INFORMATION
SERVICES
October 2001
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L
10/26/2001 Replacing old computers
The second round of the 2001–02 Microcomputer Fund awards process will begin
in mid-December. If you have computers in your office that are four years old
or older, or if you know of new computing needs coming up in Spring 2002, please
apply to the fund. Full details, as well as downloadable application forms,
may be found at www.macalester.edu/cit/general/funding.html.
The deadline to apply is Friday, Dec. 14. Please submit your application(s)
to David Sisk on or before that date. All requests that were not funded in the
first round will automatically be re-considered in the second round. [Bulletin]
10/26/2001 Network problem?
The best way to know if there is a problem with the network is to subscribe
to Notification-L. When there are major system events that will affect many
people, whether planned or unplanned, we use Notification-L to get the word
out (unless e-mail is the service affected). In cases where maintenance or downtime
is scheduled, we announce in advance of the downtime; when the problems are
unscheduled, we post information as soon as it is known, in an effort to keep
you in the loop. We try very hard to keep such messages brief and to the point.
You may start or stop a subscription to Notification-L by going to subscribe.macalester.edu/notification-l.
[Bulletin]
10/26/2001 Welcome Patti Koehler
We are fortunate to be able to welcome Patti Koehler to the CIT staff as a programmer/analyst
working with the CARS system and our data mining tools. Koehler comes to us
from RZ Solutions, a firm that specializes in helping clients with these very
things. Welcome, Patti! [Bulletin]
10/26/2001 Library hours midterm break
The library will be closed on Saturday, Oct. 27, but will re-open at 6 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 28. [Bulletin]
10/26/2001 MyInfo contest
This is the last week to enter the MyInfo contest. Grand Prize drawing will
take place on Nov. 1. See October Library News for more information.
[Bulletin]
10/25/2001, Admin Server Reboot
Due to a problem on the Admin server, we will be forced to power down the server
at noon today (Thursday 10/25) and reboot. It should be available within the next five to ten minutes
after that. You may have to reboot or log out of Novell to use resources on the
Admin server. [Notification-L]
10/24/2001, Corporate Time Upgrade
Windows users:
Tomorrow morning (Thursday 10/25), an updated version of Corporate Time (v5.1.4, as opposed to the
current v5.1) will be placed in your Novell Launcher. Please start Corporate
Time from your Novell Launcher tomorrow to get the update. The first time you
run it, you will have to reboot, but after that the program will just run
normally.
The updated version will eliminate the "Evaluation Version Expiring" messages,
and will fix a few minor bugs. Otherwise, it is the same program.
Please contact the Help Desk, x6525, if you encounter any problems.
[Notification-L]
10/19/2001 Automated phone directory
x6777 is an automated directory of Macalester departments, faculty,
staff and on-campus students. Please check it out. If you find any discrepancies,
please call Telecom at x6566. Special news line Macalester introduces
696-NEWS (x6397), a news line with announcements regarding campus closing
due to inclement weather, or other large-scale events. So when the snow
flies, NEWS is the place to confirm campus hours. [Bulletin]
10/19/2001 Online personal calendar
A new service allows you to maintain your personal calendar online,
including private access over the Web, even while ensuring privacy. Go
to the CIT home page www.macalester.edu/cit and click on the item describing
Corporate Time (we are not responsible for the name). Workshops are included
in our line-up for fall break and special classes for more than five people
can be requested from Bonnie Alexander at x6625.[Bulletin]
10/19/2001 Information Services news
Information Services has a new Web site with backfiles of information
on news announcements that have been sent out via Bulletin, Today, and
Notification-L. Please see www.macalester.edu/inforservices
for a list of previously prepared announcements. [Bulletin]
10/19/2001 MyInfo Contest
Campus response has been terrific to our MyInfo contest. It’s not too
late to enter the contest. Please see
10/18/2001 E-MAIL BOUNCE-BACKS
An e-mail problem that led to off-campus senders sometimes seeing their mail
bounce back to them from Macalester has been solved. The problem was caused by a
security setting on our server that some other server administrators have not
implemented. All systems should now be able to send e-mail to Macalester equally
well. We are sorry for the inconvenience and suggest that you report any further
problems to the Help Desk, x6525. [Notification-L]
10/18/2001 BRIEF E-MAIL INTERRUPTION
There was a brief interruption to sending e-mail this morning (Thursday 10/18), lasting about half
an hour. You may not have noticed it, since reading e-mail was not affected. The
problem has been resolved now (as of 11:00 AM), and you should be able to re-send any messages
that you were unable to send earlier this morning. [Notification-L]
10/12/2001 MORE BANDWITH ON THE WAY
Our need for greater capacity at our Internet connection will be partially fulfilled
in a few weeks, if our vendors respond as promised. We contracted for four additional
T1 lines which, when installed, will provide triple the current caoacity. Given
the exploding demand, however, this issue certainly will still be with us. See
the following announcement. [Bulletin]
10/12/2001 HELP US CONSERVE BANDWITH!
Even with additional capacity at our Internet connection, performance may not
improve if individuals take more than their fair share of the bandwidth. The
occasional download of a very large data set is generally not a problem. Downloading
a video movie IS a problem. We will continue developing enforceable policies
to fairly apportion our shared bandwidth. In the meantime, please join us in
urging recreational downloaders to save our bandwidth for better purposes. [Bulletin]
10/12/2001 MYINFO PROMOTION
Win a free Palm Pilot! The Library is running a contest during the month of
October. If you set up your account in MyInfo or have any activity in an existing
account during the month of October, you will automatically be entered in the
prize drawing. If you want to learn how to take advantage of the best features
of MyInfo, we will be offering a training session during the Faculty & Staff
Seminars on Thursday, October 15th from 1 to 2:30 p.m. MyInfo is located at
myinfo.macalester.edu
10/9/2001 CLICNET DOWN WEDNESDAY CLICnet will be down Wednesday, Oct. 10, for a system upgrade. We hope the system will be back within the day, but we are advising users to plan for the system to be down all day. We apologize for this inconvenience. See the library Web page www.macalester.edu/library for updates about the completion of the upgrade or additional downtime. [Bulletin Flash]
10/08/2001 CLICNET DOWN FOR UPGRADE ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1O. CLICNet, our shared library catalogue, will be taken down for a system upgrade lasting several hours on Wednesday, Oct. 10th. We anticipate the system will only be down for a few hours in the morning, but patrons can check the library web page for updates at the library web page. [Notification-L]
10/04/2001 The bandwidth issue. Why is Internet access slow and what are they doing about it? Please read an explanation of this potentially expensive issue at http://www.macalester.edu/infoplan. [The Today]
10/03/2001 Oct 3, 2001 The Admin server is not displaying the correct time, and it is passing it's time along to any PC's connected to it. Because of the way servers manage time, we'll need to reboot the Admin server at 4:30pm today to correct the problem. Admin should be back up again within half an hour. [Notification-L]
10/03/2001 Workshops/Seminars - Wed Oct 03 2001 Calling all Honors
Students--the library is offering workshop sessions on Thurs., 10/4, 5-6pm and
Sat. 10/6, 2-3pm. Sign up at the Reference Desk, or call X6618. [Today announcement]
10/02/2001 Bandwidth issue. Why is Internet access slow and what are they doing about it? Please read an explanation of this potentially expensive issue at http://www.macalester.edu/infoplan
10/02/2001 Are we prepared? Our data and telephone systems are fragile and complex. Will they be there in an emergency? Information Services staff and others were working on that problem even before the tragic events of September 11. A brief update is available at http://www.macalester.edu/infoplan
10/02/2001"Creating Partnerships, Creating Scholarship: Strengthening Research, Teaching and Learning with Effective Use of Electronic Resources" Workshop - Friday, Oct.19, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. This year's workshop includes several sessions on evaluating assignments and developing learning outcomes. In addition, there will be poster sessions on the twelve regional grant-funded Faculty/Librarian Instructional Partnerships. The workshop will be held at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, Plymouth, MN. This workshop is sponsored by funding provided by the Bush Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. If you are interested in a copy of the conference brochure, you will find a pdf formatted copy available at www.mnprivatecolleges.com/projectjstor/conference.html The college has two travel grants available to cover registration costs for interested faculty. Registration must be completed by October 5th. If interested in attending, please contact Terri Fishel, (x6343).
10/02/2001 MyInfo Contest - Win a free Palm Pilot! We have a contest that we will be running until October 31st. To enter, you just need to create a new MyInfo account, or if you are a returning student, staff or faculty member with an existing account, demonstrate that you have used your account during the month of October. We will be doing a prize drawing selecting from those individuals who have active accounts in MyInfo. For returning faculty and students - your password is the same as your network account. To create an account, point your browser to myinfo.macalester.edu
10/02/2001 CLICnet System Upgrade - Sometime in the next two weeks we will be installing a system upgrade which will require taking CLICnet down for several hours. When we have the specific date and time, we will post a notice in Notification-L as well as on the Library Web page. We apologize ahead of time for the inconvenience, but the upgrade will address some system issues and you should see some improvements as a result.
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