Clemente Tech News – May 2003

Clemente Tech News | May 2003 | Volume 3 | Issue 3

Are you part of the in-crowd?

During Spring Break, we updated our Macintosh Manager Server. This is the revered computer often referred to as “THE SERVER” that allows users – students and teachers – to access their work from any “network” Apple computer in the building. However, our update left no one able to access any work at all. Our School Technology Coordinator, Mr. Walker, was able to get teacher folders back in working order before we returned from break, but students still couldn’t log in.

Hence the ominous message on your computers’ login screens: “Network Down! – Guest login or work offline only!”
To clarify a big question this raised: No, “THE SERVER’ is not down.

This message served as a warning for students not to attempt login as they would not able to access their work right away. Beginning with the 8th-grade folders and working down to 5th-grade documents, Mr. Walker and computer teacher Mrs. Garcia-Thompson began restoring settings that would allow students to access their work again.

Most of our students are back in the in-crowd. A few stragglers might remain, as we encountered other issues with setting users back up. Please use a Computer Problem Complaint Form to alert us if you or your students have any difficulty logging in and accessing your work. For students, we will need the name and student ID of the child in question.

Working offline: what it means for the user

“I was working on a document, and I couldn’t save it. When I tried to print, I got a printer error.” Sound familiar? This user was working offline, and had no access to any documents or printing capabilities. Putting aside the subliminal “save frequently” messages, this is an example of what happens when users work offline. There are two ways that your computer might work “offline” – voluntarily or involuntarily.

Voluntary is when a computer starts and there is no login screen, but a panel with four choices: Pick Server, Offline, Finder and Shut Down. Clicking “Offline” (voluntarily) allows users to access a login screen and actually log into the computer. (Of course, we understand that you didn’t exactly WANT this panel to pop up either, but…) However, there is no access to documents saved over the network. Any new work created and saved will remain on the hard drive of the computer, not in the network location in which it would normally be saved.

Involuntary is when a user has already logged into the computer and has full access to documents, printing, and Internet, but the computer loses connection with “THE SERVER.” When this happens only the folder containing programs to which users have access is available. (If there is a CD in the computer, its folder will also be visible.) However, the user’s documents folder – the one with the user’s name on the tab – is gone. There is not even a little tab at the bottom of the screen with the user’s name on it.

If this happens, there is no point in trying to do anything, as users will be unable to print (the dreaded print error) or save (might even appear to, but doesn’t). Simply log out of the computer, return to the login screen, and log back in. Documents and printing capabilities will be restored.

If you experience frequent occurrence of the server dropping this way, please notify us in writing on the Computer Problem Complaint Form so that we may investigate whether the problem is isolated or universal. Thanks for helping us help you with this issue.

Get rid of piggy-backers!

As a reminder, students should be logging in with their own name (last name, comma, space, first name) and password (their student ID). If they do not already know their ID number, teachers are responsible for getting that information to them. In some cases of students accessing computers using their teacher’s user name and password, serious problems occurred that prevented the teacher from accessing programs and the Internet from any Apple computer on our network. Please dump those piggy-backers and help students use their own folders to save and access their work.

Ron Walker, Webmaster, Clemente School Internet Website
Bruce Stern, Webmaster, School Intranet Website
T Martin, Editor, Clemente Tech News

CWASP

Clemente Tech News – May 2003