Archive

Archive for September, 2011

Time-zone issues when creating meeting requests

2011/09/14 4 comments

Do the clouds change with the time zones you are in, or can the cloud also change your time zone? Smile We are seeing strange inconsistencies of time zones in meeting requests with on-premise resource mailboxes from hosted student accounts…

When students say they see the “correct” time in *their* calendar, they should verify their time zone settings. In OWA/NINERMAIL, upper right corner: Options / See All Options / left menu: Settings / top menu: Calendar / you can check your time zone. In OWA / upper right corner: Options / See All Options / left menu: Settings / top menu: Regional / bottom drop-down:, you can change your time zone, like in the last dropdown here:

owa-options-all-options-settings-calendar-time-zone-change

From setting up calendaring infrastructure for a university using Windows Live Accounts only, I remember that users, when they manually created their accounts, failed to look at the time zone dropdown. So instead of at Greenwich time, they ended up at Pacific time which seems the default for MS products.

That’s one of the reasons why I am glad not having to use Windows Live Accounts for the enterprise anymore.  Now how can time zones be not set up properly for student accounts in a hosted environment? And this time we see not only the Pacific, but also Monrovia… time-zone-issue-in-appointment

The answer seems to be: Even though large institutions may be creating 25000 accounts when they start using live@edu, there seems to be no way to set a default time zone in live@edu to where the client predominantly does business. It seems still the server time that sets the default offered to the new user on login. I could tell you a story or two why that needs fixing…

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

How do I make a video out of my PowerPoint Presentation?

2011/09/14 Leave a comment
  1. Many streets may lead to Rome, but here is the "One Microsoft way”, built into PowerPoint 2010: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/turn-your-presentation-into-a-video-HA010336763.aspx: You can essentially “save as”  video, including recorded narrations. You have to have your media inserted in 2010 format. Here is a walk-through:
  2. under “file”, “save&send”, use “create video”powerpoint-save&send-create-video
  3. if you get a compatibility error like so: powerpoint-save&send-create-video-error-media
  4. follow the instructions given; powerpoint-save&send-create-video-error-media-convert
  5. watch the progress bar: powerpoint-save&send-create-progress
  6. Takes over 60 minutes with on average over 50% CPU of an Intel i5 with 8 GB Ram, to produce a 75MB file of 920*760 and less than 18 minutes in length. But this video streams from MS-SkyDrive.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, documentation, e-infrastructure, learning-materials Tags: , , , , ,

Room and Equipment handling using MS-Exchange Resource Mailboxes: Sharing Resource Calendars with Students in Outlook Live. A running log

2011/09/13 6 comments
  1. Our users can view the free/busy information of our Resource mailboxes in the Scheduling Assistant of their Meeting request – and also, though even less convenient and more limiting, in the GAL.
    1. This includes student accounts (hosted) being able to view resource mailboxes (on premise) free/busy – which seems the default, different from the solution to achieve this here – or are resource mailboxes permissions more liberal than regular mailboxes?
  2. To allow users the more convenient access to the calendar of the resources (without being able to book through this interface), we have used this: 
  1. # permissions: make default user a reviewer (read-only) of resource mailbox calendar

     

    # so that default user cannot schedule through the calendar & bypass resourcescheduling attendant

     

    Set-MailboxFolderPermission

     

    -Identity LRCLcdproject01@uncc.edu:\Calendar

     

    -AccessRights Reviewer -User Default

     

    # work around apparent permissions bug:

     

    # http://www.flobee.net/found-a-bug-with-set-mailboxfolderpermission/

     

    Set-MailboxFolderPermission

     

    -Identity LRCLcdproject01@uncc.edu:\non_ipm_subtree\freebusy data

     

    -AccessRights Reviewer -User Default
  2. Based on this, we have successfully tested sharing our resource calendars with staff accounts (which are on premises).
    1. We have been hoping to share calendars of our resources also with our student user accounts (which are hosted).  However, “Default” in the above does not seem to include these. When students use the built-in “Add Calendar”feature from their  Outlook Live/NINERMAIL, they receive a permission error: “The calendar for the mailbox you chose can’t be opened. You may not have permission to open this calendar”.calendar-add-error-student 
  3. Student staff cannot view the resource calendars. A limited workaround could be to share calendars with individual student staff, so that they can display these calendars to walk-up clients. However, we cannot even share such resource calendars manually with individual students. While, when  impersonating the resource,  I can send out an invitation email to student staff, the student again gets an error when clicking the “Add calendar” link in the invitation mail: “This folder could not be opened. you might not have permission to open it, or it might not exist anymore”. calendar-share-error 
  4. We also cannot see our student staff’s  busy time, even if this busy times when working for us: “No information (Error code: undefined”): scheduling-assistant-student-no-information

  1. A similar issue elsewhere  seems to have been addressed successfully by adding federation for
    1. multiple tenancies within live@edu in “Sharing Free Busy across the cloud”, example: 

      Get-FederationInformation

       

      –DomainName <the other Live@edu tenant> | New-OrganizationRelationship

       

      –Name <the other Live@edu tenant>

       

      -FreeBusyAccessEnabled $true

       

      -FreeBusyAccessLevel LimitedDetails

    2. and for mixed hosted/on-premises environments “Set up Federated Free/Busy and Calendar Sharing between Exchange 2010 SP1 and Outlook Live”, which is a bit too evolved for posting a short sample/summary here.
  2. Another workaround could be to add calendar internet publishing privileges to individual resource mailboxes and sharing calendars with student staff, having them display these to walk-up clients.
    1. What data gets published needs to be careful considered. However, it should be possible to hide personal information and just display usage of resources, using the built-in sharing levels (note that organizer may have been put in subject by Resourcebookingasssistant configured with AddOrganizerToSubject, so subject should not be included for calendars “LRCAssistant” and “LRCTutor”## which are offices held/resources booked by students):
      1. CalendarSharingFreeBusySimple   Share free/busy hours only
      2. CalendarSharingFreeBusyDetail   Share free/busy hours, subject, and location
      3. CalendarSharingFreeBusyReviewer   Share free/busy hours, subject, location, and the body of the message or calendar item
    2. Code samples are given here (for hosted):
      1. New-SharingPolicy -Name "Calendar Sharing Policy"

         

        -Domains "anonymous:calendarsharingfreebusysimple"

         

        set-mailbox <all LRC resource mailboxes here>

         

        -SharingPolicy "Calendar Sharing Policy"
Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, e-infrastructure, service-is-library, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Testing embedding the MS-PowerPoint Web App

2011/09/13 Leave a comment
  1. In WordPress, a SkyDrive embed code for PowerPoint 
    iframe src="http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidPowerPointEmbed?p1=1&p2=1&p3=SD25C841818181C2!132&p4=&kip=1" 
    width="402" height="327" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">/iframe

    gets converted to: 

    office src="http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidPowerPointEmbed?p1=1&p2=1&p3=SD25C841818181C2!132&p4=&kip=1" 
    width="402" height="327"

    (similar to the behaviour shown with Excel Web App. Likely here also, you will have to replace a secure protocol "https", if it occurs in your embed code, with "http").

  2. WordPress displays this like so: ppt-from-embed-wordpress
  3. And you can full-screen to SkyDrive like so: ppt-from-embed-to-full-screen-skydrive
  4. Online editing is also possible, but not part of this test.
Categories: e-infrastructure Tags: , , ,

LRC Assistant Start of Year Training: The PowerPoint

2011/09/13 Leave a comment
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, training, workshops Tags:

Links Dual-Monitor

2011/09/13 Leave a comment

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/organization/twomonitors.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-monitor

Categories: e-infrastructure, websites Tags: ,

How LRC assistants log into the reception desk computers

2011/09/08 Leave a comment
  1. Let the computer finish its startup tasks:
    1. Browsers: both internet Explorer and Firefox will open on relevant pages, since you and your client will have to work in different browsers, ensuring that both your and your client can be logged into different NINERNET accounts.
    2. Excel will load a checkin.xlsm. In Excel, under the ribbon, press button:"Enable content". Use this to generate codes that you can paste into users"’ meeting requests when they check in and out LRC equipment. The spreadsheet will not save the codes since your computer is frozen.
    3. A program called bginfo will analyze the computer settings and display the results on the desktop
    4. ZoomIt: press “ok” on the startup dialogue. You can now press CTRL-2 (thanks Ashley) and drag the left mouse button (ESC to stop) to paint on screen to communicate with client across mirrored screens, and vice versa.
  2. Do you have a client at the counter?
      1. yes: press CTRL-ALT-F10 to clone/mirror (= show the same screen on) both monitors. You can now collaborate with the client using a computer (e.g. in OWA or in a database)
      2. no client: press CTRL-ALT-F11  to extend the desktop. You can now display an informational window on the LRC-facing monitor, while working on your own monitor in privacy.
      3. The reception computers use Deepfreeze. You cannot save information on reception desk computers between reboots.
        1. All personal information you want to save needs to go to your H: drive.
        2. All information you want to share with LRC staff needs to go into LRC Moodle site, UNCC-LRC website or NINERMAIL.
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, e-infrastructure Tags: , , ,

Reception area PCs: Remaining issues with the software image

2011/09/08 Leave a comment
  1. That’s a new one: CIMG0011. likely fixed by logging in with an admin account first before freezing.
  2. IE8 windows in kiosk mode where clients need to log in (and out, using the  built in links not by closing the browser)
    1. 49erexpress , the rest is linked there and opens in a new window which can also be closed, as long as the login dialogue stays up
    2. mail.uncc.edu
    3. Moodle
  3. Safari
    1. default dialogues need to be changed
      1. no “not default browser”:
        1. close w/o saving settings/tabs
    2. should start and load the UNCC-LRRC calendar (could be home page)
  4. Chrome
    1. business chrome install, but interferes with zoomit shortcuts
  5. Firefox
      1. is missing tab 49erexpress: use this also for lrc assistants
      2. LRC Moodle
      3. LRC lists
      4. loads its required tabs twice – probably related to “save and quit” feature which needs to be set to “quit” and “never ask again”.CIMG0012
  6. Spreadsheet opens read-only.CIMG0013
      1. Trying to set the file attribute to read/write fails CIMG0017
  7. not needed, store in outlook, also we do not output code to spreadsheet anymore anyway to discourage manual copy: Writable spreadsheet is not useful anyway on a frozen PC
      1. w/o thawspace: implement one in Deepfreeze (which requires alteration of the DFWks.exe installer) (and during creation of the image, fake the drive letter from which the spreadsheet autoloads, with a  removable drive).
      2. Better would be Faronics Igloo which would with install of deepfreeze redirect spreadsheet folder to thawed virtual partition, but is not available
  8. Deepfreeze did install and could be frozen, but does not accept its password for thawing locally and needs to be thawed from the Deepfreeze Console. Password has been updated.
  9. The MS-Office tooltips are set to French – this is for testing:
  10. CIMG0014
  11. Internet Explorer managed to sneak in Bing as the default search provider; CIMG0015
  12. When starting MS-word, there is a DOCUMENT Recovery pane.
  13. in explorer, protected operating files are not shown, but hidden files
  14. label screens on lrc assistant side.
    1. LRC assistants use Firefox, clients use Internet explorer (full-screen – use ALT+TAB to switch windows)
    2. show on 2nd screen:
      1. SAFARI with UNCC-LRC calendar
      2. Moodle Spanish announcement (?)
      3. Printers
        1. department: optional
        2. Ricoh: default
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure, Reception-desk Tags: