Cleaned out the SPAM quarantine.
Cleaned up some of the former users from the Active Directory.
Created new users as we have new hires.
Installed computer for new hires and set up accounts, email, etc.
Answered phone calls and emails throughout the day.
Configured the "Music on Hold" feature for the office phone system.
Had a user with a printer problem. The printer in a LaserJet 4050 with duplexing and 3 paper trays. Well, Paper try 2 was acting up and eating paper like a shredder. I went into the menus and since the user only uses plain paper, I set all the trays to PLAIN then removed the paper from Tray 2. The printer began pulling paper from the other trays. Excellent! The user also had a problem where landscape pages would cut off about 2 inches of the right side. Upond closer examination, howver, I realized it was actually MOVING the print two inches to the left. Solution? Change the margin settings in her browser (they had been changed such that the "bottom" was set to 2.5 inches instead of 0.25). Everything was fine after that!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Catching up on the week
Monday - Frankly, I don't remember. I know I installed a new printer in the Mini Lab and worked on cleaning the tech closet. I talked several times on the phone with Sharon at Blevins.
Tuesday - Helped get a workshop under way, then spent the afternoon in Prescott working on their distance learning equipment. The issue (noise) seemed to be isolated to one of their microphones. Once I unplugged it, things cleared up. Will explained to me that it was most likely a problem with the phantom power that drives that mic (especially since the problem started after a power surge/outage). At least it seems to be working now!
Wednesday - The day started off with a call from a woman whose daughter was having trouble with the ArkansasIDEAS site. After a bit of conversation and troubleshooting, I had told her that I thought the daughter could find the info in her profile, but I could not remember how to get there. I told her to call AETN. I also sent an email to colleagues and they offered up some suggestions. I asked the woman to call me back later in the day, but if she did, I missed the call.
The rest of the morning was spent with the area techs as we participated in a videoconference for E-Rate. There are some welcomed changes to the 470 Form, making it streamlined for entry. There are also changes to the 471 Form. There are other changes as well, all presented in a handout provided during the conference.
The afternoon had us checking out various apps for iPads:
I also shared various topics with the area techs:
Tuesday - Helped get a workshop under way, then spent the afternoon in Prescott working on their distance learning equipment. The issue (noise) seemed to be isolated to one of their microphones. Once I unplugged it, things cleared up. Will explained to me that it was most likely a problem with the phantom power that drives that mic (especially since the problem started after a power surge/outage). At least it seems to be working now!
Wednesday - The day started off with a call from a woman whose daughter was having trouble with the ArkansasIDEAS site. After a bit of conversation and troubleshooting, I had told her that I thought the daughter could find the info in her profile, but I could not remember how to get there. I told her to call AETN. I also sent an email to colleagues and they offered up some suggestions. I asked the woman to call me back later in the day, but if she did, I missed the call.
The rest of the morning was spent with the area techs as we participated in a videoconference for E-Rate. There are some welcomed changes to the 470 Form, making it streamlined for entry. There are also changes to the 471 Form. There are other changes as well, all presented in a handout provided during the conference.
The afternoon had us checking out various apps for iPads:
- DisplayOut app after jailbreaking for display help
- VPN - General, Network, Connection, put in info.
- Jump - Remote desktop $20
- Good Reader - open documents, file manager, Web Downloads, Connect to Servers (DropBox, Google Docs, Box.Net, etc), can turn on wifi and share ipad via web address
- Reeder - feed reader
- iNet - network scanner
- VTrace - visual tracert
- HeyTell - touch-to-talk - wifi or cell
- PhotoWall - collages, upload to FB, etc (print 11x17) text
- Flipboard - look at FB, twitter etc as a magazine
- iFlux - Flux Capicator
- Cydia - Jailbreaker - Wifi Analyzer
- Backgrounder - run in background
- Wi-fi Sync - sync iPad to Mac via wifi
- To jailbreak - 3.2.0 or 3.2.1 - www.jailbreakme.com
- i-prompt - teleprompter -
- Facetime - now out for mac
- phoster - create posters
- app shopper
I also shared various topics with the area techs:
- DIS will launch a new bandwidth aggregation tool to help schools get more bandwidth. It is a combination of hardware devices allowing schools to band their T1s, DSL, Cable, etc into one box to share bandwidth. Cost for schools sits between $4000-$8000.
- DIS will launch a program that allows Co-op techs to view status etc on school routers to help in the troubleshooting process.
- DIS is working on a statewide AD structure (secondary) to allow global addressing, etc
- I asked area techs to help with getting all of our certified teachers registered in the ArkansasIDEAS portal.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Thursday and Friday, maybe
October 21 and 22
Thursday, I met with the tech who helps out with our phone system. He showed me how to re-record our "night mode" greeting, but more importantly, he fixed our voicemail system so that when it is in "night mode," the calls go to the primary phone instead of the extension that USED to be the primary phone.
We also discussed the voicemail system. We have an original hard drive-based system, and the hard drive is making unpleasant noises. That just means it is a matter of time before it finally dies and we have to replace it with an updated flash drive-based system. He's getting me a quote on that.
General daily duties followed, so far as I can remember.
Friday - I met with our DL Coordinator, Trish, at Prescott to look at their DL issues. They had a lot of packet loss, but AT&T said the problem was local. After classes ended for first period, we unplugged the switch in the telco cabinet and we unplugged the power to the codec. After a few moments, we restored power to both places and let things run. Since there was no second period class, we asked the facilitator to take notes and see if the problems persisted.
From Prescott, Trish and I drove to Genoa to look at their television. After a power outage, the TV would not display the distance learning sites. When we arrived, we met for about 30 minutes with the HS Principal about the system, Target Testing, and a brief talk about classroom walkthroughs using the iPad. He has one now, and wanted help getting it set up. We couldn't do that (did not have login info) but we said we would find out the info and get back to him!
After that, we went to the DL room and I was able to get the TV working after playing with the menus a bit.
I spent part of Friday afternoon working on my boss' home set up (same cable modem issues) to work remotely. After a bit of troubleshooting, we knew it was a cabling issue. Turned out to be an INSIDE cabling issue, which is a bummer since I could have fixed that had I thought about it for a few moments.
Thursday, I met with the tech who helps out with our phone system. He showed me how to re-record our "night mode" greeting, but more importantly, he fixed our voicemail system so that when it is in "night mode," the calls go to the primary phone instead of the extension that USED to be the primary phone.
We also discussed the voicemail system. We have an original hard drive-based system, and the hard drive is making unpleasant noises. That just means it is a matter of time before it finally dies and we have to replace it with an updated flash drive-based system. He's getting me a quote on that.
General daily duties followed, so far as I can remember.
Friday - I met with our DL Coordinator, Trish, at Prescott to look at their DL issues. They had a lot of packet loss, but AT&T said the problem was local. After classes ended for first period, we unplugged the switch in the telco cabinet and we unplugged the power to the codec. After a few moments, we restored power to both places and let things run. Since there was no second period class, we asked the facilitator to take notes and see if the problems persisted.
From Prescott, Trish and I drove to Genoa to look at their television. After a power outage, the TV would not display the distance learning sites. When we arrived, we met for about 30 minutes with the HS Principal about the system, Target Testing, and a brief talk about classroom walkthroughs using the iPad. He has one now, and wanted help getting it set up. We couldn't do that (did not have login info) but we said we would find out the info and get back to him!
After that, we went to the DL room and I was able to get the TV working after playing with the menus a bit.
I spent part of Friday afternoon working on my boss' home set up (same cable modem issues) to work remotely. After a bit of troubleshooting, we knew it was a cabling issue. Turned out to be an INSIDE cabling issue, which is a bummer since I could have fixed that had I thought about it for a few moments.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Monday, Tuesday, and most of Wednesday
Monday - I spent most of the day at Blevins School District. I used my Fox-and-Hound to help located a few network wires that seemed to go "nowhere fast." Turned out they really did go somewhere, but they weren't plugged in to anything. We remedied that. I also worked on some wireless issue they were having in one of the buildings. Turns out the wireless router was defective (most likely after a recent storm).
While working on the wireless, I spent time talking with/working with the Instructional Technology Specialist about her new job, duties, etc.
After I returned to the Co-op, I answered phone calls and emails from vendors and techs until quitting time, at which point I went with my boss to her house to try and get her home network set up so she could work from home. This had been working in the past, but for some reason quit working. After several hours, we decided to call it quits, take a break and approach it again on Wednesday.
Tuesday - I spent the day at Bradley schools troubleshooting several issues, ranging from the switchover from server-based Renaissance Learning tools to the web-based version, several laptop/networking issues, connectivity issues in several classrooms (and HS library). The tech and I checked out several projectors with apparent color wheel problems (a known issue) and one projector that seems to have a bad extra-long VGA cable. I will return to the district to help narrow that problem down at a later date.
I also worked in the Early Childhood room, setting up a new computer for the students to use, troubleshooting viruses/malware, and setting up one of the student computers for printing.
Before heading to Bradley Tuesday morning, I helped get the lab set up for Neil Gibson to host a data workshop.
Wednesday - Helped set up the conference room for a presenter (a/v system, internet, dvd playback, etc). Worked on several server-related issues (trying to get ISA server to route traffice to certain web front-ends). At lunch, I went to the boss' house and was able to fix the connectivity issue so she can now work from home.
At 2:00, I got a call from the Hope early childhood program about a database issue in regards to Batelle Reporting. Headed out to see what I could do to help fix it.
While working on the wireless, I spent time talking with/working with the Instructional Technology Specialist about her new job, duties, etc.
After I returned to the Co-op, I answered phone calls and emails from vendors and techs until quitting time, at which point I went with my boss to her house to try and get her home network set up so she could work from home. This had been working in the past, but for some reason quit working. After several hours, we decided to call it quits, take a break and approach it again on Wednesday.
Tuesday - I spent the day at Bradley schools troubleshooting several issues, ranging from the switchover from server-based Renaissance Learning tools to the web-based version, several laptop/networking issues, connectivity issues in several classrooms (and HS library). The tech and I checked out several projectors with apparent color wheel problems (a known issue) and one projector that seems to have a bad extra-long VGA cable. I will return to the district to help narrow that problem down at a later date.
I also worked in the Early Childhood room, setting up a new computer for the students to use, troubleshooting viruses/malware, and setting up one of the student computers for printing.
Before heading to Bradley Tuesday morning, I helped get the lab set up for Neil Gibson to host a data workshop.
Wednesday - Helped set up the conference room for a presenter (a/v system, internet, dvd playback, etc). Worked on several server-related issues (trying to get ISA server to route traffice to certain web front-ends). At lunch, I went to the boss' house and was able to fix the connectivity issue so she can now work from home.
At 2:00, I got a call from the Hope early childhood program about a database issue in regards to Batelle Reporting. Headed out to see what I could do to help fix it.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
Wednesday, I spent the day hoping to help one of the schools, but instead had to wait on the elevator guy. He got to the office and did his own troubleshooting. When it was all said and done, he concluded that his modem had gone bad and thus was the source of our elevator communication troubles. He bypassed the modem (the modem is not necessary for operation) and had us up and running with the phone securely connected and working! Excellent!
I passed time while waiting for the elevator guy by cleaning my office some more and installing Vineland one the early childhood computers. I also began prep work for the TIE meeting coming up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
I also answered emails, took phone calls, and had a discussion with an antivirus vendor about a new product.
Thursday, I spent the morning in the monthly state tech meeting. We met with Belinda Kittrell regarding ERate updates and issues, then met with DIS for their announcement of the new B.E.E. program to provide more bandwidth to schools. It's a partnership between DIS and local telcos. I will be sharing the information with my area techs, as they have been begging for a bandwidth solution for quite some time.
The afternoon presented itself with two great keynote programs for the TIE program: Tim Holt talked about problem-based learning and Tony Vincent talked about better presentations (specifically Pechu Kacha and Ignite). The notes were taken 'live' and posted on Plurk, Facebook, and other social outlets.
Friday, the group was broken into three subgroups for breakout sessions. My order of sessions went from Tim Holt's Professional Learning Communities/Networks to Tony Vincent's Ignite presentation development session (we are to develop an Ignite-based preso for Saturday), and then to Jason Borgen's session on advanced Google.
Again, notes were streamed to Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
I will try to collate notes and post those here for your perusal.
I passed time while waiting for the elevator guy by cleaning my office some more and installing Vineland one the early childhood computers. I also began prep work for the TIE meeting coming up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
I also answered emails, took phone calls, and had a discussion with an antivirus vendor about a new product.
Thursday, I spent the morning in the monthly state tech meeting. We met with Belinda Kittrell regarding ERate updates and issues, then met with DIS for their announcement of the new B.E.E. program to provide more bandwidth to schools. It's a partnership between DIS and local telcos. I will be sharing the information with my area techs, as they have been begging for a bandwidth solution for quite some time.
The afternoon presented itself with two great keynote programs for the TIE program: Tim Holt talked about problem-based learning and Tony Vincent talked about better presentations (specifically Pechu Kacha and Ignite). The notes were taken 'live' and posted on Plurk, Facebook, and other social outlets.
Friday, the group was broken into three subgroups for breakout sessions. My order of sessions went from Tim Holt's Professional Learning Communities/Networks to Tony Vincent's Ignite presentation development session (we are to develop an Ignite-based preso for Saturday), and then to Jason Borgen's session on advanced Google.
Again, notes were streamed to Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
I will try to collate notes and post those here for your perusal.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Monday and Tuesday (10/11 and 10/12)
Monday, I helped make further preparations for the AMTRAK presentation to be held on Tuesday. I also helped get several workshops up and running with their technology. I met with Jeff Madlock, tech at Hope schools and together, we met with Jim Sutton, outside sales rep for Howard Computers. We discussed various projects, needs, etc.
During that meeting, I received a call that our server room was once again roasting. I called Daniell Electric and was informaed that the manufacturer was sending replacement circuit boards for both wall units. Evidently, something had gone awry. The kicker is that one of the units was ALREADY a replacement unit (thus why we are one remote control short for it). I hope the replacement parts do the trick. We'll find out once the parts arrive and the guys can install them.
Josh and I went to the old building to disconnect the electricity from a storage shed we had sold at the auction on Saturday.
I spoke with a tech from Otis Elevator, and he told me he would be out on Wednesday to address our elevator phone issue.
Tuesday - spent the morning getting ready for AMTRAK presentation. As visitors and guests arrived, I got a chance to catch up with Rep. Mike Ross, who is a friend from before his Congressional days. I hadn't seen him in quite a while and it was nice to talk for a bit.
Tuesday afternoon, I worked on getting my office cleaned up some more (a project in itself, as I had been spending my time getting other folks up and going). After the presentation, I helped pitch in with washing dishes, glasses, silverware etc. It was an 'all-hands on deck' scenario!
During that meeting, I received a call that our server room was once again roasting. I called Daniell Electric and was informaed that the manufacturer was sending replacement circuit boards for both wall units. Evidently, something had gone awry. The kicker is that one of the units was ALREADY a replacement unit (thus why we are one remote control short for it). I hope the replacement parts do the trick. We'll find out once the parts arrive and the guys can install them.
Josh and I went to the old building to disconnect the electricity from a storage shed we had sold at the auction on Saturday.
I spoke with a tech from Otis Elevator, and he told me he would be out on Wednesday to address our elevator phone issue.
Tuesday - spent the morning getting ready for AMTRAK presentation. As visitors and guests arrived, I got a chance to catch up with Rep. Mike Ross, who is a friend from before his Congressional days. I hadn't seen him in quite a while and it was nice to talk for a bit.
Tuesday afternoon, I worked on getting my office cleaned up some more (a project in itself, as I had been spending my time getting other folks up and going). After the presentation, I helped pitch in with washing dishes, glasses, silverware etc. It was an 'all-hands on deck' scenario!
Thursday, Friday (10/7 and 10/8)
Thursday, I spent much of the day helping to set up technology etc for the Open House to be held the next day. Around 10:30am or so, Trish Brown and I met with Don Miller and Naomi with One Vision regarding products and services, mainly service agreements for our video equipment.
Josh and I went to the old building to make sure things were ready for the auction held on the upcoming Saturday.
Friday, we held our Open House and Ribbon Cutting. I spent Friday afternoon getting ready for the AMTRAK presenation the following week.
Josh and I went to the old building to make sure things were ready for the auction held on the upcoming Saturday.
Friday, we held our Open House and Ribbon Cutting. I spent Friday afternoon getting ready for the AMTRAK presenation the following week.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday and Wednesday
The days all blur together as we get closer to our Open House on Friday. The air conditioner guys came by on Wednesday and effectively told me that the air conditioner was cutting off because it was too cold outside. I told them that was unacceptable. While it may be 35 degrees outside, in the server room it was 90+ and that just wasn't going to cut it. They need to come up with a solution. He called tech support. We'll see how it goes.
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent cleaning, moving thing, hanging items on the wall, tying up loose wires, etc. Basically, getting ready for Friday. Thursday will be much of the same.
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent cleaning, moving thing, hanging items on the wall, tying up loose wires, etc. Basically, getting ready for Friday. Thursday will be much of the same.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Monday
October 4
I drove straight to Fouke. On the way, it occurred to me that they were most likely having issues due to a loop in the network. I called the co-op and had the technology clerk (Terry) ping the Fouke server from her desktop. She was able to hit it, though it was intermittent. I then called the school to see if their distance learning system was still functioning. It was. These are both good signs. It means that the problem is local (since we could see their server from outside their network) and that it was only affecting "data" traffic and not traffic on the compressed video side of things.
When I got to Fouke, we went to the core closet to start troubleshooting. After quite a while (they have a LOT of connections coming into their core), we were able to isolate the problem down to the High School. At the high school, we were able to further limit the trouble to the distance learning lab. And, once there, we had it nailed down to a switch that had gone bad. We swapped it out with another one, and started hooking things up. Uh oh. Still problems. We narrowed it down to ANOTHER bad switch in the same room. That was pure luck, fate, divine intervention, you name it. After we swapped that one out, we still had an issue. Turns out, there WAS a loop in the network at that second switch! Once that was taken care of, we let everyone know they could get back online and we checked connections. About that time, DIS showed up and we went to the core closet and he (Neil) began running a test on his Fluke. While that was running, we went to the server room.
While in the server room, I realized I had left my phone in the car. I got it and had a message from the office. My server closet was running 90+ degrees!! Whoa! I left Fouke and immediately headed back to the office. As I got close to the office, I got a call about a distance learning event coming up at 1pm (it was about noon when I got the call). I tried talking our Distance Learning coordinator through the connection set up, but I could not visualize the core layout for DL and ended up at the office about 10 minutes until the program started. Through some troubleshooting, we got the DL up and going but had no sound. Actually, it turned out we had sound but the far end was muted. On top of that, the far end was presenting too far from the microphone for most sites to hear. I ultimately connected some powerful speakers to the system and made it through. In the meantime, I was running back and forth to the server room to get the temperature down. I believe I have it fixed, but won't really know until Tuesday morning.
I took a very brief lunch before heading back to the office to check email, answer voicemail, and take care of some E-Rate related issues. One of the things I had in my inbox was a message from SLD about our PIA (Program Integrity something or other) review. I had to answer five questions, and hopefully that will move our FY10-11 funds along! Yes, we are still waiting for FY10-11 funds! UGH... I also called the air conditioner folks about a remote for the unit in the server room and for an instruction book.
And then, it was after 4pm. Time flies!
I drove straight to Fouke. On the way, it occurred to me that they were most likely having issues due to a loop in the network. I called the co-op and had the technology clerk (Terry) ping the Fouke server from her desktop. She was able to hit it, though it was intermittent. I then called the school to see if their distance learning system was still functioning. It was. These are both good signs. It means that the problem is local (since we could see their server from outside their network) and that it was only affecting "data" traffic and not traffic on the compressed video side of things.
When I got to Fouke, we went to the core closet to start troubleshooting. After quite a while (they have a LOT of connections coming into their core), we were able to isolate the problem down to the High School. At the high school, we were able to further limit the trouble to the distance learning lab. And, once there, we had it nailed down to a switch that had gone bad. We swapped it out with another one, and started hooking things up. Uh oh. Still problems. We narrowed it down to ANOTHER bad switch in the same room. That was pure luck, fate, divine intervention, you name it. After we swapped that one out, we still had an issue. Turns out, there WAS a loop in the network at that second switch! Once that was taken care of, we let everyone know they could get back online and we checked connections. About that time, DIS showed up and we went to the core closet and he (Neil) began running a test on his Fluke. While that was running, we went to the server room.
While in the server room, I realized I had left my phone in the car. I got it and had a message from the office. My server closet was running 90+ degrees!! Whoa! I left Fouke and immediately headed back to the office. As I got close to the office, I got a call about a distance learning event coming up at 1pm (it was about noon when I got the call). I tried talking our Distance Learning coordinator through the connection set up, but I could not visualize the core layout for DL and ended up at the office about 10 minutes until the program started. Through some troubleshooting, we got the DL up and going but had no sound. Actually, it turned out we had sound but the far end was muted. On top of that, the far end was presenting too far from the microphone for most sites to hear. I ultimately connected some powerful speakers to the system and made it through. In the meantime, I was running back and forth to the server room to get the temperature down. I believe I have it fixed, but won't really know until Tuesday morning.
I took a very brief lunch before heading back to the office to check email, answer voicemail, and take care of some E-Rate related issues. One of the things I had in my inbox was a message from SLD about our PIA (Program Integrity something or other) review. I had to answer five questions, and hopefully that will move our FY10-11 funds along! Yes, we are still waiting for FY10-11 funds! UGH... I also called the air conditioner folks about a remote for the unit in the server room and for an instruction book.
And then, it was after 4pm. Time flies!
Friday
On October 1, Josh and I spent the day over at the old building. We dismantled two projectors to bring back to the new building, then we set up the TVs and VCRs for the auction. That involved getting everything unplugged and carrying the equipment down the hall to the old conference room. The TVs are "old" - as in, no remote control. You know, the kind you have to "turn the dial?" Well, they are bulky for sure. And the VCRs are pretty "aged" themselves. But, they still work. And that is the key to selling them off in the auction.
Once we were back at the co-op, I went through the spam filter. I also tried to set the temperature in the server room so that it would be cooler in there. More on that in Monday's post.
Near the end of the day, I got a call from the Fouke Supt asking me to come down on Monday because they were having "major problems" there.
Once we were back at the co-op, I went through the spam filter. I also tried to set the temperature in the server room so that it would be cooler in there. More on that in Monday's post.
Near the end of the day, I got a call from the Fouke Supt asking me to come down on Monday because they were having "major problems" there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)