INFORMATION SERVICES
July 2002
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L

7/25/02, Reminder: Support Changes Effective September 1
As first announced in December 2001, all support for Corel WordPerfect, Corel Paradox, Adobe PageMill and Adobe PageMaker will end on Sept. 1. These applications will be removed from the file servers and will no longer run from the Novell Application Launcher. You can re-read the announcement at http://www.macalester.edu/cit/announce/122601removal.html. [Bulletin]

7/25/02, Power Outage August 10
There will be a power outage Saturday, Aug. 10. Details are available from the Physical Plant Department at x6278. C.I.T must follow suit and take down CARS and other servers on that day. You should power down your desktop equipment as well. [Bulletin]

7/09/2002, Office XP Pro Available for All Faculty and Staff
Microsoft Office XP Professional is now available for installation on any college-owned computer, for any faculty or staff member. Office XP is for Windows only, and is not available for the Macintosh.

This new version of Microsoft Office has quite a few new features. But the basic look of it is still the same. Compare Office XP with Office 2000 here: http://www.microsoft.com/office/evaluation/indepth/compare.asp. Perhaps the best thing about Office XP is that the 'Office Assistant' is hidden by default!

Just run the 'Install Office XP Pro' icon in your Novell Application Launcher, and your system will be updated to Office XP, which includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. If you already have a version of Office on your computer, it will be replaced with Office XP. Otherwise, Office XP will just perform a new installation. Please read the pop-up window that appears when you run the 'Install Office XP Pro' for more details. [Notification-L]

7/09/2002, Spam Spam Spam
Everybody, on campus and off, is getting more and more spam e-mail. That is because there is no effective way to control all incoming mail so strictly as to not violate community norms on censorship or zap good mail with the bad.

The best option is the legislative one followed by California and Washington - make spammers susceptible to lawsuits. Minnesota has not done that (yet).

In the meantime, check out http://mail.macalester.edu to review your options for filtering incoming mail ('PMDF' is the name of our kind of mail server). There are also free services such as that at http://spamcop.net that promise relief (these are not sponsored by C.I.T.) Finally, we are testing central network software to manage the problem. We know, however, that no software will be able to (a.) keep up with the spammers' tricks or (b.) make the judgements all individuals would find satisfactory. [Bulletin]

7/09/2002, Prepare to Crash!
There has been a rash of hard drive failures around campus in the last couple of weeks, so CIT would like to remind everyone that data stored on their hard drives should be backed up on a regular basis.

Data can be stored in your personal network folder, or copied to Zip disks or writable CDs if the computer is so equipped. Zip drives are standard equipment on all the computers we purchase. Data stored on the network is backed up nightly by C.I.T. There is documentation on using the network folders available at http://www.macalester.edu/cit/docs/novell/index.html.

One of the symptoms of a hard drive failure is a regular thumping noise coming from the computer. If you hear a noise like this, shut your computer down immediately and call the Help Desk at x6525. There is a better chance of saving data from the bad hard drive if it is shut down quickly. [Bulletin]

7/09/2002, Power Outage August 10
Physical Plant plans an outage on Saturday August 10. Details are available from Physical Plant, x6278. C.I.T. must follow suit and take down CARS and other servers on that day. You should power down your desktop equipment as well. [Bulletin]

7/09/2002, Weird E-Mails?
There are many varieties of "weird e-mail" but a high proportion have proven to be the work of the Klez worm. Receipt of e-mail launched by the worm does NOT mean your computer is infected; we have found only a small handful that are. Confusing? See http://www.macalester.edu/cit/announce/050202klez-worm.html. [Bulletin]

7/03/2002, Remember to Back Up Your Data
There has been a rash of hard drive failures around campus in the last couple of weeks. CIT would like to remind you that data stored on their hard drive should be backed up on a regular basis. Data can be stored in your personal network folder, or copied to Zip disks or writable CDs if the computer is so equipped. One of the symptoms of a hard drive failure is a regular thumping noise coming from the computer. If you hear a noise like this, shut your computer down immediately and call the Help Desk at x6525 for the best chance of saving data. [Bulletin Flash]

7/02/2002, Turn Computers Off Before the Holiday Weekend to Prevent Damage
The annual emergency light test will take place from Thursday, July 4 through Saturday, July 6. Selective power circuits will be off for several hours at various times in order to complete the test. Please turn off all personal computers, printers or other sensitive electronic equipment for the weekend to avoid any damage or loss of data. Buildings affected include Art, Athletic Center, Campus Center, Carnegie Hall, Dupre Hall, Dramatic Arts and Dance, Humanities, International Center, Music, Old Main, Turk Hall, Weyerhaeuser Hall and 77 Macalester. If you have any questions please contact Terry Gorman at x6218. Thanks in advance for your help and cooperation. [Bulletin Flash, Notification-L]

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