Internet Browser Issues

With so much of our school (Blackboard, OLS, Study Island, Power-Glide, School e-mail) all being accessed with your Internet browser, it becomes the single most important, and troublesome piece of software. A lot of problems that are really related to your browser, but show up while accessing a specific area of our school, are listed in those categories. If you do not see your problem listed here, be sure to go back to the main support page and check in the other categories.

On this page: Using AOL, Compuserve, MSN or Safari |  Fonts Are Too Small |  Adding Trusted Sites |  Dealing With The Content Advisor

Using AOL, Compuserve, MSN or Safari

You will most likely experience problems when trying to access a number of the schools services while using any one of these browsers. You can use AOL or Compuserve to connect to the Internet, but after you have established connection, you should minimize your window and then use either Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.

Users of Safari and MSN have also experiences problems. If you are using one of these two, and are experiencing problems, please try using Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox and see if you problems persist.

 

Fonts Are Too Small

If you are using Internet Explorer, and the fonts suddenly are too small, you probably "bumped" the settings somehow. Your first step will depend on if you are using Internet Explorer 7, or an older version of Internet Explorer.

  1. Open Text size menu
    • I.E. 7 users will go to Page -> Text Size in the menu bar
    • Older versions of I.E. will need to go to View -> Font Size in the menu bar
  2. Choose a larger size font setting. Medium is the default setting, but you can choose what ever works for you.

 

Adding Trusted Sites

My Trusted Sites

I currently have the following sites listed in my "Trusted Sites"

If you are using Internet Explorer, you can use different security settings for different sites. To help elliminate issues with various secuity software when using Internet Explorer, we suggest you add a number of school related sites to your "Trusted Sites"

  1. You need to open the "Internet Options" window. This can be done in a number of ways:
    • Right click on your "big E" icon, choose Properties
    • Go to the control panel, and click on "Internet Options"
    • Open Internet Explorer, then choose "Tools" and then "Internet Options" from the menu bar
  2. Click on the "Security" tab
  3. Click on the Green checkmark labeled "Trusted Sites"
  4. Click on the button that says "Default Level" if you do not see a slider
  5. Slide the slider all the way done. The security level for "trusted sites" should now be "low"
  6. Click on the button that says "Sites"
  7. Make sure the box that says "Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone" is NOT checked
  8. In the "Add this website to this zone:" box - type in *.pavcs.org
  9. Click on the add button
  10. While you are here, you can repeat steps 8 and 9 for some additional sites. Check out the My Trusted Sites box for the list of sites that I currently have in my "Trusted Sites"
  11. Click "Close" on the Trusted Sites window
  12. Click on "OK" on the Internet Properties window

You can watch a video of these directions. The video will open in a new window, so that you can refer back to these directions at the same time.

 

Dealing With The Content Advisor

The computers you recieve from the school are shipped with the Content Advisor turned on. The Content Advisor is one way to deside what sites are allowed, and what sites are not allowed. This is not the best solution for filtering, but it may be the only solution that you have. It is really up to you, the parent, if you wish to leave it turned on or off. If you deside to leave it on, then please review the Using Content Advisor section at the bottom of this page. If you wish to turn it off, then follow the Turning off Content Advisor directions below.

If you want to learn about better ways to filter your child's Internest experience, please see our Content Filtering page for more details.

Turning off Content Advisor

  1. You need to open the "Internet Options" window. This can be done in a number of ways:
    • Right click on your "big E" icon, choose Properties
    • Go to the control panel, and click on "Internet Options"
    • Open Internet Explorer, then choose "Tools" and then "Internet Options" from the menu bar
  2. Click on the "Content" tab
  3. Click on the button that says "Disable". If the button says "Enable" then you have ALREADY disabled the content advisor and there is no need to continue.
  4. You will need to supply the password. The default password is "parents" (lower case, no quotes)
  5. Click "OK"
  6. Click "OK" on the warning window
  7. Click on "OK" in the Internet Properties window

You can watch a video of these directions. The video will open in a new window, so that you can refer back to these directions at the same time.

 

Using Content Advisor

If you have decided that you want to leave the Content Advisor turned on, there are a three things you really need to attend to so that your school experience is not hampered, and limit the chances of a child circumventing the protection offered by Internet Explorer's Content Advisor. The three things are: change the default password, add a few sites to the approved list, and set up a limited user account.

As noted above, Internet Explorer's Content Filtering is not the best option for filtering your child's Internet experience. It is one of the easier ones to use, but is also one of the easyist to get around. If you want a better understanding of filtering technology, and some suggestions for alternatives to Content Advisor, please review the Content Filtering page.

Change the default password. The password set by K12 Inc. is the same password they have used for every single computer they ship out nation wide for at least the last 5 years. It would not be very hard for your student to contact another student (within this school or even potentially outside of this school) and find out what that password is. So if you are going to use Content Advisor, be sure to change the default password.

  1. You need to open the "Internet Options" window. This can be done in a number of ways:
    • Right click on your "big E" icon, choose Properties
    • Go to the control panel, and click on "Internet Options"
    • Open Internet Explorer, then choose "Tools" and then "Internet Options" from the menu bar
  2. Click on the "Content" tab
  3. Click on the "Settings" button - before proceeding you will need to enter the default password.
  4. In the Content Advisor settings window, click on the "General" tab.
  5. Then click on the "Change Password" button.
  6. Where it asks for the "old password" type in the current, default password.
  7. Type in the password you want in the next two fields, along with a reminder (the reminder is not required)

You can watch a video of these directions. The video will open in a new window, so that you can refer back to these directions at the same time.

 

Add school sites to the Approved Sites list. If you have already followed the directions for adding trusted sites, then the next step is to add some sites to the list of "always viewable" to Content Advisor. One thing to note, is that "wildcard" charaters (the * that was used in the adding trusted sites directions) does not work here. You need to be precise about the site name.

  1. You need to open the "Internet Options" window. This can be done in a number of ways:
    • Right click on your "big E" icon, choose Properties
    • Go to the control panel, and click on "Internet Options"
    • Open Internet Explorer, then choose "Tools" and then "Internet Options" from the menu bar
  2. Click on the "Content" tab
  3. Click on the "Settings" button - before proceeding you will need to enter the default password.
  4. In the Content Advisor settings window, click on the "Approved Sites" tab.
  5. Type in the address for the site in the "Allow this website"
    • If you want this site to always be visable, click the "Always" button.
    • If you want this site to never be visable, click on the "Never" button.
    • In this example, we are setting mail.mypavcs.org to be always visable.
  6. Click Apply/OK until all the windows are closed.
  7. If necessary, close down all running incidences of Internet Explorer.
  8. You are set to launch Internet Explorer now, and all your changes should take place.

You can watch a video of these directions. The video will open in a new window, so that you can refer back to these directions at the same time.

 

Set up a Limited User Account. This one is a bit trickier, but in reality, is probalbly the single most import step to securing your computer. By default, when you start using the K12 Inc supplied computers, you are using it in "Administator" mode. Anyone who logs in with this account also has access to everything on the computer. In this mode a person can reset/remove the Content Advisor password (among other things) and therefore completely circumvent any thing you have done to secure your Internet access.

By creating a Limited User account to be used for "everyday" activity, and using the Administator account only when needed you can not only protect your settings for Content Advisor, but also help protect you computer as a whole from viruses, trojans, spyware, malicious software, and a host of other issues.

As noted, this is kind of a "tricky" thing to do. You may want to do some research first. I have listed a few different links to help with your research, and many of these include directions on how to set it up.