Need Tech Support?

Follow these steps for the fastest support possible:

1. Contact your building Tech Integrator. He/She can provide quick fixes – unjam a printer, connect you to the network, tell you which button to click to make a program behave normally, etc. If you Tech Integrator cannot solve the problem, he/she will contact TechMedia.
2. The Tech Integrators are teachers and have a full load, so if you don’t receive a reply from him/her, then contact TechMedia directly. (The technology service request email address is tsr@mtwp.net, and that account is checked by multiple people.)

As always, the more details you can provide regarding the problem, the faster the problem will be resolved.

Create an Email Group from a Received Message

Have you ever received an email that was sent to a long list of email addresses and you thought it would be convenient to save that list of addresses as an email group for future use? Both webmail and the GroupWise client let you do that relatively easily!

• Open the message in webmail (http://webmail.mtwp.net).
• Click Reply All (don’t send the message!), then click the Address Book button.
• On the right side of the Address Book window, you can see who the message would go to, and directly above the list of names there is a button labeled Save Group. Click it.
• Select a location for the new group to be stored (Frequent Contacts would be a good choice) and give the new group a name. The Description field is optional. Click Save.
• Close the Address Book window and also the reply you started to create.
• Create a new message in webmail and start typing the name of your new group in the To field…it should magically appear.
• To verify the members in your new group, click the Contacts tab, click the location of the new group (Frequent Contacts or wherever you stored it), then double-click the new group.
• To verify or modify your new group, click the Address Book button and search the correct book (Frequent Contacts) for the Entry Type of Group and for the Display Name of your new group. After the group is found, click it then click the Modify button to make changes. (You can also modify the group in the GroupWise client.)

This new group will be available in webmail and the GroupWise client (after it has a chance to sync). It will not be available in Thunderbird.

The above process also works in the GroupWise client. To get started:

• Click Reply All on the message then click the Address button.
• In the bottom right corner, click Save Group then follow the prompts.

More Inexpensive Apps

A couple free (or low cost) apps were suggested by teachers:

• Class Cards – Class Cards is an easy-to-use yet extremely effective app for boosting student engagement during lessons and discussions ($4.99). (iTunes Store)
• Stick Pick – Pick a student at random just by giving your device a shake or tapping the screen — but that’s just the beginning. Stick Pick suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond during classroom discussions. (iTunes Store)

Go Green – Power Down

Please turn off all computers and monitors over weekends. There is no reason for labs, classroom computers, etc. to be powered on all weekend. (Automatic updates will continue to happen during the week.)

Laptop Cart Security

Carts should be locked at the end of the day and especially before a weekend or long weekend.

Lightspeed Security Agent error

Windows: Lightspeed Security Agent 8.01.04 might be out of date.
Have you seen this message in the past week? Don’t be alarmed. The most recent version of the LS Security Agent is not correctly reporting to Windows that your computer is in fact protected. This bug is expected to be fixed in the next couple weeks.

Saphire – Firefox or Safari?

When entering grades into the gradebook in Sapphire on a Mac, please use Safari. Newer versions of Firefox can generate errors when saving the grades. (This does not currently effect Windows computers.)

Quick Tips

Opening MS Office Documents: During the past few years, Microsoft has changed the format of their documents….notice the ‘x’ on the end of the names of the files? (i.e., MyFile.docx, MySpreadsheet.xlsx, MyPowerPoint.pptx) If you receive a file in the new format but cannot open it, contact TechMedia – we can install a free converter in just a few minutes.

‘Reply’ or ‘Reply All’?: There is frequently a need to share information with a large group of people….this is a perfect use for email! There is sometimes a need to click ‘Reply All’ to send your response to the entire group, and sometimes it is better to use only the ‘Reply’ button. A good principle to follow is this: The larger the group of recipients, the less likely the ‘Reply All’ button is needed. For example, a conversation among your team or department would require the ‘Reply All’ button, but a response to a building-wide email would probably be better served with a click on ‘Reply’.

A Trick to Reduce Spam

In the summer of 2009, we moved away from the “firstname_lastname” format (i.e., “mary_jones@mtwp.net”) for email addresses; however, every person who had an email account at that time can still receive messages addressed to their old address. We have found that a large percentage of spam that arrives in the district is addressed to “firstname_lastname” email addresses.

The obvious question is: “Why don’t we permanently remove the ability to receive messages at firstname_lastname?” Unfortunately, if we do that, MANY people will stop receiving some legitimate messages, and MANY people will start receiving error messages when sending emails using their personal groups. If you have a few spare minutes and feel like playing with your computer in a very productive way:

• Take a look at your address groups. If you find an MT email address in the old format, delete that address and add the new form of the address by selecting the person’s name from the district address book.
• Look closely at messages you receive from the outside world (primarily mailing lists). If you see messages sent to your old address, contact the sender to have your address changed.
• If you are still using Thunderbird, look at your Collected Address book. Do a search for all addresses containing “mtwp” and delete them. (This will remove all MT email addresses, but Thunderbird will still auto-complete district email addresses when you address new messages.)

If you would like to have your “firstname_lastname” forwarding address removed, please let us know. (Note: If you do not complete the above steps first, messages addressed to the old address will be bounced back to the sender.)

Favorite Free Apps

There are LOTS of free applications out there for Macs, Windows, iPhones, Droids, etc. If you have a favorite free app that might be useful to other people, tell us about it so that we can include it in the next Tech Notes.

We’ll start the free apps list in this issue with a few freebies we use at MT:

• Mozilla Firefox – one of the most popular web browsers on the Internet. This is especially useful if Internet Explorer is having problems – fire up Firefox to save the day. (http://www.mozilla.org)
• Mozilla Thunderbird – We are moving away from this email client at school (in favor of the GroupWise client and webmail), but this is useful software for checking multiple email accounts at home. (http://www.mozilla.org)
• Google Docs – This word processor and spreadsheet suite is accessible from computers and mobile devices, which means your documents are available wherever you are. I use a Google Docs spreadsheet on my phone to take attendance for youth sports teams…very convenient! (http://docs.google.com)