Posts Tagged ‘support’

I’m usually pretty good about keeping my computers’, cameras’, and miscellaneous gadgets’ manuals on file. Inevitably, though, I come across a problem and find my manual filing system has failed me. If this happens to you as well, don’t worry–a copy is often just a few clicks away.

As more companies provide user documentation on CD-ROM, they are also placing that same documentation online. Manufacturers like Apple, HP, Canon, and Polycom make it easy to find manuals for their products, usually alongside driver updates and other important information related to your gadget.

No luck on the manufacturer’s site? Don’t give up yet–SafeManuals.com may have what you need. The site archives more than 800,000 manuals, free for download. It’s not limited to just computer-related items, either–I found the owner’s guide to my nine-year-old car on the site.

Where do you go first for tech support? Share your tips with other Hello readers in the comments below.

Reference:
Gunderloy, M. (2008, June 6). Find your missing manuals. Web Worker Daily. Retrieved June 6, 2008, from http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/06/06/find-your-missing-manuals/.

Don’t forget you can get help immediately with the Stratepedia tools (notably Depot, Dossier, and the Learning Labs) via our handy Guidebook Series. It’s not that we don’t like helping you by e-mail or phone–we do–but you’ll probably find that checking out these pages online is quicker, so you can go about your business rather than wait for one of us to reply to your e-mail (which can take up to a full business day!). Each guidebook is broken down by tasks you’re likely to need to do within each tool, and the how-to for each task is provided in a step-by-step manner.

So, when in doubt, visit the Guidebooks first–and if what you see there doesn’t make sense, or you need help with something that’s not there, then by all means, contact us via the usual methods.

I’ve moved the easy-to-miss Content Enhancement Library users’ manual to a more convenient place–it now resides alongside the Learning Labs Guidebook (released last week) on the Stratepedia Guidebooks site.

Like the Learning Labs Guidebook, the Content Enhancement Library Guidebook is structured in a just-in-time-style format, indexed by activity and keyword searchable. It’s worth a look whether you’re new to the Library or a seasoned veteran.

Content Enhancement Library Guidebook

We will probably be making some updates to this new guide, but we’re more interested in getting the new SIM Library wrapped up and out the door for you by the end of the year.

If you can read this, you’re at the new and improved Stratepedia Blog. Hi!

More soon, but in the meantime I wanted to point out a couple of changes:

1. If you bookmarked something here you’ll have to bookmark it again. All of the old content has been moved over and is keyword searchable.
2. The categories got streamlined. Most stuff is now in Stratepedia News.
3. The podcast is gone, at least for now. We might revive it down the road, but if that happens it will be on its own site rather than mixed in here (which was kind of a chore, technically speaking).
4. You can now subscribe to our blog via e-mail! See the subscriptions page for more information.

Also, for system outage information, be sure to visit our new Twitter account: http://twiter.com/stratepedia. It dawned on me that it doesn’t do a whole lot of good if I post a message on this blog about our network being down. Twitter isn’t located on our server, or our network. If something’s down, and I know about it, it will be posted on the Twitter page. See the message in the green bar, right underneath the buffalo? That’s also coming from our Twitter page.

Like I said, we’ll be posting more (much more) here soon, but let me know if you have any questions in the meantime. Thanks!

Aaron

Amber and I have completed the first edition of the Learning Labs Guidebook. This step-by-step guide to getting things done in the Learning Labs, from setting up an account to sharing information in a database–is available online at http://guides.stratepedia.org/doku.php?id=learning_labs_guidebook.

The Learning Labs Guidebook features plenty of screen captures and is keyword searchable and cross-referenced, making it easy to follow along from task to task. If you need a printed version just go to File -> Print as you would any web page to automatically get a clean, printer-friendly version.

Since the Learning Labs Guidebook is online we’ll be making changes regularly as the Learning Labs are enhanced or as clarification is needed. Click the Recent Changes button to see what’s new, or track changes via RSS. Please let us know what you like or don’t like about the Learning Labs Guidebook by dropping us a note at help@stratepedia.org.

I think I’ve worked around the remaining issues in the CE Library I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Let me know if you find otherwise.

The old Content Enhancement Library’s been due for some love for a little while. Once upon a time it worked great but it’s lost a step or two since we debuted it two years ago. This week I’ve gone under its hood to see what I can do to patch things up so things keep humming along until the all-new Stratepedia Library makes its way off my laptop and onto a server.

Here’s what I’ve done:

1. Reverted the domain name back to library.contentenhancement.org. The new domain will continue to work if you bookmarked it, but switching over the old site was causing more trouble than consistency with the new Stratepedia setup was worth. Now you shouldn’t get any (or at least not as many) warning messages about invalid certificates.
2. You know how you couldn’t click the name of a folder when you were looking at a resource contained in it? Well, now you can.
3. The sidebar’s a touch wider, which should help with wrapping issues around the filters.

Here are some outstanding problems I know of:

1. When you go from a list of a foldler’s resources (including the public folder) to a resource within that folder, the library forgets all your filter settings and some other information it needs to let you properly navigate back to the list. I’m still pondering why this is, as it used to work fine.
2. The edit button may or may not appear when you’re looking at a resource you own. This one’s got me a little stumped but I think it’s related to the previous issue.
3. If a folder’s resource list is more than one page long, and you try to go to any page other than the first, you get kicked to the public folder. Huh. A workaround is to use filters to narrow the list down to one page.

That’s everything I know of at this point. If you know of other glitches, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do about fixing them.

As far as I can tell everything’s back to normal, server-wise. Sorry about the downtime.

Due to potentially nasty weather in Lawrence tonight, the downtime I mentioned previously has been postponed to Thursday, May 24 beginning at 5:30 PM. They promise to have things wrapped up by 2:00 AM the following Friday.

I’ve changed the addresses of the feeds to the Stratepedia blog (all blog content, and podcast-only content) to route through a handy service called FeedBurner. This will help you subscribe to either or both using the news reader or podcast player of your choice.

• Stratepedia Blog feed (includes the podcast)

The old addresses should continue to work, but these are a little easier to manage.