Month: January 2016

Training the Remote to the Receiver

Sometimes, the classroom presentation remote controls stop working.  This is usually the result of a broken communication between the remote and the receiver.

To train a new remote, or re-train an existing remote, into the receiver:

  1. Press and release the program button on the receiver (the LED lights solid).
  2. Press the advance button (the largest button) on the remote three times. On the third press, the LED will
    turn off, indicating the remote has been successfully trained.
  3. Done.

Please be advised that it is also easy to delete all remotes from the receiver.

  1. Press and hold the program button. The LED will light for 3 seconds then go out.
  2. Release the program button.

This information was taken directly from the Power Presenter manual.

Hyper-V Server Getting Started

Open port 3389 for all firewall profiles.

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Remote Desktop"  protocol=tcp dir=in localport=3389 action=allow

To set the management network connection to private.

$profile = Get-NetConnectionProfile -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet 4"

$profile.NetworkCategory

Set-NetConnectionProfile -InputObject $profile -NetworkCategory private

To get remote Disk Management working:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Volume Management" new enable=yes

To get remote Computer Management working:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Event Log Management" new enable=yes

List of the different inbound firewall rules related to remote management.

Remote Administration
Remote Assistance
Remote Desktop
Remote Event Log Management
Remote Event Monitor
Remote Scheduled Tasks Management
Remote Service Management
Remote Volume Management

Allowing direct download of files in Moodle

Moodle 3.0 has been a welcome upgrade from our previous version and includes many security, bug fixes, and interface enhancements.  It also now smartly decides how file content should accessed by students based on the file-type and context the file is published in.

For example, after adding a document (such as a Word document, or PowerPoint file) to a course, Moodle automatically allows users to download the file.  When adding a video file, Moodle automatically brings up the embedded video player when the item is clicked on.

The behaviour for audio file is similar to video, in that the file is played in an embedded player within the browser.  This is great in most cases.  However, we have in the past, allowed users to download audio files so the files can be played offline such as in the car on a smartphone.

We can still allow users to accomplish this, but the setting will need be changed manually for audio files.  Here is how.

Allow downloading of audio files

  1. In the course page when adding an activity or resource, choose File from the Resources section of the Add an activity or resource menu.  Or, find the item, click the Edit drop-down and choose Edit settings.add-file-or-resourceedit-file
  2. In the Update: File screen look for the Appearance section.
  3. In the Appearance section, change the Display setting to either Open or Force download.  Details for each setting are below.edit-audio-file
  4. Click Save and Return to Course or Save and Display.
  5. The file can now be downloaded and saved offline.

Display settings explained

This setting, together with the file type and whether the browser allows embedding, determines how the file is displayed. Options may include:

  • Automatic – The best display option for the file type is selected automatically.  This is the default setting for content of type file.
  • Embed – The file is displayed within the page below the navigation bar together with the file description and any blocks.
  • Force download – The user is prompted to download the file.
  • Open – Only the file is displayed in the browser window.  This will allow users the best of both worlds.  To download the file, users will need to right-click on the link and select Save Link As… save-link-as
  • In pop-up – The file is displayed in a new browser window without menus or an address bar

Update William Installation

William is the main database used at Heritage College and Seminary for managing the institution’s course catalog, student records, financial records, and much more.

William is a Microsoft Access 2003 database and is hosted on our internal servers.  It is accessible via the W: drive for each user who is granted access.  To update your installation of William please follow these simple steps.

  1. Navigate to the W: drive (Start -> Computer -> W:\).
  2. Double-click the update.bat file to run the update utility.
  3. Done.

Yes, it was that easy!

Import Attendance Dates for Courses

Kirsha will send a spreadsheet of class id’s and course dates.  It will look something like this.

ClassID    CourseDate
7943    13-Jan
7943    20-Jan
7943    27-Jan
7949    11-Jan
7949    18-Jan
7949    25-Jan

It will contain a list dates for each class throughout the semester.  Our job is to import this data into the tblClassDates table in William.

How-To

  1. Open William in design mode.
  2. Click ‘External Data‘.  On the Import tab click ‘Excel‘.
  3. Work through the wizard, choosing the spreadsheet and Append a copy of the records to the table.
  4. The table that we need to import into is called tblClassDates.

To verify the result open the Attendence tracking form (frmAttendenceTracking – also there a button called Attendence on the Registrar start form).  Click the ‘Classes and Dates‘ button and choose one of the class that you know should have dates associated with it.  The new semester’s date will appear in the Dates field below.