If you get an error when trying to edit your Moodle settings…

2013/10/03 Leave a comment
  1. Like this: “Error: Database connection failed It is possible that the database is overloaded or otherwise not running properly. The site administrator should also check that the database details have been correctly specified in config.php”
  2. Try click on “Edit settings” again. It may well work the second time (overload?).
Categories: Glitches&Errors, lms Tags:

Don’t worry about uppercase letters when logging in to post an issue to the online Helpdesk

2013/10/03 Leave a comment
  1. The username input for our helpdesk system login is set to write uppercase letters, and this cannot be changed: image
  2. Once you have made sure that your keyboard is indeed not set to uppercase (caps lock on, see light in upper right), which it most ikely is not, you can ignore the uppercasing, proceed as normal with entering your password.
  3. If you get a login error, it is not because of the uppercasing. Rather, you may have mistyped something else. A good strategy (when nobody is looking over your shoulder, that is) is to type your password somewhere else (word, notepad, google search box) where is it visible and copy/paste it onto the Password field.
Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte Tags: ,

LRC Tutors at check in take their signs…

2013/10/03 Leave a comment

… please , and put them on their desks prominently. We are reintroducing this signage, now that the group rooms often overflow..

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, service-is-tutoring

Can we get rid of Adobe Acrobat Reader’s Accessibility Setup Assistant dialogue?

2013/10/03 Leave a comment

CAM02052

For users not registered in AD as needing Accessibility this is distracting.

example os from the teacher station, assumed that is the same in the base image.

Categories: e-infrastructure, Presenter-Computer, software, Student-Computers Tags: , , ,

Some users cannot check out LRC items since they cannot log into their NINERMAIL Office365 Outlook

2013/10/02 Leave a comment
  1. CAM02045
  2. This seems to have been going on for a while. We have no good way to use another browser on the computers that we use for our room booking and equipment circulation system. Besides,
    1. IE8 is the default browser on campus.
    2. Microsoft seems to say it not deprecate it without notice. Rather, pasted from http://community.office365.com/en-us/wikis/manage/office-365-and-internet-explorer-8.aspx states the following (they do not mention XP though, but that is also supported until April 2014):
      1. Why is Office 365 ending support for Internet Explorer 8? [in short, html5]

      2. Why 8 April 2014? Office 365 provides customers 12 months’ notice of disruptive change under our Online Services Support Lifecycle. We announced Office 365 is ending support for Internet Explorer 8 on the System Requirements Wiki on 9 April 2013.

      3. Will Internet Explorer 8 users be blocked from connecting to Office 365 after 8 April 2014? No, Office 365 will not deliberately block Internet Explorer 8 users from accessing the service after 8 April 2014. But after that date, users connecting to Outlook Web App will only be able to use Outlook Web App Light.

    3. ITS says Microsoft told them IE8 is not supported.
    4. The following change does not fix it here on XP SP3:

      1. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

      2. [HKLM and HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
        “XMLHTTP”=dword:00000001

    5. Go figure.
Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, Glitches&Errors, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, office-software Tags: , , , , , , , ,

How to work around Saba Centra not starting by using attend in browser

2013/10/02 Leave a comment
  1. Symptom: When you click on your Saba Centra Event in Moodle, you get only a blank frame within Moodle.
  2. Workaround:
    1. On your Moodle course page, in the "Activities" block, click the "Centra Events" link.
    2. Click the "Attend in Browser/Download Recordings" link on top.
    3. A new window, My Schedule, opens and there are 4 tab across the top: Upcoming, Ongoing, Recordings, Past.
    4. You will need to check the Upcoming, Ongoing and Past tabs to find your session.
    5. Click the "Attend in Browser" link. If it works, this is what the result looks like:
  3. This is per advise from ITS/CTL. They are still looking for root cause and a permanent solution for this campus-wide issue. CAM02046
Categories: Distance-education-format-is-Synchronous, e-learning, Glitches&Errors Tags: ,

How you can report and get help with non-LRC-related computer issues

2013/10/02 Leave a comment
  1. First try to talk to temporary and permanent staff in the LRC. However, Computer issues that cannot be resolved within the LRC need to be reported to ITS  – unless they are already known issues.
  2. To make it easy for you to check for known campus-wide issues, I added the ITS alerts to the bottom right of the LRC homepage (image). Depending on when this feed was last updated (simply refreshing the LRC homepage may NOT update it), you may also have to click on the title of this section, “Campus-wide IT issues”, to view the most recent updates.
  3. If you find out this way that need to report an issue to ITS, you can find ways to contact them in the upper right corner of my blog: image
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte Tags:

Courseworld.org offers foreign language learning video clips

2013/10/01 Leave a comment
  1. Over a 100 videos currently available: image
  2. Summaries show when you hover over a video tile: image
  3. Can it beat YouTube.com for scope? Can it beat textbook-integrated videos for applicability? Likely not, but you may find an add-on for your course, and even more for self-study.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Videos, websites Tags: