Information Technology
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AlertNow: It’s Calling To You
On Friday November 16th we completed our first full test of the AlertNow Emergency Notification System. Not long ago, emergency communications regarding events like weather-induced early dismissals were passed down the lane via phone chains, email blasts and sneaker networks. Fast forward to today: From one web-based screen, district administrators can launch tens of thousands…
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Barracuda, The Spam Eater
Each day, Penn Manor receives digital truckloads of spam email. How much you ask? In one 24-hour period this past weekend the district received 45980 incoming email messages. Of those, only 419 emails (about 1%) were legitimate.
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Three Neat Webmail Tricks
While Entourage and Outlook have their place, webmail is an awesome tool for checking your messages on-the-go. Based on some of the most frequently asked questions received by the tech team, here’s three tips for making webmail sing:
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A Comet for the Comets
Some of you might know that I’m an Astronomy aficionado. With that said, here is a tidbit that is not strictly technology related, but still cool. There’s been a great deal of recent buzz about Comet 17P/Holmes. Comet Holmes was an obscure little ball of ice that suddenly and unexpectedly increased in brightness to about…
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PIMS and PDE and Data! Oh My!
You may have heard about PIMS, the newly hatched Pennsylvania Information Management System. In a nutshell, PIMS is a massive reporting tool designed to streamline the hundreds of state reports districts are required to submit every school year. PIMS is also slated to replace the DRC precode extraction that drives our PSSA Booklets and data…