Teachers.Net Focus Session - Computer Tech. Troubleshooting

Teachers.Net July 29, 1998 Focus Computer Tech. Troubleshooting

Kathleen - Teachers.Net is happy to welcome Robin "Techro" Burley for another live session on computer technology. Robin is employed as a technical assistant for his school system. Robin, would you tell us a bit about your background and credentials?
Techro - I am Robin Burley, i work as a network administrator for the Tyrrell County School District in Columbia NC. I have been working with computers for about fourteen years. My certifications are in A and Novell, My primary job description is to keep all 300 pc's up and running. (that is a challenge in itself)
Techro - I will begin with a question from Ginger4-OK this was presubmitted
Techro - Occassionally when i am closing windows all of the icons in my toolbar disappear. How do i bring these back without having to reboot my computer
Techro - Well Ginger, that is an excellent question, the answer however is not one you will like. WIN95 requires at startup an initialization string those programs are in that string. Without rebooting you can not get those programs back!
Techro - Kathleen i have one presubmitted question that deals with a mac and cannot answer that question at this time i will post the question and anwer on the chat board
Techro - The next Question was from Valerie S
Techro - Valerie is having some trouble with her microphone connecting to a voice e-mail program
Techro - Valerie, What type of sound card are you using?
Valerie S. - It's a Sound Blaster. I'm not sure of the version.
Techro - Ok, have you been able to use the mic for any other use
Valerie S. - No...Everything with the sound card works fine except the microphone. I even bought a new one but that didn't solve it.
Techro - Is the mic self powered (ie does it require batteries?)
Valerie S. - No...just one of the kind that hooks on the side of the computer...no batteries.
Techro - You will have to go into the "control panel" and click on Multimedia
Valerie S. - OK...
Techro - In multimedia you will have to check the properties of the microphone itself the volume may be set to mute.
Valerie S. - I actually have tried all that...I'm not the expert but I think that a driver is missing. I have been trying to find the software but it's 3 years old and is misplaced somewhere. Thanks though!
Techro - Also check to see if the microphone option the volume setting may be set to low to pic up your voice.
Techro - Valerie the drivers for a microphone are not really going to be a problem i would suspect an actual hardware fault.
Valerie S. - Great...that sounds worse!
Techro - Check the connection on the sound card itself
Valerie S. - OK.
Techro - Val i will post some other options
Valerie S. - Thanks Techro!
Techro - Mary, what is your question?
Mary K&1 - about Ginger's problem, why is that happening to her? That's not the norm.
Techro - What do you mean that is not the norm?
Mary K&1 - That she loses her icons in the tool bar
Techro - What she is referring to is a lockup with the virtual devices in the toolbar on the lower right hand portion of the toolbar
Kathleen? - Is there a way Ginger can change the config. so that she won't have that problem?
Techro - The devices are taking up conventional memory and if you stop those from auto-starting you could potentially avoid the lock up
Techro - I would pay attention to when it is happening, what prog are you using
Techro - I just thought of something
Techro - Ginger are you using outlook as your mail program
Kathleen? - Ginger isn't here to provide information...
Techro - I will talk more with Ginger and post some possible fixes to the problem
Techro - Next question
Sandy/K/Mo - why does it take so long for some pages to load when for the most part it is only writing and very little graphics?
Techro - Well there are many things that are going on behind the scenes and depending on how the page was written it may be alot larger than really appears
Techro - ie. there could be something logging who you are or a song attempting to play etc...
Sandy/K/Mo - then there isn't anything I can do to help it but be patient
Techro - Unfortunatley not, you could configure your browser not to load pictures and certatin items without your permission but for the most part it is best to just be patient
Techro - as the HTML gets to be more and more popular that porblem will eventually subside
Mary K&1 - I have a problem with RAM leakage or fragmenting or whatever it's called. When I'm doing a lot of work - opening and closing several programs, after a few hours, my puter slows down to a crawl. I've upgraded to Win98, but that didn't help. I have 32 Ram now, I don't get error messages, I just slow way down. Will getting more Ram help, or will that too become mud after a period of working time?
Valerie S. - I get that too Mary! I went to 64 meg and if I run too many things (especially on-line) when I disconnect, everything is frozen solid!!!!
Techro - Your ram should not get "muddy" but it does happen
Techro - Upgrading your RAM will significantly decrease what we call the "peanut butter virus"
Sandy/K/Mo - I will be working away, deleting some things or saving and suddenly my curser will go to the top of the screen, my sound goes up to high and I freeze why?
Techro - what are you working in
Sandy/K/Mo - it can be aol, windows or both at the same time when I am cutting and pasting
Techro - It sounds like another hardware problem is this on a laptop?
Sandy/K/Mo - no.. pc
Techro - I would find out what make of mouse you are using and download the current driver first.
Techro - is it only when you are cut and pasting?
Sandy/K/Mo - it is the genuis net mouse
Sandy/K/Mo - usually only then.. or deleting what I copied
Techro - How much memory do you have (RAM)
Sandy/K/Mo - I am not sure
Techro - Here is a place to search for the current drivers http://www.microsoft.com/support/
Sandy/K/Mo - but we added some to it
Sandy/K/Mo - I will go there thanks
Techro - You can try uninstalling the mouse and re-install using microsofts default driver
Techro - Other than those options i would suspect a bad sound card.
Kathleen-? - My brother is newly online, had to upgrade his mac to do so, keeps disconnecting from the internet (sometimes every few minutes), apple says it's the IP, IP says it's the hardware..any advice about how to resolve this?
Techro - Kathleen does your brother have a cordless phone?
Kathleen-? - No, not cordless
Kathleen-? - no call waiting either
Techro - A cordless phone often conflicts with the IP signal and will drop data calls
Techro - Is there static in a normal telephone call.
Kathleen-? - no static that I've noticed
Techro - I would see if the phone company would test the line, that or it is the modem itself. There it could not be detecting the provider
Kathleen-? - There is a cordless phone on the premises, but not on that line
Techro - The most common problem with connection is activity in the phone line, from another source.
Techro - Kathleen is the phone in the same building?
Kathleen-? - yes, the phone is his other phone line
Kathleen-? - the cordless that is
Mary K&1 - The default is usually set to automatically discontect if there's been no action in 5 min. has he changed his options to not have this happen?
Kathleen-? - The default is set NOT to disconnect with inactivity
Techro - The cordless phone is sharing the same wiring diagram try to unplug the power from the cordless and the actual phone line see if that clears the problem. if not i would suspect bleeding somewhere in the phone compnaies jurisdiction.
Kathleen-? - external modem
Mary K&1 - What exactly is the difference between gif and jpg formats? I thought that the basic difference was in the number of colors - gif less than jpf, but have been told that that's not so. The photos that I have seen in gif do not look as good as the ones saved as jpg.
AMan - Techro- Do you have any recommendations for the teacher just starting out? I find that getting a computer to even start to get into trouble is like the car- as soon as you drive it off the lot it is outdated and old. What should we try and start with for our computer.
Techro - i will answer aman first
Techro - Your best bet on purchasing a computer, is that what you are asking
AMan - Yes, in order to function properly, be able to upgrade and cut down on tecnical frustrations.
Techro - i am not sure if i can offer an opinion on that?
Techro - If i were going to purchase a computer, i would buy from either Dell or Gateway, they are both very good on technical support
Techro - also they offer Teacher faculty discounts.
Techro - The difference in quality in JPEG and GIF
Techro - The primary difference is the compression factor between the two. Both can give you the same amount of clarity, JPEG is the method of choice for the internet because of size consideration and download speed. A gif file does appear to be lesser in quality but that is generally because of file size considerations.
Mary K&1 - Amount of colors each can handle?
Mary K&1 - Is there a difference?
Techro - i am not sure on the amount, but i do know that the JPEG can handle 32 bit color
Techro - i can find out for you and post it.
Sandy/K/Mo - when scanning what is the best dpi I should use for my page? I do save as jpeg
susan/2nd/ny - My gifs are 256 8 bits
Techro - When you are scanning i would not scan more than 600*600 just because of size and downloading
Techro - You want to keep file size down so that the picture loads quickly!
susan/2nd/ny - I have a PC but get attachments from Mac users without file extensions....what can MAC people do so that PC users can know what they are getting without a converter?
Techro - At this point nothing that i know of!
susan/2nd/ny - Then I guess they should let the pc person know in advance what kind of file it is!
Techro - You have to use a converter.
Techro - If you are e-mailing it would help to make a copy that is simply rich text and send that in the email
Mary K&1 - Do you recommend using a filter or proxy like Net Nanny or Bess for school districts?
Techro - I strongly suggest using a web filter, we use WEBSENSE which runs on an NT platform and require all users to go through it. I would not take the responsibility of not having that sort of protection in place. I would stay away from the products that are loaded on individual machines as they are easy to get around.
Sandy/K/Mo - someone on the mailring tried to send us a copy of her lesson plan templet but she was a Mac and we couldn't get :( so there isn't a way to get it?
Techro - Sandy, if she will cut and paste her lesson plan into the e-mail itself you could get it!
Kathleen-? - Techro, what is the most common problem you have to attend to on school computers? Anything you wish you could say to every computer using teacher?
Techro - Honestly the most common problem is not being able to save a file to disk. That is usually sovled by formatting.
Techro - "have patience with the tech staff they are usually heavily burdened and underfunded!"
Mary K&1 - Does your school district have a Web Site?
Kathleen-? - LOL!! good advice.
Techro - Yes we do, Tyrrell County Schools http://schools.eastnet.ecu.edu/tyrrell/default.htm
By the way, this site is completely student managed!
Mary K&1 - Who and How do you get people trianed in Building Web pages?
Sandy/K/Mo - Mary.. that's what I need more help with I depend to much on publisher 97
Techro - Mary we do not have any web page design classes currently, we are attempting to add that to our curriculum
Mary K&1 - Who teaches the students to do this? and when is this taught?
Mary K&1 - When do the students work on the site?
Techro - The students have taught themselves for the most part. We are starting a six grade pull out this year for a computer science club that will migrate into a comp science class.
Mary K&1 - Do the students upload the pages?
Techro - They work on the site at night, they will edit the pages and submit them to My boss or myself to be posted.
Techro - We do not allow a student to post, we need the ability to edit the pages of inappropriate material.
Here are some good reference sites.
Techro - Web Page design http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/design/creative/mmgallry.asp
Techro - Microsoft Technical Support http://www.microsoft.com/visualtools/strategy/microsoftsupport.htm
Techro - Netscape Technical Support http://help.netscape.com/
Techro - IS Technical Support Page http://www.mind.net/help/
Techro - Basic Computer skills http://www.ceap.wcu.edu/Martin/compases.htm#1
Techro - Antivirus Information Antivirus Information http://www.hitchhikers.net/av.shtml
Techro - Novell Questions and Answers http://www.novell.com/search/index.html
Mary K&1 - What does the s in shtml indicate?
Techro - mary it is a file format of the newer html, that is all i know.
Kathleen-? - Well, Techro, thank you for sharing your time and expertise with the Teachers.Net community. We will discuss sessions on html and web page building. Thank you all!!!
Techro - Gotta go, thank you to all at teachers.net for your support and great offerings