From Heather:

As you may or may not know, our annual WebCT license key expires tomorrow.  As is always the case, they do not send the keys until a few days before and, as is always the case, the renewal process has not been a smooth one.  Our current status is that Bartlett (backup server) was rebooted due to a system malfunction and the key has been applied successfully.  The renewal information that we received for Chronicles indicated the wrong Host/IP address so it will not accept the renewal key.  Work order 453390 has been opened with “BlackCT”.  I will send a confirmation when I have successfully applied the renewal for the live server.

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We are currently testing the installation of a new security monitoring device called Cisco MARS. Basically it watches the network for anamolies by aggregating logs from all of our servers, and network devices. It does everything from watching for IIS or Apache getting hacked to virus outbreaks. It can trace a virus outbreak back to the first machine that was infected and allows us to stop the outbreak by shutting down ports as need. Pretty interesting stuff. We are hoping that it will shed some light on our bandwidth issues as well.

One of the biggest challenges we have as a Help Desk is communicating what we support versus what we do not support.  Although I hate to say it, there is so much technology out there in the world it is nearly impossible to support everything as completely as I would like.  Because our University Help Desk is completely staffed by 12 Students and 2 full time staff members (who also have other responsibilities), we need to be sure that we explain exactly what is supported and what is not supported.  I have begun to work on a supported software list which will eventually take us down the path to Service Level Agreements and other statements that help inform folks what they can expect when they contact our Help Desk.

I have spent a bit of time over the last few weeks merging our minimal support documentation from the CSP Help Desk Site to the massive collection of support information that exists in our CSP Support Site. It has been a great exploration of old documentation and updating documentation. I have learned a lot about wiki formatting and after a week of working in wiki tables, I can create wiki tables without a second thought.

In our never ending quest to offer additional, better, faster, and customized “automated” support, Thomas added a Wiki feedback form. I have never been so affirmed by an auto-response as I was from the fictional one I received, but that got me thinking. How can we incorporate something like this into our automated support? I think that sometimes taking a less formal approach to electronic feedback helps to reconnect people in a more personal and less “scary” way to the technology resources.

Ah UPS Units, those lovely 100lbs boxes sitting in the server room. Jon Mierow and I have begun the grueling processing of moving them out of the server room and into their respective switch closets.

So far, only minor injuries have been sustained (Jon nearly lost his finger). Just kidding, it was only a minor flesh wound.

In any case, we may need some additional help with the larger battery units as we begin trying to move those. Other than that, the project is going fairly well.

We have seen a few laptops over the last few months with broken sleep button depressors. The sleep button depressor is a small piece of plastic that is part of the screen bezel. Brock and I have been stumped as to figuring out how these are breaking. They are small, out of the way, and part of the screen bezel. This does not make for an easy part to accidentally break. Because of its size and location on the computer it also doesn’t make for a part to carelessly break.

Today a student worker (who will remain nameless to protect his innocence) figured it out for us. The student came back and said, “I have seen quite a few people sliding file folders in between their laptop screen and keyboard and then closing the lid. Could that be breaking the sleep buttons?” Genius.
So we now know that there is not a design flaw related to this part. We also know that you should never place anything on the keyboad of your laptop and close it (even if it is a piece of paper.)

There have been some concerns about rising prices for the IBM replacement parts.

When we service machines that have been damaged or are no longer working we need to assess whether or not the part is covered under warranty or if the damage was caused by the user. Typical parts covered under warranty include sleep buttons, video cards, hard drives, CPU, RAM, and power plugs. Of course, any part that has been damaged physically is void of warranty and the university will be charged to replace the part. We pass on this cost to the user who has taken responsibility of the machine.

The pricing for parts changes daily. We contact IBM directly and receive a preferred vendor discount. To give you an idea of what the prices are currently I have listed some common parts that need to be replaced and the quoted price as of 3/17/07.

• LCD screen–461.43
• Keyboard–54.13
• Motherboard–343.79
• DVD drive–201.48
• Hinges–26.50
• Clips–7.48
• Dimm Door–20.13
• Power Cord–73.60

Shipping is $15 and the University has usually absorbed this cost and the cost of labor.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion with part pricing. Prices usually trend up, the R52’s are on a more rapid incline than the R40’s. This trend is contrary to technology prices with obsolete models but supply and demand seems to override the accepted model for technology.

At a meeting to discuss the findings of a university task force on teaching and career development, Harvard professors called student apathy for learning–expressed by classroom Web surfing and lack of energy–an “elephant in the room” contributing to a decline in the quality of classroom and general education at the university.

(Via Web Surfing is Elephant in Harvard Faculty Room)

When I’m not on the clock at CSP, I spend a lot of time reading and researchign about technology in the classroom, and community building collaborative tools. I even developed a WebCT course to teach the use of wiki’s, blogs, and podcasts in the classroom.

I believe this particular issue has two different solutions:

• Students do need to be held a higher level of accountability.
• However, classrooms need to become more interactive. There is no longer any need for information dissemination.

You actually can find anything on the internet these days. Students can find answers to any question on the internet with only a few clicks. What they can’t learn on the internet is how to think, how to interact with other thinkers, or especially how to develop their own thoughts. These are the types of experiences and education using collaborative environments in the classroom can provide.

Our Google Apps pilot group is off to a great start with around 22 volunteers already signed up. There is a wiki page for the migration process to move from Microsoft Outlook to Google Apps that will hopefully aid pilot group members in testing the full functionality of their CSP Google Accounts.