Susie's Tech Tips #3: Home WiFi Tips

As we continue to work remotely from our personal devices and technologies, it is important that we remember that the WiFi we are accustomed to having access to at the college is not the same as at home. 

ITS would like to offer some tips that might be helpful in getting the most out of your personal internet connection! 

1. Consider if your internet is really the issue. The issue might actually be the device you are using. A good way to test this is to restart the device you are using, and see if you are able to better connect to your internet. Sometimes all it needs is a restart. 

2. Determine the speed of your internet by running a speed test. This is easy and can be done by getting whatever device you are using as close to your router as possible. Next, turn the WiFi on your device off and then back on again. Once that is done go to speedtest.net, and there you can run a very quick test. For sufficient WiFi your speed should have at least 10 mbps download and 5mbps upload for watching videos and video conferencing. 

3. Make your WiFi more accessible. Wifi can be thought of similarly to music coming out of a speaker. The closer you are to it the more clearly you can hear it. You should consider moving your router. Sometimes the shape of your home can create a barrier for your wifi, and moving it to a more central location in your home, or closer to where you are working could help alleviate some of your connection issues. 

4. "Have you tried turning it off and then back on again?" A timeless question, that although seems trivial, holds quite a bit of power. Resetting your router and leaving it off for 15-30 seconds  can be a very helpful and successful troubleshooting tool for connectivity issues. 

5. Get the most out of your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Ask about upgrading your service, or updating your modem. Additionally you might want to consider doing some research and seeing what the BEST ISP in your area is, and switching to that ISP if you are not already using them. 

6. Preserve and persevere! If you have done everything you possibly can and are currently working on the fastest WiFi that you are able to receive, then you must preserve the bandwidth that you have. This means that you have to do things such as turning off anything that uses a lot of data, like iCloud or Dropbox, turning off your camera when video chatting, or using your phone as a personal hotspot and tethering it to your computer. 

To find out more about these tips and others like them please reference this article. 

If you have a moment, it would be greatly appreciated if you could fill out this form to provide feedback or ask questions about this tip!

COMPLETE: Horan Hall - Brief Network Outage 4/30 - 10am

UPDATE: As of 10:30am, this generator test has been completed.

Physical Plant will be conducting a generator test in Horan Hall on Thursday, April 30th at approximately 10am.

There will be two brief outages, one while switching to generator power, the other while switching back to main power. Both wired and wireless will be affected during this generator test.

This will not affect the rest of campus.

If you have any questions, please contact ITS at its@manhattan.edu. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Friendly Reminder: 4 Brand New Google Meet Features

This is a friendly reminder that Google is rolling out 4 new top requested features. These new features will help ensure that your future Google Meets run seamlessly and effortlessly.  You will be able to focus more on your meeting now! 

1. Tiled layouts for larger calls. You can now see 10+ people in a tiled view during your meetings.

2. Present higher-quality video content with audio. This means that you will now be able to more successfully show a video with audio while you are presenting to a meeting. This can be done by now selecting "present a Chrome tab" when sharing your screen. 

3. Low light mode. Google Meet can now auto adjust your video to make you more visible when you are in sub-optimal lighting conditions. This is currently being rolled out for smart phone users but will become available to web users in the future. 

4. Noise cancellation. Meet can now filter out some background noises such as the dog barking or the sound of someone typing while you are in the meeting. 

These features will be rolled out within the next couple of weeks, with some users possibly already having access to them. For more information on these features and their timelines,  please visit this link. 

Friendly Reminder To Back Up Your Data

With the convenience of the cloud and apps like Google Drive, it’s pretty easy to forget to back up your data. This is just a friendly reminder to do so!

Data on Google Drive:

Make sure that you have all of your data backed up either on your hard drive, a storage device, or a separate cloud storage service.

File Streaming:

If you are using Drive File Stream, it is very important that you are regularly checking drive.google.com to make sure that your data is syncing/saving properly. 

Once you’re logged into your google drive via web browser make sure that any files you worked on using drive file stream are present and up to date. You can access your drive via file stream or web browser on any device. 

Losing data can be incredibly stressful, but it is preventable! Here are some previously shared tips: 

• Your critical data should never reside in a single place.
• The ideal backup strategy will typically include both an online backup service (Google Drive) to ensure your data is secure no matter what happens to your mobile device or computer.
• Running consistent, automatic backups is a straightforward process that will take a little time to set up and will require even less to maintain.
• Backups can be configured to run in real time when files on your computer are changed.
• Routinely test your backup solution to ensure you can recover your data in the event that you do actually need to restore from a backup.

If you have any questions or concerns about this please reference our knowledge base articles or contact the ITS Help Desk for further assistance! 

Information partially taken from: https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2017/9/september-2018-do-you-have-a-personal-backup-plan

Moodle Outage

Update 11:00AM 4/28/20:

Moodle is fully operational.

Update 10:31AM 4/28/20: 

ITS is still investigating.  Moodle seems to be back up and fully functional.  If you are still experiencing issues, submit a ticket.  We will update again when we have confirmed the system is completely up and running.

Original Alert 10:22AM 4/28/20:

ITS is currently investigating an issue with Moodle.  Currently no one is able to access Moodle.  We will update you when we have more information.

2 New Student Employment Opportunities!!

The Technology Training Team of ITS is hiring and looking to hire at least 2 new student employees.

The positions are for that of a Technical Writer (Work Study) and Video Specialist (Work Study)!! They are both 20 hrs/week and can be done remotely!! The start date is ASAP!!

• The Technical Writer is responsible for helping the Technology Trainer create documentation and training for various technologies, softwares, programs, devices, and equipment, etc. This position will also aid in monitoring the colleges first ever chatbot and its transcripts, weekly.   

• The Video Specialist is responsible for helping the Technology Trainer create video tutorials and trainings for various technologies, softwares, programs, devices, and equipment, etc. 

Both of these positions are listed on the Student Employment website. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone at Manhattan College who is eligible to apply or advertise. Thank you! 

4 Brand New Top Requested Features In Google Meet!

Google is rolling out 4 new top requested features. These new features will help ensure that your future Google Meets run seamlessly and effortlessly.  You will be able to focus more on your meeting now! 

1. Tiled layouts for larger calls. You can now see 10+ people in a tiled view during your meetings.

2. Present higher-quality video content with audio. This means that you will now be able to more successfully show a video with audio while you are presenting to a meeting. This can be done by now selecting "present a Chrome tab" when sharing your screen. 

3. Low light mode. Google Meet can now auto adjust your video to make you more visible when you are in sub-optimal lighting conditions. This is currently being rolled out for smart phone users but will become available to web users in the future. 

4. Noise cancellation. Meet can now filter out some background noises such as the dog barking or the sound of someone typing while you are in the meeting. 

These features will be rolled out within the next couple of weeks, with some users possibly already having access to them. For more information on these features and their timelines,  please visit this link.