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Wireless Access on Campus

UPDATE 2 (12:54 PM 11/19/2009): We’re back up, but expect a few more short term outages before we’re ‘officially’ back up with wireless. Thanks!

UPDATE: Looks like our new controller arrives today via FedEx.

We had a storm Monday night that took out power and internet to the campus. Although we had power restored early that morning, and internet was restored by noon, wireless access has still not been restored. We expect to have wireless access 100% functional by Friday, Nov 20th.

Wireless on campus is controlled by an Aruba controller, which suffered a blow to the power supply during the storm. Since this is a non-serviceable part, we’re in the process of exchanging the entire controller for a new one. After we receive it, we’ll need to put our configuration on the controller, and run some tests to make sure it’s functioning normally. Assuming it is, we’ll turn it on as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, we’ve posted some signs in the major areas on campus where wireless is accessed letting people know it’s not currently working.

Sorry for the inconvenience! We’ll get it back up as soon as we can.

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By rhogaboo – November 17, 2009

Running Novell under Win7 with XP Mode (to get to that IPX stuff)

I’ve been using Windows 7 for a while now, even though it doesn’t get released publicly until Oct 23rd 2009 or so. Still, it’s been a mostly pleasant ride.

Today, I’ve been exploring using the XP Mode that comes with Windows 7. XP Mode is well explained by Raphael & Paul, which basically explain that its XP running in virtualization mode under Windows 7.

What I’d initially missed is that it lets you run applications and hides the XP VM in the background. So I set out to run Novell in Windows 7 this way.

  • You must have a CPU that supports virtualization
  • Install Windows 7
  • Install Virtual PC RC (link here)
  • Install Windows XP Mode (link here)
  • Boot into XP Mode, & install Novell client (I used the 4.91 version, since that’s what my campus uses)

At this point, I noticed that the Novell Client now appears in my Start Menu list under XP Mode Applications. So I booted back into the XP VM, and unzipped the Novell Console One app.

Another reboot, but ConsoleOne wasn’t showing up in the Start Menu. Until I moved the shortcut into the Start Menu under Novell. Then I shutdown the VM, and checked my Win 7 Start Menu again. Voila! It’s there now.

But you can’t natively browse Novells shares in Windows 7. So I dragged a shortcut to the XP Mode “My Computer” icon to the XP Mode Start menu under Novell (Common).

It worked. It’s more like a peek into the XP machine, though – there’s no drag & drop between windows, an apps installed on Win 7 (MS Office, for example) can’t access XPM files – you’d have to install Office on the XPM machine, for example.

But now I can browse Novell shares and admin the Novell directory from Win7. It’s not fast, but it beats running another system.

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By rhogaboo – October 7, 2009

Creating Chokermail Accounts

Welcome to all students back to GHC for the 2009-2010 year. Over the summer, we chose to give a little more to our Chokermail email program. We’ve got more work to do, but here’s what we’ve come up with so far. Current students:

  • More storage in Chokermail. Start with 5 GB, and watch your storage grow, as you need it.
  • More themes in Chokermail (including some that change based on time of day or weather)
  • Quickly add maps, directions, movie times and more to e-mail messages. It makes planning a night out so much easier.
  • Create e-mail signatures in HTML. Get as fancy as you want to be.
  • The People page has been re-organized.

If you’re a new student, in addition to all that jazz up top, you have a new way of creating your address. Visit http://chokermail.ghc.edu, and click Get Started. After your address is confirmed, you’ll be able to log in. As always, I’m here for your feedback and to help with any problems you might run into.

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By rhogaboo – September 28, 2009

Exchange 2003 IMF / SCL numbers explained visually

I’m a visual thinker, so the last time I needed to see clearly what effect my changing of the spam confidence levels (SCL) in Exchange 2003′s Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) could have, I penned it out. A quick scan later, maybe it can help you, too. I’ll certainly reference it again.

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By rhogaboo – March 25, 2009

AMP Font Viewer

I’ve been using AMP Font Viewer lately to manage my fonts in Windows. It’s not Font Book, but it does let you manage fonts by categories, and install / uninstall fonts on demand. It backs up uninstalled fonts so you can see them easily. It’s nice.

download via ampsoft.net @ Font Viewer

found via lifehacker.com

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By rhogaboo – March 17, 2009

Glary Utilities

Lifehacker recently pointed out Glary Utilities, and they’re right – it’s a fabulous, and free, way to clean up Windows startup items. To get there, go to the 1-click maintenance tab after installing it. Check only the boxes on the things you want to run, and then click Repair Problems. Repeat as necessary.

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By rhogaboo – March 10, 2009

All Campus Day & the Electric Lunch

We had an interesting event on campus last Friday. For students, the campus was closed. For staff, admin, and faculty, we were in a self-hosted conference all day focused on technology.

We had two basic tracks that boiled down to two things: web 2.0 tools for use in instruction, and Office 2007. I taught a 30 minute class on calendaring and invites in Outlook, and that was fun.

But the real joy was Eric Waterkotte. Not the artist, but the eLearning guy. He came and gave a presentation on blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, social networks, twitter, et al. Nice stuff. Excellent presentation. Eric lives in Port Angeles and works as an instructional tech / eLearning course designer at Peninsula College.

The conference piqued the interest of lots of folks around here, and we even had another group sign on to the blog system I put in place a year+ ago: blog.ghc.edu/spc, our Strategic Planning Committee group. I had another request from an instructor as well, and it’ll be interesting to see how this works out in our culture here.

One idea Eric brought from Peninsula was the idea of the Electric Lunch. For the record, I like this idea. Lots.

Basically, it’s an informal lunch to discuss technology, emerging or no, in a free form style. Eric hangs out and fields ideas. I think this is awesome. I would love to have something like this here, maybe monthly.

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By rhogaboo – February 19, 2009

MS Access 2007 and the network .MDB file

Before I start, I want to clear the air – I know all about using front-end and back-end MDB files. I co-wrote a high-availability EDI app for a prominent paper industry manufacturer in Access, with integration into Sterling Commerce’s Gentran EDI server. That application would simply have not worked without an FE/BE design. I’m also not talking about all the little spots where you can specify exclusive open access. I’m assuming you know about those already, or your diligent Google searching wouldn’t have brought you here.

But what I want to post about, in order that it helps others, is using just a plain ol’ .mdb file on a network share. The problem is when someone has it open, and anyone else goes to open it, it doesn’t do anything at all. Double click, no response.

The problem is Access 2007. Don’t believe me? Have multiple machines open the file, machines where Access 2007 has never been installed. Access 2003 will handle this just fine.

Still don’t believe? Convert the file to .accdb, and have multiple Access 2007 computers open it. No problem!

Access 2007 does something different when it opens a file, and it can’t see the ‘shared’ mode for opening when you do it across the network. I’ve seen a few posts that mention solving this by installing Access on the file server itself, but I don’t like that idea. Not for my file server.

Do try this at home. There’s your explanation, in spite of the compatibility between Access 2007 & previous versions. Unless a patch comes out and fixes it.

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By rhogaboo – August 21, 2008

Server Config Template

Update 2010 May 27: Added another template, the IT Action Plan template. –rhogaboom

One of the things I really enjoy doing is documentation. Other people have said that’s the last thing they’d like to do.

I was tidying up a server configuration template I use, and decided to share. This is Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike licensed. Enjoy.

Server Configuration Word Template

- Word Template

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By rhogaboo – July 15, 2008

Live @ Edu World

I spent the last two days at the Microsoft campus in Bellevue? Redmond? for the first Live @ Edu World conference. Live @ Edu is Microsoft’s offer of free mail services for students, no ads, no fees, and yes to college rebranding.

Although some of the Microsoft presenters were a bit shaky, by the time Brad Goldstein started talking in real detail about the new Admin Panel, things got interesting. In particular, there’s now two offerings:
* college rebranded Live Mail / Hotmail
* college rebranded Exchange Labs -
(basically hosted next-gen Exchange, with 10 GB mail boxes!)

The Exchange Labs part is interesting for a few reasons.

First, the Labs part means that it’s a newer, edgier flavor of Exchange than is available for on site installations. Stuff the Exchange team is playing with, but – big but here – stable. Mkay?

Second, the Exchange Devs are adminning the hosting. Oh, it’s supposedly hosted out of the same data centers as Live Mail is, but when you call support on it you’re talking straight to the devs. That means your feature requests go right to those who can code them. Nifty.

Third, I heard from more than one attendee the rumor that Live Mail was going to be phased out in favor of the OWA/Exchange Labs action. I don’t see that being a particularly believable path, as Live Mail is pretty entrenched. Remember what happened when the Live services first came out, and Microsoft attempted to drop ‘Hotmail’ in favor of just Windows Live Mail?

A couple other things worth noting. Angus Logan, a general manager of the Live developer platform, announced rather scatteredly that the APIs for Live were opening up. Meaning that at some point we’ll be able to program a shell extension for Skydrive? Please? Bueller?

There was also a little room where three members of an unnamed team were asking what we’d like to see in a Learning Management Software, or LMS. They denied that Microsoft was entering the space, but it was all coy smiles.

I enjoyed the presentation by UW & Penn U about how they implemented the mail system. Penn U‘s Chris Mustazza did a good presentation and was interesting to talk to before & afterwards, as well. I also chatted with Jen Gay from Drexel – she’s as interested as I am in doing something useful with Skydrive & Office Live Workspaces, the hosted Sharepoint service on Live now.

One last bit. They had a Surface table there. I got to spend about 30 minutes alone playing with it. While it was fun, I came away from it with the distinct impression that it’s a solution searching for a problem. Navigation is pretty intuitive, like the iPhone. Touch gestures, etc. But it’s definitely jerkier than the iPhone. Let me repeat that a different way, using the quote feature -

An in-development touch-interface product the size of a coffee table doesn’t work as smooth as the touch-interface iPhone that shipped almost two years ago.
– Ralph Hogaboom, on Microsoft’s Surface Table Computer

Don’t get me wrong, it’s neat tech. But I almost forgot about it as soon as I left it. The only thing I got from it was bragging rights for touching one.

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By rhogaboo – June 25, 2008

Better Tag Cloud