Technology Tips
We’ve compiled a list of suggestions and tips on how to take care of some of the common computer issues that happen in our district. Grades Make sure that all your important files (grades, etc.) are backed up. It’s a good rule of thumb to do this in case an error with a program corrupts a file. Lost your grades? Corrupt file? The grade book program creates a backup file when you save your grades. You can access this file and open it in case you get an error message. Open up the grade book, on the bottom select “all files” and open the file that ends in .bak. This is the backup to your original grade book file. If you still have problems, please fill out a report. InteGrade Pro from Home- Just a reminder that grades for the Middle School and High School staff can be entered at home by using the following site: http://pcxp.kiel.k12.wi.us:83/ Net Storage Net Storage allows you to access various drives saved on the network from home. This means that you can view, change, save, documents that you might have on your F: drive or Forms Directory. Laptops If you are using a laptop, be sure to unplug the patch cable before moving the laptop to another location. This will save any unnecessary tugging on the patch cable that may damage it. For laptop users who do not like the tap function on the touch pad to click can turn it off by right clicking on the red circle icon near the time clock at the bottom right of the screen. Then left click on Suppress Taps. Log On/Off Issues If a student is having a problem with logging in, and their graduation year has a zero in it, make sure they are putting a zero in and not the letter O. If a student in your classroom is having trouble logging into the network, please let us know their graduation year (or grade level) and their user name so we can reset their password. When we do reset passwords we set them to be the same as the student’s login. For example: 10jdoe as a user name and 10jdoe as their password. If a computer won’t log off a person or log a person on you might want to check the network cable. Sometimes these get unplugged and wouldn’t allow you to log in or off. Even if they are unplugged slightly this could occur.
If when trying to log off and the Start Menu shows a long blank menu instead of the usual Log Off… or Shutdown… click the Start button then press the up arrow key twice and press enter. This will show the Log Off dialog box where you can click Yes to Log Off. If you are having troubles logging in, make sure that you are entering your password into the Novell dialog box only. The Windows password dialog box can be ignored (Click cancel). Be sure that students and faculty log out of the computers when they leave their computer. If you are in the lab with your students, walk around the room before you leave to see that the computers are at the login screen. Logging off and shutting down are not the same things. Logging off, just means you’re logging off of the network. Shutting down means that you need to totally shut the machine off until the lights all go out on it. Many people get these two confused. GroupWise E-Mail Access e-mail from home Internet by using the following address: http://mail.kiel.k12.wi.us. You do need to set up a password in GroupWise e-mail here at school before you can access it from home. To do this you go into GroupWise, click on Tools, Options, and then Security. Then add a password. When receiving attachment files in e-mail, make sure that it is a file that you are expecting. Never open a file attachment that you do not know what it is, especially an attachment file that ends in .exe. E-mail attachments are where viruses are generally originated. If you e-mail someone and it continues to come back undeliverable, even if you put the correct email address in, go to the “Frequent Contacts” tab in the address book and make sure you don’t have the wrong address saved there. If you do, just click on the e-mail that’s incorrect and select remove at the bottom of the address book. How to use the GroupWise Calendar: In your GroupWise e-mail: 1. Go to Tools 2. Then select Busy Search 3. Then type in names you want to see schedules of in the “To” box (you can do more than one person) 4. Select the start search date and # of days to search 5. Click ok 6. Highlight each user to see free times/their calendar 7. Click on request meeting and fill out the e-mail and click send. The e-mail will then be sent with the date, time, and location. The person needs to accept or decline, so you will know if everyone is attending or not.
Block e-mail from a specific sender: What you need to do is open the e-mail, and copy the e-mail address of the sender. Then go to Tools on your main GroupWise screen. Select “Junk Mail Handling” Click on the “Block List” tab Click on the “New” button Enter the e-mail address you want to block and click ok. Spam Filtering You can get 3 different messages from our Spam filtering device. Below are the 3 you might get: 1. Virus in mail to you - notifies that virus was deleted, but will list address came from 2. [Potential Spam] - notifies that message has all characteristics of a Spam e-mail 3. [Quarantine] - notifies that message was blocked by filter because of attachment or bad message. Will allow to access message using Spam user id. Printers Printer not on? No lights on or message on the LCD panel? Check to see if it’s plugged in first. If that doesn’t work, on the side of the printer there is an on off switch, make sure that is on. Default printers – For faculty and office staff – you should now have an icon on your desktop to be able to change your default printer yourself. (When the computers are ghosted, this feature is not part of the ghost image.) Many of you have been asking tech support to change the default printers. You can now do it yourself. In a lab situation, a faculty member would need to log in and change the default printer (not students). We are finding that even after that is done, Internet Explorer still requires you to set the printer the first time you use it. So remember to choose your printer in Internet Explorer if your default printer has been changed.
Hooking up a Projector to a Computer 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Turn on the projector (the projector needs to be turned on before the computer is). Turn on the computer. Unhook the blue monitor cable from the back of the computer. Plug the blue monitor cable into the RGB Out port on the side of the projector. Plug one end of the projector cable to where the monitor was connected on the back of the computer (blue port) and the other end of the cable to RGB 1 on the side of the projector.
Projector side view. RGB OUT and RGB 1.
Computer back view. The dark blue portion is where the cable is connected from the projector to the computer.
Miscellaneous Help Desk Cleaning computers. I’ve found that the best thing to use on keyboards, mice and monitors is a lint free cloth (rag) and either water or rubbing alcohol. You might want to shut the computer off before doing any cleaning for safety reasons. At the Middle School their cleaning supplies are in the office. The High School keeps theirs in the Library. Zielanis has their supplies in the teacher workroom and Meeme keeps theirs in the room next to the office. If you find a disk clip or something else stuck in a disk drive, please put a sign on that machine so no one else uses that computer until the problem is resolved. Sometimes that will make the difference between having to just remove the disk clip and replacing the whole disk drive itself. If you find a computer not functioning, please make sure that it is all plugged in before you fill out a problem report. Sometimes they get unplugged and that causes the machine not to work. If you’re trying to use the numerical keypad on the right side of your keyboard and the numbers aren’t working, try pushing the num lock key. If the num lock key is off, those keys won’t work. To turn computer off if freezes, press and hold power button for at least 5 seconds. (The green light will go off on the front of the computer when it actually shuts off) The end user fills out the problem report if the building technology assistant does not successfully resolve it. If your monitor doesn’t go on, shut off your computer and monitor. Make sure that both are plugged in and that the monitor is connected to the back of the computer. Then turn everything back on. This should solve the problem. If this is a computer connected to a projector, make sure the projector is on before you turn the computer on. Lab Computers can be left powered on. This is much better for the computers. Make sure that the computers are logged off and at the logon screen. Are you having problems connecting to the network? Not receiving all the icons? Try shutting down the computer and restarting it. A lot of times this will solve that problem. If you get a message when you open Internet Explorer about a Microsoft Windows Update, just click the stop button at the top of the page and either click the home button or type in the address you want to go to. Virus and Hoax Basic Rules for E-mail Attachments and Warnings 1. Don’t open e-mail attachments from people you don’t know. Even if you do know the sender, be cautious if something about the message doesn’t sound right (most infected messages have very poor grammar.) If in doubt, reply to the sender and ask if they intended to send the file to you. 2. Check out all warnings before you send them on to others.
3. The basic rule of thumb for e-mail is “If it says ‘pass this along to everyone...’ send it no farther than your trash can. 99% of those kinds of messages are hoaxes or other junk.