INFORMATION SERVICES
FEBRUARY 2003
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to Information Services
Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L
02/27/03, Opportunities for Learning
Would you like your students to know more about Web editing? Would you
like to know more about some of the software tools that are provided on
the campus? Check out the classes that are offered on a regular basis by
library and CIT staff on Dreamweaver, Powerpoint, Excel and more. See
www.macalester.edu/library/lab/classes/classlist.html for a complete
class schedule. [Bulletin]
02/27/03, Information Services Orientation
The next Information Services session for new staff will be Thursday, March 27. If
you are a staff member or faculty member who is not new, but would like
to know more about the services provided by Information Services (CIT,
Media, and Library) you are welcome to join us on March 27. We begin in
Media Services at 9:00 AM. To register, please sign up with Dave Collins
at collins@macalester.edu. [Bulletin]
02/27/03, LESTER Tip #11: Course Announcements
LESTER is Macalester's Web portal, providing a convenient and
personalized way to access a wide variety of campus and Web resources.
Use your regular network/e-mail username and password to log in to
LESTER at http://lester.macalester.edu.
On LESTER's Courses tab, a channel appears for each course you are
enrolled in (students) or each course you are teaching (faculty).
Within each course channel, there is an "Announcements" section for
faculty to use to provide news and announcements for class members. To
add an announcement, click on the pencil and paper icon next to the
"Announcements" heading. Each announcement entry includes a start date
and end date in addition to the text of the announcement. Announcements
will appear in the LESTER course channel only during the period between
the specified start and end dates.
[Bulletin]
02/27/03, Classrooms of the
Future Conference Call for Proposals
The Associated Colleges of the Twin
Cities (ACTC) is pleased to announce the Call for Proposals for
Classrooms of the Future IX. This year's conference theme is
"Learner-Centered Architecture" and will feature keynote speaker Dr.
Brad Hokanson, Professor of Design, Housing, and Apparel at the
University of Minnesota's College of Human Ecology. We've also made a
few changes from prior COTF conferences such as:
02/27/03, Computer Configuration
As described in last week's Bulletin [of 2/20/03], we had to make
adjustments in desktop configuration beginning with the 2003-04 fiscal
year to stretch the Microcomputer Fund. Our population of computers has grown
over the last few years and, with new budget constraints, our objective
changes from encouraging growth to making our budget dollars go as far
as possible. Beginning next year,
02/24/03, Admin Server Online
The ADMIN Server is back up and running.
Thank you for your cooperation.
[Notification-L]
02/24/03, Admin Server Downtime
The
ADMIN Server will be temporarily shut down for an unscheduled update
today at 5:30 PM. The system should be back up in less than 30 minutes. I will
send a notification once the system is back up. All ADMIN server users are
asked to please exit the system by 5:30 PM today (Monday February 24th).
This may cause the inability to login to e-mail as well as other
services. We regret any inconvenience this downtime may cause. If you
have questions, please contact Franc Garcia x6823.
Thank you for your understanding. [Notification-L]
02/20/03, Lester Tip #10: Macalester Directory Service
LESTER is Macalester's Web portal, providing a convenient and
personalized way to access a wide variety of campus and Web resources.
Use your regular network/e-mail username and password to log in to
LESTER at http://lester.macalester.edu.
Need a phone number or e-mail address for a member of the Macalester
community? LESTER's "Macalester Directory Search" channel (Campus tab)
offers a handy way to search for directory information without leaving
the LESTER portal. Simply type a first name or a last name in the
search box and click the Search button to view matching directory
entries. You can also type all or part of a department or group name to
see web site links and a list of faculty and staff associated with that
department.
The directory data is updated daily, making the online directory search
much more up-to-date than the printed Employee Directory. Directory
Search is also available from the Macalester home page (select the
"Directory" button in the upper right corner).
[Bulletin]
02/20/03, E-Mail
The e-mail server was taken down twice this week to solve two unrelated
problems, one related to software, and one was caused by a hardware
failure. Everything is now running smoothly again but we apologize for
the inconvenience. We strive to give you warning whenever possible and
to explain what is going on through Notification-l or other means. For
those interested in statistics, in one day (Monday) the e-mail server
delivered 30,000 messages totaling over 2 Gb in size. It has filtered
out 337 e-mail viruses during the last week. [Bulletin]
02/20/03, Replying to a Voice Message?
Don't forget to press # when you are finished
recording that reply! You can reply to messages left in your voice
mail, provided the call was left by someone with a Macalester voice mail
box; just press 8 after listening to the message. However, the voice
mail system does not always tell you that you must press the # key after
recording your reply. After you press 8 to reply, record your reply,
and press # to "send" the reply, the voice mail system will then ask you
if you want to delete or save the original message. If you simply hang
up after recording your reply (and don't press #), your reply is
negated.
If your voice mail box does not tell you to press # after recording your
reply, and you'd like it to, please call Telecommunications at x6566 for
further instruction. [Bulletin]
02/20/03, Budget Cuts and Computers
The need to control budget growth at the college necessitated changes in
the standard configurations of desktop and laptop computers for the
coming fiscal year. We will explain these in detail next week.
In the meantime, we remind you of standards for MicroFund expenditures
to which we must closely adhere.
02/18/03, Common Drives To Be
Deleted
All files in the Common folders on the Admin and
Academic servers will be deleted at the end of the day tomorrow,
February 19, 4:30 PM. The Common folders are what Windows users know as
their M: drive.
Nothing on the G: drive, or in anyone's personal folders, or in any
departmental folders will be touched. When I say the Common folders, I
mean two specific folders named "COMMON," one on Academic and one on
Admin. I do NOT mean folders used by a common group of people, such as
an organizational or departmental folder. I'm trying to make this clear
so people don't panic, thinking we're going on some kind of
mass-deletion rampage. It's a small rampage, like that of an angry
kitten.
The Common folders on Admin and Academic are sort of a
lawless Wild West area of our network. Anyone may read from and write
to these folders. They're handy for temporarily storing files that you
want to share with others. They are not good for storing any file that
you can't easily replace, nor are they good for any file you consider
private. This is because anyone may read or write to the Common folder.
For information on how to share files with only specific people, and
allow different access levels, please see http://www.macalester.edu/cit/docs/howto/nwfilesharing-win/.
We may start periodically doing a mass deletion of the Common
folders. People really have started to use them, and often they don't
remember to delete their files after they're done. The campus will be
notified should that happen.
Ted Fines
CIT Staff
[Notification-L]
02/15/03, TITLE
Once again the
e-mail server needed some maintenance; it was brought down from 10:00 to
11:00 AM on Saturday, February 15. Its CD-ROM drive failed and needed
replacement, and we also needed to patch the kernel. The kernel is the
core operating system, and after patching it, the system needs to be
rebooted, similar to having to reboot after Windows Update runs.
[Notification-L]
02/14/03, Classes on Web Editing and other
software programs
Our new list of available classes for web
editing and other programs will be found at http://www.macalester.edu/library/lab/classes/classlist.html.
These classes are open to all members of the Macalester community.
[Bulletin]
02/14/03, What's New in LESTER
We
have a new feature that appears in LESTER to keep you informed of
changes as we make them. You'll find "What's New" located in the top
left corner of your LESTER tab, just below your name. We welcome any
and all comments as we continue to make enhancements.
[Bulletin]
02/14/03, Harmon Reading and Research
Series
Please join us to celebrate Black History month on
Wednesday, February 26th at 3:30 PM in the Harmon Room. Professor
Michelle Wright will be speaking. [Bulletin]
02/14/03, Making Personal Long Distance
Calls?
Be sure to use your personal calling card or
pre-paid card; reimbursing the college is no longer an option.
Following is the section of our employee handbook that addresses this
issue:
12.1.7 Telephone Use
You are
welcome to use college phones to make a limited, reasonable number of
local calls, the duration of which is not so long as to interfere with
your work. You may make long distance calls when necessary but only
after arranging to charge a personal account, e.g., via a prepaid card
or an 800# call to your home carrier. [Bulletin]
02/14/03, That Bright Orange Book
Yes, the Macalester Employee Directory; not only contains the phone
numbers and locations of all departments, staff and faculty members, but
also of our students. Please do not be afraid to use this resource when
you don't know a campus number. Many hours and dollars are dedicated to
produce this directory for each staff and faculty member. Please also
check your own information provided in the Directory. If there are
errors, please notify HR (x6280) or Telecommunications (x6566).
[Bulletin]
02/12/03, E-Mail Maintenance
Completed
Some system configuration changes were done on
Wednesday, February 12, between 6:30 PM and 9:00 PM. We hope this will
improve the performance of the e-mail server, and apologize for the lack
of notice about the downtime. The performance problems were severe
enough that we felt we should make the changes as soon as possible.
[Notification-L]
02/12/03, E-Mail Downtime
February
12, 6:30 PM
The e-mail system will be going down this evening
for maintenance that will hopefully alleviate some of the performance
problems we have been experiencing. It should be back up later tonight.
I'm sorry for the lack of notice, but feel that it's preferable to
waiting until business hours tomorrow. [Notification-L]
02/10/03, E-Mail Slowdowns
You may
have noticed that the e-mail server has been intermittantly slow today,
and over the last few days. We have been working with vendors and
making changes to the server configuration, but haven't been able to
resolve the problem yet. We are continuing to work on the problem, and
will keep you posted when we have further news. [Notification-L]
02/07/03, Call for Proposals: Classrooms of the
Future Conference
The Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities (ACTC) is pleased to announce
the Call for Proposals for Classrooms of the Future IX. This year's
conference theme is "Learner-Centered Architecture" and will feature
keynote speaker Dr. Brad Hokanson, Professor of Design, Housing, and
Apparel at the University of Minnesota's College of Human Ecology. We've
also made a few changes from prior COTF conferences such as:
02/07/03, Qwest Directories vs. your Macintosh
Currently the QwestDex Live! Phone Directories are not available to Mac
users. Qwest says this option will become available in the next few
months. As soon as it is available, we will notify you in this column.
If you have any questions, please call Telecommunications at x6566.
[Bulletin]
02/07/03, Making Personal Long Distance Calls?
Be sure to use your personal calling card or pre-paid card: reimbursing
the college is no longer an option. Following is the section of our
employee handbook that addresses this issue: 12.1.7
Telephone Use. "You are welcome to use college phones to make a
limited, reasonable number of local calls, the duration of which is not
so long as to interfere with your work. You may make long distance calls
when necessary but only after arranging to charge a personal account,
e.g., via a prepaid card or an 800# call to your home carrier."
[Bulletin]
02/07/03, LESTER Tip #9: Access to Course Folders
LESTER is Macalester's Web portal, providing a convenient and
personalized way to access a wide variety of campus and Web resources.
Use your regular network/e-mail username and password to log in to
LESTER at http://lester.macalester.edu.
LESTER's Courses tab includes a channel for each course you are enrolled
in (students) or each course you are teaching (faculty). Each course
channel features a button for accessing the shared course folder.
Course folders are shared directories located on the Academic file
server. Only the instructor, department coordinator and students
enrolled in each course have access to the course folder.
To access the course folder from within LESTER, enter your
network/e-mail password in the box provided in the "Course Folder"
section of each course channel and then click on the "Go to folder"
button. The web file management application will open in a separate
window and the current folder will automatically be changed to the
appropriate course folder. Be sure to log out of the web file
application when you are finished. [Bulletin]
02/07/03, Safe Computing and Safe Students
College-owned computers supplied to staff and faculty have anti-virus
software already installed and working, as do our central servers.
C.I.T. now is making the same anti-virus software available for
student-owned computers. Everybody benefits from this initiative,
directly or indirectly. The Web pages describing the program are
informative and provide a good overview of virus control, including the
well-known but little-understood Klez. See http://www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/.
[Bulletin]
02/07/03, Harmon Reading and Research Series
Celebrating Black History Month: February 26th, 3:30
PM, Dr. Michelle Wright will be speaking. Please book the date and time
in your CorporateTime account, Palm Pilot, Franklin Planner, or whatever
calendar system you use. More information will be in the next
Bulletin. [Bulletin]
02/07/03, Off-Campus Access to Eureka Databases
Library staff are working with our vendors
to solve a problem with remote access to the Anthropological Literature,
Handbook of Latin American Studies, and Bibliography of the History of
Art databases. We apologize for the inconvenience. [Bulletin]
02/05/03, CARS Downtime 02/08/03
The CARS administrative system will be rebooted at 8:30 AM this coming
Saturday, February 8, for preventive maintenance. It should be back
online by 9:30 AM that same day. If you have questions about this
scheduled maintenance, please contact Database Manager Ramón
Rentas at x6633. [Notification-L]
02/05/03, Internet Slowdowns
This morning we have experienced two or three temporary internet
slowdowns that seem to be caused by some faulty hardware somewhere on
our network. The network staff is currently working to find this problem
and will have it solved as soon as possible. [Notification-L]
02/03/03, E-Mail Trouble Today
Today at about 3:00 PM we began having some trouble with the e-mail
server. After adjusting a couple of settings and rebooting, we found that it
worked, but very slowly. So we ended up having to run some software
maintenance on it, which required a few more reboots. It was down for
about 30-45 minutes. [Notification-L]
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