Getting rid of those old pesky email contacts!

So, here you are on a lovely Friday morning (knowing that the weekend is coming, yay! and no work to do... ehmm) and you find yourself composing a lot emails.... weirdly... and suddenly you remember! Ah! I must tell the IT guys this thing about the old emails accounts... how come they can't get rid of old email address??? Who is this guy "John Rowan"??? I just want to email JP (John Paul Green) and I get the wrong address every time!

There must be something wrong with the system! yes, that is!

- End of friday transmission -

Now, how can we get rid of those old email address that appears in our contacts list:

3 EASY STEPS:

1. Go to your "Contacts" submenu by selecting the down arrow to the side of the word "Mail". From that menu select "Other Contacts"

2. Select "All" those contacts and delete them at once. You will need to repeat this step several times until you get the "Other contacts" clean. Google allows to delete 250 each time.

3. Things to consider:

• Don't worry about the contacts that belongs to our abc-net. The auto-complete feature will get them back when you compose a new message.
• You can create Additional "Groups of contacts" if you don't want to get rid of those important contacts that are mixed with the less important ones.
• If you regret what you have done there's a big "Undo" option you can use:

Have a nice weekend!

F.

Google +: Sharing and embedding photo albums?

Do you want to embed a new photo album into your blog and you can't find the way to do it now that we have Google + enabled on G-Apps?

Follow these steps:

1. Go to: https://picasaweb.google.com
If you are redirected into Google + wait a few seconds until you see the message in yellow "Click here to go back to Picasa Web Albums"
If you don't get this message you can try it on a different browser (i.e.: Mozilla Firefox)

2. Once you are redirected to Picasa have a quick read to the yellow message to understand what happened and the changes to Picasa Web Albums before you dismiss it:

3. Create a new album as normal. You will notice that the option for embedding has gone.

4. Locate the "Actions" menu and select "Album Properties" from the drop-down menu:

5. Modify the option "Visibility" and select "Limited, anyone with the link". Save the changes.

6. Your option for embedding the album should be back:

Good Luck.

Como "de-suscribirse" automáticamente de un listado de distribución de correo

Enviar correos a listados de distribución grandes o "anidados" puede causarnos un gran problema. En primer lugar debido a la "frecuencia" con que lo hacemos (varias personas enviando al mismo listado), el "tipo" de persona que recibirá copia del correo y la información como tal que enviemos por el medio. En especial si no nos ponemos de acuerdo y enviamos la misma información repetida al mismo listado.

La comunicación es vital e importante aunque no tiene por qué ser obligatoria en todos los casos, en especial con padres de familia y si estos se ponen de acuerdo el uno con el otro en quien recibirá la información de su hijo(a)(s). Es por ello que dentro de la ABC cada correo que es enviado a listados de distribución privados inlcuye un "footer" (pie de página) con información de como "de-suscribirse" o darse de "baja" de un listado de manera personal y automática. (Esto es parte de los "best practices" en listados de distribución de correo)

En los siguientes "screenshots" se ilustran los pasos para poder hacer la de-suscripción automática:

1. Hacer click en el link del "footer" marcado en rojo. Esto creará un nuevo correo electrónico insertando automáticamente en el campo "to:" la dirección correcta para la de-suscripción.

2. El correo electrónico puede ser enviado como tal, sin "subject" ni cuerpo. Basta con enviar el correo tal cual lo compone la aplicación de correo en uso.

3. En unos minutos se recibirá en la bandeja de entrada un correo confirmando que la de-suscripción se ha llevado a cabo con éxito. Tal como se muestra acá:

Si existe algún problema con la de-suscripción automática con gusto el equipo de soporte de ICT puede apoyarles en hacerlo manualmente.

Hay personal (secretarias) que ya están capacitadas para poder hacerlo de manera manual sin necesidad de recurrir directamente al personal de ICT.

Why we get differences between RTCs?

According to the article in wikipedia.org:

Timing

Most RTCs use a crystal oscillator,^[4][5] but some use the power line frequency.^[6] In many cases the oscillator's frequency is 32.768 kHz.^[4] This is the same frequency used in quartz clocks and watches, and for the same reasons, namely that the frequency is exactly 2¹⁵ cycles per second, which is a convenient rate to use with simple binary counter circuits.

We can assume that the differences could be materials or methods that leads to different oscillator's frequencies. In time those differences could be reflected in seconds, minutes... I've seen clocks with up to 7 minutes of difference. If you are in a AD environment and have some linux computers authenticating against a DC those differences could lead you to trouble (Mostly if you use SAMBA shares). A command like the following used in a crontab could fix the issue really simple:

# crontab -l

0 23 * * * /sbin/ntpdate name-of-the-dc-server

Windows 7: Allowing Access to C$

After recently installing Windows 7, I found that I was unable to access the "default admin shares" for my local drives, namely \\ME\C$. I was able to see the machine on my local network, so I know that the firewall wasn't the problem. If I shared out something explicitly, I could see that from other machines as well: File Sharing was turned on. On other networks, I knowthat I've been able to access the C$ share from other machines, so the functionality was still there, but likely just turned off.
From HowToGeek.com, I found a registry setting that would allow this. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System, add a new DWORD called LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy and set its value to 1 and reboot. Want to revert? Delete the key or set it 0.

Remote Accessing the School

There's a convenient way to access the school remotely as a teacher (scroll down to see what you can access with it): Using the "Remote Desktop Connection" application.
This program is available in every Windows O.S. default installation starting from Windows XP, you can find the program under the "All Programs -> Accessories" and you can easily spot it through its particular icon:

You can also use the "Search" facility described in the last post to find it:

Once the program is launched a screen like the following is displayed:

Please contact the ICT Support team (Ext. 6214, 6215) for the information you need to put in the "Computer" field.

Once you have that information click the "Connect" button and "Accept" the Identity verification dialog that pops-up. Remember to select the "Don't ask me again..." so you won't be prompted back again later:

After a small verification/configuration of the session you should see the regular "Login" screen window:

Only teachers can "Login" to the remote computer with their own "ABC" credentials. Remember to always set/verify the "Log on to: ABC" option.

You will have access to the following areas using the Remote Desktop:

1. SIMS
2. Basic Microsoft Office Package (2003)
3. PersonalFiles, GroupFiles, SharedDocuments, etc

There's a "Remote Desktop" version for Mac users that has the exact behavior as the one showed. You can download it from here.

Technical details: A "disconnected" session will end-up completely after 15mins. by executing and automatic logoff

Finding programs easily

Are you having problems finding programs on a Mac or a PC? Try the new search facility integrated with both systems:

On a Mac is called the "Spotlight" and it pops-up with the magic combination of "Command + spacebar":

When the "spotlight" pops-up just start typing the name of the program you want, select it with the arrows and press the "Enter" button to launch it, i.e.:

With the new Windows 7 O.S. theres a similar application called the "Search" and it is displayed every time you "click" on the Windows icon on the left bottom corner:

All you need to do is start typing the name the of the program you want, select it with the arrows and then press the "Enter" button to launch it (i.e.: firefox):

Try both search facilites to find anything else you want: documents, pictures, etc.