Your Name: Dana Lutenegger
Today’s Date: 2007/10/21
Reporting on most recent week
Day(s) worked or described: W, F (12:30-3:30)
Total hours for week: 6
The School: Fermi Elementary
Kind of Work: Tech General/Computer Lab Upkeep
Main Report or Narrative: The first thing I did upon arriving on Wednesday was to attempt to help a teacher in 207 with retrieving her password. I didn't really know how to help her at the time, but it turns out that she had to use the password help number. I also went back to help her from 3:00 to 3:30 the same day.

At 1:00 or 1:30, I began the process of lugging the 5 computers and 6 monitors from room 224 to the computer lab, room 219. I used the only cart I could find, and brought the computers over 1.5 at a time. All of the cabinets were already full of computers, so I just left the computers in the surrounding area. (Which was already full of computers). The process of moving the computers took a while, because the cart was kind of breaking, so I had to take it slow.

At 2:15 or 2:30, I began plugging in all of the computers that had been unplugged for painting. This was pretty straightforward, as all of the necessary plugs were pretty much dangling right there. After the computers were up and running, I turned them all on. I was kind of under a time crunch, because I had promised the teacher in 207 that I would go back. So, I quickly tested one or two computers, which seemed to work, and then headed back to 207 until the end of the day.

On Friday, things were slower because it was a staff development day. There were no tech requests waiting for me when I got there.

I had to wait until 1:00 PM to get into the computer lab. Emily had already tested all of the computers in the lab. However, some of the teachers were having an Impact training session. There were some problems with that program, such as it not letting the teachers in. It just sat at the license agreement page and didn't go any further. It seemed like it was a server problem, so I couldn't do much to help. The teachers eventually just crowded around those computers that could enter Impact.

Emily had left me notes about four malfunctioning computers. Two of them had problems recognizing various peripherals. I have seen problems like that a lot with computers: one USB or old-fashioned port will stop functioning for some reason, while others will keep working. Luckily, we have piles of different kinds of keyboards lying around, so I was able to mix and match and use different ports. Eventually, I found a working keyboard and mouse for both computers, so I declared them fixed.

The other two broken computers were not so easy. One simply wouldn't turn on at all. I didn't really have the tools or the expertise to open it up and see what could possibly be wrong. The other computer kept asking for a Windows XP Setup disk, which I didn't have. I found an Acer 5100 recovery disk, but the computer was a 5500. If we can find the right disk, we might be able to get the computer to work.

The rest of my time on Friday was spent with one of the computers that I had carried over from 224. I didn't really know the exact steps I should take to bring the computer up to code. (I know that there are the six scripts on the tech page, but the computer already seemed to have most of those things done) I started to run Windows Update, because it was missing a lot of critical updates, but that was taking forever, so I decided to switch to installing deep freeze instead.

I think I did something wrong somewhere, though, because when I restarted the computer, it refused to accept the "techco" account. I tried to do more with the computer, but since I didn't have administrator rights, I eventually have to give it up and go home.

For next week, we need to continue to work to bring the 224 computers up to code. If I can get a good system down to make the necessary changes quickly, it won't take as long as it did on Friday. Not locking myself out of the admin account would also be a good start.