Remotely powering on Optiplex 780s using Wake-On-LAN
I've been struggling with trying to figure out why our new Dell Optiplex 780s can't be remotely powered on using Wake-On-Lan. In order to make this work, you need make the following changes in the BIOS:
- Internal NIC must be enabled with PXE (this was the gotcha!)
- Enable Low Power Mode should be unchecked
- Remote Wakeup needs to be set to enabled
The kicker was realizing that the Internal NIC needed to be enabled with PXE. Prior to adjusting that setting, everything looked ok, and WOL worked to wake computers from sleep, but I couldn't remotely power them on.
In order to save power, we turn try to turn off our instructional lab machines when they're not in use. Because some of our labs are open on weekends, some are open every day, and schedules change during the summer and semester breaks, we try to adjust this and keep the machines off when not in use. I have scripts that power on each room as a Windows scheduled task.
Google Maps Street View appears black
Google Maps Street View has been appearing all black instead of showing images when using Safari on my Mac Pro running Snow Leopard. I noticed the same problem with FireFox, so I figured it was a Flash problem.
I googled around a bit and found other people had the same problem, and were getting a series of unhelpful suggestions I tried upgrading to the latest Flash just in case, and it did not solve the problem. Also tried clearing Safari's cache which didn't help, but seeing as the problem was occuring in FireFox as well, I didn't have a lot of hope.
A couple of the postings suggested removing Arial fonts from ~/Library/Home/Fonts, and while this didn't make sense to me, I tried it, and it worked. My theory is these are old fonts left over from back when this machine was running 10.5 as my other Mac wasn't having this problem (nor did it have those fonts).
I just had a handful of fonts in that location, and am not really sure why they're even there or why my user needs its own set of fonts, but in case anyone else runs into this I figured I might as well post this.
Video Blogging and Podcasting
I've noticed an increasing trend where both bloggers, and even some larger companies now post an entry on their web site that basically says "download this podcast" or "watch this video" to hear more about XYZ.
This is great, and there is a place for multimedia content, but at the same time I'd much rather read something. It's so much easier to quickly scan a document and get the main points, or go back and read it in detail than it is to watch a video or listen to a podcast.
At the moment Google can't search the words spoken during a video either.
So, for now, I hope people stick to posting content as text and include multimedia as an additional resource for those who want to watch it.