INFORMATION SERVICES
March 2004
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to Information Services
Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L
03/29/04 CARS Upgrade work starting
The CARS system will be upgraded this weekend, as previously announced, and
will be unavailable beginning Friday, April 2 at 4:30pm through Sunday, April
4. Please do not schedule any jobs to run over the weekend. The Faculty and
Student Information Systems also run on CARS, and will be down while the upgrade
is in progress. Preparation work for the upgrade is beginning tonight, March
31. The CARS system will be up and down this evening, so please do not log in
to CARS tonight. [Notification-L]
03/19/04 Mac OS9 file extensions
Interoperability between Macintosh and Windows can be a problem when Mac operating
system 9 users forget about file extensions. These are the *.doc suffixes at
the end of Word and other file types. Please confirm that your Mac is adding
them or do so manually. The Help desk at x6525 can advise. [Bulletin]
03/19/04 Information Services survey
We would like to thank all of the faculty, staff and students who completed
the Information Services User Survey. Congratulations to the following people
whose names were chosen in the prize drawing: Psychology faculty member Jaine
Stauss and student Ai Li Ang both won 128 Mb Memorex high-speed USB 2.0 flash
drives; Assistant Registrar Julie McEathron-Lohmann won $50 credit on her Macalester
ID account good for purchases at Bon Appétit Grillé and Café
Mac; student Ted Kreit won a 4-pack of movie passes; student Regina Santiago
won a $50 gift certificate for The Ruminator book store. [Bulletin]
03/05/04, Do Not Open Unknown *.ZIP Attachments!
A new virus, called Beagle, is likely to be hiding inside.
See http://www.macalester.edu/infoservices/news/
Did we say, "DO NOT OPEN UNKNOWN *.ZIP ATTACHMENTS?" [Bulletin]
03/05/04, Be Careful
See http://www.macalester.edu/safecomputing
for guidance on how to protect yourself (and your computer).
For the bigger picture, see http://www.macalester.edu/infoservices/planning/
[Bulletin]
03/05/04, Scans
The Humanities Resource Center has added a second, public-use slide
scanner. With much better quality than a flatbed scanner, the Nikon
high-resolution scanner will scan directly to Photoshop where the
user can easily make adjustments to the scan. Images can be saved
in any format to a network account or on a writable CD. Assistance
and training is available - Ton Browne, x6336 [Bulletin]
03/05/04, Taxes
Federal tax forms, instructions,
publications and tax information may be found on the IRS website
at http://www.irs.gov
Minnesota tax forms may be found at:
http://www.taxes.state.mn.us/taxes/current_forms.shtml
Reproducible forms and a Tax Products CD-ROM are located
at the Reserves desk of the DeWitt Wallace Library. [Bulletin]
03/05/05, Telecom Tip
Like to speed things up?
Within the voice mail system, there are some shortcut keys available
to you.
Press the * key when you want to cancel what you are doing:
-to back up to the previous menu
-to erase and re-record
-to re-enter a destination number, if you've made a mistake
-exit from the main menu
Press the # key to proceed immediately to the next step:
-to skip someone's greeting (on our voice mail system)
-to skip a prompt if you already know what you want to do
-to denote the end of your password
(If you have any phone or voice mail questions that you'd like to
see answered here, please call Telecommunications at x6566)
03/02/04, New E-mail Virus Making the Rounds
A new e-mail virus is making the rounds, and many people seem to be receiving
it. This virus works against Windows computers. Macintosh and Linux computers
are not susceptible to this virus. I received one with an attachment named 'MoreInfo.pif'.
It claimed to be from "The Macalester.edu team."
Another professor received this virus in a different form. It came with an attached zip file, which was password encrypted. The e-mail also claimed to be from "The Macalester.edu team," and gave the password for the *.zip file. The e-mail read that inside the *.zip file there was an important patch that should be run immediately, etc. This is actually kind of clever. No antivirus scanner in the world can scan a password-encrypted *.zip file.
These are both nonsense. At first I was worried that I wasn't on "The Macalester.edu team" anymore. I've always had trouble fitting in. A quick look at the headers allayed my fears:
Received: from aloyd-193-109.reshall.umich.edu (HELO Renee) (141.213.193.109) by qmail.macalester.edu with SMTP; Tue, 02 Mar 2004 21:52:55 +0000
"Hey!" I thought. "This message didn't come from Macalester, but from some res hall at the University of Michigan." I was still on "The Macalester.edu team" after all. Phat!
Real e-mails from "The Macalester.edu team":
(1) Have the footer that appears at the bottom of this message.
(2) Are never signed from "The Macalester.edu team."
(3) Have links to download files and patches, not a password-encrypted zip file that contains a patch.
You can read more about how a quick glance at e-mail headers allows
you to quickly determine whether e-mail is bogus here: http://www.macalester.edu/infoservices/news/2003june.html.
Sincerely,
"The Macalester.edu team" [Notification-L]
03/02/04, Internet Disconnects Out of the Way
The intermittent Internet disconnect many users had been reporting
should be a thing of the past now. Starting about 3 weeks ago, some
users began reporting a complete loss of network connectivity, whereas
others reported only a loss of Internet connectivity. Either way, those
problems are fixed. [Notification-L]
03/01/04, Olin-Rice Network Outage
Olin/Rice is experiencing a network outage caused by a power outage in
the wiring closet containing the connection back to the central network.
We are working to restore electicity to the wiring closet as quickly as
possible. [Notification-L]
03/01/04, David Sisk Absence
David Sisk, CIT, will be on parental leave beginning Monday, March 8,
returning to campus on Monday, April 19. His access to e-mail will be
very limited. If you are considering any institutional hardware and
software purchases, please contact David as soon as possible in advance
of that. [Bulletin, also 02/23/04, 02/25/04, 02/27/04]
03/01/04, Privacy, Network Vulnerabilities
Please have a look at a couple policy white papers at http://www.
macalester.edu/infoservices/planning/. One has to do with the strict
guidelines we propose to follow to safeguard personal information in our
systems. The other outlines steps we perceive to be necessary to protect
our network from attacks and other service interruptions. Comments
welcomed by Eric
Wiertelak, Chair, Information Services Advisory Committee, or Joel Clemmer.
[Bulletin, also 02/27/04]
03/01/04, Learn All About It
The Library and CIT have teamed up to offer a variety of hands-on
classes for students, faculty and staff on software packages such as
Excel, PowerPoint, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Information about Spring
Semester 2004 sessions has been posted at http:
//www.macalester.edu/library/lab/services/classes.html.
[Bulletin, also 02/27/04]
03/01/04, Fight Viruses
Over the past 18 months the Internet became a nasty place and our
network is under constant, not occasional, attack. We have network level
controls in place and are working on improvements but, as national
headlines demonstrate, all computers are to some degree vulnerable,
particularly those using the Windows operating system.
Here's what you should do:
1. Ensure you have the latest Windows service pack (SP)
installed. In Windows XP, click Start, then right-click (click with the
right mouse button) My Computer -> Properties. Go to the General tab,
and look for 'Service Pack 1'. Here is a sample screenshot, with where
'Service Pack 1' should appear, circled in red: http://www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/
images/check_xp_sp_level.jpg. Go to
http://www.macalester.edu/cit/software/index.html#microsoftsp to get
the latest Windows service packs. Avoid leaving spaces in these and
following URLs!
2. Make sure your operating system updates itself
automatically. In Windows XP, click Start, then right-click (click with
the right mouse button) My Computer -> Properties. Go to the Automatic
Updates tab, check 'Keep my computer up to date', select 'Automatically
download the updates', select 'Every day' and pick a time of day when
your computer is usually on. Here is an example screenshot: http://www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/
images/windows_update_setup.jpg.
3. Go to our Safe Computing page and make sure you
understand how Symantec (formerly Norton) Anti-Virus works and how to
keep it up to date on your machine. That's http://www.
macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/.
As always, call the Help Desk at x6525 with questions.
Yes, these steps seem a chore. The problem is that one compromised
computer on our network brings down performance for everyone. So you
should take protective measures not just for your own sake but for
everyone else's. [Bulletin, also 02/23/04, 02/25/04, 02/27/04,
also Notification-L 02/18/04]
03/01/04, Your Forward Key
You probably have a button on your phone labeled 'Forward'. Ever used
it? Don't know what it's for? Using it properly will "forward" your
calls directly to voice mail, or another extension, without ringing your
phone. This is a great thing when you will be away from your desk,
especially if for a few days or more. It's a courtesy to your callers,
so they don't have to spend their time waiting for your phone to ring
three or four times before going to voice mail (and to your
co-workers, so they don't have to listen to your phone ring, knowing you
aren't there.)
To activate the "forward": press the forward key, enter 6666 if you want
your calls to go directly to your voice mail box (or another extension), then
press the forward key. The forward key should now have a solid triangle
next to it. To undo the forwarding, press the forward key again. The
triangle should disappear.
If you have any questions, please call Telecommunications at x6566.
[Bulletin, also 02/27/04]
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