Bryan Duff
Tech General
Friday 12:30-3:30
Bret Harte Elementary

If you read my last entry, you might remember me crafting a list of projects that I'd like to get done this quarter at Harte.  Unfortunately, I've done little to make any progress on any of those goals in the past week.  

After arriving, I was told that I was needed urgently in room 101.  Ms. Evans did write in the journal that one of the computers was not working, but I was instead asked to help a teacher configure her new Palm Pilot.  I next went to room 102.    I had been there last week to implement the new stu-3780-# logins.  This past Monday, Ms. Evans sent me a firm notice that this had not gone over well in the four classrooms I visited because teachers could not find their files (saved as documents under the generic school login).  This was my mistake and I apologized to Ms. Evans and each teacher for not communicating this difference.  Luckily, Ms. Evans was able to tell teachers that they could log back into their old student logins.

In 102, I moved the documents over from the school folder to the stu-3780-3 folders.  One computer was not working (the previous week the computer's fan had been exceptionally loud.  I dusted the inside of the machine and it seemed to work a little better.  Though, today the teacher in 102 thought that maybe I had dusted it too hard last week) and Ms. Evans said to switch it out with a working one in the lab.  This now means that there are 5 computers that do not work in the lab.  I will be going in Wednesday morning specifically with the intention of calling Dell about these machines.  I will probably only deal with other computer questions if they are an emergency.

I also setup the teacher's computer so that she will now login using her CPS username and password on the INSTR domain.  I remembered to move all of her files over from the "student" login user file.  She, as with the other three teachers I did this with today, loved this idea.  All the teachers told me that using their CPS login made more sense organizationally.  They were also relieved that they were now responsible for one less password, and that their computers were not less vulnerable to students.  

After that, I ended up staying in 102 for over an hour to help set up a VCR.  This was not intentional.  I tried to leave, but I kept getting dragged back in.  The one time I did leave, I was summoned by the intercom.  I eventually concluded that the TV was too old to be configured for the new VCR, but the janitor insisted that this was false.  It turns out he was right and that there was a way to hook the two up.  This happened twenty minutes after I had left the room. The janitor, too, called me back over the intercom to explain to me how I had been wrong.

There is a computer in 110 that needs to be reimaged.  I didn't get to yet, but hopefully I will next week.  

A few teachers feel like the lab printer is too old because he gets jammed frequently.  I think it's overused.  I'm going to mention something about it to Ms. Parks and also make sure that individual classroom printers remain to be networked and set as default.  This should take some of the stress of off the lab printer.

I may or may not have asked this last week, but what is CPS' policy regarding shutting machines down over the weekend?

So, the concluding thought is that I actually have one more goal at Ray: to make sure that all teachers login to their machines with their CPS logins.

Have a nice, happy, long weekend.

Bryan