INFORMATION SERVICES
December 2003
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L

12/29/03, Stand Down
We had previously warned of downtime today and tomorrow as we replaced the Academic and Admin file servers. These are the servers that show up as "G:," "H:" and so on. They are generally accessed from on campus (although see http://webfile.macalester.edu for off-campus access).

C.I.T. staff voluntarily came in over last week's holiday and performed the upgrade. It's done; you can ignore the previous warnings! [Notification-L]

12/23/03, Network Upgrades
CIT will be doing several upgrades the week of December 29th. The Academic server will be upgraded the morning of Monday December 29th. It will be down until mid-morning. The Admin server will be upgraded on Tuesday, December 30th, beginning at 4:30 PM. It will be down for a few hours. Network configuration changes will be made in Olin/Rice between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM the morning of December 29th, also in 77 Mac and Weyerhaeuser between 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM on December 30. There will be a couple of brief network outages during that time while the changes are made. [Notification-L]

12/19/03, Database Changes
Many of our subscription databases are undergoing changes. If you have questions about databases during the holiday break, even though the library is closed we will respond to questions submitted on our "Ask Us" form. See the library's main Web page, or use link below to submit questions. We respond in 24 hours or less, except during staff holidays.
http://www. macalester.edu/library/about/qpemail.html [Bulletin, also 12/22]

12/17/03, E-Mail
We are at a time of year when many faculty are off campus and did not get our voicemail explanation of the e-mail outage this morning. Here is a potentially redundant explanation. The problem manifested itself as e-mail downtime but the root cause is security. A campus computer was hacked by a spammer who then used it to launch hundreds of thousands of spam messages, which would bring any college e-mail server to its knees. The solution is closer scrutiny of computers we may wish to attach to our network so as to ensure that they are patched and secure. This could be seen as intrusive and is under debate in our Advisory Committee right now. [Notification-L]

12/17/03, Please Change Your Greeting
If you are going to be spending some time away from your desk, as a courtesy to your callers, please change your voicemail greeting to reflect your time away and return date. If you record an extended absence greeting, when you return, you simply choose to delete that greeting when you access your voicemail, and your personal greeting returns. To record an extended absence greeting, access your voicemail box, press 4 (personal options), then 3 (greetings), then 2 and follow the prompts. Thank you! [Bulletin, also 12/19]

12/16/03, Internet Slowdown Yesterday Afternoon
Yesterday [December 15], from around noon to 3:00 PM, our outbound Internet connection was completely saturated. This resulted in decreased Internet performance for all users. Five virus- or worm-infected machines on campus were found to be the cause of this, and their ports were shut down.

Of the last seven machines that have caused problems with network congestion, three were faculty or staff computers. A virus or worm may affect ANY computer on the network; viruses don't care if you're a student, staff or faculty!

These problems are easily avoided by keeping your computer up to date with patches and antivirus software. Windows computers are currently the most vulnerable, but Linux and Macintosh computers should keep up-to-date with patches also.

Windows 95/98 users:
Get and install Norton Antivirus software FOR FREE here:
http://www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/

Windows XP users:
Set your system to auto-update, and set your mind at ease! Go to:
Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Automatic Updates, then check the "Keep my computer up to date" box and the "Automatically download the updates" box.
...and...
Get and install Norton Antivirus software FOR FREE here:
http://www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/

Macintosh OSX users:
Go to System Preferences -> Software update, and set it to check for updates Weekly. It will tell you when it has new updates to install.
...and...
Get and install Norton Antivirus software FOR FREE here:
http://www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/

Macintosh OS 9 users:
Get and install Norton Antivirus software FOR FREE here:
http://www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/

Linux, FreeBSD, users:
Too many variants to list any specific instructions here, but shut down any unused services, and check for patches and updates to your software regularly. [Notification-L]

12/12/03, Humanities Resource Center
The HRC will close for the Winter break at 11:30 AM on Thursday, December 18 (the last day of exams) and re-open on Monday, January 26, 2004 (the first day of classes). As student employees complete their contracts or leave for Winter break, the HRC may not be open all the posted evening and weekend hours. Please plan to do your work between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM or call ahead (x.6336) to be sure the HRC is open. We apologize for any inconvenience. [Bulletin, also 12/15]

12/12/03, No Voicemail Messages?
On Monday, December 8, we experienced voicemail indicator problems. If you had messages, your indicator didn't go on - or your indicator was on if you had no messages. On Monday evening the voicemail system was given a software fix, rebooted and then tested. It seemed all was well. However, we've heard reports of message indicators still not going on when a message is left. Please occasionally check your voicemail over the next few days, even when you have no indicator, and call Telecommunications at x6566 if there are any problems. Thank you! [Bulletin, also 12/15]

12/12/03, Media Services Hours
Beginning December 15, Media Services will be open Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, with no evening hours. The department will be closed from December 20 through January 4. In January, the department will be open Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, with no evening hours. [Bulletin, also 12/15]

12/12/03, Keep Up With the News
Point your Web browser to www.macalester.edu/infoservices/news/ for a compilation of latest announcements from Information Services. (Ed. note: if you're reading this, you're already there.) [Bulletin, also 12/15]

12/11/03, Off-Campus Library Access Restored
The vendor has resolved their T1 line issues. Off-campus access to library and related resources is now available. Contact the library's reference desk (x6618) with any questions. [Notification-L]

12/10/03, Off-Campus Library Access Unavailable
Off-Campus access to library and related resources is currently unavailable. The vendor with which we contract to provide this service has their T1 line down. They are working with their ISP and local phone company (they are in New York state) to identify and resolve the problem as soon as possible. [Notification-L]

12/08/03, Voicemail Indicators: Update
No, the message indicator problem is not yet fixed. At 4:35 PM today, Monday, December 8, the voicemail system will be rebooted; the system should be down for no more than 10 minutes. This should not affect the phone system. Incoming calls will not be able to leave voicemail, so no voicemail messages will be lost during the downtime. Hopefully our message indicators will then be on when you have messages, and not on when you don't! No further notification will be e-mailed to you if this fixes the problem.

Again, thank you for your patience. Please do not respond to this e-mail. [Notification-L]

12/08/03, Voicemail Indicators
There is a widespread problem with voicemail message indicator lights this morning. Your message indicator is either on, and you don't have messages - or you don't have an indicator, but you might have messages. We have referred the problem to our maintenance provider, as it is system-wide.

In the meantime, if your indicator is on, you don't have messages, and you want your indicator off, please call x6566 or x6000. If your message indicator is not on, you may want to check your voicemail occasionally to check for messages.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and will notify you as soon as it is rectified. Please do not reply to this message. [Notification-L]

12/05/03, Mail Server Outage
The mail server was rebooted this morning at about 7:00 AM for a seemingly minor hardware change. The server then refused to restart. We worked with [hardware vendor] Sunto get the problem resolved as quickly as possible.

Approximately 4,000 messages from the Internet were received during the outage. These were queued up and NOT discarded. The messages will be delivered as fast as the server can process them. With that many messages queued, there will be some delay. [Notification-L]

12/03/03, IT Staff This Week
In the week of December 2, the ranks of C.I.T. staff will be depleted because of administrative system vendor demonstrations happening off-campus and because of other regional meetings. We will do our best to keep up with meeting your needs but might have to ask for additional patience. [Bulletin, also 12/5]

12/03/03, E-Mail
The installation of our new e-mail server and related paraphernalia on the weekend of November 22 was successful and we hope you are enjoying happier e-mailing. The c.p.u. utilization of the new server is much lower than that of the old one - even before so many of us left for the Thanksgiving holiday - so we have room to grow. We must continue to closely manage the size of Inboxes, however, to ensure continued good times. [Bulletin, also 12/5]

12/03/03, Interlibrary Loan Deadlines
The last day for students to submit ILL requests, unless for an Honors project, is Friday December 12. No interlibrary loan materials will be processed from December 20 to January 4, 2004. This means that if an interlibrary loan item arrives at the library after December 20, it will not be processed and become available to be picked up at the circulation desk until after January 4. [Bulletin, also 12/5]

12/01/03, Science Direct Decision
In consultation with faculty, the library has decided to not participate in the new three-year contract for access to Science Direct. There were many factors that went into this decision, and a summary of the key points along with links to additional resources will be found at www.macalester.edu/library/misc/.

A recently published article in Change identifies some key critical issues in scholarly publishing which are also a factor in this decision. A link to a copy of "The High Costs of Scholarly Journals," Change, November/December 2003, p. 10-19 is available on e-reserve at www. macalester.edu/eres/info10-01/info10c.pdf. If you have questions or comments about this decision, please contact Terri Fishel, x6343 or Dani Roach, x6703. [Bulletin, also 11/26]

12/01/03, Taking Two Big Bites Out of Spam!
On October 9, with the blessing of the Information Services Advisory Committee, CIT announced our two-pronged plan to help control spam in college e-mail (see http:// www.macalester.edu/infoservices/planning/spam.html). On November 6, we put the first half of that plan into action by passing all incoming e-mail through a filter created and updated by SpamHaus (http://www.spamhaus.org/). This filter stops all e-mail coming from a handful of known spammers, whose businesses are built around sending nothing but spam (and plenty of it). As SpamHaus notes, fewer than 200 spam outfits account for 90 percent of spam on the Internet - so blocking mail from these outfits is virtually guaranteed to prevent only spam. Since the filter has been in place, approximately 2,900 spam messages per hour have been prevented from entering our e-mail system.

The second half of our spam solution was announced November 19. This is SpamAssassin (http://www.spamassassin.org), a tool that resides on our e-mail server. While SpamAssassin does NOT block mail, it compares incoming messages against an evolving list of criteria that tend to distinguish spam from legitimate messages. E-mail messages which score above a certain level of "spam similarity" have the text tag "[***SPAM***]" placed in the subject line of the message, but the message is still delivered normally to your account. By doing this, you get a warning that a message looks like spam, but there is no danger that the message will be thrown away unless you delete it. The ultimate responsibility for deciding whether a message is spam or not rests with you, the recipient.

To reiterate crucial points: the only messages blocked by SpamHaus are those coming from a small number of known spammers who send nothing BUT spam. Likewise, while SpamAssassin marks suspicious messages as spam, it does NOT delete or block any messages. Each individual at Macalester controls his or her own e-mail.

SpamAssassin may be configured to your individual specifications: while you do not need to take any action, you may change many of SpamAssassin's settings. Customized copies of the SpamAssassin Config Maker tool are available for Windows (all versions), Macintosh OS 9 and Macintosh OS X. These may be downloaded from the CIT software page at http://www.macalester.edu /cit/software/; look on the right side of the page and scroll down to "SpamAssassin Config." We have released this tool now due to high demand from campus. Please be aware that documentation for the SpamAssassin Config tools is not yet available, but is in the final stages of being created. If you are not sure of your options using the SpamAssassin Config Maker tool, please wait for the documentation (which will be announced as soon as it is ready). [Bulletin, also 11/21, 11/24]

12/01/03, Administrative System Planning
Macalester has embarked on a process to evaluate alternatives to our current central administrative data system, Jenzabar/CARS. If this analysis shows that a better choice is available, we may then make a decision to purchase a new system and convert over to it. Most aspects of College business will be affected, including payroll, academic records, billing, purchasing, class registration and many others. Therefore, this choice will significantly impact every person at Macalester! A host of background documents, including criteria, timelines and notes on potential systems, may be found on our central Admin Planning Web pages, beginning at http://www.macalester.edu/ adminplan/. We encourage everyone to examine this information and stay abreast of the process. [Bulletin, also 11/21, 11/24]

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