e-infrastructure | Thomas' Work Space

Working around problems getting ELTI course worksheet out of Report Express

2013/11/20 plagwitz 2 comments

Problem: I used to, but cannot anymore get the course worksheet for ELTI out of Report Express. My choices:

Result set is empty:

Course enrollment does not work either:

I am still in a position to get the full class list out of the system, but that is not what I need, and is not the course worksheet sheet just a calculation based on the

Solution: Use “international programs” as the “department”.

It seems “department”and “subject” drop downs synchronize only with the selection of “college”, but selection of “department” can be in conflict with selection of “subject” (Is this a good GUI?).

It also seems that this affects only the “course worksheet", but not the “class list”(Huh?)

Another example: I seem to be able to get to the Film studies course list only if I leave all other drop down to “all”..

Categories: e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, Learning-logs, websites Tags: report-express

Use CTRL+TAB to switch between tabs in Chrome kiosk fullscreen mode

2013/11/15 plagwitz Leave a comment

On the reception desk, when you open the NINERMAIL after logging into 49erexpress, Chrome opens NINERMAIL in another full screen tab (which hides the 49erexpress tab) – unlike full screen Internet Explorer, which opened NINERMAIL in a new window, but which we had to abandon with the introduction of offfice365.
The 49erepxress tab is hidden, but still there, and you can switch between full screen tabs wit hthe keyboard shortcut CTRL+TAB (hold CTRL and pressing TAB repeatedly will cycle through all open Chrome tabs).
So when a client is finished with NINEMAIL (meeting request), have them not only log out of NINERMAIL, but also CTRL+TAB back to the 49erexpress tab to log them out of 49express (and browse from the result window to the Sign-in link to be ready for the next client).
No need to close the NINERMAIL tab. Next time somebody logs in to 49erexpress tab, Chrome will recycle the previous NINERMAIL tab.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, e-infrastructure, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, Reception-desk, service-is-library, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging, web-browsers Tags: chrome, fullscreen, kiosk

Finding a balance between speed of log-in and readiness on help desk computers

2013/11/11 plagwitz Leave a comment

Problem:
1. The LRC reception desk has 3 computers, each with 2 screens, one client-facing, that, when not shared during collaboration for clerical tasks, display (LRC assistants have been instructed which screen has to show which information) LRC-related information (LRC calendar, home page with news and FAQs, slide show with signs).
2. However, when a teacher was bringing student to Spanish tutor after tutoring hours, I noticed, that no LRC calendar was visible at reception desk (SAFARI on rightmost computer), nor could be loaded easily.
3. Upon my asking, LRC assistant reported, Firefox never comes up correctly on her computer.
4. What I could observe: Firefox came up with 2 windows w/o preconfigured tabs.
5. Safari came up with 2 windows , also empty.
Root cause:
1. It turned out that other students did not have this issue when logging in on the computers.
2. It also turned out that the offending student’s profile had been frozen prematurely (in an obsolete state not incorporating changes we had to do during the term to maintain functionality of the reception desk computers in a changing campus IT environment).
Workaround: Unfreeze the computer, delete the prematurely frozen profiles, have the student log in to recreate it using current default user settings, freeze the computer, to make the computer, 3 weeks before classes end…
Solution: not sure I have one.
1. Trying to have everything set up stably at term start is not the solution, but the problem.
2. How can agility be increased?
  1. LRC assistants need to report problems. They may need better training to be aware of problems, and need an incentive to report problems, and a culture where reporting problems is not considered a problem in itself, but an achievement.
  2. The LRC lost its Symantec-Ghost imaging infrastructure which it could not only use for the lab PCs, but also to maintain 3 identical computers at its reception desk. This requirement for imaging was not considered during the recent upgrade of the labs imaging infrastructure, and we do not know how to get this capability back.

Categories: e-infrastructure, Reception-desk Tags: ms-windows, profiles, symantec-ghos, t, xp

Forced downgrade to Color scheme Windows 7 Basic since “exceeded its allowed memory”

2013/10/31 plagwitz Leave a comment

This warning and forced downgrade appeared on the teacher after starting using MS-Community Clips (which is just a GUI wrapper for Windows Media Encoder internally, which we used on the same machine successfully while it was still on XP).
The error seems slightly more informative than what we received earlier, but I did not manage to investigate since this was in the middle of supporting a teaching use .

Categories: e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, multimedia-recording, Presenter-Computer, software-old Tags: 7, colorschemes, image2013, ms-community-clips, windows, Windows-media-encoder

How to find out whether you have access to your classroom early (e.g. for setup tasks), by using the R25 calendar

2013/10/31 plagwitz Leave a comment

Go to http://calendar.uncc.edu/, and follow these steps:
1. (1) switch to view by “locations” instead of (the default) “events”,
2. (2) select your building,
3. (3) find your classroom,
4. (4) see whether it is blocked=booked before your class (hover over the block to see by what) –
in order to browse to your classroom’s schedule – for example, you could also just (5) search for your classroom.
Sorry, unlike in the LRC calendars from MS-Exchange, here
1. no direct links to your room’s schedule;
2. no simple flexible booking, even though there seems to be a need for one-time bookings (AFAIK, I did not venture behind the screen after top menu: “Reservation request” since I do not know how to answer its question).