Compton IT Weblog

Guest account

ithelper — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:20:16 +0000

Cisco clean Access cannot be installed on a machine if the student only has access to a “guest” account. There is no way around it, they need access to an administrator account to install the programme.

MFD control panel problem

ithelper — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:33:49 +0000

Just a quickie:

If you ever find the screen on the MFDs look distorted, like in the 1st picture below, the problem is simply that someone has pressed the button to the right of the green button (the one highlighted in the 2nd picture). To put the screen back to normal, simply press the same button again.

You have exceeded your profile storage space.

ithelper — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:14:58 +0000

When students can’t log off, and the error screen shows files from Application Data, here’s a straightforward way to sort the problem:

1: All students have a link to the “IT Help” webpage on their desktop. They cannot delete the link, so it WILL be there.

2: When the page loads, look under “Manage Your IT Account”, and you’ll see “What to do if you exceed you profile space”

3: About a third of the way down, click the link called “My Profile’s Application Data”

4: From there, find the uppermost files listed in the original error message. You shouldthen be able to log off.

Upside-down screen

ithelper — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:13:50 +0000

If you find a machine where the display is upside down or at 90 degrees to the norm, this is because the student has accidentally triggered a shortcut that they wouldn’t have known was there.

To restore the display – press Ctrl, Alt, and the “up” arrow.

“Magic” DVD

ithelper — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:49:00 +0000

There is a DVD stuck to the board behind my desk that is there for you to use if and when you need it. There is lots of software on there, all of it either free, or covered by university licence for student use. Feel free to copy and use the disc and the software on it.

It includes:

Cisco Clean Access

Anti-virus, including:
F-Secure 8
AVG8
Avast 4.8
Anti-Malware tool
Removal tools for F-Secure, AVG, Avast, McAfee, and Norton.

Service Packs, including:
XP Service Packs 1, 2, and 3
Vista Service Pack 1
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 + Framework Service Pack 1

Microsoft Office accessories, including:
Office 2007 converters – allows Office 2003 to recognise Office 2007 files
PowerPoint, Word, & Excel viewers. Allows people without Office to view files (NOT create or edit them)

OpenOffice – excellent free software, equivalent to almost the entire Microsoft Office suite

PDF Creator – allows files to be saved as PDFs. From file, select File>Print, and select PDF creator.

Web Browsers, including:

Internet Explorer 7
Firefox 3
Google Chrome
Safari for Windows
Opera

Ccleaner (registry cleaner)

Archivers: PowerArchiver & Winrar

Flash Player (required for Youtube, BBC iPlayer etc)

Java – required for certain applications, eg Facebook photo uploader

Media Players & CD Rippers, including

Windows Media Player 10 (XP only)
Windows Media Player 11
RealPlayer
Winamp 5
FLV Player
CDEX

Audacity (free audio editing software)

Paint.NET – free image editor, similar to Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro

Image resizer – useful programme, lets you right click in image files and resize them

Memory Checker – tool that analyses a PC’s memory and gives info on what type to upgrade to (requires web access)

Memory cards

ithelper — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:44:56 +0000

We have ordered a memory card reader, after an occasion where a student needed to use a file saved on an M2 card. It should be on or around my desk, feel free to use as and when you need

Files saved to Temporary Internet Files folder

ithelper — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:56:41 +0000

Bit of a complex one this!

Sometimes, people will donwload a file from Yahoo Mail, Gmail etc; work on it, click save, and later find it has vanished. Tehreason is that when they download such files, they save them into Temporary Internet Files, which aren’t normally accessible.

Solution: Ask the student to show you the Email/webpage they got the file from. Go through the normal steps of downloading the file, but select Save As, then stop when you get the box asking where you would like to save to.

By default, it should have taken you into the same folder the stident originally saved the file to. Look at the list for a file with the same name as the default one that the programme is suggesting. If you see a match, right click it, select open, and the file should open with the changes the student made intact. Then get them to save to somewhere more sensible!

Vista machine

ithelper — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:48:31 +0000

The Vista machine (next to the CCTV unit in the office) is now set up to use the 2 printers nearby (under the machine, and under the CCTV PC). This connection does not rely on the network, so if we have any more network failures, you can use it to print any work saved on USB stick, CD etc.

To make things easier to remember, here’s a list of what you can use the machine for:

Checking whether the wireless is working – it has web access through a wireless adaptor, so works exactly like a student’s Vista laptop.
Printing – hooked up to 2 printers, can print 2 separate job simultaneously.
File recovery – As well as Microsoft Office 2003, it runs OpenOffice, which is very good at recovering files that Microsoft Office can’t read (including corrupt files).

Office 2007 compatibility

ithelper — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:07:25 +0000

We have some problems with students trying to open files created with Office 2007.

As you probably know, Word 2007 files will usually open if you go into Word 2003, then file-open, and select the file.

PowerPoint is not so good. PowerPoint 2007 files will not open at all.

Solution: We have a machine in the office that runs Windows Vista. As well as Office 2003, I have put OpenOffice on this machine. By opening the relevant application (OpenOffice Presentation etc), then File-Open, it will open practically any type of file (including those from non-Microsoft applications). You can then save it in PowerPoint XP/2003 format.

This is worth a tryfor any Office file that won’t open – as long as the file isn’t corrupted, it should work.

If you want a copy of Open Office, you can get it from www.openoffice.org or just ask me. It’s freeware, so anyone can have a copy

USB problems

ithelper — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:46:54 +0000

There is an occasional problem wher ea machine will fail to pick up USB sticks. It seems pretty much random which machines it will affect and when.

Basically, restarting the machine should clear the problem. If not ask the student to use a different machine. When doing this, it’s worth advising them to put the stick in BEFORE they log on, as they stand a lower chance of the problem being repeated.