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In This Issue....
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Featured Article: New Student Orientation
Welcome new students! July is a busy month for many departments on campus who are helping prepare new students for their arrival in the fall. CTS is one of those departments and we have been working hard preparing materials to help new students with the technology services available on campus. This year we have prepared some new materials that we will be sharing with students, family and friends when they visit us over the summer. We have also taken those materials and put them on our new CTS new student orientation web site. Here’s what you can plan on seeing at this site:
- A CTS Orientation presentation. This is an online "Flash" presentation that gives a broad overview of all of the services CTS provides for new students.
- A CTS Technology Checklist. A list of 10 items that helps prepare new students and their computers for the technology available on campus. All of these items are things that can be done BEFORE getting to campus.
- Frequently Asked Questions – We have taken all of the most common questions that we receive from new students and their families and friends and have put them online with our answers.
If you are a new student to SUNY Oswego, we encourage you to take a look at our new student orientation site. If you have any questions as you review the site you may email, (help@oswego.edu), chat live (www.oswego.edu/help), or talk (315.312.3456) with our staff.
Enjoy the rest of your summer and we’ll see you in the fall!
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Professional Development
CTS will be offering workshops again in the fall semester. If you would like see a workshop offered on a particular technology-related topic, please
email cts-workshop@oswego.edu.
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ANGEL Updates
SUNY Oswego administration has decided that all courses for the fall 2007 semester will be loaded into the ANGEL learning management system. This means that all faculty that wish to use ANGEL for the fall will have access to do this. Although training is not required for faculty to start putting materials online, we encourage faculty to attend trainings. Trainings are already scheduled for July and August and you can register online at the ANGEL web site. In addition, plans are being finalized for trainings to continue through part of the fall 2007 semester. |
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Notes from the Help Desk
Summer hours for the Technology Support Center (help desk) are Monday through Friday 8am – 4pm and closed on holidays.
It has been reported that email vacation notification messages setup through the Account Tools web site are not working. CTS discovered a problem with this on Thursday June 28th and resolved it on Friday June 29th. Email notification messages now work.
Just a reminder that the Technology Support Center (help desk) is now offering live chat. Just go to our web page and use the web-based chat utility to ask our staff a technology-related question. Hours for live chat questions are Monday through Friday 8am to 4:00pm.
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Did You Know?
If you are going to be away from your email for more than a few days, you can set up an automatic reply to people who send you email to let them know that you won’t be reading their message for a while. Lots of people use these auto-reply messages when they go on vacation. It is easy to set one up. Just go to our Account Tools web site, login, and click on the “Email Vacation Message” link on the left side and follow the instructions. Allow 5-10 minutes for the vacation message to be activated once you have set it up. After that, anyone who sends you an email will get a message back from you letting them know you are away from your email. |
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Web Editing Software Upgrade
The OmniUpdate Campus (OU Campus) system will be
upgraded July 5 through July 9. This is needed to fix compatibility issues with the OmniUpdate editing
software and Internet Explorer 7 and also to prepare
for future RSS and Blogging features.
The system will be unavailable from 12:01AM Thursday,
July 5, through 8AM Monday, July 9. During this time you will not be able to log into OU Campus and make changes to any of the main campus or departmental Web pages. You will still be able to edit personal pages using the OU Educate system. To prepare for the upgrade, you
should ensure that all of your edits have been saved and
if necessary, published. If you use the OU Campus workflow feature and have web pages pending approval, they will need tp be approved before Thursday or they will be checked back in.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at webmaster@oswego.edu .
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Swetman Technology
Look for three new labs in Swetman when it opens after extensive renovations in the Fall 2007 semester. Two labs will be dedicated to classroom instruction and the third will be a general open access lab. Approximately 80 machines have been ordered and will be installed in preparation for opening in the fall.
In addition, four advanced technology classrooms as well as three laptop-ready meeting rooms and a technology-rich group study room are being built. Wireless capabilities will be in the public areas of the building as well as the classrooms by the end of the fall 2007 semester.
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New Printing System in Snygg Lab
If you use the Snygg computer labs in Rooms 6 and 8 this summer, you will see a new method of printing. Snygg Lab is a test location for a new print system that if successful will be deployed to all of the general access labs. The Pharos printing system will automatically deduct the correct amount of pages from your print quota. This software will eventually also allow wireless users to print to public printers from their own laptops and allow residential students to print to residential lab printers from their room. The new printing system will be available in Snygg Lab by the end of July. |
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Looking Ahead
The following are projects that CTS is currently working on:
- Email System Upgrade: CTS is in beta testing of Communications Express, the replacement to the Squirrel Mail web-based email reader. We have extended the testing out to volunteers from the Technology Advisory Board. If you are a Squirrel Mail user and would be willing to dedicate some time to test Communications Express with our testing checklist, please notify Nicole Decker, decker@oswego.edu, by July 16, 2007.
- Mailing List Software Replacement: CTS has installed the Listserv and Mailman mailing list software on our email test system. We are looking to replace the majordomo mailing list software with a more user friendly version that will allow mailing list owners and subscribers management of their lists from a web interface. We are nearly completed with internal testing and then will be announcing beta testing and will release it to approximately 10 users on campus that have agreed to test it.
- Web Server Upgrade: CTS purchased a new web server to replace the existing aging system. In addition, CTS purchased a test system that will allow us to test upgrades of software without modifying the production system. The equipment for both systems has been installed. We will be working on configuring and upgrading core Web applications later this summer. This project has slowed somewhat from originally anticipated due to staffing. Two of the people involved in this project (the Web Coordinator and a CTS Technology Support Professional) have accepted positions at other organizations. The resources that will now be working on this project are also working on the Communications Express and mailing list replacement projects. We were hoping for a late summer implementation, but we are uncertain if that will happen.
- Continued Microsoft Vista and IE 7 testing: CTS continues working on fixing applications that may not work with Microsoft Vista and Internet Explorer version 7. Problematic applications include wireless computing with Vista, editing of web pages with IE 7, Banner with IE 7, and ResNet activation. A new version of the VPN client that is compatible with IE 7 is currently being tested. ResNet activation is being tested and the OU Campus upgrade mentioned above will resolve web editing issues with the main and departmental web pages. There will still be problems editing your personal web pages with the OU Educate system. The company does not plan on fixing this system and therefore users will either need to continue using IE 6 or use Firefox.
- ResNet registration upgrade: A new ResNet registration system, called Cisco Clean Access has been purchased and we hope to have it available for the fall 2007 registrations. This is a commercially supported system that gives us the ability to make sure end user systems are updated with the latest security and antivirus software updates each time they connect to the network, not just the first time each semester. In addition, this system will make sure that you are using an updated version of any antivirus software. We will no longer have to require that McAfee be installed, although we will still have a site license for it.
If you have any questions related to any of these projects, please contact the Technology Support Center at x3456 or by email to help@oswego.edu.
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Choose a better password
With internet fraud and identity theft on the rise, it is important that you choose secure passwords for your online accounts. According to a recent PC Magazine survey of commonly-used passwords, here were some of their top results:
- "password"
- "123456"
- "abc123"
- "qwerty"
Choosing simplistic passwords such as the above is like leaving the door to your house unlocked. It's equally risky to choose a password so complex (i.e., #3hQ2P) that you have to keep it written near your desk. If you do this, you've already compromised your security.
What's the best strategy, then? First, formulate a password that only has meaning to you. It should be something that could even stump a family member. Second, create the password using a series of lower/uppercase letters and random numbers. Using numbers that look like equivalent letters (i.e., "6" instead of "G") will make the password easier to recall.
Complacency and habitual behavior are two of the biggest threats to security. Therefore, it's important to change your password periodically. There's no set rule for this, but every few months is a common practice.
You can set a new password for your CTS email account using the Account Tools website at http://www.oswego.edu/admin. Just log in with your current credentials, then click the "Change your password" link on the left. Successful password changes are generally processed in one hour, but may take up to 24 hours depending on how busy the system is.
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