a short update

[mellowtigger]

You'd think that we'd be less busy after finals week (last week), but no. And I was short on sleep Monday morning, for no good reason. I wasn't even playing games, as that at least would be productive. :D

So after work on Monday, I crawled in bed shortly before 7pm and woke up shortly before 6am Tuesday. That's why there's no Moody Monday post, despite the wealth of material.

I'm much better rested today, but it's still busier at work than I expected for this pre-holiday week between semesters. I don't often get opportunities for "nice" (warm fuzzy humanitarian) things to do for people. Usually, I'm the bad guy who quotes the rules. But today I was able to help a shivering student get back into their warm dorm after they busted their phone, rendering many things about their account (including door access) inoperative. Lots of security vetting, then lots of steps for account repair with the student, and all should be well (and warm) for them again.

It's simultaneously impressive and worrisome how essential a smart phone is for anything and everything these days. And we generally only have one of them at a time. Woe unto ye who break your own horcrux.

Comments

[rebeccmeister]

Not to mention, we have little to no control over aspects of the operating systems for the things! Horrifying.

[mellowtigger]

"By continuing to use this device that you paid lots of money to purchase previously, and for which no convenient alternative exists, you are hereby agreeing to abide by our new terms of service, which we may further alter at any time..."

Unrelated, I have had so many Canvas tickets in the last week, with a few calls to Instructure for extra support. No rest for the wicked, as the saying goes. :D

[rebeccmeister]

I have no doubts about the Canvas calls!

One of these years I am going to finally shift over to hosting all my damn materials myself, on my own website! Just...probably not this year...

[mellowtigger]

Word of advice: It's fine to link to material at your own site with hyperlinks, but it's not nearly as smooth to embed the material from elsewhere into the Canvas page with their editor. If it's embedded (with the Canvas page "pretending" to host the content), then third-party cookies become a problem in web browsers. Students then have to weaken security in their browsers in order to view the embedded content. Typical hyperlinks, on the other hand, always work great.

It's simultaneously impressive and worrisome how essential a smart phone is

[kathmandu]

Yes. I avoid using my smartphone as the only way to access *anything*. I do have email on it, but I can email from my desktop too. I avoid setting up "2FA" for access to my bank or door-lock or anything else, because if you do that, and then lose your phone, you lose access to almost your entire life.

These things are too easily dropped to depend on.