Tips for seniors - new for 2016!

Congratulations on being almost done with your high school career! As you prepare to graduate and move on to bigger and better things, the district IT department wants to make sure that you can take all your OSD data with you to college or work. Most student data is stored in Google Apps for Education in the oregonsd.net domain. If you have documents or files stored on the network server, you can copy them directly to Google Drive.

You can export your data directly from Google Drive (directions here), or perform an In-App Transfer. For example, you could move your documents, Gmail, calendar items, and websites from your @oregonsd.net account to your personal Gmail account, or to your new college or work account. 

You can also use a tool called Google Takeout to export all your Google data. You can save it for posterity, for when you are super famous in the future or whatever. Go to https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout to get started.

We (the OSD IT department) don't own these tools, so we really can't support them, but wanted to let you know they exist. Best wishes!

Google Drive unavailable

No, it's not just you. Google Drive is unavailable for many, if not all, users. I called Google and they are aware of the issue and are working to restore service. No ETA on a solution yet. My advice is to just check back occasionally, although we will let you know if we receive any updates.

Sorry for this happening, especially at this critical time of year.

Update from Google:
The problem with Google Drive should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.

June 4, 2014 9:29:00 AM PDT

Especially for seniors- How to take your Google Apps data with you

As this year's Senior class prepares to graduate and move on to bigger and better things, we want to make sure that they can take all their hard work with them to college or work. Most student data is stored in Google Apps for Education in the oregonsd.net domain. If you have documents or files stored on the network server, you can copy it directly to Google Drive.

Students can export their data directly from Google Drive (directions here), but there are also tools to automatically move all the contents of a Google Apps account to another Google account. For example, a student could move their documents, gmail, calendar items, and websites from student.sample@oregonsd.net  to a new personal account such as mynewaccount@gmail.com, or to their new university email address.

One tool to do this is Backupify's Migrator, available at https://www.backupify.com/free-tools/migrator-google-apps

Another is Google Takeout from the Data Liberation Front.

We (the OSD IT department) don't own these tools, so we really can't support them, but wanted to let you know they exist. Best wishes to the Seniors!

Especially for Graduates- How to Migrate All Your Google Apps data

As this year's Senior class prepares to graduate and move on to bigger and better things, we want to make sure that they can take all their hard work with them to college or work. Most student data is stored in Google Apps for Education in the students.oregonsd.net domain.

Students can export their data directly from Google Apps (directions here), but there are also tools to automatically move all the contents of a Google Apps account to another Google account. For example, a student could move their documents, gmail, calendar items, and websites from student.sample@students.oregonsd.net  to a new personal account such as mynewaccount@gmail.com, or to their new university email address.

One tool to do this is Backupify's Migrator, available at https://www.backupify.com/free-tools/migrator-google-apps

Another is Google Takeout from the Data Liberation Front.

We (the OSD IT department) don't own these tools, so we really can't support them, but wanted to let you know they exist. Best wishes to the Seniors!

Update: Google Apps is partially restored

Some portions of Google Apps have returned to service, but not necessarily for all users. Looks like things are gradually coming back online. Just keep trying to log in occasionally.
See www.google.com/appsstatus for Google's official status report.

Google Apps is down

Google Apps is down. Not just for us, but for everybody. In the world. Literally. We don't have an ETA for restoration yet. More updates now.

Update: Google Drive outage- it's global

I just got off the phone with Google support (yes, you can call Google for support, if you are a Google Apps for Enterprise or Google Apps for Education customer), and they confirmed that Google Drive is unavailable for everyone- even the Google support employees.

Until it's fixed, we will compulsively check the Google Apps Status dashboard (where Google officially posts status updates, and the popular IsItDownRightNow.com site.

Google Drive Service Disruption

Google Drive is experiencing problems. Trying to get to Google Drive results in a "502 Error."

502. That’s an error.
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds. That’s all we know.

Google is aware of this problem (it's affecting more than just OregonSD) and is working on a solution. You can track Google's status on the issue at http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=issue&ts=1363669199000&iid=281772ec1e2cb9c718aa0a46e0b6eb94

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.

New services coming to Google Apps!

Important changes are coming to your OSD (@oregonsd.net) Google Apps account. Your account will soon be converted and start working more like a full Google Account.

What this change will mean for you:

• Access to many more Google products. You'll soon be able to use many more Google services with your oregonsd.net account, such as Blogger, Picasa, Google Reader, and many more.
• New sign in option. You will be able to sign in to Google services from the regular sign-in pages (like http://mail.google.com). Your username is your full oregonsd.net email address.

Prepare yourself:

• For more information, we encourage you to review the Transition Checklist. The Help Center also has answers to many common questions (note that you won't be able to view the full Help Center until you've been transitioned).
• If you have other questions, please contact Jon (jst at oregonsd dot net) or the helpdesk.

We hope you enjoy your new improved Google Apps account!

Change to Google Image Search mess individual image filtering

On July 20, 2010, Google introduced a new method to more efficiently return image results and provide an enhanced user experience. However, the results no longer include an individual link for each image. As a result, we are no longer able to provide the policy option to block Google image thumbnails by category.

We are still able to enforce the SafeSearch options with all of Google's search functions including image searching.

We know that Google is making every attempt to only return appropriate images with SafeSearch enabled. In the event an image is improperly returned as a SafeSearch result, you can report this image to Google here (requires Google login):
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals?hl=en&pli=1

When you issue a new removal request, you'll be prompted to provide a reason. Conveniently, one of the options is, "Inappropriate content appears in our SafeSearch filtered results."
If you would like to read more about Google's Image searching enhancements, you can find the details on its official blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/ooh-ahh-google-images-presents-nicer.html

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me directly.
Sincerely,
Rob Chambers
robc@lightspeedsystems.com
Chief Technology Officer
Lightspeed Systems
661.716.7600

If you get meeting invitations that are an hour off....

If your Google Apps Calendar seems to get getting invitations that are the wrong time, it may be on the wrong time zone. Try re-setting your time zone.

To do this:

1. Get into Google Calendar
2. Click on Settings
3. In the Timezone section, click the drop-down menu and select the Central Time Zone that's at the bottom of the list. You have to do this even if it already says you are in the Central Time Zone because apparently there are two of them.

The way to check this is to look at your Google Calendar and see if there is a small red line on today's date that indicates the correct current time. If it's accurate, you're good to go. If it's an hour off, go select the other Central Time Zone.

Trial run of Google Calendars for Computer Lab Reservations

We are doing a trial run of using Google Calendars for Computer Lab Reservations.
After much persistence by Dan at Brooklyn, we created an online calendaring system to allow teachers to reserve the Brooklyn computer labs online.

Zach made a cool tutorial on how to use the system. You can view it here (staff login required).

Currently, this is available only in the elementary schools while we test it. If everything works well, we will expand it to the other schools.