Updates from Brian Fitzgerald RSS
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10:57:54 am on February 28, 2011 |
These setup instructions are specifically for Android devices made by HTC. They run a modified version of Android called “Sense” that makes the setup look slightly different than our standard Android setup video. If you are using an Android device made by somebody other than HTC please view our other video.
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10:51:38 am on February 28, 2011 |
Setting up your iOS device to access Zimbra according to our instructions will provide you the ability to view your personal calendars. If you are subscribed to other calendars within Zimbra, you will not see these on the iPad. While we strongly recommend this simple setup for most people, there are some who desire to use their iOS device as a way to see many calendars at the same time. The following video demonstrates how to set your iOS device up for this scenerio.
The video assumes that you have already set up your device to access Zimbra according to our other directions.
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12:31:31 pm on February 21, 2011 |
While the reaction to Zimbra has been largely positive, you have had some great ideas as to how it could be improved. Lucky for us, the next big improvement to Zimbra has just landed and we intend to put it in place on the Sunday morning leading into spring break—March 20th. Zimbra 7 introduces many features that you have been asking for in our first month of using it and while it looks a little different, you will find that that it is cosmetically very similar to the Zimbra that we have come to love (you can see some pictures of Zimbra 7 here). Here are a few things to expect in Zimbra 7 when it launches in a month:Rescue Your Trash. No Garbage Truck Chasing Required!
We’ve almost all been there. You delete a message and almost out of habit you empty the trash, but somewhere between the moment your brain tells your finger to click “empty trash” and your digit carries out the order you realize you have something in there that shouldn’t be—but it’s too late. You can picture the file’s bits being scattered in the digital wind.
Fear no more! Zimbra 7 features an ability to restore files from your emptied garbage without so much as a call to the help desk.
Global Address Search
Sometimes you just want to look up somebody’s email address! Zimbra 7 makes this easy with a new “Global Address Search” that is always available whether you are looking at your mail or calendar. Start typing a first or last name and it will start giving you matches from across the district.
Email and Text Message Event Reminders
Our current version of Zimbra notifies you of upcoming events in one of two ways. If you are logged into Zimbra, it will display a popup window with the alert or if you have synced a device with it that device will likely notify you. These are certainly handy, but more options would be nice and Zimbra 7 delivers. Similar to Sun Calendar, Zimbra 7 will now deliver email reminders to you prior to each event if you desire. Z7 can also be configured to text message you if you prefer being notified that way. If you miss an event that you scheduled with Zimbra 7 it shouldn’t be for lack of a notification 🙂
Scheduling Wizard
We aren’t all event schedulers, but for those that do it often this is a huge deal. Zimbra 7 has cleaned up and souped up the scheduling interface making it easier to see who is available when and to zero in on a time that everybody will be able to participate.
Calendar Invite Preview
Sometimes you get an invite to an invite and your first instinct is to go look at your calendar to see what the rest of your day looks like. Zimbra 7 anticipates this and provides a calendar view for you right next to any message that is an invitation. Without leaving your message view you can read the invite, see how it works for you and respond.
Schedule Mail Delivery
Have an announcement or other message that can’t go out until a specific day and time? Zimbra 7 lets you schedule messages to be sent when you are ready for them to be sent.
Quickly Copy Existing Meetings
Sometimes its handy to be able to make a copy of a meeting already on your calendar. It’s perhaps not a repeating event, yet you need to set up something in the same room with the same people as something that’s already on your calendar. Zimbra 7 lets you copy a meeting on your calendar to create a new one.
Undo
How many times have you longed for the Undo command that you used to use in Thunderbird? Z7 provides an Undo link at the top of the page to Undo the last thing that you did – yay!
Change The Default Size of Printed Text
We have had many-a-mention of how little the print font is out of Zimbra. Z7 provides you a preference where you can set the font size that Zimbra should use when printing.
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09:04:54 am on February 21, 2011 |
Just a few days ago, we passed our 1 month anniversary of switching to Zimbra and by most accounts, the migration has gone very well. We know that the transition wasn’t painless for everyone but we continue to work hard to fix problems and find ways to enable you to not just be as productive as you were with our Sun Calendar, but hopefully be more productive with the faster and more modern Zimbra Collaboration Center.We have really appreciated some of the positive feedback that you have sent since we’ve rolled over! Here’s a sampling of what we have heard from you:
“Zimbra is the future, and it’s a bright, bright future.”
“I am liking Zimbra so far! And I am picky about email”
“I don’t know whose idea this Zimbra thing was… but I LOVE it!!”
Not only are you making great use of the new web mail and calendar, but the Zimblog indicates that many of you have been interested in getting your mobile devices working with it as well. Over 700 of you have read the instructions posted there and around 400 are actively syncing your mobile device with Zimbra.
After we made Convergence available at the end of the 2009–2010 school year we received feedback that more training opportunities would have been nice. Since launching Zimbra there have already been nearly 30 formal staff development sessions with over half of those being around the city—1 in each of our middle and high schools. We will continue to offer sessions through LPS Staff Development so if you missed one of the offerings this past month and want to know how to be more productive with Zimbra, keep your eyes open. We are also more than happy to come to your building and work with your staff or workgroup on using Zimbra. Just email kristi@lps.org to set something up.
Finally, we have been gathering quite a few “it would sure be nice if…” requests over the past month. We have found creative answers to some and we’ve been left scratching our collective head and agreeing with you on others. Also within the last 30 days an update to Zimbra has been made available and we have been happy to find that while it looks almost identical to version 6 (our current version) many things that you have asked for have been built into the new release. Because we think you will be very happy with some of the new features, we plan to upgrade to Zimbra 7 on the Sunday morning leading into spring break—March 20th.
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04:12:54 pm on February 18, 2011 |
Zimbra 7 is visually very similar to our current version of Zimbra, but there are some a few changes here and there. Here are a few screen shots to give you an idea of what to expect:
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02:01:30 pm on February 16, 2011 |
Zimbra calendar is great, but it’s not really the place to put your family schedule. Outside calendar services such as Google Calendar are great for this, but it’s nice to be able to see everything at once when you are considering what is coming up in your day or week. If you use an external site like Google Calendar to organize things at home, the following steps will show you how to subscribe to a Google Calendar with Zimbra to see your whole schedule on one calendar.
Please note that this will NOT give you the ability to edit your Google Calendar with Zimbra. It will allow you to view it.
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11:03:26 am on February 15, 2011 |
Changing font sizes on prints works!
Feel that the font size is too small when you are printing from Zimbra? You have some options. Here is a demonstration of how to change the font size when you print in Zimbra and a sneak peek of how you will be able to change it in Zimbra 7.
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09:30:24 am on February 9, 2011 |
This was our oldest post on the site, but may be much more relevent now that you’ve been using Zimbra for a while…
While many like the ease of using a mouse to simply click on what they want to do, others enjoy the ability to power through their mail using keyboard shortcuts to create, respond to and file messages. If this describes you, you will love the shortcuts that are available in Zimbra. Take a look at the keyboard commands available here.
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11:11:42 am on January 20, 2011 |
We’ve never supported Entourage as a mail application, but we know there are some that use it. If you are an Entourage user and are interested in switching to the Zimbra web interface, you may find getting your contacts moved over to be a tricky affair. Here are some steps that we have been told work:
- In Entourage Preferences, General Preferences -> Sync Services – check “Synchronize contacts with Address Book and .Mac” Click OK, then select “Replace Sync Services items with Entourage items”.
- Open the OS X Address Book, select all contacts and then File -> Export -> Export vCard
- In Zimbra, go to Preferences -> Import/Export -> Import: then choose your exported file and import it.
If you are in this boat and having problems, we hope this helps you out. If you still have problems, we suggest that you search phrases like “entourage export vcard” or “entourage migrate to zimbra”. Given that Entourage is unsupported at LPS, our help desk is not prepared to field questions about it.
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04:37:48 pm on January 19, 2011 |
Many of you will take a wander through your Zimbra preferences when you have time. It’s fun to see what all you can make Zimbra do. If you are have setup a mobile device to sync with Zimbra, you will see a preference panel called “Mobile Devices”. If you had something that you synced with Zimbra but don’t anymore, this is where you could remove that device from Zimbra. There’s something else you can do here however that is much more dangerous.
If you were to select your handheld and click the Wipe All Data from Device button, it would really wipe your device clean. Not just your Zimbra information, ALL of your information. When your phone is done it will look just as it did when you got it. Perhaps handy if you think your phone has been lost and you don’t want somebody to get your personal information, but it could also be the beginning of a real bad day for you.
Mobile Wiping Preference, Click to Enlarge
