Strange issues with Microsoft Word not working

UPDATE 2008-08-05
These issues have been resolved for everyone except those who use the Lawson Excel plugins in Office 2003. We are still working on those.

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We are dealing with multiple reports of Microsoft Word not working for some people. Symptoms include:

• Word crashes frequently
• Cannot save documents
• Crashes during mail merge
• Error "can't fire event"
• Error "not enough memory"
• Unable to view embedded images in PowerPoint (okay, not Word, but still Office)

One correlation is that Office 2003 seems to have these issues, whereas Office XP does not. The only people who should have Office 2003 are those who need the Lawson Excel plugins for Office 2003. Reverting others back to XP seems to help.

There are other issues that we are still investigating, but resolving the issue with Office 2003 is a high priority.

MasStore pilot project

WiscNet is proposing a pilot project to provide as much storage as we can use for DR, CDBR, etc. Usage neutral, vendor neutral, and acronym neutral. Because it's a pilot project, we shouldn't put any critical or production data on it. Use it, try it, break it.

Problem: When something it free, and there is no expiration date, people don't use it. So, we will have to pay for it a bit. Pilot will have an application process, as well as a dollar amount to join.

Need volunteers for the pilot process.

MasStore

I'm attending WiscNet's MasStore event at the Pyle Center to discuss "shared large-scale multipurpose IP-accessible storage." It will include a with about fifty other state organizations how we can cooperatively aggregate storage resources to meet our data storage, backup, and recovery needs. This is something that has evolved over the past two years of work with the Critical Data Backup and Recovery working group (CDBR). Now that WiscNet has launched their "Grow Smart" initiative, bandwidth is not the critical limiter it was a year ago. GrowSmart is "unlimited network access at a fixed, multi-year cost."

The storage landscape has changed. Several vendors are going to present possible solutions today, and then the fifty or so attending WiscNet member organizations will ask questions. After the vendors are gone, the members will discuss how we can possibly use their services, and more importantly, each other, to solve our data backup needs.

Office renovation for Tech Resource Teachers

Today the office is in a bit of chaos. New furniture is being installed so the Tech Resource Teachers have a place to call home, and the roofing project is in full swing. I had to move out of my office because stuff was falling on my head. Fortunately, not very big things.

Trying to get fiber connection to OASIS

Our new alternative high school OASIS, will be physically located in the new ice rink south of OHS. We need to provide phone/data/CATV to our staff and students there. We have two main options: install new fiber or somehow do a mid-run splice on the fiber that is already underground right on the property. I will be meeting with several folks next week to discuss the most cost-effective options which won't hamstring us in the future.

Power restored

Power has been restored to Oregon. Our systems are operating normally.

There are still unrelated outages on the east side of Madison and in eastern Dane County. Reports are that some US Cellular towers went offline around 3 am, and Verizon land lines are affected, as well as some Norlight circuits. This has resulted in Internet access outages for people around the Dane County area.

Power outage since 6...

Power outage since 6 o'clock PM. Oregon is experiencing a wide spread power outage affecting most, if not all of town. Our core systems are running on the generator.

The public website is back online.

The public website is back up and running. Thank you for your patience.

Lockdown security conference

I am attending the Lockdown 08 security conference today at UW-Madison. It promises to be a challenging day, as I am taking some hands-on workshops on security analysis tools.
-Jon

Public website offline again

The public website is offline again. We are working on resolving the issue. Thank you for your patience.

Tech office moving later this week

The IT department office will be under construction beginning July 23 and ending (hopefully) July 25. During that time, we will still respond to phone and email, but we may be physically relocated to a nearby meeting room. Just in case you need to find us.

Monthly review, July 2008

IT Monthly Review
July 21, 2008

The past month in IT:

• The IT department has closed 95 helpdesk tickets.
• Implemented VPN services on the PIX (still in testing mode)
• Migrated four servers to virtualized instances on new hardware
• Successfully migrated email from a GroupWise account to a Gmail account under Google Apps.
• Implemented bandwidth management on the Lightspeed system.
• Began planning district-wide 802.11n wireless implementation.
• Kept working on replacing the 375 old computers, mainly at OHS and RCI.
• Performed setup for summer school and Oregon Summer Series courses.
• Completed PowerSchool rollover for end-of-year processes. 
• Migrated public website to new hosting facility operated by CESA 6.
  

The past month of the Information and Technology Literacy Team:

• Sent three teachers to the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC).
• Experimented with various Web2.0 social networking applications.
• Taught a variety of professional development classes for teachers from Oregon and neighboring districts.
• Developed curricula for new courses in the fall.
• Began physical relocation of Tech Resource Teacher offices
• Assessed benefits of Destiny upgrade for circulation management.
• Contributed to summer school operations.

In the past month, Jon:

• Got a trap door installed in his office.
  
• Participated in administrative retreat.
  
• Facilitated the "Technology Standards for Administrators" course on administrative retreat.
• Contributed to A-team meetings.
• Began developing a PDP assistance packet for staff to incorporate NETS*T.

public website outage

The www.OregonSD.org web site was temporarily unavailable for a few hours beginning Friday evening. The site was moved (as planned) to a new hosting location operated by CESA 6. However, due to a virtual hosting misconfiguration on CESA 6's servers, the www.OregonSD.org domain name misdirected to an unrelated web site.

We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience. A tip of the hat to Zach for contacting CESA 6 to resolve this issue well after work hours.

E-mail system returned to service

We found the setting that was preventing some users from logging in and corrected it. Webaccess and client connections are now working on the new server address.

Some people still reporting email inaccessible

Some people still report not being able to access email, even using the Groupwise client. We are continuing to work on this. Thank you for your patience.

Email server Up - Webaccess login still down

The GroupWise Server is running and can be accessed with the client only at this time. (Use CITRIX if you don't have a client installed at home). The webaccess feature is not working. We will continue working on this tomorrow a.m.

PowerSchool rollover complete

PowerSchool rollover is now complete. Feel free to begin working on information for the 2008-2009 school year.

PowerSchool rollover in progress; email still down (as planned)

The PowerSchool rollover process is in progress. By tomorrow morning, all students should show up in their correct schools and grades for the 2008-2009 school year.

In other news, the email server is still being worked on, so it is not accessible right now. We still anticipate it will be up by this evening. Further updates as events warrant.

Email server down for maintenance today, 12:30 - 4:30 PM

E-mail system will be down today for a system upgrade from approximately 12:30-4:30 p.m. This only effects GroupWise (client and web), you can still access files on the servers.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Delays with server migration

We ran into some issues with the server migrations. Netmail is done. The fibre-channel cards for the old servers did not work in the new servers, so we had to buy new ones. Ouch, they were pricey. Now, we are having trouble getting them to work properly with the Linux host OS. They came with a driver disc, and it seemed to install, but isn't recognized for some reason.
We are postponing the remaining server migrations until we figure that out. Also, we will get some consultant help to assist with migrating the email servers to a new VLAN (and therefore new IP address) to get them off the management VLAN. It's a best practice thing.

Email offline today for planned maintenance

As announced for the past couple weeks, district email will be offline today for planned migration to new server hardware.

Things should return to normal sometime today- at the latest by tomorrow, July 11. Updates on any complications or unforeseen glitches will be posted here, since we can't very well send out email notifications that the email server is down. So, if you can't access email, check back here for reports.

Planned server outages

Just a reminder:

The following servers will be migrated to new hardware starting today and lasting all this week: DSO, GroupWise (email), MIDDLE, and Netmail. The plan is for each server to be inaccessible for one day. Here are the planned dates for each server:

July 7: MIDDLE
July 8: Netmail
July 9: DSO
July 10: GroupWise

IT skeleton crew today

The IT department is running on a skeleton crew today due to the holiday weekend. Bear with us if support times are longer than normal. If you don't reach a live person on the help desk phone line, please either leave a message or submit a ticket online.

PowerSchool rollover postponed to July 16

The PowerSchool rollover to the 2008-2009 school year has been postponed until July 16.

If you care about the reasons, here you go:

OHS report cards are now processed, but we need to run grade distribution reports for the high school, and there is an error with the reports. CESA 5 support is looking into workarounds.

We need to make sure all necessary changes are made to accommodate the switch to semesters at RCI. This could be extensive, so we are consulting with Mike Way at CESA 5 to make sure won't miss anything.