Computer Repair Tech

Here's a quick Shockwave Flash tutorial that provides step-by-step instructions on setting up your classroom HP XW-4400 PC to an LCD projector.

Here's a Flash-based tutorial I've put together to show the following options to get information about:

1. adding a school server storage shortcut to your Desktop so you can double-click an icon to see your server files
2. finding out how much space you have available to you on the server,
3. and copying a program's shortcut (Core FTP Lite is shown) to your local classroom/office desktop.

Here's a link to a Flash Movie I've put together on how to set up a networked laser printer on a classroom/office PC in a Windows Active Domain world.

Click here to view the HTML (no animation/image-based) presentation on adding a networked laser printer to a local classroom/office PC.

I wasn't getting any sound from the new LCD projector/SmartBoard (noted as SB from now on) mounted speakers, which were turned on with volume all the way up. I thought maybe it was a bad wiring job or bad speakers. I discovered that the LCD projector has to be turned on before sound from the PC will come out of speakers. Wha' the!?!?

You keep getting those obnoxious email warnings telling you that your Mailbox is over limit and you just wish that the Administrator would quit bugging you about this! We are all given a limited amount of storage space for our email accounts--I've heard that the mailbox size is 100MB. (Who do you think you're dealing with? Google? Where you get 2 Gigs of email storage?) Here's a quick little how-to on finding out how big your Microsoft Outlook Mailbox size currently is -- you can then proceed with cleaning up your mailbox.

Our valued co-worker and good friend, Gordon Larsen, quietly passed away in his sleep on July 25, 2008. Gordon was the head of Amphitheater Public School Audio Visual department and was a valued Amphi employee for 44 years. Imagine that! Forty-four freakin' years! It boggles the mind! Gordon knew so much about the District's AV systems: the cable TV infrastructure at all the schools, the repair and maintenance of all the AV equipment that's been used over the years--if it wasn't working, he could probably fix it. The amount of information that was crammed in his skull was awesome and irreplaceable.

I've previously written about computer recycling services (Alameda County Computer Resource Center from the article) that take old PC hardware and making it available for the general public to purchase at low cost or earn via sweat-equity after a little refurbishing. Another idea I had prompted me to ask our district Technology Director about re-using/refurbishing old school computing technology, making out-dated computers available for students and their families who don't have a computer at home.

Free, Open Source Software (FOSS) really does matter. This includes the Linux desktop and server software which is free and open to anyone who wants to use it. Some people think that Linux is not as pretty or attractive as other operating systems (Mac OS X, Windows Vista), but there are many features that can be added to make the Linux desktop user experience more enjoyable with lots of eye-candy!

A few classrooms on CDO campus have an HP All-In-One (printer, copier, scanner, fax) Deskjet 6310 that include multiple Smartcard memory card slots and a USB port on the front face of the device. Normally, this is a great and very convenient way to interact with digital cameras and other flash RAM storage devices. I've run into a pretty serious issue when the printer is installed on a Novell network and have put together an alternate installation method as a work-around.

[Sigh...] Computers, gotta love 'em! Here's a problem that shows up on the new classroom workstation PCs, (HP XW-4400 towers) when a user tries to play a streaming video that requires the RTSP protocol. OK, back up a second. Wha?!? Right, RTSP = Real-Time Streaming Protocol - think RealPlayer supports this streaming video content. You try to play a video of this streaming media and the browser complains that "RTSP is not a registered protocol" and refuses to play the content. [Grrrr...]