Waterbury/Duxbury Technology Blog

I have fielded several questions about online video recently, so here is a brief summary of options:

1) Both schools subscribe to Discovery Streaming service, which has thousands of titles that can be viewed by chapter. Signing up for an account is quick and easy – please contact myself, Jen or Nancy for information and assistance.

2) YouTube is a good source for some content, but the page includes other “busy” content and occasionally inappropriate comments. For a cleaner page and teacher-selected resources try teachertube.com. Another way to avoid distracting and offensive content in YouTube is to use safeshare.tv, which puts a “mask” around the YouTube video as well as allowing you to crop it.

3) Other content-specific media sites can be found at http://sites.google.com/a/wdsdvt.net/www/medialinks

Regardless of the source, if it is possible to download video in advance that will always be a “sure thing” vs. relying on an Internet stream. Add the Download Helper to Firefox by visiting http://www.downloadhelper.net/, making sure files keep their “.flv” extension. These will play on any of our computers in VLC player. PLEASE do not save video into your network folder: keep them on your computer or use the Media Storage folders on our networks.

As always, please contact me with questions or for assistance with any of these sites or applications.

Eric

Recently a few people have asked where downloads from the Internet (including email attachments) GO to when they are saved. My apologies for not passing along this information sooner!

Previously we had always set Firefox to save to the desktop so files could be found easily. Recent Firefox updates have changed that preference so that files are now saved to the new “Downloads” folder in the Documents folder on your computer (not on the network).

To get to this folder use the “Go” menu in Finder and click “Home” (as in “Go –> Home”). You will see the Downloads folder in the resulting list, as well as a Movies folder that iMovie uses and Music and Pictures folders used by iTunes and iPhoto.

To make an alias (shortcut) of this or any other folder on your desktop, click once on the Downloads folder to select it and choose “File –> Make Alias” (or Apple-L) and drag the alias to the desktop.

If you would like to set the Firefox preference to save on the Desktop or any other folder, open Firefox and choose “Preferences” from the Firefox menu and look in the “Main” tab.

Often when we are troubleshooting web issues of one sort or another we will ask users to “empty the cache” of their web browser. This removes any information your browser has saved from previous visits to a particular web site.

What is Cache? Web browsers store copies of pages or parts of pages (images, links) when you visit them, to help pages load faster the next time you visit. Unfortunately there are times when information has changed but the browser does not retrieve the most recent information from a site. Sometimes information related to logged in “sessions” is also saved, which can cause login issues.

Emptying your browser’s cache assures that you are getting “fresh” information from a site, and does more than simply refreshing a web page. Here’s how:

Firefox (Mac): In Firefox click on Tools –> Clear Private Data (or Clear Recent History in some versions). There is a drop-down menu for “Details: Make sure teh “cache” box is checked, and that the drop-down menu for Time Range has “everything” chosen (This window looks slightly different in different versions). Click “Clear Now”, then restart Firefox.

Firefox (Windows): In Firefox click on Tools –> Clear Private Data, make sure “cache” is checked, and click “Clear Private Data Now.” Restart Firefox.

Safari (Mac or Windows): Choose “Empty Cache” from the Safari menu (Mac), or in Windows use the “Gears” menu (far right) and choose Reset Safari. Restart Safari.

Internet Explorer (Windows): Choose “Tools –> Delete Browsing History”, make sure the first box (”Preserve Favorites Website Data”) is UNchecked, then click Delete. Restart Explorer.

What do you do when you have computer issues? Is picking up the phone your first inclination? What if tech staff are not available by phone?

As technology use increases in our schools it is becoming increasingly challenging for technology staff to be available to answer everyone’s questions as well as building and maintaining our systems. Before you pick up the phone, it would help us tremendously if you could perform a few troubleshooting steps and get as much information as possible about the issue.

This troubleshooting questionnaire includes tips and suggestions of things to try and information to gather before seeking support by phone.

If you have a specific “How do I do this….” question, try the program’s Help menu or even a quick Google search with keywords related to what you want to do. You may be surprised at how easy some answers are to find online!

The Gradebook requires that the Java “plugin” be installed on your computer. This is a free download available at http://www.java.com. When you visit the site you will be prompted to install the appropriate version for your browser (Explorer or Firefox, although using the Firefox browser is highly recommended for several reasons). On Macs, Java is updated through Apple Software Update.

When you install Java, UNcheck the box for “install the MSN Search Bar.” 3^rd party search utilities (MSN, Google, Yahoo) are often the cause of unwanted spyware and give unnecessary access to all of your files.

You will need to restart your browser after installing the Java plugin.

Here’s the hitch: The Gradebook program does NOT work with the latest version of Java for Windows, Version 6 Update 12. Once Java is installed:

1) Open Start –> Settings –> Control Panel

2) To see what version you have, click “About” in the General tab

3) Click the “Java” tab and choose “View” in the Runtime Settings section

4) UNcheck the first box under “Enabled” to disable update 12. Your computer will now use the previous version, and Gradebook should work.

The “Reply” feature, and in some cases even the “Read message” feature in our email system is a pop-up. Consequently the message or reply window may get blocked if you have a pop-up blocker active in your browser.

There is also a one-time setting that you may need to change in order to reply messages: When you try to reply, a yellow pop-up blocker message appears at the top of that window. On the right side click “Preferences” or “Options” (in Firefox) or click on the yellow bar itself (Explorer) and choose “allow pop-ups from this site”. Close the message window, reopen it and it should work from then on: this is a one-time settings change. The Safari browser does not appear to allow pop-ups from specific sites: it’s all or nothing.

Because this is a browser setting and not a mail preference, you will need to allow pop-ups from the mail site on each computer you use. If you do not see the yellow information bar, you can also manually “allow” pop-ups from mail2.cbmsonline.org in your browser preferences.

There have been many reports lately of a variety of junk email (SPAM) getting through our filters. Sadly the flood of junk email is one reality electronic communication, and we are doing everything we can to “stem the tide” with the reoucrces we have. The result is that a large number of messages ARE filtered out (12,000 in the last month), but some still get into your Inbox.

Most junk mail these days is in the form of “Phishing Scams“, designed to trick you into sending confidential information such as date of birth, social security number, bank account or credit card info.

There are many techniques that SPAMmers use to trick you into opening a message. “Email Spoofing” is a common technique, and may result in messages that appear to be from people you know or even from yourself. Like all junk messages, these should be deleted.

We have all seen enough junk mail to be able to sort out the most obvious, and “best practice” with ANY suspicious message is to delete it without reading or responding. To keep your computer secure, remember that ALL attachments, no matter what type or from whom, should be saved and never ipened directly from your email or the Internet.

Everyone has received a message from me lately regarding email storage. The issue we are facing is that the amount of data on our systems nearly exceeds our storage capacity, and in particular our backup space. Because all network files and email data are backed up each day as well as weekly and monthly, we need 8 times the space for every piece of data stored! This backup scheme provides us with strong “data integrity”, such that files can be easily retrieved in the event of system failures, accidental deletion or corruption.

Much of the “bloat” in our email accounts is the result of Deleted items not being removed (i.e. the trash needs to be emptied), Inboxes that have not been cleaned out, messages with large attachments being kept, or Sent items that have accumulated.

In general, I recommend making folders for saved messages (save as much as you need to) and keeping your Inbox emptied. This makes daily processing of messages a little easier, and assures that unneeded messages are deleted regularly.

Default preferences on our system are set to deleted messages to a “Deleted” folder (trash can/recycle bin) that needs to be emptied periodically. To do so, click on that folder in the left sidebar and look for the “Empty the Deleted Folder” link in the upper right corner.

FYI there is a preference change I will recommend to avoid accidentally deleting all mail in a folder: in Preferences, click on the “Viewing” section and UNcheck the box at the bottom for “’Check All’ will check all items across all pages in a mail folder” If this box is checked (which it IS currently for most accounts), checking the box at the top of a list of messages will select all of them PLUS all messages on other pages of that folder. This can result in accidental deletion of an entire Inbox or folder contents.

After unchecking the box, make sure the preference change gets saved (upper left of preferences window).

If you ever accidentally delete messages (or folders), contact me and I can usually retrieve them from backups or the mail logs.

Thanks to everyone for helping to keep their email storage in check.

Q: I received a forwarded message with an attachment ending in “.eml,” but no actual message or only a short message. What is this? How do I open the attachment?

A: eMail programs such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Mozilla Thunderbird save individual messages as .eml files. When you receive one of these as an attachment, it is most likely forwarded from someone who is using one of these email programs.

T: As with ALL attachments, you should save the .eml attachment before trying to open it. *** Many “hoax” and virus-infected messages appear in this format, and saving the file assures that it gets scanned by your anti-virus program ***

Most Windows computers include Outlook Express, so double-clicking the message after saving it will open that program. Outlook will prompt you to set up an account – you can cancel that section and it will open your message.

Windows and Mac users can also open these files in “plain text” format, since these messages are essentially text files “encapsulated” in email code. To do this, simply change the “.eml” extension on the file to “.txt” In general this is NOT recommended (it does not change the type of file, and will usually cause problems) but in this case it will work. Windows computers will open the file in Notepad, Macs in TextEdit. In this format, the message will include some “code” at the top, with the message text in the middle.

Most middle school students have computer access at home (100% of 8th graders), so there is no reason why students should not be able to work on basic word processing, spreadsheet, or even presentation documents. Although there are different types of computers and a variety of office programs,in this day and age there is no such thing as “incompatibility” between programs or different types of computers, but students may need some assistance in saving things so that they can work at both school and home. There is usually a elatively simple way to accomplish this:

1) The easiest way to transfer files between computers is with a flash drive. These are universally compatible with all computers (may need software installed for Windows 98), and students should buy the smallest, cheapest drive they can find – about $10 at Staples. I stopped doing the “bulk purchases” because it did not represent any significant savings (at least not enough to warrant the hassle).

2) Making files compatible between different word processing programs is a matter of finding a file type that they have in common. If a program cannot save in Word’s “.doc” format, “.rtf” is usually available. We have also installed translators for most common word processing programs (Works, Word Perfect, Lotus Notes, Office 2007), although not all files will open properly in Word when they are double-clicked: sometimes Word needs to be opened first and then using “File –> Open” will convert the file.

3) There are FREE office programs available, most notably Open Office for Windows and Neo Office for Mac. These two programs can open and save files in .doc (Word), .xls (Excel) and .ppt (Powerpoint) formats, and have most of the features that students use with the exception of themes and clipart. I have CDs and installation instructions for these programs for anyone who needs them. There are also free programs similar to Publisher and Inspiration.

4) Although computer access at home in our community is nearing 100%, there are still many households where the computer is aging or is shared by several people, so access may be difficult. For students who would use them for school work, I do still have some of our “retired” computers that I can give away. I appreciate your help in identifying students and households that would really make use of these: I have found in the past that most kids who want a free computer simply want something in their room to play games on, and they are not motivated by wanting to complete school work at home (surprised?). The computers that I have include all of the tools that students would need AND are Internet-capable, but they are not Windows-based so they would not be able to install their own software.

Please contact me with questions.