Category Archives: ITC

Some of you have taught at our Lincoln campus and have discovered that several of the classrooms only have flat screen HDTVs. When you show your 4:3 ratio PowerPoint presentations, the graphics and text will be squashed in height and stretched in width. To prevent this from happening to you, go to File in the Menu Bar and choose page setup; Change the size of the slides to be 8 inches wide and 4.5 inches high. On the Seward campus, you would use this same size if you were to show your presentation on one or both of the flat screen HDTVs in the Hall of Fame room in the arena. When our current CUNE laptops are replaced, they will have a wide LCD screen, so this is a useful template for the future.

Do not let this happen to you.

During the colder months, it’s important to keep in mind that cold objects entering a warm, moist environment (like your home or workplace) will become damp with condensation. As liquid exposure of any type can void your warranty and result in costly repair,  it’s vital that you keep your electronic gear safe.
If at all possible, do not keep your notebook, or other electronic gear in the car overnight in the cold. If you find yourself with a moisture-covered device, the first thing to do is turn it off and remove the battery.
Legendary data recovery firm, Drive Savers, notes that this exposure to hard drives is particularly serious: “Cold weather can wreak havoc on temperature-sensitive hard drives used in computers, game consoles, MP3 players and video recorders. Condensation buildup on the drive platters and frozen components can lead to drive failure and data loss. So if you check out AV equipment from ITC please do not leave them in the car but bring them into the house.

The question above is probably the most frequent support request that I get as the ITC coordinator. One of the following troubleshooting tips normally helps in solving the problem:

1. use the remote to make sure that the computer input has been selected. Several profs use the video projectors to display the DVD player so the input selection may still be set to video.

2.  press the Fn and F8 keys to toggle where both screens are visible (picture of a laptop and monitor together).

3. If you booted up your laptop without the projector connected or powered on, then the VGA port on your laptop may have been disabled. The best way to enable the port  is to restart your laptop while the video projector is on and has been connected to the VGA cable.

4. One of the pins in the VGA connector has been bent. Both students or profs can damage the connector if they hurriedly connect the cable without lining it up properly so the pins can be inserted with little effort. General rule is that if the connection does not fit easily, then double check the alignment.

One method that many people try which will not help at all is to restart the video projector – that will not force a reconnection. That is why it is best when you restart your laptop.

Three Smart Boards are now installed with their own projectors in Thom Education Learning Center classrooms: 005, 102, and 201. The Smart Board software needs to be installed on your laptop for you to use the system. Bernie Tonjes and Andy Schultz have used the Smart Board the longest here at CUNE but other professors are now planning on implementing it into their instruction.  During finals week, John Snow tested out his laptop in using various programs for his statistics class during spring semester. Andy Schultz and Jeff Blersch have also used their new wide screen Smart Board in the Music computer lab. Pete Prochnow is also planning on installing one in the distance learning music studio/classroom which is located in the remodeled faculty lounge. If you are interested in installing the software, please contact Dave Werner at ITC. You will need to have localadmin rights for your laptop.