Archive

Archive for February, 2014

To publish an aggregate calendar of MS-Exchange ICS calendar subscriptions, use Google Calendar

If you manage many resources that many users need to share, you will want to give them an intuitive overview of the utilization. We manage room and equipment booking in MS-Exchange 2010, but both Exchange and Outlook/OWA/Office365 are not for everyone (to set up), and seem to lack a convenient way to publish an aggregation of the iCal feeds of the individual resources that can be published.

Enter Google calendar: Start with creating a new calendar which will hold your calendar aggregation, and make it public:

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First add ICS-based internet calendar subscriptions to Google calendar:

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We have prior ICS feeds arranged in MS-Exchange 2010 which are listed in the LRC calendar spreadsheet:

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Open the calendar

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Copy the URL form the address bar:

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Insert it here:

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Replace html at the end by ics.

Check “make calendar publicly accessible”

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Access calendar settings

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Change calendar name to part before @

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You can rename these subscribed calendars, but this name will not carry over to the embedded calendar, see below:

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Open the settings for the main calendar:

In the settings section “embed”, Click the “Customize” link to open the “Google Embeddable Calendar helper”:

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Select the “Calendars to display”: this list contains the ICS-subscriptions you added earlier.

Unfortunately, the Google’s embeddable Calendar helper seems to “eat” the names you have given these calendars, and replace it by the default “Calendar” (there is no calendar name stored in the ICS, it seems), so you have to maintain a color legend manually (the color is permanently stored in the iframe HTML code snippet).

Also, you users have to manually match the color when they (de)select calendar subscriptions from the main calendar:

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Embedding the iframe HTML snippet works in WordPress

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as well as Drupal: image

How to merge PowerPoint 2010 slide shows

  1. If for example you work with class-size sets of PowerPoint slideshows – which may be unpractical -: The command for merging them is a bit hidden:
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  3. And the process a bit clumsy (does not allow for simultaneous selection of multiple slideshows).
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  5. Plus you have to double click the thumbnails of the slides of the show that you want to insert).
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  7. But it works: Now you can e.g. print in one sitting, including multiple slides
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This is just a (iframe with google calendar on wordpress.com) test

Solved: Moodle RSS feed not updating

  1. Here is what I see in my Moodle course: image (in IE9, also tested in Chrome).
  2. Here is how Moodle’s RSS feed is configured: image
  3. If I click on this link, this is the current feed status in IE feed display: image
  4. The last displayed article is not even visible on this page anymore – I “lost” 50 posts, and more in Moodle – what am I missing ?
  5. Doh. I and the (I find: clumsy) way RSS-feeds have to be configured in Moodle meet again: You RSS feed list may be correct, but then you also need to select the right feed to display. image
Categories: e-learning, Glitches&Errors, lms Tags: ,

No Java on PC35?

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Plus restart request:

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Categories: Glitches&Errors Tags: ,

Google Calendar embedded aggregated calendar won’t show calendar names?

  1. When I add "Calendars to Display" in the "Google Embeddable Calendar Helper" ,
  2. Google calendar lets me select calendars I  added from iCal sources,
  3. but it does not "remember" the names I have given these calendars, image
  4. displaying only the default name "Calendar",
    1. both in the "Google Embeddable Calendar Helper" image
    2. and in the iframe embed:  image
  5. rendering the aggregation feature useless (Which is which?).
  6. Is there a workaround or hidden feature like a “name parameter” in the embed query-string? What is it? I cannot find it in the Google Calendar API reference.

How to configure Java not to check for updates in the frozen computer lab

  1. Many applications – both web-based or standalone – in the LRC rely on Java. They currently all start Java with the autoupdater:
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  3. and may at least temporarily allow for Java versions not tested for compatibility with LRC applications
  4. which should not cause permanent problems, since the computers are frozen, but does cause client s unnecessary hassle and delays
  5. provided that
    1. the LRC applications have been tested to work with the reasonably recent version of Java in the LRC image
    2. and staying on this version for, say, a term, causes no overarching security concerns (if it does, the more recent Java version should be frozen into the underlying software image anyway, after testing for compatibility with  LRC applications).
  6. The answer how to shut out the autoupdater is likely in the Java control panel. This screenshot is from version 7.51 while we have 7.45, but likely similar image
  7. Registry keys note 32-bit and 64-bit)
    1. HKLM\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy    EnableAutoUpdateCheck
    2. HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy    EnableAutoUpdateCheck
    3. HKLM\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy    EnableJavaUpdate
    4. HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy    EnableJavaUpdate
  8. For programmatically configuring this, a quick web search finds this:
  9. deployment.expiration.check.enabled

    Boolean

    true

    Must be “true” to prompt users to update the JRE when an out-of-date JRE is found on their system. Set to “false” to suppress the prompt.

  10. This is a setting in here:  The deployment.config file is used for specifying the System-Level deployment.properties in the infrastructure. By default no deployment.config file exists; thus, no system-wide deployment.properties file exists. If deployment.config exists, it is located in one of the directories shown in the following table.
    Operating System:Windows
    Location
    • <Windows Directory>\Sun\Java\Deployment\deployment.config
    • ${deployment.java.home}\lib\deployment.config
  11. in addition, likely this should be included: “SomeKey=SomeValue, may be locked by including another key, SomeKey.locked … so that the user cannot change it”.
  12. Information is from http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jweb/index.html which may likely contain other information needed to configure JAVA in the LRC environment.

Sanako Student crashes on startup

  1. UPDATE: looking at the Saanko log files now.
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  3. PC24 and others during Chinese, and again (+ PC36) during Russian class –
  4. no details available
  5. is this specific to
    1. PCs (all imaged and frozen?), but different hardware (headsets?)
    2. logged in users?
  6. Workaround: “close the program” – helper.exe seems to autorestart the student.exe.