Archive
Archive for the ‘LRCRoomCoed433’ Category
Protected: Why does the autoaccept-agent not send messages from on-premise equipment mailboxes to students in the Office365/live@edu cloud?
2012/09/19
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Protected: Why we need autoaccept messages from on-premise equipment mailboxes to students in the Office365/live@edu cloud
2012/09/19
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SOLVED: How to record, in Adobe-Flash, video from my built-in iSight web camera on an 2010 iMac, combined with sound from an external cs100 PnP USB audio device
2012/07/13
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- Problem : Our new campus-wide Moodle Kaltura installation enables authentic oral proficiency examinations (we have no other Moodle Plugin for audio recordings). However, we still have no webcams on our mainstay PCs. We do have a few iMacs with built-in iSight webcams, but for providing students more privacy during their assignments in the language resource center, we need headphones. We have for spare some old headphones which we would like to use up, but they are analogue. These iMacs do not have an analog headset connector, only a line-in which would require a preamp. We have good sturdy USB headsets from Sanako, but these are too expensive to purchase for the iMacs that have no ways to secure them and little other specialized language learning use which we do not already get from the PCs (and more…).
- Workaround :
- Try an inexpensive USB audio device that has 3.5mm analog headset inputs.
- On my iMac 2010
- If in system preferences / sound/ I direct input and output to the USB PnP device
- test passes playing system sounds
- in audacity (if you CRANK the microphone sensitivity to the max!)
- recording test passes: The headset loudspeakers and micro work (not well, but they work, as a tab on the microphone indicate: there is static, and the recording volume is still softish, but better than the built in webcam microphone)
- in Kaltura,
- Flash only brings up the security dialogue (in Safari 5 and current Firefox ESR and Chrome) for allowing the web application accessing to the built-in iSight web camera, but no options to choose a separate audio device
- However, if you control-click on Flash’s a video preview window for the web camera, and click on “settings” (not “global settings”, although that is useful for always allowing access from certain URLs like your LMS) .
- Click on the microphone icon :
- Make sure the USB PnP device is selected.
- You can bring up the settings dialogue, make sure the USB PnP device is chosen for audio and CRANK up the microphone input sensitivity! Then test the volume levels with the built-in volume meter (should show lots of green bars when you speak. You may have to adjust the Califone headset microphone arm so that the microphone is very close in front of your mouth. ) Unlike in the picture, do not choose “reduce echo ”.
- Remaining
- Questions :
- Can this sensitivity setting be permanently stored for all users in the iMac software image, or do our students always have to adjust the microphone sensitivity?
- It remains to be seen whether this inexpensive and unsecurable device survives long when being used by our student population.
- Problem : The review video function of the Moodle Kaltura Flash video remains very temperamental on the Mac OS X (In my testing, one of the numerous problems we had with Moodle Kaltura on the iMacs popped up again: when starting to review the recording, the time counter goes, but the video stalls for a few seconds – afterwards everything seems to play fine, but this is enough to confuse the heck out of my users) . While we made another small step of progress towards enabling Moodle Kaltura webcam recordings in the language resource center, it seems easier to just get web cameras for the PCs.
- Questions :
How to secure headphones on Lab PC
2012/06/27
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An LRC classic: In an attempt to improve, students will unplug/reseat and/or break headphone connectors, and render the LRC computers useless for even basic audio listening/recording use. In our attempt to prevent this and protect student users from themselves, here is what we have to work with on the rear of Dell Optiplex 760 (mini form factor): 
.
Cables tied to one another seems to be not stable neough. Maybe try, on top of the old (loop-headphone-cable-through-)washer-trick, a cable-tie looped through the rear grate openings which are closer and more accessible than the already installed lock?
Categories: e-infrastructure, Listening-Stations, Photos, Student-Computers
Protected: New LRC Calendars/Equipment mailboxes visible to students
2012/03/22
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If students have no mp3 audio on LRCRoomCoed433a Listening Stations
2012/03/20
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Problem: A Student that took the French Respondus Lockdown browser on PC 43, when playing to listening comprehension files, had no audio on her headset (except for her microphone input was played back for her. The test is single attempt only, and lockdown browser prevents us from troubleshooting.
Cause: Master volume for Wave and SW Synth on lrcroomcoed433b back to 0, like so:
Workaround: plug in one of the black headsets (USB) temporarily (plugging in another brown headset did not resolve the issue).
Solution: None currently: even when the Respondus lockdown browser is not running, Deepfreeze will not allow making changes, and changes in the current user profile will not affect users whose profiels gets created upon login (which is all student users). Longterm: Don’t try to run identical software images on different hardware configurations. Not as longterm: Autoit FTW?
The base hardware parts of the LRC iMacs
2012/03/20
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- Not so base that it all very much depends:
- LRC Room 434b
- West: Early 2009
- More on Apple’s website.
- West: Early 2009
- East: Mid 2009 [?]
- LRC Room 434b
- LRC Room Coed037
Problem verifying MAC image
2012/03/14
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I unmounted nevertheless
Categories: e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, iMacs
apple-diskutil, imaging
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