Copy table data from a web page to Excel

If you see a data table on a Web page and you want to import it into Microsoft Office Excel:

1. Copy the URL (address) of the page.
2. In Excel, on the Data tab, in the Get External Data section, click From Web.
3. In the New Web Query dialog box, paste the URL into the Address box.
4. Select the table that contains the data you want to work with, and then click Import.
5. In the Import Data dialog box, indicate where you want the data to appear, and then click OK.

From Microsoft Tips & Tricks

Patience Pays

If you're thinking of buying software through the District Work At Home agreement, wait until November 1. The price is going down to $19.99 each for Microsoft Office 2007 and SharePoint Designer 2007. The price until November 1 is $29.99. Keep an eye on the Southland website for details.

SafeAssign InstanceNotFound Error Temporary Fix

There are reports that the InstanceNotFound error from SafeAssign has been happening primarily in FireFox 3 (FF 3) on the PC and Safari for the Mac. The problem appears to be that SafeAssign is trying to write a cookie to the student's computer and if the browser is set to not allow cookies, the error is triggered. We are working to get a more permanent solution in place, but in the meantime, here are the temporary fixes.

Enable cookies for FF 3 on PC

1. Select Options from the Tools Menu in FF 3
2. Click on the Privacy Option
3. Click on the Exceptions... button next to "Accept cookies from sites"
4. Type safeassign.blackboard.com in the "Address of web site:" field
5. Click Allow
6. Click Close, then OK to exit the Options window

To enable cookies for Safari

1. Choose Preferences from the Safari menu (Edit Menu then Prefences on PC)
2. Click on Security
3. Choose Accept Cookies "Only from sites you navigate to"
4. If you still get the error after choosing that, try to temporarily change the setting to Accept Cookies "Always"

This situation points out the value of telling your students that if you try something in one browser and it doesn't work, just try to use a different browser. This is probably the easiest solution.

SafeAssign Known Error

The recent upgrade to SafeAssign seems to have introduced a new problem. Sometimes, but not always, when a student tries to submit a SafeAssignment, they get this error message:

Error Submitting SafeAssignment
Submission error: InstanceNotFound.

This problem has been reported to Blackboard and we hope for a fix soon.

One more step in SafeAssign Upgrade

Last weekend, Blackboard upgraded SafeAssign so that it could read Word 2007 documents.  However, there is one more step you need to take in your courses to make SafeAssign work if you want to use it.  

Go to the Control Panel and click on SafeAssign.  Then click on the Synchronize this course link.  The page will change quickly to another page, then back to where it was.  That's all you need to do.