Technology Tips

DO NOT open attachments sent by someone you don't know. Viruses are commonly distributed through email attachments. Viruses can attach themselves to your email program and send themselves out to your entire address book. Without a good anti-virus program running on your machine the problem gets big in a hurry. Anti-virus protection is only as good as the current virus definitions (DAT files). Computers at PHS are configured to automatically retrieve the most current DAT file every time they start up. We strongly encourage you turn off your machine at least every Friday so when it boots on Monday it will retrieve those new definitions. You can turn off your machine more often if you like.

When you get an attachment from a reliable source it can be frustrating if you don't know how to open it. Double clicking on an email attachment from within Simeon seldom works. To open an email attachment, first save it to the Temp folder on your hard drive. To save the attachment, right click on it and select Save then navigate to the Temp folder on your C drive. We encourage you to save attachments to your hard drive first, rather than saving directly into your folder on the server, because many viruses come as attachments in email. Saving to C is the safest way to work with attachments because if a virus is in the attachment the anti-virus software installed on your machine should pick it up before you ever try to open it. If the attachment is something you want to keep, you can then drag it to your folder on the server.

Once the attachment is saved, if you know it's a document open MS Word then go to File-Open and navigate to the saved attachment, select and open it. If you know the attachment is a picture open Netscape (or Internet Explorer) go to File-Open Page, Click Choose File, navigate to the saved attachment, select and open it. If you don't know what the attachment is try double clicking it and if prompted choose Netscape as the Helper Application. When all else fails email the person who sent you the attachment and ask what application he/she created it in and/or ask them to resend in a different format if possible.

All lab machines have a printer installed locally. You may print to all the printers at PHS but you will need to add the printers you want to use. To add a printer from anywhere in the building go to Start-Settings-Printers. Add Printer. Choose "Network printer server". Click Next. Scroll to Poudre. Choose \\Poudre\"whatever printer you want to use." Click Finish.You will only have to do this once for each printer you add. When you go to print click the down arrow in the "Name" box to choose the printer you want to use. You may select a default printer or the document will print to the last printer used.