- Should we be keeping the new laptops cool with fans (special devices for cooling placed underneath laptop)? MacBooks do not vent from the bottom, so cooling pads will have a minimal effect. Will the school be providing cooling suggestions and instruction? We will post best practices as they become available.
- Are the materials we have created on PC transferable to MACS? Are the PC materials usable in a MAC environment? Materials created with Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. on the PC are all compatible with the Macs.
- What is the status of students K drive usage from home? Is it the same? Yes, it is the same. Has it improved? We are currently testing new way of accessing shared folders from home using a new feature of our firewall.
- Will we still be able to view student work on their K drives? Yes. To access student folders, use the "Go" menu, then "Connect to Folder", then type in "STUDENTS". This will show you all student drives. You can navigate down through the folders from there. You can also drag a folder to your Dock or to the Finder (left side) so that you have easy access later on.
- How do you annotate over a PowerPoint on a Promethean board? There is an icon in the bottom-left corner of the powerpoint when viewing the slides. Click on the "up arrow", then "pointer options", then "Pen". You can also change the pen color on the same menu.
- Why don't my Performance Tracker PDF reports print properly? Be sure that the PDF file is being viewed with Adobe Reader, and not the built-in Preview program. Try using the Safari Web browser for Performance Tracker - this seems to work better than Firefox for printing reports. Another solution suggested by Jared Sparks is this: Using Safari, proceed as normal for printing. After you open the new window up to print the document, select print. On the Printer Options, select ADVANCED and then check the box "print as image."
- I am having some difficulty with Prezi. Does it work on a Mac? Prezi does work on the Mac, there may be a browser issue if it is not working, possibly a missing plugin. More to come on this issue.
- Groupwise freezes sometimes, and is sometimes slow. There is a newer version of the Mac Groupwise client with many bug fixes. Please contact your building tech to schedule a time to have it upgraded.
- Do the new MacBooks come with an external mouse? They do not come with a mouse, but any USB mouse will work. Simply plug it in to one of the USB ports on the left side of the laptop.
- When I try to resave a document on my K: drive, it says that the document is read-only. The MacBooks have to be set up correctly for proper saving of files (with permissions) to the K: drive. The teacher-issued MacBooks have been configured to use LDAP to bind to the Novell servers correctly. If you are using another Mac, this problem will occur. LDAP configuration can be set up on other Macs on an as-needed basis (since it is not a simple process).
- When will I be able to use the eSchool "Staff" (admin) Web application on the Mac? We have continued to notify both Berks County Intermediate Unit and SunGard Public Sector of this problem. There are no immediate work-arounds for Firefox, Safari or Chrome.
- How do I connect to another shared folder other than my K: drive? To connect to another shared folder other than one that you already have connected, go to the "Go" menu, then "Connect to Server". Under "Server Address", type "afp://LYNX" and hit the "Connect" button. You will be asked for your Novell login and password, and you will then be presented with a list of server volumes to access. The volume "USRDATA1" is where most student and staff accounts reside. The volume LABS is where many other shared folders reside (homework dropboxes, etc). When you have found the folder that you are looking for, you can drag the folder to your Dock or to the Finder (left side) so that you have easy access later on.
- What version of Microsoft Office is on the current teacher laptops? The current laptops have Microsoft Office 2008.
- What version of Microsoft Office will next year's laptops have on them? We are looking into this right now.
- Are there any options for shared folders besides the K: Drive? There are 3rd-party applications, some of them free, that can be used to share documents from anywhere, on many different devices. The one that we recommend is DropBox. To sign up, download and install DropBox, you can click HERE. By clicking on the link on this page, you will get 250Mb of extra storage.
- How large is the hard drive on the new laptops? Will it have room to do multimedia? It is 250Gbytes, which will be plenty of space for multimedia work.
- How can I read a DVD into iMovie so that it can be edited? Click here for a DVD Editing Tutorial
- Can I automatically open a Web page when I log in to the Mac? Click here for see how.
