Troubleshooting and Workarounds

(image from colourbox.com)

Spent part of the day today working at one of our early childhood sites.  The teacher had two main issues to be addressed: the IEP program (SEAS) was acting erratically and she had a computer in another classroom that needed to be able to print to the multi-function imager in the main classroom.

I upgraded Adobe Reader, which is what the IEP software is based on. We had switched her to Firefox earlier because IE was having issues with SEAS (computerautomation.com). In my opinion, the folks at SEAS need to get away from using Acrobat forms online as their primary tool. It's an ugly mess.  In any case, I updated java as well, just for grins.  The issue with Firefox appears to be that the program wants to open the PDF but it also wants Reader to open the file. Either way, it's ugly.

So, I switched her back to IE until that breaks. Not pretty, but it works.

The other issue was supposed to be straight forward: install a printer that resides on the network.  Popped in the CD, ran the install, and came to a screeching halt.  The installer acted as if I didn't have permissions to install, but never quite came out to say that.  I checked the user permissions, and this user is a local admin on the machine.

Time to regroup.

I opened the CD and found the 'CLIENT' folder. Inside, I found the various flavors of printing languages.  I opted for PCL6 since that is what we usually run.  In that folder, I found my friend, SETUP.  I ran it without incident. After printing a test page, I confirmed that everything was working as planned.  Why I had to run the setup for the specific language, I have no idea.

I spent a pretty nice chunk of time on the phone with one of the area school techs. One of the services I provide is that of sounding board. I have to say, it is a great feeling to know that the people I work with in varying capacities trust my input and insight. I think it is partly due to my ability to think of ideas and possible solutions in ways most folks never dream. Some would say, "Thinking outside the box." I prefer to call it, "Thinking outside of the ballpark."  That is, sometimes, I approach problems from such a wild direction that the ideas actually make sense once they are brought to light.  Naturally, this is not foolproof. There have been plenty of times where the "idea from left field" flies very far foul.  I am very blessed that the folks I work with often see those mistakes as "learning opportunities" and/or discovering ways NOT to do something.

July 23-27

Monday - posted ESEA content to our web site, helped presenters with workshops, tested breakers for issue with accessible door mechanism. Working with Fortinet regarding our firewall. Other issues as they arise.  Working with Bradley schools regarding a bad desktop they have.

Tuesday - Teaching iPods and iPads in the Classroom

Wednesday - Will be in office.

Thursday - Will be in office.

Friday - Office Closed

January 30 - February 3, 2012

Monday - Office
Tuesday - Office
Wednesday - Saturday - TIE Conference - Technology professional development

Monday's notes:

Monday, Monday, Monday...

Man, the advantage to focusing most of my attention on one project is that I got a bunch of it knocked out. Still a long way to go and a short time to do it (oh, I know what you THOUGHT I was gonna say). Converting revamped technology training modules into our new Moodle format. Whew!

Looks like overtime will be calling my name tomorrow evening! At least I should be able to finish things up from the house.

Why "most of my attention?" Spent the day swapping emails and phone calls with Sharon and Cari on various tech issues. CRAZY DAY! Despite it all, I am very glad to be employed! Oh yeah, and Verizon's area-wide blackout didn't help. Haha!

I helped Sharon at Blevins with various Tech Plan questions, E-Rate questions, and a few other technical issues.

I helped Cari with Exchange issues - her server ran out of drive space, so we freed up space and remounted the Exchange Store.  We also worked thorough some Active Directory problems as well.  We also covered E-Rate bids, RFP's, and other technical issues.

Verizon had a major network issue with their wireless network in our area this morning, so I spent some time on the phone with their support folks.

I am working on the Co-op's Tech Plan and the State Tech Coordinator Grant Proposal as well.

So, what'd YOU do today?!

10/3/11 - 10/6/11

Monday - came to office until 10:30am then went home sick.

tuesday - Genoa Central middle school and elementary school video installs. Then, went to the high school to work on two video systems there. Reconfigured main DL for 100/Full connectivity and changed IP information on the new system for virtual field trip use (or class use via V2IU connection in Little Rock).

Wednesday - Attended ACOOP training on new DRP software from state. in the afternoon, installed the portable video unit for the co-op. Went to UACCH to help with that video unit install. Hit a few glitches there, but got them ironed out. Left UACCH with installer and headed to Nevada Schools. There, we installed the new video unit.

Thursday - Spent most of the day providing tech support to Fouke for a new server application install. Also handled email correspondence regarding video issues at Bradley. Scheduled the monthly area tech meeting. Talked with several vendors. Set up an on-site visit for Prescott on Friday after a meeting I have with a wireless (wifi, not cell) vendor. Installed a new network printer in the specialists' area. Hunted down a rogue wireless access point on the network. Well, "rogue" is a bit strong. It was one that had been misconfigured and I set it to right. Explored a couple of iPad apps for tech usage, but found them lacking (sorry, the names of the apps escapes me just now). Oh yeah, had to hunt down a telephone extension issue that turned out to be an issue with the placards we use to display people's extensions - a lot of troubleshooting and wire-moving for not, it seems. Emailed to several lists - cooptc, sys_admin, etc regarding various issues and topics. Experimented with various DHCP scenarios on our server. Researched various ISA 2006 settings and scenarios, user permissions issues, etc.

9/29-9/30 2011

Thursday, Sept 29 - Spent part of the day off and on researching and ordering various replacement items and equipment. Spent the better part of the morning meeting with the Director and Assistant Director over various issues - parking light timer, surveillance video, personnel matters, etc.

Cleaned my office since I had been out much of the previous few days. While doing so, I answered emails, conducted support via phone and text. a LOT of emails regarding distance learning connectivity and quality issues.

Friday, Sept 30 - Honestly, I don't remember what I did. A review of emails dated from that day shows a LOT of troubleshooting various distance learning network issues with a couple of schools - Bradley in particular. This was done through DIS, the school, and other personnel related to the process (AT&T, UACCH, etc).

I updated the trainer for an upcoming ACOOP training (the training took place on Oct 5).

I also spent a bulk of Friday at Blevins working on a variety of network, server, and desktop issues.

Mondays are... Mondays

Spent Monday morning working on various issues at the co-op.  I created an installation checklist for the CIV systems that some of my area schools are receiving through an RUS grant.  Turns out, much of the information I had was incorrect. Lovely.

I had to then battle a firewall issue in which Blackboard chatting is being blocked at the co-op.  I have yet to figure out just which rule is preventing the chat. Even disabling most of the rules has not cured the problem.  Frankly, after the bottlenecks and other issues, I think it's getting close to time to ditch ISA 2006 for good.  The main issue is that it routes the 6 or so web sites we run through one IP.  I prefer it that way so that we keep our servers out of the public hacking eye (er, mostly).  In any case, it is time to research something else.

I spent the afternoon at Bradley, helping them work on a few issues before their new video system arrived.  Once it did, we unboxed it.  We waited for the installer to get there, but it was now 2:30 or so, and we decided to put the thing together ourselves.  I had to leave just after three to pick up my daughter, so I left the folks working on it.  The installer came just before three.  I got a call later that night that the system would not register nor connect to the state video network.  I will be going back to Bradley within the next day or so to get it working.

I ran back to the co-op for a quick stop after Bradley on my way to pick up my daughter from church.  I had a switch at the office I wanted to take home to troubleshoot.  Turns out, the switch just needs to be "decommissioned." It's loud (fans), has bad ports (at least one set of four) and it keeps rebooting itself.  At least now I know!

08/25/2011

Went to the office first. Helped set up a CIV with DVD recording. Headed to Bradley.

Dropped off math manipulatives for the high school and a bag of snacks for the ECH program. I am a man of many hats and talents!

In Bradley, talked with various DL personnel regarding connection issues, quality issues, etc. All the issues seem to be outbound-related. That is, the quality and connections are perfectly fine coming INTO the campus, but the other end(s) of the CIV are getting pixellation, stuttering, etc.

The tech and I ran a few local tests - internal network calls only, and everything ran smoothly, looked good, sounded good. The issue appears to be external, but we will see what DIS says after their testing and analysis.

The tech and I worked on several other issues: server backups, network wiring traces, hardware/software troubleshooting, etc.

I left Bradley and headed to the Lewisville ECH. They are having connectivity issues, but the bigger items are related to the computer being put on the school's local domain. That seems to have messed with some of the permissions and settings for the local user (even when not logged into the domain). I am working on those and think i have most of them pinned down and fixed.

After Lewisville, I went back to the office to drop off equipment I picked up and to pick up equipment to take with me to the Prescott schools, which i will be visiting in the morning.

July 19, 2011

Installed GEOGEBRA on Macs in lab.

Talked to DIS about our connectivity issues - they have a possible solution but need to discuss with ADE.

Tested WAN connectivity while dialed into a video conference - no measurable difference.

New voice mail system should be installed today.

Scheduled to meet with Howard Technology and Xirrus to do a site survey of our building - looking at better coverage solutions.

Offered suggestions to help a school get started with Facebook:

I would create a page instead of a group. People can LIKE the page and get
updates that are posted there. Some schools create one page for the
district and then separate pages for each building. Then, assign "admins"
to oversee the pages (you do that in FB). Once the page is created, spread
the word and have people LIKE the page(s). Actually before that, I would
ask a couple folks (non page admins) to LIKE it and make sure they are getting
any updates being posted. Once you know everything works, spread the
word. In the page settings, you can set who is or is not allowed to post
new contect (pictures, posts, etc). I believe anyone can respond to an
existing post, no matter who posted it though. A couple schools I have
talked to about this had early issues with inappropriate content, but that was
handled with the person/people specifically and the content removed by one of
the page admins. I think it is a great way to reach out to parents,
students and community members because you are PUSHING the info to them. I
One school used theirs a LOT during the bad weather for closures, etc. Yes,
they still did the TV thing and the radio thing, but the word spread much more
quickly through FB than any other manner. They even have a phone system
that calls folks but people knew about the closure from FB long before they got
that phone call!

As a side note, I had someone ask me how one would tie Angry Birds into classroom lessons. i just happened to have saved this page that offers up some excellent ways to do just that:
http://thislooksgood.poste​rous.com/using-angry-birds​-to-teach-math-history-and​-s

June 20, 2011

Monday after vacation, I started the day by helping other presenters get their programs started.  Then, from 9a-Noon, I taught our early childhood teachers, staff and paraprofessionals how to use their iPads and we checked out all kinds of pre-k apps. It was a lot of fun!

In the afternoon, I demonstrated the iPad to Career and Technical Education teachers.  We then looked at Google Apps and Google Docs.

What's going on: Monday and Tuesday Edition

Trying to document everything I do really is a challenge.  I have got to get better at this.

Monday:

Got the agreements/contracts for AT&T faxed for E-rate yesterday.

Took several calls from schools, but cannot remember specifically what the content invloved.

Sent emails to area schools regarding several matters: Letters of Impact/Support for the co-op Technology Coordinator position, 2011 Technology Needs/Use survey for professional development, general technical assistance.

Talked with Max Kolstad who is back with ADE!  Scheduled a CIV for March regarding the TAC/HAC program.

Sent requests to vendors for quotes on a couple desktop computers for our early childhood program.

Worked on E-rate numbers - child counts, etc, gearing up for 471 submittal.

Worked on the HIPPY computer that had become infected with spyware/adware

Helped several co-workers with iPad questions, cell phone questions, etc.

Researched several topics (Parental Involvement, School Board training) on the ArkansasIDEAS portal in order to help folks find the staff development resources they needed.

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Tuesday

More work on E-rate information.

Helped multiple school techs (in my area and outside my area) through the statewide system administrators listserv throughout the day.

Worked on the firewall to add/modify blocked sites

Performed a few administrative functions on the co-op's Sharepoint server.

Other regular duties as well, among things that have slipped my mind.
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These lists are in no way near anything remotely close to "complete."  Instead, these are the things I can specifically pull out of my memory from the non-stop "blowin' and goin'" I do every day. 

Wednesday and Thursday, the state techs are in Moodle training.

Tuesday in Bradley

I spent 1/25/11 in Bradley, working on several issues:

Before heading to Bradley, I set up the conference room for a presentation that day.

They recently switched to Vexira Antivirus and were having problems with the software.  Specifically, it would not auto-update.  Since the tech is also a classroom teacher, she could not stay on the phone with tech support for long durations due to class conflicts.  That's where I stepped in.  The tech on the phone was very helpful, fixed a few configuration issues and got the software up and running.

Sidenote here: *MANY* districts in the state of Arkansas employ the services of one of their teachers in the role of Technology Coordinator for the district.  Part of what I do as a State Technology Coordinator helps offset the times the tech is teaching classes.  I am not the only State Tech Coordinator that does this, either.  Without folks like us, small, rural schools would have ZERO support for thier teacher/techs.

After getting the AV fixed, I went to the elementary library to work on their book circulation software.  Turns out the software is not Windows 7 "supported."  They can try to run the software, but there is no support for it on Windows 7.  The issue I ran into was a bit weird.  They have a hand scanner for barcode reading.  The device lit up and would scan a code (acknowledged by an audible BEEP" but nothing would show up on screen (the read code would not transfer).  I called tech support, which is how I found out about the lack of Win7 support, and decided to replace the new machine (Win7) with thei old one (XP) until we could figure something out.  That's when I saw the problem.  The hand scanner is PS/2, as is the keyboard and mouse.  There is a Y-Adapater that connects both the scanner and the keyboard together into the PS/2 slot.  When moving things around, evidently the mouse and scanner had been plugged into the Y instead of the keyboard and scanner.  Once I took care of that, the thing worked as designed - Windows 7 and all!

Next on the list, a pair of computers in one of the elementary classrooms.  Dell had replaced a power supply and motherboard, but the computer would still not boot correctly.  The tech said the problem was software related because the computer reported that Windows system files were corrupt.  I booted (or tried to) from a Recovery CD and when the system got to the "searching for pervious versions" screen, things would come to a halt.  I booted the computer to Dell's Diagnostics system and immediately received CMOS error messages.  Once I got through those, the system reported that the hard drive was not functioning.  Looks like another call to Dell.

The other computer in the room had malware on it.  It wouldn't let users go anywhere online or access resources on the local network.  On another machine, the local tech downloaded Malwarebytes and I installed it on the infected machine.  After a full system scan, I cleaned the computer of the malware.

Several smart boards had issues that needed addressing.  Unfortunately, removing the light bulb and blowing out the dust did not cure these ones.  The projectors will have to be swapped out for new ones.

A couple of the laptops in the Distance Learning Lab were not working correctly, so the local tech and I worked on those to get them working again.

Once user has a new wireless inkjet in her classroom and wanted her laptop set to print to it.  I installed the software and had her printing wirelessly.

During the day, I fielded a couple calls from the office about technology issues related to the presentation happening in the conference room.  Luckily, I was able to find a spot outside where the cell signal managed to come through.  You won't see the little Verizon guy anywhere near Bradley!  No, he can't hear you now.

Week of December 13-17, 2010

Over the weekend, I worked with a district to help them pull video from one of their security cameras.  The original plan was for me to head to their district on Monday.  I called them ahead of time, and they had recovered all the video they needed.  I spent the day cleaning the tech office closet - a feat of great undertaking, considering it was a mess from the move back in August!

I also worked on (and submitted) my grant evaluation for my program.  We are required to submit a grant evaluation of how we (the state techs) are doing.  there are a series of questions we have to answer, then upload the finished form to the wiki developed specifically for this purpose.  Hopefully, everything is in place and I will continue to be employed following the legislative budget meetings in the Spring.

Tuesday - met with my area techs.  Discussed IDEAS, tech integration, budgeting, e-rate

Wednesday - Worked on several issues, most of which were located on one machine:

1. Anti-virus would not update. Turns out the public SOPHOS server is offline or had a url change or something.  It is a known issue experienced by users all over the US, evidently.
2. Livescribe pen would not sync with desktop.  This is also a known issue. I solved it by moving the existing data and running the program as if it had never had a pen. The new data transferred and I removed it from the pen after the transfer.  Since there is not an easy way (or any way that I have found) to bring the old data back into the program, I found an application that allows the user to switch data locations. Now, when the user needs the information, they switch data locations. Not pretty but it worked.
3. Printer was acting up. After swapping printers, i determined the printer was the culprit and ordered the user a new printer.

Another user had an issue where the Outlook 2007 window would not open.  The solution is to start Outlook from the START/RUN line with: outlook.exe /resetnavpane

I took several phone calls for tech support (Blevins, Harry Dickens)

I performed other regular duties throughout the day.

Looking ahead for the week: Thursday will be more office cleaning and general tech duties as usual.  Friday is the company's Christmas party, then we are off for two weeks during the holiday break.

Tuesday

Stopped in Prescott first thing to drop off a DVD of the tech plan training we had on Friday.  The tech had not made it to the office yet, so I dropped in to one of the DL labs since she was having trouble switching to her document camera.

Her system has been acting up, so I wired a bypass from the document camera to the codec (bypassing the touch panel module since it is out).  I then showed the facilitator how to use the remote to switch between the various input devices (main camera, doc cam, etc).

After that, I visited with the tech for a bit.  We talked about a whole range of topics (filters, wireless, web servers, etc).  Before I left, we worked on his DNS server, Firewall and Sharepoint server to route traffic from their old web address to their new web server.  We had previously set up a redirect page, but now we moved to actual IP resolution.  The next step was to have him call DIS and make the change in the state DNS server(s).

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Once I arrived at the office, I had several meetings planned out.  First was one with DataCove for email archiving.  After that, I met with IK Electric regarding phone systems, network security, and data aggregation/firewalling/content filtering.

Near the end of the day, Harry Dickens happened by so I visited with him at length about iPads, apps, and trainings that he had done recently at several of our area schools.

Monday

Spent much of the time doing general daily office stuff (troubleshooting, cleaning spam filter, email, phone calls, etc).  I took several calls from a couple of techs working on their technology disaster recovery plans and continuity of operations plans. 

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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!

Monday, Monday, Monday!

After spending the weekend feeling as if I had been run over by a monster truck or two (read, sick!), I got to work this morning, checked in for the layout of the day, then headed to Texarkana for a supply run.

I never really thought buying some "knick-knack" shelves (for video cameras) and a few cables would be such an adventure.  I started the trip at Home Depot.  Did you know Home Depot does not carry anything shorter than 23.5" in the way of shelves?  I didn't.  In fact, I think they used to.  Oh, well. I figured I would try another store.

I went to Best Buy to look for an S-Video extension cable, a couple of VGA extensions, and to see if *they* happened to have shelving for speakers (that I could use for video cameras).  They did not have an S-Video extension.  In fact, they only had a 6-foot standard one.  So, I bought two VGA extensions I needed and a small switch for the Sympodium cabinet (way too many network connections wrapped up in one unit for me!). 

After Best Buy, I drove over to Lowe's to look for shelving. I actually found a two-pack for $20 that had two black shelves with hardware for mounting it "bracketlessly" to the wall. Very slick!  I picked up two of those and headed for Radio Shack.

I arrived before Radio Shack opened, so I checked my phone messages and had one from an area tech.  I returned the call and he was having trouble getting some users to log in to his Novell network.  He said users could log in to "Workstation Only (WSO)" mode. I suggested that he have one of the WSO users login in using the Novell system tray icon once they were logged in to WSO mode.  It worked - the users could read mapped drives and get to Groupwise.  Now that we had a way for users to function, the next step was to isolate the problem.  I said that I thought the problem was either in a login script or was happening as part of the login process.  He told me that some users had received an anti-virus message that a couple files on the server were infected.  It's important to note that not all users were having trouble logging in.  Because the users could login through WSO (which runs scripts as part of logging in), I had eliminated the login scripts as the culprit.  The tech said he would call me back later.

Though Radio Shack did not have an S-Video extension cable, they did have an S-Video coupler, which would serve the same purpose. 

I got back to the co-op and worked with Josh to install the shelves in the Conference room, do some cable management and get wires ready for the Panduit I have coming.  After that, we worked on the Distance Learning room.  From there, I began moving telephone lines around in the telco closet.  We've been having trouble with the fire alarm/security system and the elevator not playing nicely with each other.  So, like a teacher in a classroom, I separated everyone.  The elevator is now on its own line and the security system is on two completely different lines than it used to be.  I had never used a 66-block punchdown tool before.  It's not quite the same as a 110-punch.  I kept getting the wire turned sideways, so it wouldn't cut.  I finally showed it who was in charge.  It wasn't me.  Just kidding.

I spent the rest of the day checking email and answering phone calls (which amounted to about 30 minutes total.  It was a full day!)

08/12/2010

8a- 930a - Helped a school district set up a redirect from their old website to their new one.  Also helped the tech get ConsoleOne and NWADMIN32 running on his workstation.  We also looked at a connectivity issue in the computer lab and got it resolved.

10a - 4pm - Drove back to co-op and spent the day breaking down a couple labs, moving and packing, etc.

4p-5:30p - Shut down servers and router, loaded up the equipment and moved it to the new building.  We had a bit of a scare during the move.  Friday will tell us if everything still works the way it should.