Gmail now has "Read Receipts"

Gmail now supports "Read Receipts" which allow the sender of an email message to request a verification from the recipient that the email message has been read. This was one of the features that people missed when we moved from Groupwise to Gmail, so I've turned it on for the oregonsd.net domain.
Instructions for using this feature are available at http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1385059

Brief email outage this morning

The brief email outage this morning was due to a domain used by Google to authenticate accounts (accounts.google.com) being categorized by our security filter as a phishing site. This may actually have been accurate, as there has been an increase in phishing activity lately. Alternatively, it could be that the domain was recently added by Google.

Regardless, we have fixed the problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Phones and voicemail are back up

Phones and voicemail are back up and running normally. Thanks for your patience.

Phone/voicemail outage

Phones and voicemail are currently down. We are waiting for the vendor support folks to either get it running again, or to give us the all-clear to reboot everything. If we don't wait for that, inevitably there is some glitch which prevents them from getting the diagnostic information they need to try to unravel this mystery.

Video on using Campus Portal Mobile App

There is a promotional video on using the new Campus Mobile Portal App for iOS devices. This video is meant for parents and students. It is viewable at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjW6rloXrIs

Upgrades to Firefox and iTunes coming tonight!

We've had many requests for updates to a couple of our core applications, Firefox and iTunes. Normally, we try to do this when school is out (like during the summer) to avoid disruptions, but since our current Firefox version is having difficulties displaying Infinite Campus pages and the newest Apple OS needs a new iTunes version, we will try to push these out this afternoon (10/26) through tomorrow morning.

What we need from all of you is to NOT shut down any computers today. Close all of your programs and log off, but leave the computers powered on. I have set the applications to start installing automatically beginning at 4:30 p.m. It's actually a random schedule using a 3-hour window no earlier than 4:30, so your computer may start right away, it may wait for several hours. Either way, when the install happens, the computers will automatically reboot without warning and should also shutdown via our policy at 9:00 p.m.

If a computer does not get updated tonight, it will likely happen the next time someone starts it and will also reboot without warning. If this happens to you once in the next day or two, assume that is what is happening. If you continue to have unexpected restarts or either of the applications stop working, then report that to us via the helpdesk.

Thanks from technology!

Slow Google Docs- how you can help

We've been investigating reports of Google Docs being slow lately, and it appears that it is due to not having enough Internet bandwidth available. Some bandwidth hogs, such as audio and video streaming sites, are now being blocked or throttled to alleviate the traffic congestion. You can help by reducing or eliminating the use of non-instructional Internet use.

For those of you who really "need" to listen to music at work, there's this really cool invention that streams music and other programming directly to your desktop and uses zero bandwidth, plus has a wide variety of pre-selected playlists. It's called a radio, and they are really quite inexpensive.

Google Docs list not showing up

Google Docs is having an issue showing the document list. This is happening to people all over the world, not just our district. This is being worked on by Google. There is nothing we can do except wait until they get it fixed.

You can check http://www.google.com/appsstatus for an updated status report of this issue and all Google Apps service.

Phones and voicemail down briefly

The phones and voicemail systems were down briefly this morning. We rebooted, and our support vendor is reviewing the system logs in a continuing effort to track down the elusive cause of these outages.

We apologize for this outage. Thank you to the central contacts at each building who reported the outage via the helpdesk.

Phones down for maintenance tonight (9/29) 6:45 - 7:30 PM

Phones are going down tonight (9/29) at 6:45 PM for emergency maintenance so a new part can be installed.

Phones back up

Phone and voicemail are back up. We are sending the log files to Mitel so they can try to figure out what happened.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Voicemail and phones (incoming) are down

Voicemail and incoming phone calls are down. We are working on it with ESG. As far as we can tell, most locations can still dial out.

More updates as we find more.

Brooklyn fiber is back up

The fiber connection to Brooklyn has been repaired. Phones and computer networks are working normally again.

Fiber to Brooklyn down

Update:
The likely cause has been identified (homeowner digging without calling Digger's Hotline), but that will not be confirmed until more testing occurs. We are working with vendors to find somebody to diagnose and fix the problem as soon as possible, but it will likely not happen until sometime Monday. In the meantime, we are going to bring portable Internet access devices and phones to Brooklyn to provide the office staff with communication capabilities.

>>>
Phones and computer networks in Brooklyn are down due to a fiber optic cable disruption. We are investigating the problem.

Phones are back up

Phones are back up and working normally.

Phone issues- working on it

We have reports of phone issues and are working on it. Incoming lines appear to be not working correctly.

Brief internet outage this morning- debrief

There was a brief internet outage for users on campus this morning when the network security server stopped passing traffic. It was resolved after about ten minutes. We apologize for the interruption.

Can't get to Amazon? Internet Explorer may be the problem

Short version:

Amazon.com no longer supports Internet Explorer, and if you are using Internet Explorer, you may not be able to use the Amazon.com site.

Longer version:

Dan the Bookman was unable to place orders on Amazon so he called the helpdesk and we started researching the problem. We couldn't really find a solution. Dan tried from home, thinking it was a problem with our firewall or network filter. He sent me this update this morning:

I remembered to place my order at 5:45 this morning and was having the same issue even at home.  It turns out that as of the 1st of September, Amazon appears to no longer support Internet explorer.  After searching for 15 minutes on their website, I was able to speak to a human who said that they use only Firefox and support that format.  I'm not sure if it is an affront to Microsoft, but was stunned to be told that they don't "support" explorer. 

Nowhere on its site do they publicly say this(probably not a good business move in my opinion).  I had no trouble ordering using Internet explorer just two weeks ago, and little trouble once I switched to Firefox. 

As we geeks have mentioned often in the past, you should never use Internet Explorer unless absolutely necessary. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Camino are some suggested alternatives.

Brief voicemail outage tonight at 9:00 PM

The district voicemail system will be unavailable briefly at 9:00 PM to perform an upgrade. The outage should last no more than ten minutes.

Phone and voicemail documentation

Believe it or not, there are still people being hired. Sometimes this creates a domino effect of changes to phone extensions and voicemail boxes, so not all phone and voicemail is configured yet.

But here is the documentation page for phone and voicemail so you can read how to perform most phone and voicemail tasks. https://sites.google.com/a/oregonsd.net/technology/documentation/phone-and-voicemail-instructions (staff login required)

Instructions for teachers with Moodle courses

In response to many teacher requests over the past year, we upgraded the Moodle server to version 2.1. However, the conversion process had some technical limitations that we and our beta-tester teachers did not catch. This means that many teachers are missing some documents in their courses. Fear not, we have your data!

If you are missing items, you need to follow the instructions posted at https://sites.google.com/a/oregonsd.net/technology/documentation/moodle/2-1-upgrade-file-rollover (staff login required)

This involves retrieving your files, then uploading them anew to your Moodle course.

Many thanks to Chris Brown for figuring out a way to resurrect these files and make them accessible in a human-readable manner.

Cool new features for teachers

Teachers! Learn about the new teacher tools in Campus on this YouTube Video (in HD).

Infinite Campus Support Procedures

Now that the implementation phase of Infinite Campus is coming to a close, OSD staff should contact the OSD IT Helpdesk with any requests for support with Infinite Campus. The IT department will address support requests and escalate any issues we are not able to resolve up to CESA 5 or Infinite Campus support.

Additionally, staff can access instruction guides, documentation, videos, and other helpful links on the OSD Infinite Campus Support Site.

Network down tonight (Wed. 8/10) 10-11 PM

The district's network will be down tonight, Wednesday, August 10, from 10-11 PM while we perform regular maintenance which requires powering down the core network switch.

Network services, phone services, and Internet will be down during this time. If any unforeseen complications occur, we will post updates here.

Email login issues due to outdated bookmarks to old authentication server

Some people have experienced problems logging in to email. We have identified the problem as affecting people who have an outdated bookmark/favorite to the login page. Delete your bookmark and either use the link on the Navigator page (http://s.oregonsd.net/nav/) or go directly to http://mail.oregonsd.net  Either of these will forward you to the correct server to enter your password. (It looks identical- two fields on a black background- but is on a different server.) Sorry for the confusion. We didn't anticipate people having bookmarks to the intermediate authentication page.

Skyward login issues

Some users have reported problems logging in to email and Skyward. It appears that Skyward will not accept a password longer than sixteen characters. If you have an OSD password that is longer than sixteen characters, please try shortening it to fifteen or sixteen characters and then logging in to Skyward. You can change your OSD password at http://db.oregonsd.org/ga/password/passchange.php

PowerSchool links removed

The links to PowerSchool on the various district web pages have been replaced with links to Infinite Campus. If you still need to access PowerSchool, you can do so by typing in the appropriate URL listed below.

PowerSchool for Office Staff: http://ps.oregonsd.org/admin/
PowerTeacher: http://ps.oregonsd.org/teachers/

Email Maintenance, Tues. Aug 2nd, 7pm-9pm

Access to email via Google Mail will be interrupted starting at 7pm on Tuesday August 2nd. This maintenance only affects the ability to "login" to email, not the email itself. In other words, email will still be delivered during this maintenance and will be waiting for you the next time you log in.

In addition to email, other web-based services which rely on your OSD username and password will also be unavailable. This includes all Google Apps, Moodle, helpdesk, etc.

You may be able to continue to use email during this period by logging in before 7pm and preventing your session from expiring. Devices linked to Google services such as Smartphones and Blackberries should continue to function normally as well. I am hopeful the maintenance will only last about 20 minutes, but have reserved the entire block (7pm-9pm) in case it is needed.

Possible email disruption

Google is reporting a small email disruption this morning.

We're experiencing an issue affecting less than 0.01% of the Google Mail user base. The affected users are unable to access Google Mail. We will provide an update by July 27, 2011 9:20:00 AM UTC-5 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

Given the small percentage affected, it's unlikely it affects any OSD accounts, but if you are affected, you can check the status at http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en

Phantom voicemails

Update: This has been resolved as of Monday, July 26.

Many, if not all, phones have a blinking voicemail message indicator light, even when there are no messages waiting. We are aware of this issue, and are working with our support vendor to fix the issue. Sorry for the annoying blinking.

Internet and voicemail back to normal (almost)

Normal Internet access was restored at 4:30 PM after a server upgrade.

Voicemail service began working around 2:00 PM, so you can now check voicemail the same way you always have. However, not all voicemail prompts have been re-recorded, so callers will not have the normal navigation prompts until some time tomorrow (Friday).

On the upside, voicemail greetings and names were successfully migrated, so you need not re-record them.

Internet access interruption 7/21, 3:30 - 4:30

The district's connection to the Internet will be interrupted sporadically between 3:30 - 4:30 today while we perform server upgrades. No action is needed on your part.
Sorry for any inconvenience.

PowerSchool "frozen"

Data is being sent up to Infinite Campus, so no changes should be made to PowerSchool except for building schedules. Most user groups have been set to read-only access to PowerSchool to prevent changes from being made. If you think you need to make a change to PowerSchool, please contact the IT office.

Voicemail will be down July 21

[Repost to reflect the new date.]

Remember the good old days, when you would dial - and I mean actually dial, not push buttons - the phone to call a friend, and let it ring seven or so times before hanging up? No answering machine, no voicemail, just the steady, indefinite ringing from the other end to let you know that you couldn't reach your friend at that precise instant. Perhaps they weren't home (that's the only place phones were back then), or maybe they just didn't feel like answering the phone at that time. I mean, it could have been anybody calling them (there was no Caller ID). Perhaps they were just relaxing comfortably and said to themselves, "If it's important, they'll call back later."

Well, get ready to relive those placid days of yesteryear while the district's voicemail system is down on July 21.

To get ready, you should check all your voicemail messages late on July 20, in case they get deleted during the transition (which is quite likely).

On July 21, phones will ring, but if nobody is there to pick them up, they will be forwarded to the District Services Office reception desk, where operators will be standing by to take messages. Callers will be given the option to call back the next day, or to leave a message. If the caller chooses to leave a message, the operator will write down the message on vintage message slip (pictured at right) and send it to you via interoffice mail.

If all goes well, July 22 will herald a new era of voicemail, complete with web-based controls and voicemails emailed to you as attachments, so that we can all resume our frenzied, always connected, über-busy lifestyles.

But at least on July 21, we can pause to remember what it was like, not so long ago, when we could actually let the phone ring, knowing that "if it's really important, they'll call back."

PowerSchool rollover complete

Katie and Lynn fixed our problems and the PowerSchool rollover is complete. Don't change stuff, but if you are making a schedule, go ahead and work on that.

IE Favorites not accessible

Many people report not having access to their Internet Explorer favorites after the migration to the new SAN. For some reason, the permissions on the Favorites folder was set to allow access only by each individual owner. This prevented proper copying of the folder to the new home directory location. It should be resolved in the next day or two by re-copying the folders after mass-changing permissions.

Firefox users are not affected.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Excel and Word file saving locations

We discovered an issue with Word and Excel that is related to the migration to the new SAN. It was resolved at 11:30 AM today.

The issue is caused by Word and Excel having a default Save location which is specified as \\osd-home1\staff\, which is the location mapped to the H: drive for staff. The new location of the H: drive, on the new SAN,  is \\osdna1-a\home\staff\.

The result is that if you opened something this morning in Word or Excel, made changes, then saved, Word or Excel saved your changes on the old SAN unless you intentionally saved it to the new H: drive (and why would you?) So when you try to open the revised file, it seems to be unchanged.

Fear not- the changed file is still there. To access the file, open Windows Explorer and type \\osd-home1\staff in the address bar and press Enter. Then browse to the directory in which you saved the file. You can drag the file to your new H: drive (at \\osdna1-a\home\staff) or open the, select Save As..., and navigate to the H: drive.

Word and Excel were fixed at 11:30 AM, and the group policy settings were pushed out at 12:20 PM, so it should work correctly now. If you have problems, please reboot your computer first to see if it is fixed, then try to find the files using the workaround described above.

Home folder migration complete

The migration of home folders and shared folders to the new server is complete, and the drive mappings were changed on Monday, July 4. When logging in on Tuesday (or Monday evening for that matter), your drive mappings point to the new location. Hopefully you didn't notice anything different.

The migration of user profiles to the new SAN will occur in the near future, and will happen overnight. We'll give you a heads up so that you can be sure to log out before it happens, to make sure that everything copies over correctly.

Voicemail will be down July 13

Remember the good old days, when you would dial - and I mean actually dial, not push buttons - the phone to call a friend, and let it ring seven or so times before hanging up? No answering machine, no voicemail, just the steady, indefinite ringing from the other end to let you know that you couldn't reach your friend at that precise instant. Perhaps they weren't home (that's the only place phones were back then), or maybe they just didn't feel like answering the phone at that time. I mean, it could have been anybody calling them (there was no Caller ID). Perhaps they were just relaxing comfortably and said to themselves, "If it's important, they'll call back later."

Well, get ready to relive those placid days of yesteryear while the district's voicemail system is down on July 13.

To get ready, you should check all your voicemail messages late on July 12, in case they get deleted during the transition (which is quite likely).

On July 13, phones will ring, but if nobody is there to pick them up, they will be forwarded to the District Services Office reception desk, where operators will be standing by to take messages. Callers will be given the option to call back the next day, or to leave a message. If the caller chooses to leave a message, the operator will write down the message on vintage message slip (pictured at right) and send it to you via interoffice mail.

If all goes well, July 14 will herald a new era of voicemail, complete with web-based controls and voicemails emailed to you as attachments, so that we can all resume our frenzied, always connected, über-busy lifestyles.

But at least on July 13, we can pause to remember what it was like, not so long ago, when we could actually let the phone ring, knowing that "if it's really important, they'll call back."

Adobe Acrobat Reader issue and fix

After a rash of calls today about Adobe Reader, it looks as if there was an update released overnight that is hampering our system. Here's how to fix it:

If you cannot open a pdf file or get an error that says something about "the current adobe reader cannot open pdfs in your browser...",

1. Close all browser windows and tabs. (Internet Explorer and Firefox)
2. Go to the Start button, then All Programs (Windows 7) or Programs (Windows XP) then find Adobe reader 9 and open it.
3. Wait for it to finish installing itself, then you can go back to your preferred browser and function again as expected.
3A. you can close reader if you want either before or after starting a browser again

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Voicemail issues

During regularly scheduled voicemail system maintenance last night, the system failed to reboot properly. So, if you were trying to access your voicemail between 10 PM and 2 AM, you were not able to. Also, you should really consider some sleep remedies.

Many thanks to Tim "Night Owl" D'Antoni and our friends at ESG and Mountain Dew for getting the system running again. After the system came back up, it reverted back to Dec. 8, 2000. So, some voicemail messages left this morning incorrectly say they are over a decade old.

Sorry for the confusion.

Safe URL shorteners

This is an announcement from Lightspeed about two new URL shorteners that are safe, and will therefore not be blocked by the content and security system on our campus network.

In late 2009 Lightspeed Systems noted an increase in the misuse of URL shortening/redirect services (e.g. Tinyurl.com, bit.ly, cli.gs). These are services that take lengthy URLs - often with descriptive attributes embedded by web developers - and make the associated pages available through a shortened web address.
Unfortunately, these services create a couple of problems for school networks. First, they make it possible for users to access proxy servers and circumvent the filter and your policies. Second, these links are used by spammers to hide the true destinations of links in their messages. As a result, Lightspeed Systems changed the category for these sites to the normally blocked Security.proxy category.
Of course, we recognize that there are several reasons that URL shortening can be useful, so we are providing an alternative that schools can use safely: lsurl.me and mbcurl.me. To remain CIPA compliant, we check all submitted URLs against our database and will not shorten URLs that are in our porn or security categories.
Also our shortener works as a re-director, not a proxy, so all shortened URLs are redirected to the requested site and will fall prey to any applicable content filtering policies.
Review "URL Shortener Redirects" on the Lightspeed Wiki to ensure lsurl.me and mbcurl.me are in an allowed category - and that all other URL shortening websites are in a custom-blocked category that redirects access attempts to either lsurl.me or mbcurl.me.

Desktop computers to shut down automatically at 6:00 PM

To save electricity, money, and the environment, all desktop computers will shut down automatically at 6:00 PM. Laptop computers will not be affected.

As a general rule, please remember to shut off all electronics when you are done using them. The 6 PM shutoff is just to catch any desktops that were accidentally left on.

If you happen to be working on a desktop at 6:00 PM, you'll get a nice message telling you that it's planning to shut down, but you can keep working if you want.

Multiple Sign In for Google Accounts

If you have a personal Google account, you may notice that you are unable to sign in to both your personal account and your Google Apps account in the same web browser simultaneously. This has some people asking if the accounts are somehow merged or something.

Rest assured, your accounts are still separate. In fact, Google is protecting that separation by keeping you from logging in to both accounts at once. I think they do this so that there is no confusion about which account you are using, so that you don't accidentally share data from one account to the other.

However, you can change your preferences to allow you to be logged in to both accounts simultaneously. This is called Multiple Sign In. Instructions for enabling Multiple Sign In are available at http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=181599

Alternatively, you can sign in to your Google Apps account in one browser (e.g. Firefox) and your personal Google account in another browser (e.g. IE, Chrome).

Hopefully that helps. Sorry for the confusion.

Google Apps Sign In

Depending on how you log in to Google Apps, you may encounter a generic login page. If you are trying to access your own personal (not OSD) Google account, you should enter your personal email address and password. To access your OSD Google Apps account, you need to enter your full OSD email address (as illustrated below), not just your initials.

This lets Google know that you are trying to log in to the Oregon Google Apps domain, and it will take you to the OSD Google Apps Login page, shown below, where you can login normally with your initials and password.

Transitioning all staff accounts to new Google Apps infrastructure

In the next couple days, all staff will have their Google Apps accounts upgraded to the new Google Apps infrastructure. This will provide you with access to many more Google Apps, such as Blogger, Picasa, and Google Voice, through your OregonSD.net account.

A few people have conflicts, which means that your "@oregonsd.net" email address is linked to a personal Google account that is not part of the oregonsd.net domain. When you log in to the personal account that has the conflict, you will be prompted to choose a new email address to associate with that account. Other than that, you don't need to do anything, and all your data associated with your personal account will remain there.

You can view more information about conflicting accounts here.

Color laser printer upgrade Friday 3/11

This Friday, March 11, Gordon Flesch will be delivering new color laser printers to replace the ones below. We will create new print queues for the new printers, and those will probably need to be added by staff in order to use the new printers. We'll try to make it as painless as possible and communicate any changes you or other users need to make.

There will be an interruption in printing to these devices during the transition. We chose a non-school day to minimize disruption, but if you are planning to use one of these printers on Friday, you should be prepared to make other plans until we get it running.

Locations

NKE IMC

OMS Rm 173

BKE IMC

NKE rm 1317

RCI D122

OHS rm 341

OHS rm 161

Outage debrief 2011-03-02

All systems are now operating normally.

At approximately 8:25 AM, our SAN encountered a "Fibre Subsystem Link Failure" which caused all volumes to go offline. Some users at all schools reporting inability to log in, applications quitting unexpectedly, applications not available, Internet not accessible, and general disruption.

Why this did not occur for all users probably has to do with the servers to which each user was authenticated at the time, and the stored location of the file(s) in use.

The cause of the Fibre Subsystem Link Failure was likely a power fluctuation or power failure. However, this should not occur since it has dual redundant power supplies connected to separate battery backup power supply units.

A service company was contacted immediately, and is researching the problem to identify measures we can take to prevent it from happening again.

We apologize for the disruption this caused to our core mission of educating students. Thank you for your patience and flexibility.

Wireless network interruption 2/24/2011 11:30 AM - noon

All wireless networks in the district will be down for approximately thirty minutes tomorrow, beginning at 11:30 AM, so that we can upgrade and expand our wireless control systems. We are bringing in outside consultants as part of a multi-day project and this is the latest we could do it and still be done in time for Monday. There will be some sporadic outages on Friday as we physically replace some access points, mainly at OHS and OMS, but none systemwide.

Why we use network-based security devices

This article is a good example of why we use a network-based security scanner.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/15/bbc_driveby_download/

Basically, users who simply visit a legitimate website (BBC) could be infected by malware, even if their computers have anti-virus installed. Only nine of the top forty-three anti-virus programs found the malware.  This is why we use not only desktop anti-virus, but also a network security scanner. The network security device is updated continuously, so when such vulnerabilities are detected, they can be blocked, even if they are on a legitimate website.

We are also piloting the use of a "Secure Web Gateway" network appliance to scan all traffic in real time, which would provide another layer of protection.

Login server back online, at least for now

The server that processes logins and hosts the Navigator Page seems to be stable, at least for now. (Last time I sent out this good news, it was very short-lived, so cross your fingers.) We have a plan for researching this issue and making long-term fixes depending on the root cause*.

Please note that whenever we encounter problems that prevent people from accessing email, we post updates to the tech blog at http://osdtech.blogspot.com/ That might be an address worth bookmarking.

Many thanks to Chris Brown for his work restoring services and doing detective work on this issue. We'd still be down if it weren't for his expertise.

Thank you all for your patience.

New Navigator Page

There is a new OSD Navigator Page at http://www.oregon.k12.wi.us/nav/

Some of the services will still not work because they rely on LDAP logins, which are processed by the same server that is down. We are working on fixing this, but it's really messy.

Navigator page is up and down- here are some links you need.

Update: Aaaand, it's down again. (08:20). Apparently we haven't figured out the root cause yet. See below for links you may need. Note that some of these services rely on the same server that is having problems, so they may not work even though you have the link.

###
Update: The OSD Navigator page is working again (08:07 AM).

###

Here are the links it normally contains. (It's being updated on the fly, so check back soon if what you need isn't available yet).

PowerSchool for Teachers- http://ps.oregonsd.org/teachers/
PowerSchool for office staff- http://ps.oregonsd.org/admin/

Moodle- http://moodle.oregonsd.net

Skyward self-service- https://skywardea-win.iscorp.com/cgi-bin10/cgiip.exe/WService=wsermaoregonwi/seplog01.w

Staff mail- http://mail.oregonsd.net
Student mail- http://mail.students.oregonsd.net

Aesop online substitute system http://www.aesopeducation.com/

Google Apps logins restored

Update:
Regular (LDAP) login to Google Apps has been restored as of 3:30 PM. It was the result of a combination of a permissions error and a change made by the IT department. Sorry about that.

###

Many users are unable to log in to Google Apps. This seems to be caused by an issue with the link between Google and our LDAP server. We are working on fixing the problem.

You can still access email using an IMAP connection, such as with a smart phone.

New Google Apps login page coming

Coming soon to a website near you!
The old Google Apps login page for OSD is going away, to be replaced with one that looks cleaner and is easier to use on a mobile device.

Old:

New!

Zenworks Application Server fixed

Software launched from the Zenworks Application window should work correctly today. A server configuration issue was fixed late yesterday (Wednesday). If you have had problems with any software loading incorrectly of failing to load at all, please try it again today and see if it works.

SchoolWorld public website scheduled outage

SchoolWorld will be performing server maintenance on Saturday, January 15, 2011 from 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM ET. This affects the www.OregonSD.org public website. While there will not be a complete outage during the maintenance window, connectivity will be sporadic during the required server reboots. We appreciate your understanding.

Google Calendar issues

We have received multiple reports of issues loading some (but not all) Google calendars. The problem appears to be intermittent and affecting seemingly random calendars. We're pursuing this with Google tech support.

Slow Internet today

UPDATE:
Internet is now back to full speed. If the Internet seems slow now, let us know, because it's not the bandwidth anymore.

===
If the Internet seems slow to you today, it's because it is. Our main Internet connection went down yesterday (Tuesday, 1/4, around 1:15 PM). Fortunately, we installed a backup connection over Thanksgiving and configured it for automatic failover in case something like this should happen.

The primary and secondary connections work together to provide a combined total of 75 Mbps of bandwidth. When one goes down, the total bandwidth is reduced. The result is that right now we are running on 45 Mbps of bandwidth instead of 75, so your Internet access might seem slow.

(What's crazy is that five years ago, we had only 3 Mbps of bandwidth.)

We've been working with Charter to get the main connection working again. Thanks for your patience.