Basic Information

  If you are closing

  Logon for "in charge"

  Charges and Logons

  CD burning

  PCounter and Printing

  Thunderstorms

Solo WorkStudy In Charge
Operating Information
[last modified 9/20/06]

Basic Information

• If you are closing:

  • Warn remaining users about 15 minutes before closing, and make sure they all finish up in time for you to close at the scheduled time.  Do not allow overtime!

  • Leave the computers and printers on.

  • Get the key from where it is kept. Turn off the lights, and lock the door.  Slide the key back under the door.

  • Security will come around a little later and set the alarm.

• CD burning -- Only Searle and Claire can burn CDs.

• PCounter and Printing --

  • As of 9/20/06, the only people who can make deposits in PCounter are Searle, Claire, and whoever is working the Library Circulation Desk. We are working on procedures to help late-hours users.

  • When the user sends a print job, it is automatically paused. Then the pop-up should appear on their screen and allow them to enter their password and click "Print it". If this is successful the job is taken off pause, and is printed.

    • If their balance is too low to cover the job, it will not print.

    • The popup window tells their balance and the cost of the job. READ IT.

    • If that's the problem, they have the opportunity to cancel the job--that way they can either print again, with fewer pages or to a cheaper printer (like, if they were trying Color but Black & White would be OK), or make a deposit to their account.

    • Late-hours deposits: We're working on this--right now, you would need to send them to the Library circulation desk to make PCounter deposits.

  • Things the individual user can try (so you can help them with the trying):

    • When the user sends a print job, it is automatically paused. Then the pop-up should appear on their screen and allow them to enter their password and click "Print it". If this is successful the job is taken off pause, and is printed.

    • "PCounter Printers" (in list in window when you click "Start" button) lets you see the print jobs lined up for each printer.

      • If the pop-up on their computer does not appear, the job will remain on pause. Try this: On their computer, exit the pop-up and restart it:

        • In the tray (bottom right), right-click the green pyramid and choose "exit".

        • From the Start button (bottom left), go to Program > Startup > Ppopup

        • This should make the pyramid reappear in the tray. Wait about 10 seconds to see if the popup window appears asking for a password to print. If not, go back into the document they are trying to print, and try a new "Print" command of the document.

• Thunderstorms--Bring the computers to "power off" if severe lightning is too close:

  • Study these ahead of time, and be prepared. You are also always welcome to phone Searle (9 and then 739-6532) if you want some help deciding what's best to do.

  • About one mile away is as close as the lightning should be allowed to get before you shut everything down.

    • You can count seconds between the instant you see a major lightning flash and hear its crack of thunder. Each 5 seconds is a mile. If the time is 5 seconds or less, shut down the lab.

    • If you will do this counting of seconds as the storm approaches, you will be able to note whether it is getting closer and closer, so you will pretty well know when it is about to be a mile away. You can follow it from 20 seconds (4 miles) in to closer distances and plan your actions.

      • Websites with nearly real-time radar help you observe the major storms in the area. If you have loaded their image and are still on the page, you may need to click "Refresh" to get an updated image every few minutes--some sites do this automatically, others don't.

      • Some sites to try:

        • Animated Radar San Antonio westward--"lotsa choices"

        • Radar out of San Antonio--includes westward beyond Kerr County--loads fast, and always pretty fresh (if you "Refresh" it)

        • Another San Antonio radar--includes westward beyond Kerr County

        • A Radar Loop of the region--probably will be a little while "out of date", like 15 minutes to an hour old, but useful for seeing what direction the storms are moving and how fast. This will greatly help you interpret the up-to-the-minute images from the sites above.

        • A Forecast for the Kerrville area--When storms are close and/or likely, two parts of this page are helpful:

          1. any severe weather warnings in effect will appear near the bottom of the page (scroll down or click a link near the top that will jump down to the warnings)

          2. and often a verbal statement about radar-detected storms, their motion and prognosis, will be in an added box called "Now" or something like that, just above the regular day-by-day forecast up and down the right-hand side of the page.

  • Shutting down the computers:

    • If there are storms in the area and very few users in the lab, you can go ahead and shut down most of the computers and only leave on the ones in use plus a few spares. That way, you are not rushed for time if you need to make a rapid decision to shut down if a storm "sneaks up" and gets really close sooner than you expected.

    • It is OK to shut down the computers by just using the power button on the front, without going through the slower process of shutting down Windows using the mouse, etc. and waiting for the operating system to shut down.

    • On some of the computers, the power button is not "instant off"--you have to gently hold the button pressed in for several seconds, and then it will shut off. (It's a setting to help avoid accidentally killing the power by hitting the button when you are trying to eject a floppy disk, or whatever.

  • Restarting the computers vs. leaving them off:

    • When the storm has passed by and you decide the danger is past, you can restart the computers.

    • If closing time is upon you and there are still computers off, it's OK to leave them off and let us turn them back on the next morning.

    • In fact, if there seems to be much danger of more storms later in the night, it would be better to leave them off anyway.

    • In fact, even if you did not have to turn them off, if radar and/or forecast indicates much danger of lightning later in the night, go ahead and turn them off before you close.