Back in the Swing

I haven't posted here in quite a while. I have been running around, helping schools, working on co-op related items, and generally keeping VERY busy.  I am going to start recording here again, though I have been keeping up with my daily visits etc in my co-op calendar.

I appreciate anyone who is still following along, or may start now that this site will pick back up again.

Most recently, I was at Blevins to help set up student logins. There will be some growing pains, I'm sure! But, we were able to get the students set up, put into appropriate groups, and assign permissions.

Just prior to that, I was at Bradley to help set up new computers in their distance learning labs and troubleshoot various issues around the district.

In-house, I have been working on a couple projects that will come to light around Christmas break. I am pretty excited about them!

More to come as I get back into the swing of posting my daily log here again.

August 20-24, 2012

Monday - Visit Genoa Schools to troubleshoot issues with DL. After all connections were re-seated, system worked fine. Talked with early childhood program there and the local tech to discuss network connectivity. As Trish and I left, the cables for the network connection were arriving via courier.  We then went to Texarkana schools to meet with their distance learning facilitator. Everything was fine technically.  I met with Technology Clerk and TCC regarding new scheduling implementation.  There will be a meeting between the three of us and the Director on Friday to hammer out some details and iron out issues with the program.  I went to the Hope ECH to connect interactive whiteboard, test networking, reset printer connections.

Tuesday - Will be at Arch Ford Co-op for statewide tech meeting

Wednesday - Will be in Conway for a statewide grant program meeting

Thursday - Office

Friday - Office

New Filter Fun

I thought I would throw this out there for anyone that owns a Fortigate firewall appliance.

I had a Fortigate 300C (stock grill, custom rims) that seemed to be acting flaky but was nothing I could pinpoint.  Eventually, the flash disk would disappear from the configuration then re-appear out of the blue.  As time went on, the SQL database would corrupt and repairing it wasn't helping.  Soon, our web filter would randomly let folks get to certain places and not others (regardless of the actual filter settings).  I contacted Fortinet for an exchange.  The RMA process went very smoothly.  The subsequent unit install, however, did not.

Once the new unit was here (yesterday), I fired it up, used FortiExplorer to find it attached with USB cable and I imported a backup config into the new unit. So far, so good.  Well, no I forgot that I had to reboot the new unit at one point because it quit talking to my computer. I am sure that was operator error though.  Once the initial setup was complete, I used the old box to connect to Fortigate Support and convert the serial number to the new unit (they have an RMA exchange feature to do this - which, in a way, is a scary thought really). All seemed well.  I connected the new unit to our network, swapped cables and let it ride... to nowhere. The license did not transfer. I called tech support and they said it could be two hours before the license transfers. TWO HOURS!? Glad this isn't mission critical or anything.

Today, I fire up my computer and.. nothing. I still can't go anywhere. I get into the unit and several licenses have updated, others have not - web filtering being one. I call tech support. Now they tell me it can be up to 24 hours before the license transfers. Seriously!?  She said, "We suggest you keep the old unit in place until the license transfers." Through clenched teeth, I said, "If the other unit was working, I wouldn't have needed the new one in the first place!" 

We tried to force the unit to update. Nothing after 20 minutes. And then, it dawned on me:  The blocking message said that the license was expired and that pages may not be accessible with the filter enabled.  So, I disabled the web filtering, and TAH DAH - instantly updated the license.

I let the Fortinet tech department know that maybe they should consider including one bit of troubleshooting when a customer is doing an RMA transfer: Tell them to disable the web filter until the license transfer is complete.

File this away in case you have to RMA your Fortigate firewall/filter.

Catching my breath!

Wow!  I can certainly tell summer has arrived!  I have been running all over the place for the last week and a half, not even taking time to make notes here.  I have a few moments, so I thought I would catch everyone up.

March 28 - Memorial Day, Office Closed

March 29 - Drove to Bradley to help with moving user home folders. That was not good. For some reason, changes to the active directory are not getting rolled out to the users.  I am still trying to figure that one out.  I had to change everyone's home folder redirection back to the old server and set their home folders back in the profiles.  What's weird is that the profiles connected their home folder and mapped it. But, Windows would never update the group policy to the location for My Documents.  I thought I had conflicting policies somewhere, but everything I did checked out.  And, *NEW* users would get the redirect. I understand I may have to delete local profiles, and I am not looking forward to that at all.

March 30 - Apple Products Demo - Looked at iTunesU, iBooks, iBooks Author, MDM, Lion, and other Apple offerings.  In the afternoon, participants looked at Casper for MDM and talked about tablet rollouts, summer projects, etc.

March 31 - Began updating iMacs in lab to Snow Leopard 6.8 in preparation for Lion/Mtn Lion rollout.  Hit major bandwidth snags.  Performed other duties as well - helping out with tech in other workshops, etc.

June 1 - Office closed, but I came in to check on iMac update progress. Not good. So, I got a few started instead of doing whole lab. 

June 4 - Came back into office early, started updates again.  Also changed firewall to allow al traffic to Apple without scanning. That helped immensely and immediately.  By day's end, most Macs were well on way to updating.  Left it run over night. During the day, I helped get workshops going, found a problem with an AeroHive device and got it back up and going again.  Other tech duties kept me running all day long.

June 5 - Tuesday all Macs were updated. One had the "infinite login loop."  So, after I helped get workshops started, I concentrated on getting that Mac up and going.  None of the tips I found online worked.  I left the day trying to reinstall OS X.  I copied Windows XP from one Parallels to external drive, which I then transferred to a "spare" machine.

June 6 - Came in to find the reinstall did not fix the issue.  Evidently, it just tried to "fix" what was broken and missed.  So, I put the "spare" in its place and moved the non-working machine to another location to work on it.  In the meantime, I got workshops going then used an external hard drive to make a Time Machine backup.  When that was done, I used that backup to restore the errant iMac.  That worked perfectly (after some minor reconfiguration to prevent duplicate names, etc, on the network).  For the record, the Mac that went bad after the update was the only Mac in the lab that actually required a login. All the other Macs were set to auto login.  Also - I have *NOT* restarted the other Macs because we have APSCN training all week in that lab.  if ain't broke, I ain't fixing it until I need to!

June 7 - I will help get workshops going and then we have the retirement program for Lindy and Nell.  I will take care of other issues as needed during the day, as usual.

June 8 - Our offices are closed on Fridays in the summer.

Thursday Quick Note

Had the area tech meeting today. I will post notes later.

I just worked on a Samsung ML-331x Series printer.  The printer would print a single page document but not multiple page documents.  I looked through the settings and made the following changes:  Sleep Mode changed to 120 minutes.  Wake-on changed from Button to Printer.

I have no idea why this change fixed it, but it did.  During the process, however, I added a new ML-331x attached to the IP of the printer.  I write this because I want to be sure I remember should this come up again.

Troubleshooting Networks at Blevins

I drove straight to Blevins this morning.  They were having connectivity issues following the storms the other day.  Turns out, they had a pair of media converters knocked out.  Swapped the devices, and the network came back up, humming along.

Had a separate issue in a classroom. Teacher could not connect.  After some sneakernet, we discovered a wire had come loose from the switch.

In yet another classroom, teacher could not connect.  Turned out to be a bad end that plugs into a cat5 coupler.  Replaced the end and user was back up and running.

Set up an Airport Extreme.  After much troubleshooting, it turned out the switch in that room had TWO bad ports - and we just happened to have picked those two while installing/troubleshooting. Figures.

At the office, I worked on creating a new workshop survey. This year, surveys will be online, accessible via desktop, laptop, and mobile devices.  We will have QR codes posted for folks to scan and take the survey.  We will also provide paper copies of the survey should some folks decide not to do it online.

Helped Phoebe with playing AudioNote files on her computer, then I recorded a podcast for the SWAEC@Technology series.  That can be found: http://davidinark.podomatic.com/

Met with the Supt of Blevins to give a summary of what happened there. Also talked with Supt of Fouke regarding new position they are looking to fill.  he had asked me to help review applicants, etc.

Tuesday, Feb 21, 2012

Restarted the Firewall. Having issues with ISA Server 2006.  Put in a HEAT ticket with DIS.  They called and said problem looked to be local.

Went to Hope ECH and ran new network wire. Will install wireless later this week.

Answered phone calls and emails.  More troubleshooting on ISA Server.  Restart Firewall service.

Spent 20 minutes on phone with woman from Connecticut regarding technology department restructuring. She got my name from AESA contacts during the Colo Springs conference.  VERY cool conversation!  I hope my thoughts were helpful. 

More troubleshooting ISA.

After poking around, I managed to come across a weird situation another admin had whereby the UPS into which the core switch was plugged had errant power flow problems.  We have been having a battery issue with one of our UPS units, so I moved the plug from that UPS to another. So far, so good. I'm not holding my breath, though. We'll just have to see.  In the meantime, I had already ordered a replacement battery, so that's now on my priority list for Wednesday!

I just hope that was the fix.  If not, it looks like the NIC in that server may be going out. That won't be fun.

I swapped a telephone set in early childhood - theirs was showing the worng button programming. usually that is a software issue. In this case, though, the phone itself is.. wonky.

This afternoon, I am heading to Prescott to help with IDEAS logins, etc.  Then tonight, I am talking to the Prescott school board about e-rate.

Week of January 27 UPDATE

Wednesday - Traveled to Bradley to help troubleshoot several issues and run a cable in one of their labs.  We had to install DyKnow monitoring software, which turned out to be much more involved than we had anticipated. In fact, we ended up removing the installation at least once (I think maybe twice) before we got it right.  Let me just say that I miss the days when thousand-dollar software came with a PRINTED manual.  We had to locate and replace a wire that was causing a video issue in the distance learning lab.  We also looked at several other technical issues as well.

Thursday - I drove to Fouke to help troubleshoot network issues.  The tech and I looked at their backup configuration and made sure that it was backing up everything it was supposed to be.  We went through the Middle School trying to find a possible network loopback, but did not find one.  There is something going on, and I let the tech know that the co-op would be getting an Etherscope soon and that I would bring it to troubleshoot as soon as it arrived.  in the meantime, I offered suggestions for manually hunting down the problem.  The "old school" method is to unplug cables one at a time until things settle down.  If EVERYTHING is unplugged before the network settles, then plug things back in one at a time and monitor the situation.  It is long, tedious work with a lot of network connections to go through.

They have Xirrus wireless and one array keeps rebooting itself, but does not log the boot loop in its diagnostics.  I can only assume that the system is rebooting before the diags can be recorded.

The tech asked me to research the following: 1) Cloud-based backup for Netware, 2) Multi-sheet document scanner for record keeping, 3) Info regarding migration from Groupwise to Google Apps for Education. I will have those to them next week.

Friday - Went to Blevins to help troubleshoot network issues and other problems.  They had a lightning strike take out one of their T1s. The telco replaced the line, but the internet connection was no where near up to speed (running about 26k/sec). We had DIS on the line and Warren helped us narrow down a couple issues.  One issue surfaced in the form of the video LAN and the Data LAN being on the same physical network.  After a LOT of sneakernet, we found the problem (a wire plugged into the wrong place) and fixed that.  As for internet connectivity, it turns out the line was not provisioned correctly on the telco end.  Aonce both of those were resolved, the district was running at near 3-meg capacity.

Additionally, I had a list of things the techs wanted me to look over, so I did.  A MacBook had a CD stuck in the drive and it would not eject.  The system was "hosed" and would not boot beyond the spinning grey circle.  Holding the EJECT button whole booting did not work.  Holding COMMAND-OPTION-F-O never put me in Firmware Mode, so that was no good.  I finally took a stiff piece of cardboard and stuck it in the drive.  When the system tried to boot, the CD was held in place by the cardboard.  The system tried to read the disc 3-4 times.  After that, the CD eventually ejected from the system.

I helped set the password expiration period to 90 days (it had been set to 42 days).

I helped set up two printers as DHCP reservations.

I showed the tech how to DENY requests for IP addresses in the DHCP server module.  I love that feature of Server 2008 R2! Wahoo!  They had a LOT of iPhone, iPod, Android, etc users snagging up IP addresses.

We worked on a couple other issues, then I headed to the office.

At the office, I worked on updating the Operations Guide for the Conference Room - added a cheat sheet for multiple screen scenarios.  I posted the 2012-2013 DL Calendar to the ARDL portal, answered phone calls, emails, voicemails, etc.

January 23-27, 2012

Monday - Office
Tuesday - Office
Wednesday - Bradley
Thursday - Genoa (possibly)
Friday - Office

Monday, spent the morning in the office then headed to Fouke to look at a DL problem. Turns out, they do not have a mic mixer for their ceiling mic.  Talked to the tech support folks, they will be in touch.  From there, headed to Prescott to look at their DL issue (remote control).  I thought the problem was related to the plate in the top of the C20, but instead, the issue was much simpler.  Inside Tandberg remote battery compartments is a switch.  The switch regulates how much power is being used for the IR output.  By default, it is set on low.  That works well for close-up remote needs and/or incandescent lighting.  For fluorescent, though, you need to flip the switch to HIGH power.  So, I flipped the switch and it works great.  I had forgotten that was even in the battery compartment until yesterday.

Tuesday, heading out to Hope ECH to troubleshoot connectivity and SmartBoards.  We'll see what the rest of the day holds...

Problem at Hope ECH is directlt related to a coupler being used between two pieces of network wire.  I will most likely run a new line so that we do not have this problem in the future.

The smartBoard problem was a result of screen resolution to the projector.  I adjusted the resolution so that the display would show the entire desktop area, filling the projection screen (it had been "squished" due to a much higher resolution).  This fixed the SmartBoard problem.

Installed Apple TV on the TV in the Asst Director's office.  AppleTV, at the time of this writing, does not have alive weather program. Seriously!?  Lame.  So, I contact Weather.com to encourage them to work with Apple on getting a channel on the system.  No, I am not going to jailbreak the AppleTV. I shouldn't have to, and besides, this is a company installation. 

Worked with Prescott via phone regarding their technology survey results.

Worked with UACCH regarding an RUS grant for which we are a partner. They needed a specific invoice and copy of payment for the grant.  I ran that over as soon as I had a copy.

Working on other daily tasks as well - email, phone calls, etc.

Definitely Friday the 13th

Started the day by working on iPad 1st generation units.  The original plan was to hook up all of them (about 10 units) to a Mac and reset them all then update them all - in one fell swoop.  Turns out the 18-port USB hub (yes, powered) does *NOT* charge iPads. I was pretty sure I checked that specifically when I ordered the thing. I will need to revisit that.

So... I get to do one at a time.  Why not 3 or 4? Well, the computer would not let me restore more than one at a time. Maybe this is normal, and multi-syncing is just that - syncing, not restoration. I dunno, and it doesn't matter now.

After the 1st Gen iPads were done, I visited with our Early Childhood Coordinator about volume purchasing a particular app.  So far, that app is not in the volume buy program. I have contacted the authors to see if they will put it in there.  Not sure how that would work, since all purchases are in-app only. Guess we'll see.

The same person also had an issue with her ZAGG Logitech Keyboard for her iPad 2 - it would randomly start repeating characters infinitely - or until you pressed a different key long enough for things to stop repeating.

Turns out, that is a know/common issue with these, as seen on the various forums I visited trying to find a solution.  I called ZAGG and since we bought them from CDWG, we had to use an alternate registration method.  Here's the kicker: the Logitech Keyboard is *NOT* in their list!  I chose what I *thought* was the keyboard - instead, that turned out to be a protective shield. PROBLEM!

Well, we powered off the keyboard, forgot the connection, powered off the iPad 2, and waited for a minute or so.  Then, we powered up the iPad 2 and made sure it would work sans any bluetooth keyboard. Yes.  Then, powered up the keyboard and established a connection.  Worked.  Tried to replicate the problem.  No go.  That's a good thing!  The keyboard was no longer acting all wonky and possessed.  We'll keep an eye on it for a week, then see where we need to go, if anywhere.

And all of this happened before lunch!

What does the afternoon hold?  Who knows - guess we'll find out soon!

January 9-13, 2011

Monday - Office
Tuesday - State Tech Meeting
Wednesday - Office/Open
Thursday - Office/Open
Friday - Office

Monday: I spent the morning working on several projects.  First, I helped get our bookkepper's office back in order after the floor waxing over the weekend.  Yes, I did that last Monday, too. Only this time, we had a different set of rooms to set back to rights because the floor guy didn't realize his key would open all the doors.  I started working on our Moodle server to add content (create a course).  During that, my Director came in and wanted help with her iPad2 - FaceTime, accounts, etc.

I went back to Moodle to finish creating the course I am working on.  We are moving the TIE program modules from word/pdf handouts to a mixed-mode enviroment for in-class/asynchronous professional development.  Basically, the courses are taught in a classroom setting and we use Moodle for content delivery and online discussion during the course.  The State requires 6 hours of "seat time" for professional development, so this is a way to get the physical requirement taken care of while letting the participants have the freedom to complete many of the tasks at their own pace.  During the course of the day (most are 1-day sessions), the facilitator brings the group back together for in-class discussion.  This is the first time we are trying this arrangment, and I'm anxious to see how it all plays out this summer.

While working on the Moodle course (we will have dozens uploaded/modified before a February meeting), I met with our Early childhood coordinator about Apple Volume Licensing.  We bought some vouchers, and now just have to wait for them to be delivered before we can redeem them.  Seriously!? In today's age of full-on electrnic purchasing, why on earth does Apple may you buy phyiscal vouchers to redeem!?  Ugh.

After that was done, I returned to the Moodle module.  One area of concern raised up as forums and discussions.  As it turns out, "Guest Access" is not available for those sections.  There are two solutions: 1) Require each user to sign up for access, or 2) do not hold online discussions and make them in-class only.  We're not sure which route we're taking yet.  The whole state has several statewide Moodle-based rollouts, and requiring participants to register on each of the Moodle servers is a bit much, in my opinion.

Oh, I forgot, I also worked on a user's Google Calendar.  The events would show up on her phone, iPad, etc, but not in the online calendar.  The problem? It was hidden online.  In "My Calendars," the user has de-selected the default calendar.  I reselected the box, and everything showed up. Awesome!

Now, lunch break and the rest of the afternoon (for Monday)!

While working on modules for Moodle, I encountered a few .pages files that were created on a Mac.  I am using a PC and my MacBook doesn't have Pages on it, so I was a bit stumped as to what to do (short of asking the author to export them as PDF).  Instead, here is a solution:  change the extension to .ZIP and open the files with Winzip or whatever.  Inside there, you will find a folder called "QuickLook." Inside Quicklook, you will find a PDF of the .pages document!  Bingo!  Copy and paste the content, and you should be good to go.

January 5th, 2012

Spending much of the day working on email and phone support. Also working on the grant evaluation for my position. I am presently reworking a TIE module as well. Met with the Director regarding a weird heating/hvac issue and regarding a new pricing plan for our cellular phones. Did some troubleshooting regarding the fax machine in the main office, and helped with various small tech 'fires' in general - iTunes, burning video to DVD.

The 2nd half of the day still awaits!

I had a user with a file that had a WPD extension. Normally, this would be a WordPerfect file that could easily be opened in Microsoft Office or Open Office or a myriad of other programs. Nothing worked. Instead, all we got was jibberish. I even tried zamzar.com to convert it to Word, and that produced garbage.

After searching the net, I found a program called "Wintext!" Wintext will take ANY file and extract any viable text from it. With that program, I was able to pull out the text the user needed.

The file can be had from here:
http://www.softoxi.com/download-wintext.html

Wednesday

When I arrived, I started working on building a report for target testing data. The data was sent in Excel, which I imported into Access, created a count query and a report to go with it, then converted the report to pdf for distribution to appropriate personnel.

Drove to Fouke with the Distance Learning Coordinator to look at a couple of tech issues in the DL lab.

We installed a HDMI cable to connect a 2nd TV to the codec. The image appears the same on both monitors. This is not normally what happens. After quite a bit of experimenting, there was no way to get the image to show in-class on one screen and incoming on the other. There must be a setting somewhere I am missing. I will check out a similar system at another campus, take notes and revisit the system at Fouke.

We installed a document camera on the codec. For some reason, when selecting "presentation," the system switches to a dual-screen mode showing the far site and near site but does not switch to the document camera. Using the remote, however, the facilitator can switch to the document camera manually. While not ideal, this will serve to meet the needs until we get the remote/configuration figured out.

Talked briefly with the Technology Coordinator and Ass't TC regarding tech plans, e-rate, A-Plus learning, and connecting Macs into the Active Directory.

Visited with the Supt and other staff before we left campus.

At the office, I worked on grant evaluation procedures, e-rate, and addressed/replied to work-related emails.

Wednesday

Saw the digial copier tech working on one of our copiers at the end of the day on Tuesday. I asked if there was something I could help him do. He said the copier had quit sending page counts. We talked about subnets, firewalls, etc and I told him i would work on it Wednesday.

On Wednesday, I brought up the web interface for the copier and started going through the settings. Everything looked okay to me on the surface. I decided to do a line-by-line analysis of the configuration. Sure enough: smtp had been disabled, thus preventing the copier from sending email to anyone.

I changed that, and everything seems to be working fine (I scanned-to-email a document to myself).

On another note: the auditor returned the findings of our disaster recovery plan, and we scored 93%! That is excellent. There were three dinged areas, each of which is easily rectified: job descriptions need to be in the plan, cross-training for critical areas of management, and a written server recovery procedure.

Week of 11-28-2011

Monday - In the office.  I answered voice mail and email from the previous week.  I ran out to the Hope early childhood program to troubleshoot a computer problem.  Turned out the maintenance folks had cleaned over the holiday break and knocked the power cord loose on a video distribution box.  I employed the help of the DL Coordinator and we updated printer drivers in the APSCN mini lab.  I worked with our bookkeeper to locate various items requested on the auditor inventory pull (three servers, an Opscan scanner, a projector, and a partridge in a pear tree.... Sorry, couldn't resist the holiday spirit there!  I have talked with no fewer than three vendors and I shared the USAC E-Rate Window announcement via Twitter and FaceBook.  I helped a staff member point her home page to the company's new website address.  As this post was created at 10:30am on Monday, there is still a full day of tech ahead.  This post may or may not be updated to reflect everything done today (hopefully, I will!!).

A few of our DTU-16D's have been acting a bit weird - namely, when an internal extension pages directly to certain phones, a loud buzzing sound could be heard in the background.  After swapping units, I narrowed the issue down to the base/handset itself.  Luckily, I have a couple left from the old building and took care of the main users with the issue.  I have a repair/exchange in place for the two phones, so that should be fixed when I get back into the office next week.

Tuesday - OUT

Wednesday-Friday - I will be at the AESA National Conference in Colorado.  I will be co-presenting with Harry Dickens in one session and helping to man the technology for Phoebe in another session.  I will also be attending various breakout sessions, including the 2011 Digital Jam hosted by Kevin Honeycutt.  I will be posting updates to twitter (@davidinark), FaceBook, and at least one of my personal blogs (http://www.poppedinmyhead.com).

So much for that...

Well, today's agenda was SUPPOSED to be upgrading the 2003 Active Directory to 2008 in preparation for the new server. Turns out, I have an old/dying DVD drive in the old server and had to order a refurb/used one. So, until that comes in, I won't be upgrading AD any time soon.

I did get a Moodle Server up and running (can't remember if I wrote about that or not), and the domain works. So, on to other projects!

As matter of record

The machine that gave me fits on Monday/Tuesday finally succumbed to a complete Windows reinstall. As a matter of recording everything I did, I offer the following:

PC had random pop-up windows, evident of traditional malware infection. As a matter of course, I fired up ComboFix to clear the infection. ComboFix ran for a time, but froze up the computer. i have seen this happen before, and the general "fix" is to reboot the machine and start ComboFix again. Did that. Froze up again. Not good.

I managed to get MalwareBytes installed and updated, then ran that on the computer. That program found one infection and supposedly cleaned it. Upon reboot, however, the machine exhibited the same behavior as before.

I noticed that iexplore.exe was showing up in the Task Manager as soon any user logged in, though the process was not found in the registry as part of any normal start-up locales. It occurred to me that I needed to delete the dllcache files, so I did. The program would still fire up on its own. I renamed iexplore.exe in the Program Files folder, but it would reappear in a matter of moments.

Upon the suggestion of a local tech, I installed Avast free and ran the Boot-up Scanner. That found several infections and supposedly cleaned them. However, upon reboot, the problem returned immediately.

After doing some research, I ran GMER with the suggested settings (see below) and the program found no altered files. I tried to run TDSSKiller but the program would never launch - just show a brief hourglass then do nothing. Even in Safe Mode, Killer would not execute.

At this point, I had spent almost the entire day on Monday and a good hour or so on Tuesday working on this. It was time to blow away Windows and reinstall. I saved the user's Favorites to a flash drive (or tried to. After Windows was reinstalled, the Favorites folder was not on the drive, even though the system had said it copied it. Must have been something with the infection).

I spent the next hour or so putting Windows back on, getting the computer into the Domain and installing our standard software (along with her printer software). When reinstalling Windows, I deleted *ALL* the listed partitions, then did a long format on the drive. Neither of those may have been required, but I wasn't taking any other chances. I was tired and ticked - not a good combination for infections.



*GMER suggested settings: UNCHECK Modules, Process, Threads, Show all, and Files. DO check IRP Hooks and NTAPI Registry scan

Monday and tuesday

Well, I spent nearly the whole day on monday troubleshooting an infected machine to no avail. Tried running tdsskiller and it would not launch.  Decided that reinstalling windows would be best solution. Who knows what the rest of Tuesday will look like.

10/07/11 - 10/18/11

10/7 - Had an aerohive demo for possible wireless solution at the co-op main building. Took care of general troubleshooting and other daily tasks.

10/10/11 - Installed new CIV systems at Blevins as part of RUS Grant.

10/11/11 - Installed new CIV systems at Prescott as part of RUS Grant. Also worked with Doug on a couple Sharepoint issues that seem to center on a webpart for slideshows. The java script used evidently clashes in some systems with the code for rich-text editing. Working to find another slideshow solution.

10/12/11 - Met with the Business, Technology, and Education Advisory Council for UACCH. Had a very open, frank conversation regarding skills needed, classes and topics to be taught. Met with Curtis Stout Company to evaluate a possible Crestron solution for the co-ops main conference center.

10/13/11 - Met with various staff and performed daily tech activities, troubleshooting etc.

10/14/11 - Went to Bradley to help with various issues: SmartBoard, graphics issues, wireless, and other areas of needed assistance.

10/17/11 - Performed daily tech activites, upgraded iPad to iOS5, worked on two laptops and replaced a desktop. Checked one of the smartphones for problems. Temporary solution was to disable shortcut keys. Phone is eligible for upgrade/replacement.

10/18/11 - Replaced a bulb in Hope ECH classroom, present to the board the "App of the Month" - AudioNote, examined an older laptop for possible replacement.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday - Worked on several issues at the co-op. Spent much of the day talking with DIS and Bradley regarding their CIV troubles. Also fielded calls from several schools for technical assistance. I modified the configuration of the ISA server and will continue to tweak things, trying to get the most out of our Internet connection, firewalling, etc.

Started reviewing video regarding an issue at the co-op. This continued to Wednesday.

Wednesday - I spent much of the day handling two main issues at the office: parking lights and electronic surveillence. Both of these tasks invloved the security camera system we have to a certain extent. The parking lights have been an issue since we moved into the new building. Turns out the timing mechanism was not set properly at the manufacturer. Once I figured out just where the "current, real time" should be set on the thing, I moved to making sure th elights came on and went off at the specified time. Before I could do that, however, I used the security tapes to review previous nights' recordings of when the lights turned off. The lights were set to come on during the latter part of daylight hours, so the camera did not really pick that up. But, at night, one can clearly see when the parking lights go out for the night.

The other part of my main duties on Wednesday centered around video review of certain areas of the building. I am not going to discuss what areas nor the nature of the review, but let me say that going through WEEKS of video, even within a confined time period during each day, is a time-consuming endeavor. I am now adding "video security inspector" to my list of "other duties as assigned."

I also served as liasion between DIS and Bradley regarding their video system issues.

Of course, there were mundane, ordinary issues to take care of, including the hard drive death in a staffer computer. Nothing like the smell of little blue smoke in the morning... Or something like that.