Tech Tips

Feature Article:  NY Alert Emergency Notification Service

SUNY Oswego has subscribed to a service from the State Emergency Management Office called NY Alert that will be used for campus emergency notifications.  All SUNY Oswego students, faculty, and staff may sign up to receive emergency notifications which can be sent by email, phone, and/or text messaging.  Each individual decides how they would like to be notified.

SUNY Oswego students can sign up for the service through the myoswego.oswego.edu web site.  Faculty and staff can sign up through the SUNY System Administration web portal.  

Only the University Police as well as the Public Affairs office will be allowed to post emergency notifications.

For more information, visit the SUNY Oswego Emergency Information web site at: www.oswego.edu/administration/public_affairs/emergency/nyalert.html. 

A New Mailman

Well…virtually speaking, of course.  A project has begun to officially replace our Majordomo mailing list software with a different product called Mailman. 

There has been some demand from our users to replace Majordomo with something more user friendly.  In addition, there have been issues sending email to a Majordomo list that has invalid email addresses subscribed to it.  Notices about these invalid addresses are sent to the whole list rather than to the list administrator, confusing subscribers.

To resolve these problems as well as provide users a web-based interface to subscribe, unsubscribe, and manage lists, CTS will be implementing the Mailman web-based mailing list software.  This product was selected based on user feedback provided to us during a product evaluation period conducted this past summer.

We are currently in a pilot phase of this project where a certain number of Majordomo lists have already been migrated and are being used for the fall 2007 semester.  It is hoped that all Majordomo list migrations will be completed in the Spring 2008 semester.

In order to offer the Mailman web-based interface, all existing Majordomo lists will have a new Mailman email address associated with it.  More information about the new email address and the overall project is available in the “Majordomo to Mailman Migration Frequently Asked Questions” document at http://www.oswego.edu/cts/lists/. 

Squirrel Mail Retires November 5

As a reminder, Squirrel Mail will be officially retiring on November 5, 2007.  On this date, all Squirrel Mail users will be redirected to the Communications Express (CE) web site.  CE will replace Squirrel Mail as SUNY Oswego’s official web-based mail reader.  For more information about Communications Express, visit http://www.oswego.edu/cts/services/user_support/email.html.

Apple’s Coming  to Town!

Since fall is a time for harvesting apples in the Oswego area, we thought it would be an opportune time to invite Apple to campus to show us their new operating system.

Apple released version 10.5 of its operating system, called Leopard, on October 26.  New features are incorporated into the personal desktop and server versions.  Rick Bettencourt, an Apple Senior Systems Engineer, will be showcasing some of the new features, which on the personal desktop include a new finder, file stacking, Quick Look, Time Machine, and Spaces.  Server features include easier setup and administration, ical, wiki server, and podcast producer.

Join us in Snygg 102 on November 29, 2007 from 12:45-2:45 to see and learn more!

Upgrading to Leopard?

On Friday, October 26, Apple released Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") as a major upgrade to its Mac OS X operating system.

Inevitably, compatibility issues arise whenever a new operating system is introduced. Some vendors have already released Leopard-compatible versions of their products; others remain under development.

Campus Technology Services has pinpointed two specific products which have Leopard compatibility issues: Cisco VPN Client (used for wireless access) and Cisco Clean Access Agent (used for student Resnet) .

CTS will be posting a Leopard-compatible version of the Cisco VPN Client this week on the CTS Software Downloads page at www.oswego.edu/help Cisco will be releasing a Leopard-compatible version of the Cisco Clean Access Agent as part of a major upgrade slated for late November.

At this time, we recommend that existing Mac OS X users refrain from upgrading to Leopard. Current Leopard users who rely on Cisco Clean Access Agent for Resnet access should "downgrade" to Mac OS X 10.4 until Cisco releases a Leopard-compatible version.

Did You Know?

Did You Know that all faculty, staff, and students can create their own personal web site?  The OmniUpdate Educate (OU Educate) product is a very user-friendly way of creating your own personal web pages.  It is very similar to the OmniUpdate Campus (OU Campus) product used for editing departmental web pages.

To get started using OU Educate, go to www.oswego.edu/oueducate.  Under the “Getting Started” section you will see an online tutorial that will give you an overview of how to get started using OU Educate. 

When you are ready to start creating your own pages, just click on the Login button from www.oswego.edu/oueducate and login with your SUNY Oswego email username and password.

More Space!

As of October, email and web/user files quotas have been increased.  Faculty and staff now have 150 MB each of email and user files quota (formerly 100MB each). Students now have 75 MB each of email and user files quota (formerly 50MB).

To check your current quota usage, login to the Account Tools website at https://www.oswego.edu/admin/ and click on the “Check Web/UserFiles Quota” for your web/user files usage and click on “Check Email Quota” for your email usage.

Technology and Saving Energy?

In conjunction with the campus initiative to be more environmental-friendly, CTS has put together some guidelines for how you can save energy with your technology equipment. 

Here are some best practices:

• Switch to using flat-panel LCD monitors, if your current monitors are CRT (cathode ray tube). LCD screens run cool, last 2x as long as CRTs, and consume 70% less power.
• Disable your screen saver. A monitor running screen savers uses significantly more energy because the activity interferes with entering standby mode.
• Refrain from turning on your computer until you need to use it. Similarly, turn your computer off if you will be away from it for an extended period (i.e., longer than an hour).
• Make it an office habit to turn off all devices nightly and on weekends.

More information about cutting back on technology energy consumption is available at www.oswego.edu/cts/energy.

Notes from the Help Desk

Some students have been calling or dropping by the help desk because they no longer are able to login to the residential network (ResNet) using Clean Access from their dorm rooms.  We have discovered that in most instances this is because their anti-virus software has expired.

SUNY Oswego allows all faculty, staff, and students to install our site-licensed McAfee anti-virus software at no charge.  If you have expired anti-virus software, you should uninstall it (see the manual for your product) and install ours. 

Students wishing to install McAfee should login to Clean Access, click on the “Continue” button, then click the “Go to Link” button to start downloading and installing it.

You can reach us by phone at 312.3456, on location at 26 Lanigan Hall, or online at www.oswego.edu/help during normal office hours. We are online via our live chat service.  Just go to our web page and use the web-based chat utility to ask our staff a technology-related question.

SPSS and Impatica license renewals

Licensing for the SPSS and Impatica software packages used on campus will be expiring in December.  SPSS is a statistical and data management software and Impatica for Powerpoint is used for posting Powerpoint presentations to a web page.

If you are either faculty or staff and have SPSS or Impatica for Powerpoint installed on your SUNY Oswego computer and need it renewed, please contact the Technology Support Center at 312.3456.

Professional Development

CTS workshops for this semester are currently underway.  Workshops on Excel, Powerpoint, Backing Up Your Computer, Online Professional Development with Skillport, Controlling SPAM, and more are open for registration. The complete fall schedule and online registration is available from our main CTS web site at  www.oswego.edu/cts.

Looking Ahead

The following are projects CTS is currently working on:

• New Mailing List Software:  As mentioned above, CTS is currently in a pilot phase of replacing Majordomo with Mailman.  It is hoped that all Majordomo lists will be migrated to Mailman in the Spring.  More information about the migration is available at www.oswego.edu/cts/lists.
• Web Server Upgrade:  Once the Mailman project nears completion, CTS will be dedicating resources to continue with the new web server.  Both new hardware and software will be installed.
• OU Educate:  Currently, the OU Educate product does not work well when editing pages with Internet Explorer (IE) version 7 or Firefox 2.  We will be upgrading the product over winter break to make it compatible with these web browsers. 

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.

Tech Tips

Reset your email password using a Security Question

We highly recommend that all our users set a Security Question for their email accounts. If you ever forget your password, having a Security Question set previously allows you to verify your identity and reset your password online -- instead of having to do so in person at the Technology Support Center.

To set up your Security Question:

1. Go to the Account Tools page at https://www.oswego.edu/admin/.

2. Login to Account Tools with your SUNY Oswego email account username/password.

3. Click the "Security Question" link on the left-hand column.

4. Click the pulldown menu and choose a Security Question. This is the question you will be expected to answer correctly in order to reset your password later.

5. In the field below the menu, type an answer to the question. Make sure you type the answer correctly.

6. Click the "Submit" button to finish setup.

If you should later happen to forget your password, all you will need to do is:

1. Go to the Account Tools page at http://www.oswego.edu/admin.

2. Click the "Forgot Your Password?" link.

3. Submit your date of birth and campus ID number.

4. Submit the correct answer to the Security Question you previously chose.

5. Reset your password using the form provided.

Password resets generally take one hour to cycle, but may take a bit longer during times of high system load.