audience-is-language-learning-center-staff | Thomas' Work Space

How to make (and cancel) a room/resource booking without conflict by sending a meeting request from OWA and OUTLOOK–the ultimate training…

2013/04/16 plagwitz Leave a comment

…using animated .gifs. Note the update for Outlook (desktop) users at the bottom. (Slower? Click the Links.)You can not only book lrcroomcoed434@uncc.edu like this, but any resource listed here.If you need the classroom repeatedly or other advanced features, read on.

To Book:

0.25sec,0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, , 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec. 1.5sec

To Cancel booking (why so?):

0.25sec,0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, , 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec.

Both book and cancel booking: Compact: 0.25sec,0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, , 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec. 1.5sec Or including unmarked frames: 0.25sec, 0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, 1.5sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec.

And now in addition 2 screencasts (make/cancel reservation) for our OUTLOOK (desktop) users:

Categories: animated-GIFs, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, office-software, service-is-documenting, service-is-library, training Tags: calendaring, FAQs, meeting-requests, ms-exchange, ms-outlook, OWA, resource-mailboxes

Have I reserved the LRC? 10 safety nets for you, plus a bonus

2013/03/12 plagwitz Leave a comment

No need to use them all: The first one you notice suffices. But we hope 1 of the 10 will work for you. Starting (that is why it is in explained in How to book LRC resources – explained in one screenshot: “Book me!”versus “Leave me alone!”) with the tab: “scheduling assistant” in your “meeting request” itself before you try to book the room: It tells you when the room is free (white or blank along the timeline). Don’t try to book the room when the room’s timeline is not blank and the hovering tool tip tells you “Busy”: It is futile.
But if you do, there will be more alerts: Immediately after you send the meeting request, a so-called “toast” (think of a slice of bread jumping out of a toaster – depending on email client you are using for NINERMAIL in the lower or upper right of the screen) flashes briefly with the automatic response from the room attendant. The response has in the subject : “Accepted or Denied” (you will not get “Tentative” from the room like in the example – UPDATE: only faculty and staff used to receive such toasts, but with the next upgrade of NINERMAIL, students will also!):
Never mind if you miss the toast: it just notified you that the automatic response from the room attendant went into your inbox. You can see it on top there (here I unfolded it). It tells you in the subject and in bold in the body whether your booking was accepted or denied. If you have questions about these messages, you can forward them with your comment like any other email (no point in responding though). This does NOT remove the appointment from your own NINERRMAIL calendar (makes sense if you think about it: You still have your appointment (exam etc.), just the room can not be part of it).
If you miss that also, go to the LRC homepage and click on “Hours&Events” under the Quick links in the upper left (How to view ?)
You do not even need to visit the LRC home page: you have privileged access to the the LRC hours end events calendar from your NINERMAIL, if you subscribe to it there (shortcut: start @ #3 armed with this link:http://mail.uncc.edu/owa/calendar/LRCRoomCOED434@uncc.edu/Calendar/calendar.ics).
You can do all this under guidance at the LRC reception desk: We try to have 1-3 name-tagged student assistants there at all times during LRC opening hours, 8 eyes see more than 2.
One day after your booking, you will also be able to see your reservation (if successful!) on the : .
If in doubt, do all this well before your class takes place.
Take a training: ITS supports NINERMAIL and CTL teaches Taming your inbox.
Bonus: In the unfortunate event of a “Denied” response to your booking request, if it is not just an AM/PM error or similar which you can easily correct, the response includes information on the prior reservation, organizer, and email address.
1. Why not email the colleague (click on the underlined name of the colleague that booked the LRC before you) from right here and see whether you both can rearrange? Remember: Sharing is caring.
2. There is a departmental initiative to reschedule entire classes that might conflict over the use of the LRC. Talk to the departmental office well before the the prior term ends (i.e. before next term’s class schedules are finalized).
3. Still confused? At this point, talk to LRC permanent staff who will go through above list with you. Please understand that the LRC staff cannot cancel other faculty’s bookings, we only extended the availability and bookability of the LRC which is readily available and easily bookable at many times during each term.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure Tags: 2010, calendaring, FAQs, meeting-requests, ms-exchange, ms-outlook, OWA, resource-mailboxes

How to check for “lost trust” issues on LRC PCs before classes

2013/01/31 plagwitz Leave a comment

We experience computers that fail allowing students to log in, thus disrupting face-to-face classes in the LRC.

We have found no diagnostic tool working, other than attempting to log into the machine.
Current workaround is manually removing and adding them back to the domain, when students experience login issues – which is time consuming, certainly too time-consuming during classes.

Suggested workaround Checklist, to be run before any class in the LRC (check calendar):
1. Student staff
  1. logs in on each individual computer and notes failures (
  2. this could be accelerated by using mstsc, especially with remote desktop connection manager and lrc.rdg) on the reception desk computers
  3. do we have automated (scriptable) login options?
2. Coordinator
  1. from Deepfreeze-console, unfreezes computers in question
  2. from Symantec Ghost Console
    1. puts computers in question into domain-issues folder
    2. runs tasks against this folder
      1. “remove from domain”
      2. “add to Domain&AD”
  3. from Deepfreeze-console, freezes computers in question

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure Tags: domain, faronics-deepfreeze, symantec-ghost, trust-relationshiip

If you cannot log into Windows because of accessibility dialogues offering you help

2013/01/23 plagwitz Leave a comment

Symptom: You cannot log in since accessibility tool dialogues (like above) come up when typing your password
Workaround: Restart the computer (and make sure you have no item sitting on the keyboard while doing so, usual suspects: textbooks, bags). If you do not want to restart, but fix it immediately, you can read more about Windows XP accessibility features and keyboard shortcuts here.
Root cause: You may have activated Windows accessibility features by erroneously depressing for a long time or repeatedly pressing a modifier key while the LRC computer was on the welcome screen. You may not run into this behavior from your personal computer (or read here how to disable Windows 7 Sticky and Filter Keys), but the LRC needs to be ADA compliant. Think of it as another LRC language tool that sometimes may get into your way temporarily if you do not study the language, but that you would not want to miss for the language you do study.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, e-infrastructure, Listening-Stations, Presenter-Computer, Reception-desk, Student-Computers Tags: accessibility

Export options in Tivoli Endpoint Manager

2013/01/03 plagwitz Leave a comment

You can batch export Baseline task sets by right-clicking the baseline and chooosing export from the context menu:
Choose a download location:
Open the BES file (which is an XML file) with MS-Excel for better human readability:
Especially interesting information (highlighted in red here) for your documentation (tracking, potentially troubleshooting…) includes the task “name3” and the underlying Actionscript.

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure Tags: IBM-TEM, imaging

Software to be installed in LRC image

2012/12/14 plagwitz Leave a comment

Click bottom right menu for large version:

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, Spreadsheets

The LRC writing input methods (“keyboards”) are not configured right

2012/12/14 plagwitz Leave a comment

In intl.cpl, we do not want keyboards installed for western and central-European (= characters a-z, merely altered by diacritics) languages, including US. We type these languages, including US-English, with the us-international keyboard extended 2.1, which has to be set as default, and that US-English extended 2.1gets checked as the keyboard for all western languages ("show more"). The regular US keyboard gets removed/made invisible to the user, and with any reasonably recent version of MS Sysprep tools, that is no problem anymore.
For non-Western languages, the built-in windows keyboards should be "checked", and also the alternate input that we had to download and install methods need to be "checked" under their languages: MS Maren, Google input methods nee to be enabled (checked): e.g. Farsi is not enabled (checked).