s mentioned in the last issue of Log N’ Talk, we are in the process of upgrading corr-terminal to Windows Server 2008 to take advantage of the Easy Print feature that will allow remote users to print to their local printers.
 Wayne Darlington has been uploading training material to corr-terminal so that remote users can watch training videos, PowerPoint presentations and fill out questionnaires and email them to him. Although with the current corr-terminal, depending on the speed of the remote Internet connection, the video’s are generally watchable; on the new server the sound and picture are very choppy and do not work well enough to be usable. This is not an unusual problem as Terminal Services and Remote Desktop due to the fact that the bandwidth requirements  are very high was never designed for watching videos. Aaron and I have been investigating our options and the one that will work best is to put the training material on the new Safety Management Systems web site. This is ultimately where they would have ended up, but the problems with the upgrade have made this move a priority. This web site is already up and running with a link for employees and contractors to send anonymous hazard reports as is required by Transport Canada. Users will be able to log in, watch the videos and PowerPoint presentations and then fill out, print and email the questionnaires directly from the web site. Wayne Darlington will be sending an email with instructions once this is up and running. In the meantime to fill out and email the questionnaires from corr-terminal simply open the document, press Control+A to highlight everything, Control+C to copy the highlighted text and then paste it into your word processor on your local computer. You can then fill it out, print it, save it and email it.

OTHER PROJECTS
Another server application that we are considering implementing is a Microsoft SharePoint Server. As you may remember from a few months ago an email was sent out asking all users to clean up their emails. Our mail server database is currently approaching 60 GB and requires a hard drive upgrade as free space is becoming limited. One of the scenarios that I believe is causing the database to grow so large is the emailing of large attachments to multiple or all users. Take for example someone emails a 1 MB attachment to All Coulson Group Users. This 1 MB email will be delivered to 80 mailboxes and including the sent items folder in the sending user’s mailbox will take up 81 MB on the server. With a SharePoint server the attachment is uploaded to a single location and a small email is automatically sent to the users with a link to the attachment. Total usage on server – about 3 MB. As always though the best way to keep the mail servers database size under control is for all users to delete unneeded emails, particularly  those with attachments, and don’t forget the sent items.

On another note – I hope you are all enjoying the Olympics as much as I am.