Saturday, April 18, 2009

Preparing for MLA

Wednesday we're off to Kalispell for a fun conference. So that means a little preparation here, to make sure things run smoothtly in Computer Services while Lois and I are gone - something I'm not as confident about as I used to be, given the current circumstances.

There still is no explanation for why Internet Explorer on some computers just won't open a web page, but Firefox will. Why it will stop working, if it worked earlier. Our City IT department (the whole crew - we felt so special!) spend a morning last week looking at this. I was relieved that they could at least see there was a problem, even though they haven't come up with a solution. They've recommended a few things to clean up the machines (checking Scheduled Tasks, deleting ALL the temp files, defragging) as a start. Those probably are useful, but haven't fixed things.

IT is also very close to having an imaging program that should be able to return everything to an original state each night - something we've wanted to have but haven't had the time to do. I know there are options for this out there, but having the City work on it is helpful - that way they know what's going on with our computers.

There are so many factors involved: each machine, the CybraryN software, the City's network, the connection to the Montana Shared Catalog - any or all of these can cause a problem, and sometimes they do! So it's very difficult to pinpoint an exact reason.

I keep telling myself that's what makes life interesting....

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Back to Work

Vacations and conferences are fun, but now it's back to work (until the next conference, MLA in Kalispell in 2 weeks!).

There were a few glitches while I was gone, but hopefully I'll be able to fix those in the morning. People managed very well, in spite of the little problems. They are a resourceful bunch!

More staff are working on the Web 2.0 course now, too. Some of the newer staff are moving right along.