Library power outages and losing documents

Just a reminder that students (and all patrons) should be encouraged to save their documents often and in the ways recommended below. Even a brief power outage can results in lost documents. Recommendations and warnings from IT are listed below.

Safest ways to save:

• Flash drive/memory stick
• Google Docs (does auto-save frequently)
• CD
• Email it to yourself

Unsafe:

• Saving to desktop only (can be lost in an outage)
• Documents folder only

Netflix "watch instantly" issue using Firefox on Macs

From Fish Phipps, IT:

For those who may not be aware, 'watch instantly' on Netflix does not work well in Firefox on the iMacs. This is an issue that can generate a lot of patron complaints so here's the 411:

Short version: If Netflix doesn't work on the Macs you have two options: Reboot and/or use Safari.

Long version: Netflix uses MS Silverlight for it's DRM and it seems that when parental controls are enabled on the macs (we use parental controls to control patron access to applications) that Silverlight and Firefox do not play well together. What usually happens is that when we are creating a new master image for all the machines we make sure that all the plugins are working but there are almost always issues with Firefox and Silverlight that, sooner or later, requires a reboot. Add the fact that after some random number of days/weeks later watching Netflix becomes totally broken in Firefox. This is due to changes made by either Netflix or MS on the server end as nothing has been changed on the machines. I am running some updates on a master image right now for the media center and it looks like I can't get Netflix to work at all in the latest version of Ffirefox. Point people to Safari if they wish to watch Netflix.