kept it at the highest point so folks could see).  Since our new building is metal and drywall, and after a bot of discussion, I decided it was best to forgo the sliding system and simply mount the board directly to the wall.  I will take pictures because it looks NICE!

The communication breakdown came when I asked the guys about installing the drop-down projectors.  They told me that they only had orders for the board and sound system.  I was not upset nor surprised at this because we had to modify the projector order.  In a different miscommunication, I thought I had mentioned our conference room ceilings were raked (slanted) but evidently I only *thought* it.  So, we had to adjust the order to accommodate the tilted ceilings.  Not a big deal, but I called James with V-R to determine when the projectors would be installed.

During the Smart Board install at the new building, I continued to work on the iMac setups.  We've got a MAJOR connectivity issue and I have to figure out what it is.  Instead of getting 1.5 or 3.0 Mbps connectivity, I was getting around 40K.  It took FOREVER to download updates, upgrade IE to version 8, etc.  I tested other machines and they appeared to be operating normally.  This indicates a bad switch in our system.  I will be troubleshooting that on Thursday.

As mentioned above, Trish and I left the office at 715pm with several computers still installing Office from CDs.  We had been installing from one of my servers, but even that was taking way too long (another indication that I've got a switch problem). 

I received a phone call from one of our schools asking about the Classroom Walkthrough software on a Blackberry.  I've given it some thought, and will talk to the tech about it on Thursday.  I think the problem may be that the unit is not syncing the data to the CWT web site.  Evidently, calls to TeachScape have gone unanswered.  Not sure I can fix the problem but I'll at least offer my thoughts.

I was not able to post the Active Directory rebuild information on Wednesday, so hopefully I can do that Thursday.  I've got a meeting via Adobe Connect on Thursday morning, along with a videoconference going on and the APSCN workshop in the lab.  Whew! Thursday's gonna be a busy one!