Campus Technology Services (CTS) is happy to announce the offering of two new services available to the campus community.  We have added scanning and large format printing into our communication media design offerings.

Campus Technology Services (CTS) is happy to announce the offering of two new services available to the campus community.  We have added scanning and large format printing into our communication media design offerings.

In addition to the scanning services, CTS is now offering large format printing to faculty, staff, and students wishing to print large academic-related displays.  Our Epson 9800 Professional large format printer can print up to 44 inches wide and 130 feet long at various resolutions.  Presenting at a conference, poster session, or workshop?  Show-off your research findings, presentation information, or advertise your department and the university in style with a large format display.

Both of these services are available in room 37B Lanigan Hall.  Please note there will be a charge to print displays to the large format printer to cover the expenses of ink and paper. Please consult with our Communication Media Design Specialist, Jim Ford, also located in 37B Lanigan and available by phone at 312.3502 and by email at ford@oswego.edu.  More information is also available on our Communication Media Design web page.  

“A bigger pipe”

In our continuing efforts to improve services to our users, CTS has purchased a “bigger pipe” to the Internet. What does this mean? All of the network traffic generated on campus from network-based applications such as a Web browser, Instant Messenger, or email, destined to the Internet has to be “funnelled” to an Internet service provider. In our case, this is Verizon.  The size of the “pipe” on the funnel, in addition to some other variables, determines connection speeds. In other words, the bigger the pipe the faster traffic can be funnelled to and from Verizon.  When the amount of traffic exceeds the size of the pipe, traffic has to wait its turn down the pipe and response times can slow.  To improve slow connection speeds that some of the campus community was experiencing last semester, we have doubled the size of our pipe and will be more than tripling it by the end of this Spring 2007 semester.  In technology terms, the size of our pipe is measured in bandwidth. For those who like to see the numbers, the size of our pipe (our bandwidth) last semester was at 45Mbps.  We are now at 95Mbps and will be at 150Mbps by the end of this semester.   Even with a bigger pipe (more bandwidth) to the Internet, it is still possible for traffic to slow down.  There are some popular network applications on campus that will “hog” the pipe making the network respond slowly to others.  To help keep these “network hogs” in check, CTS also purchased a new network control device called a packet shaper.  This device will allow us to control how much of the pipe certain applications can use making sure there is enough of the pipe left for other applications. 

We hope that the additional bandwidth and the packet shaping device will create a better experience for our users while using network applications.

“So, what’s the email hold up?”

If you recall last summer, CTS implemented the first phase of a two phase email upgrade.  The first phase involved implementing new server hardware which required moving everyones email to the new hardware.  In addition, anyone using an email client such as Thunderbird or Apple Mail needed to change their configuration settings to work with the new system.  The second phase of migrating off the web-based mail reader called SquirrelMail to a new web-base mail reader called Communications Express from Sun Microsystems was scheduled to take place sometime in the fall 2006 semester.  So, what happened?  People are still using SquirrelMail. 

After performing more tests of Communications Express (CE) during the fall 2006 semester, it was discovered that there were some usability issues.  It would take a significant amount of time to load the application sometimes resulting in errors such that you could not use it.  We have worked with Sun Microsystems for the last three months trying to find the problem and then fix it.  We believe Sun has fixed the problems.  We will be testing the system out internally within CTS to make decisions on how best to proceed with implementation.  Please make sure to check the Email System Upgrade Project page periodically for new information. 

“ANGEL comes to town”

If you are familiar with taking or teaching a fully online course through the SUNY Learning Network (SLN) or have used CourseSpace for a web-enhanced course, then you are familiar with a Learning Management System (LMS).  The SLN LMS was built upon a Lotus Notes system from IBM that is no longer being developed. SLN has decided to move off the Lotus Notes system to a commerical package and has selected ANGEL as the new LMS.  All SUNY campuses using SLN for asynchronous courses or using CourseSpace for blended courses will need to decide how to migrate to ANGEL or choose a different LMS.  SUNY Oswego will be migrating to ANGEL and we are one of three campuses (MCC and Herkimer are the other two) that are involved in an ANGEL pilot project for the Spring 2007 semester.  Five SUNY Oswego faculty have been chosen to particpate in the pilot and are teaching their courses with ANGEL for the Spring 2007 semester.  Given that the start of the semester using ANGEL with these courses is going ok so far, we will be migrating more faculty over to ANGEL for the fall 2007 semester.  More details will be available later in the semester.  We expect that there will be training sessions mid- to late spring 2007 semester for those faculty wishing to migrate to ANGEL for the fall.  Continuing Education and CTS is working on an ANGEL website that will have more details on the training and migration. 

“Did You Know?”

Did you know that you can set a security question for your SUNY Oswego email account in case you forget your password?  The normal methods of getting your password reset is to show your College ID or drivers license to our staff at the Technology Support Center in 26 Lanigan Hall or by faxing or snail mailing a notarized letter.  If you set the security question, you can avoid these methods and just answer your security question to reset your password.  Hop on to the Account Tools web page to login and set your security question because hey – you never know when you might forget it! 

“Professional Development Opportunities”

CTS has announced it’s spring 2007 line-up of technology workshops.  There are a variety of instructor-led workshops covering desktop productivity, general computer use, campus sytems, learning management systems, and web publishing.  For more information, please visit our training web page.

In addition to these instructor-led workshops, online professional development is available through the use of Skillport.  There are approximately 800 online training courses available to you for professional development and/or use in your classes.  There are a range of IT and Business courses. Courses that may be of interest include:

Business Courses

• Project Management
• Customer Service
• Management and Leadership
• Human Resources
• Communication
• Accounting and Finance
• Marketing
• Team Building

Information Technology Courses

• Microsoft Office 2003
• Windows XP
• Oracle
• Linux
• UNIX
• Java

Access to all of these courses and more is available to all SUNY Oswego faculty, staff, and students from our training web page.

“Alerts – Vista , IE 7, Office 2007”

CTS is warning faculty, staff and students about upgrading to Windows Vista.  At this time, not all applications are 100% compatible with Windows Vista.  Currently, we are aware that the Wireless VPN software is incompatible and because Vista comes with Internet Explorer version 7, applications such as internet native Banner, SUNY Webconnect,  and updating web pages with OmniUpdate will not work.  We will be conducting internal testing of its services with Vista and is planning to offer official support next semester.

In addition, even though Office 2007 has been released, the campus has not officially migrated to using Office 2007 on faculty, staff, and computer lab machines. If you are using an Office 2007 product and need to share documents with others that are using a previous version of Office, they will not be able to read it due to the new XML file format Microsoft created for Office 2007 documents.  Those users that you are sharing your documents with will need to install a Compatibility Pak.  This is a free download from Microsoft’s web site.  For more information, please consult Microsoft’s TechNet article on this subject.

“Looking Ahead”

The following are projects that CTS is working on that will be coming up in the next few months:

• Email System Upgrade: see the article in this newsletter pertaining to Phase 2 of the Email System upgrade.
• Voice Mail System Upgrade: CTS will be upgrading the campus voice mail system with new hardware.  This upgrade will occur on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 starting at 7am and ending on this same day at 7pm. During this time frame, voice mail will not be functioning. Calls can still be placed, but if the recipient does not answer and has subscribed to voice mail, no voice mail messages can be recorded.  Callers will hear an automated recording notifying them that the system is undergoing an upgrade and to try calling again after 7pm.  The upgrade will not affect saved voice mail messages or new voice mail messages that have not been listened to prior to the upgrade.  These will be migrated over to the new hardware during the upgrade. However, we do ask that you review your saved voice mail messages prior to the upgrade and delete any that you no longer need.  Instructions for doing so are available in our Voice Mail Guide (pdf, 27KB).
• Mailing List Software Replacement:  CTS has been investigating several mailing list software packages recommended to us from people on campus as well as SUN microsystems.  These packages will replace the existing Majordomo mailing list software.  Many people have expressed interest in having mailing list software that has a web-based subscription and management interface, which majordomo does not have. Thus far, we have looked at five packages including Listserv, Mailman, ListProc, Lyris, and Sympa.  We have narrowed the selection down to two, ListServ and MailMan.  ListProc is no longer being developed and Lyris and Sympa require database backends.  Listserv and Mailman will be installed on the email test system for further evaluation and internal testing.  Once this has been completed, we will ask for some users to test before implementation.
• Web Server Upgrade:  CTS has purchased a new web server to replace the existing aging system.  In addition, CTS has purchased a test system that will allow us to test upgrades of software without modifying the production system. The equipment for both systems has arrived and has been installed. We will be working on configuring, upgrading core Web applications, and then testing them this semester.  We are hoping for a beginning of the summer implementation. 

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.

  
Mike Kelleher, CTS Technology Support Assistant

“Students – Looking for a job?”

Campus Technology Services (CTS) is now hiring for the 2007-2008 academic year!  CTS supports: administrative computing, instructional computing, network services, technology user support and telecommunications. Together, we deliver a broad set of infrastructure, applications and services that are vital to the operation and mission of SUNY Oswego.

We are seeking SUNY Oswego students who enjoy working with and assisting others with computer related technology. There are positions for just about any skill level. No previous experience is required.

To apply for any of our positions, please review our student employment opportunities web page where you can fill out an application to be sent to the Technology Support Center at 26 Lanigan Hall or by fax at 312.3143 by April 2nd. 

For more information about Campus Technology Services, please visit our web site or call us at x3456.

The technology industry is buzzing with all the to-do related to the 2007 Daylight Savings Time changes as a result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (pdf, 2.5MB).  In brief terms, this means that clocks will "spring ahead" three weeks earlier than normal and "fall back" one week later than normal.  On March 11, 2007 you will set your clock one hour ahead and then on November 4, 2007 you will set it one hour back. Since computers generally use algorithms and timezone information to keep track of the times to spring ahead and fall back, some updates may need to be installed.  What will happen if you don't make the necessary updates?  Your clock will continue to change to daylight savings time as it has in the past. This means it will be out of sync for three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall. 

How is CTS addressing the 2007 Daylight Savings Time changes?  We are looking at all of our systems to see if any changes are needed.  This includes servers, network equipment, telephone system, operating systems, as well as other software.  If we find any changes that are needed, then we make the changes in accordance with the recommendations of the software and/or hardware vendors.

How does this affect your computer?  CTS has put together a Daylight Savings Time page that lists information we have found that may apply to your office computer and/or any personal computers that you may own. This is not an inclusive list of all updates that may be needed for the daylight savings time fix.  We have listed products that we know a large portion of the campus community is using.  Check out the page before March 11, 2007!