Fife Schools Technology

We have an interactive district map on our website. It has the locations of all of our schools as well as driving directions and the district boundary. Check it out at http://www.fifeschools.com/district/maps/index.html .

Our district was hit with another email virus barrage this morning. Fortunately, most were stopped by our filters. Unfornuately, a couple of emails got through and one of our computers managed to become infected. The virus was contained in an attachment and the computer became infected when the attachment was opened.

The thing about email viruses now a days is that they usually don’t infect unless the recipient does something with the email (other than just to delete it). But sometimes it can be hard to distinguish a legitimate email from a fake. In today’s example, the email posed as a UPS package tracking notification.

So what are some ways to distinguish a legitiamte email from a fake? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Are you expecting this email?
• Does the email ask you to open an attachment or click a link?
• Are there any unprofessional elements in the email such as spelling or grammar problems that an email from a legitimate company would not have?
• Is the email trying to grab your attention and create a sense of urgency?
• Is the email sufficiently vague that it could apply to anyone reading it?
• Is the sending email address not from the official company email address?

If you have any doubt whatsoever, it is best to delete the email and contact the company through legitimate channels. So, in the case of today’s UPS virus email, it would be best to delete the email and then visit the UPS website and enter a tracking number there rather than open an attachment or click a link in the email.

John Garrett, technology teacher at SLMS, sent this interesting site out to his staff. I thought it was worth passing on.

http://www.wordle.net/

Wordle allows you to make “Word Clouds” with different design configurations. It would be interesting to see how teachers might use this in designing work for students.

Here’s one I quickly threw together:

    After posting about ZIP software earlier today, I realized there are those who may not know anything about ZIP files. Here’s a quick explanation.

A ZIP file is a single file that can contain one or more regular computer files. It is usually smaller because the software that creates the ZIP file removes the wasted space in regular files. This process is called file compression.

The two biggest benefits to using ZIP files is that they are smaller (as already stated) and they can make it easier to handle a group of related files. For example, if you wanted to email a folder with several Word documents, it may be simpler to ZIP the whole folder into one file and then email the single ZIP file.

The biggest disadvantages to zipping files is that you can’t use them while zipped and it takes a little work to create and extract the zipped files.

We’re asked about ZIP files from time to time… specifically how to open them. There is special software to manage ZIP files (and other compressed files) but do you need something special? Nope.

Windows has built-in ability to create and open ZIP files.

To create a ZIP, right-click on the file(s) or folder you want to convert to a ZIP and choose “Send To” > “Compressed (zipped) Folder”. This will create a new folder that has a little zipper on the folder icon.

To open a ZIP, right-click on the zipped folder and choose “Extract All…” . That will take you through a wizard, allowing you to choose where to save the extracted folder.

Not sure what a ZIP file is? Check out my next post. I give a brief explanation.

Some nefarious types are capitalizing on the election news and have created an email posing as an interview with Barack Obama. It contains links to a virus. It is new enough that anti-virus software is not picking it up. We are doing our best to configure the filter to stop it but just in case, please be cautious.

As always, never open suspicious emails or click on links in emails unless you are confident they are legitimate.

For more info, visit the websense description: http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Alerts/3229.aspx 

Let us know if you have questions.

I need to be very clear that it isn’t our job to promote any particular company over another. We are not an advertising outlet for anyone. But once in a while, we receive info from a company regarding special discounts for staff and/or students. This is one such case.

Dell is offering educational discounts to Fife staff members and students. If you are considering purchasing a Dell and would like more info, you can call 1.800.695.8133 or visit www.dell.com/eppbuy. You can also contact me at kjohnson@fife.k12.wa.us and I can send you an email with more info.

Here is a phone tip for staff using district phones. If something doesn’t seem right about your phone such as calls going straight to your voicemail without ringing, give this a try:

Press the pound key four times (i.e. ####). That will reset your phone to the default settings.

Sometimes a phone may accidentally be set to the ”do not disturb” or “forward” settings and you may not know it. Pressing the pound key four times is an easy potential fix before asking for more help.

Today we had a phone and network outage at Hedden. Phones, email, and Internet access were down and unfortunately it took longer than expected to bring services back.

What happened?

Qwest is currently having a contractor bury fiber optic cable along 8th Avenue to connect Hedden (along with others in that area). Due to the unfinished construction and the wet weather, it appears some existing circuits got wet and “shorted out”. Once Qwest isolated the problem, they were able to repair the connection.

We were able to use our new phone messaging system, SchoolMessenger, to notify all Hedden families about the problem in case parents needed to reach the school by phone. It’s a great system!

We apologize for anyone inconvenienced by this outage.  A big thank you to the Hedden staff for being good sports.

I’ll be talking more about our fiber optic installation in an upcoming post.