Design, photography and ramblings

Month: February 2015

File access issues on virtualLab.unc.edu

VirtualLab.unc.edu provides a great ‘cloud’ service for running applications without the need to install the software on your computer.  However it doesn’t come without some headaches.  One of those headaches comes with trying to work with your files and how you access them through VirtualLab.

The drive letter designation that Virtual Lab uses for your local C: drive for instance would be:

//Client/C$/

For example, in SAS, if you want to reference a library location on say your network J: drive then your SAS libname reference needs to look like this:

/* my SAS repository*/
libname [library name]  '//Client/J$/[my_library_folder]';
* instead of normally using J://[my_library_folder]

So simply replace you drive designation C:// with //Client/C$/ (or whatever the drive letter is you are trying to connect to).

If all else fails

Additional Virtual Lab tips can be found here:
http://help.unc.edu/help/what-are-my-data-storage-options-in-virtual-lab/

VirtualLab.unc.edu plugin/extension not working

If you find that you are no longer able to access the virtual lab then the Citrix plugin may be out of date or something.  Try uninstalling all of the Citrix software and reconnecting to the virtuallab to get the latest Citrix software install.

I did this when I had this problem in the past.  I checked the settings to automatically allow Citrix to load and did not have any problems after that.

Web conferencing (Lync) at UNC in 2015

There are numerous old links to web conferencing on campus, but almost all of them are outdated, so here is an update.  Microsoft Lync, part of Microsoft Office 2013, should be available to everyone on campus.  While Lync may simply be used as chat software with your colleagues, Lync is also great for creating online presentations.  It also allows you to present and record without an audience which is handy if you wish to create a ‘how-to’ for example on your computer and then publish it to say YouTube or some other outlet.  NOTE: if you are not presenting to an audience and do not have a microphone enabled on your computer, the record option does not appear to be enabled.  So if you are wondering why the record option is greyed-out then that is possibly your issue.

Here is a great resource to get started so I will not repeat their material (but thank you Boston University for posting this):
http://www.bu.edu/tech/services/comm/conf/lync/about/screen-capture/

Below is a quick screen test using just a standard laptop with built-in microphone to record my voice.  The image shown on the screen is just a web page (of the link listed above).  Basically whatever is I see on my screen is being recorded, so if I had a PowerPoint presentation displayed then you would see that.  This video file (found in my Lync Recording Manager) was then uploaded to YouTube where a title and music was added and the beginning and end dead space in the video was removed.

Link to the video (if it is not displaying below)

Swim cap bicycle seat cover

Swim cap bicycle seat cover

Do you have an old gel-padded bicycle seat with fabric peeling away from it, that turns into a sponge when it rains?  Perhaps you have a seat similar to this on your commuter bike.  Are you tiring of using plastic bags to cover the seat after it rains to keep your pants from getting soaking on your ride?

If you happen to have a collection of swim caps from old triathlons you may have raced years ago you might try that as a bicycle seat cover.  They are certainly stretchy enough and will certainly keep your butt from sliding on the seat (although it may be more grip than you want).  Give it a shot.