Maintenance

I have a plan for moving the ASP media db that we use for logging the tapes, LPs and so forth that we store. I have this plan because I intend to bring the current host down and turn it in to an aquarium or something.
Here's the plan:
Run IIS on the editor's machine and restrict access via NTLM. To do this I need to edit a few ASP pages to point to the mdb file and set permission on the directory containing all the code to the windows user running the physical machine. IIS gets set up to use "Windows Authentication" for access. This will stop anyone but a local user (on the physical machine) from accessing the site; I have also put in a request to lock the machine down as tight as can be.

I have implemented the general plan in a VM and it seems to work well.

In Lab C CTV video links using IE seems to work OK on the TM and SMs. CTV videos using FF on the TM loads a player and will do an autoplay of the video, but does not display the player's buttons for control of the video.

Using Lab C's TM Sanako 300, I was surprised to see the Web browser button launch a browser with the HCMC home page only on the TM...I thought it could also launch a designated web-page to all student machines? The web Browser launch feature does this in the CST labs I believe. Maybe the feature I am looking for is elsewhere in the Sanako 300? Teachers like to launch a particular website to all student machines from their machine. How does one do that with the San 300? Eoin

As seen in Lab C during the numerous student machine seizures as described before. 1) Stations 7 & 10, although logged in, were not identified (seen/in contact with) by the teacher's Sanako: log-in name not shown, and Duo, although open on the student machine (SM), is not indicated on the teacher machine (TM). TM also did not have group control over these machines. TM also could not send files to the said SM's unless DUO was closed on the SM's and then TM re-launched the file. Sometimes relaunching the TM Sanako 300 fixes this prob, as can creating a separate new group for those problem machines. 2) Monitor at SM 4 has its display change for the worse from time to time. Image gets distorted (squashed into the centre of the screen)and the rest of the monitor looks black. Powering the monitor off & on will fix the problem...I noticed the monitor at 4 doing this before. 3) Sound at SM 8 using Tandberg Hphones seems to only come from the left side. I've tried other headsets that work on other machines with the same result. I have also fiddled with the Tandberg audio wiring with no improvement. Line out and Mic cables make static sounds when moved about. I think there is still an Out of Order sign on this machine as students dislike the sound coming only from one side. Eoin

A number of logged-in student machines in both labs with Duo having been launched froze after a period of not being in use. The freeze can be described as the mouse pointer not being move-able on the screen. CTL ALT DEL won't restart the machines in this case, just the restart button will. The activity at point of freezing in this case seems only to be that Sanako had been used, but not in use (play, etc) at point of freezing. In some few cases (but not all) I was aware that a minimized window for the ez virus was located at the bottom of the screen. I had never heard of such a number of machines, having been in use, freezing during a class before in these labs. Lab B had 8 machines freeze, and lab C 7, with 3 of them freezing a second time after a restart and re-sending of a media file. Perhaps newer machines will prevent some of these crashes. However, this type of extensive crash while using only Sanako seems to be a recent problem as far as I know. Eoin

Judy, Greg and I spent an hour going over the test booklet, CD, and AP Test functions. The basic functions below apply, but there are some things to be aware of. I'll post these in-line below where appropriate.

AP testing How-to

• 1) Choose AP Test under the Testing menu.
• 2) Place all participating machines in a group. If this is not done the machines NOT participating will cause the next step to fail.
• 3) Under the "Student ID" section of the UI press "Start" to make the system aware of the participating students.
• 4) Students then enter their AP ID number using the bookmark butons in the Sanako player.
• 5) When the students are done click on "Stop" under the "Student ID" section of the UI.
• 6) Press "Sample" under the "Student ID" section of the UI to test playback.
• 7) If students hear the file press "Record" and have the students speak a few words to test the recording functionality.
• 8) Press "Replay" to let students listen to their "dry run". If they hear their recording press "Record" again to stop the dry run.
• 9) Queue the CD to the desired track. Play the track for the students so they can hear the taped instructions and do the TWO practice runs (not to be recorded). The entire Instructions/Practice takes approximately 4.5 minutes. Pause the Master track if necessary so teachers can field questions.
• 10) Once instructed to "begin recording", press "Start" under the "Exam" section of the UI to begin the test. Check to make sure master track is still runing.
• 11) Pause student recording when instructed to "stop recording". Master track continues to run.
• 12) When instructed to "begin recording" again, unpause the student recording. Keep in mind that unpausing the student recording (for some reason) pauses the Master track. Hit "play" on the master track so students can hear the questions and record themselves.
• 13) When the test is over press collect and follow the onscreen instructions.

The successful build didn't work with the mariage webapp due to some missing libs. The error referred to TextGenerator. Some digging reveals that it (TextGenerator) relies on the chaperon block. After adjusting the build to include chaperon I ran it again.

When the build is run under Java 1.6 it fails with a reference to the database block [<block-compile dir="src/blocks/databases" package="org/apache/cocoon" name="databases"/>]; the build works under Java 1.5.

The failed 1.6 build fails with this error:
cocoon-block-databases-compile:
Created dir: /home/gregster/workspace/cocoon-src/cocoon-2.1.10/build/cocoon/blocks/databases/mocks
Compiling 6 source files to /home/gregster/workspace/cocoon-src/cocoon-2.1.10/build/cocoon/blocks/databases/mocks
Compiling 45 source files to /home/gregster/workspace/cocoon-src/cocoon-2.1.10/build/cocoon/blocks/databases/dest
/home/gregster/workspace/cocoon-src/cocoon-2.1.10/src/blocks/databases/java/org/apache/cocoon/databases/ibatis/ExcaliburDataSourceFactory.java:82: org.apache.cocoon.databases.ibatis.ExcaliburDataSourceFactory.DataSourceWrapper is not abstract and does not override abstract method isWrapperFor(java.lang.Class<?>) in java.sql.Wrapper
protected static final class DataSourceWrapper implements DataSource {

The error is the result of a jvm issue in the file src/blocks/databases/java/org/apache/cocoon/databases/ibatis/ExcaliburDataSourceFactory.java. The problem has been fixed in the development snapshot by adding the following lines to the .java file:

/**
* Required by JDK1.6.
*/
public Object unwrap(Class iface) throws SQLException {
return null;
}

/**
* Required by JDK1.6.
*/
public boolean isWrapperFor(Class iface) throws SQLException {
return false;
}

I added those lines and the build is successful under Java 1.6. Huzzah!

Now to try the mariage app.

I went through both labs and noted that there are only two monitors that are in dire need of replacement. This is odd because I have noticed on occasion that several monitors have colour or definition issues (but was unable to replace it during a class). We have also had reports of bad monitors which we were unable to follow up on (usually because the reporter didn't know which station they were reporting on). This is the third time that I've done this inspection in the last couple of months and can only conclude that there are certain conditions under which the monitors display these problems. I will continue to do inspections but I will need more precise problem reports to be able to respond effectively. I did find that Station 14 in Lab C has a graphics card problem which should be resolvable by replacing the card with one of my spares.