INFORMATION SERVICES
October 2004
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L

10/29/04, New Telecom Web Page
Yes, it's finally available to you - a Macalester Telecommunications Web site! Go to: www.macalester.edu/Telecom/. You can also find it via the online directory, linked from Administrative Offices and linked from both the Information Services and CIT Web sites. Please check it out; we hope you find it informative. If you have any questions, find any misprints, or don't find the information you are looking for, please contact Telecommunications at x6566. [Bulletin]

10/29/04, Web Applications Server Upgrade
On Friday, October 29, a web applications server will be upgraded with new hardware and system software. This upgrade will require some downtime for several applications, including the LESTER portal, campus events calendar, and online giving. The upgrade was scheduled during Fall Break in order to minimize disruption to students.

For the latest status on the upgrade, please check the following page: http://www.macalester.edu/web/. [Notification-L]

10/28/04, Scam Alert: Citibank
Be alert for the latest iteration of an e-mail scam purporting to originate with Citibank. There are multiple variations of this scam. In each one, the scammers attempt to fool you into revealing personal information, such as credit card numbers and PINs, bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and other data. Needless to say, scammers then use your information to compromise your accounts and rob you blind.

No reputable financial institution manages your accounts using insecure e-mail. Do not respond to such scams. The best thing you can do is delete the message.

Although there are multiple variations of such scam messages, some people on campus have received the following version:

*******BEGIN SCAM MESSAGE TEXT******

Dear valued Citibank member,

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the online banking
community we have issued the following warning message.

It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be
confirmed due to inactive customers, fraud and spoof reports. If you could
please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your
records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.
However, failure to confirm your records may result in your account
suspension.

Once you have confirmed your account records your internet banking service
will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

Please click here to confirm your bank account records.

Thank you for your time,
Citibank Billing Department.

__________________________________________________

Citibank.com
Citigroup Privacy Promise
Terms, conditions, caveats and small print
Copyright © 2004, Citicorp

10/25/04, CARS Back Up
Thank you for your patience, CARS staff has restored functionality to the Administrative server. The downtime was caused when a statistical process related to the database hung over the weekend. The result was that tables in the database were locked and blocked access. It is now working properly. [Notification-L]

10/22/04, A Telecomm Tip
Want to immediately respond to a co-worker's or students voicemail message? After listening to a voicemail message from an on-campus person, press 8; record your reply; press #, and follow the prompts. If you hang up and do not press the # key after recording your response, you did not respond.

If you have any telephone or voicemail questions that you'd like to see answered here, call Telecommunications at x6566. [Bulletin, also 10/26]

10/22/04, Listening to the Faculty, Part II
As promised, we have scheduled two more open meetings with academic divisions to hear your recommendations and concerns about technology and information services in general. Course support software, improved e-mail and computer funding are examples of areas we would like to develop and need to hear from you. All meetings are open to all faculty: if you cannot attend the one scheduled for your division, please feel free to attend one or more others. If you wish to attend all such meetings, that's great too. Upcoming meetings:

Monday, October 25, Old Main 4th lounge, noon to 1:00 PM
Tuesday, October 26, Humanities 309, 4:30 to 5:30 PM [Bulletin, also 10/26]

10/19/04, E-Mail Server Scheduled Downtime: Wednesday, October 20
The e-mail server will be unavailable on Wednesday, October 20, beginning at 4:30 PM. It will be up again late that evening. We will be installing a hardware upgrade and making some configuration changes to help improve performance. [Notification-L]

10/19/04, Healthy Skepticism Can Protect Your Computer
We've said this before, but it bears repeating: many computer viruses and hack attacks sent through e-mail will come to you looking like 'official' notices from CIT staff members. Be skeptical of e-mail from any address you don't recognize, no matter what it says.

For example, some users have recently reported getting bogus virus warning messages from 'the macalester.edu team.' These warnings are filled with technical jargon such as "trojaned proxy server" and purport to come from your colleagues here in Computing. These are bogus, and should be deleted unread. Messages to the Macalester community from CIT staff tend to be either e-mails from one individual address (someone you can look up in the directory; e.g. sisk@macalester.edu is David Sisk), or postings to the campus-wide alert list, Notification-L. The latter should have some standard footer text attached to it that outlines your Notification-L subscription options.

If you are ever suspicious of an e-mail message that seems to be from Computing staff, the best thing you can do is delete it without opening it. If you think it may be legitimate, contact CIT staff for confirmation. If we sent it, we'll say so. For a more full discussion of how to tell bogus e-mails from legitimate ones, please see some related postings previously sent out on September 9 2004, July 30 2004, March 2 2004 and June 10 2003 (available from the "backfiles" links on this Web page: www.macalester.edu/infoservices/news/). [Bulletin, also 10/22]

10/15/04, E-Mail Service Restored
Normal e-mail delivery to off-campus addresses has been restored. You may have also noticed time periods when on-campus delivery was similarly delayed. This was a side effect and has also been fixed. We made a few configuration changes to the way the message queues work, which should prevent this problem from reoccurring.

We also find these e-mail interruptions disruptive to work, and are actively looking for alternative, more reliable solutions. [Notification-L]

10/15/04, FirstSearch Database Access Restored
FirstSearch database connectivity issues have been resolved.

FirstSearch Indexes include:
AGRICOLA
Alternative Press Index
BasicBIOSIS
Books in Print
Business & Management Practices
Consumers Index
Contemporary Women's Issues
Dissertation Abstracts Online
FactSearch
GEOBASE
GPO Monthly Catalog
Media Review Digest
PAIS International
PapersFirst
Periodical Abstracts
ProceedingsFirst
Wilson Select Plus
WorldCat
[Notification-L]

10/15/04, E-Mail
Obviously, our e-mail service is unstable today and we regret the interruption of your work. Some of the interruptions actually are initiated by the vendor's engineers as they attempt to fix the problem. They are responding to our ultimatum to locate the root cause of recurring problems by the close of business today. We realize the importance of reliable email service to you and will return to an acceptable standard as soon as we possibly can. [Notification-L]

10/15/04, Outgoing E-Mail Problems
Currently, we are experiencing problems with outgoing e-mail (e.g. mail going from Macalester to an external address, such as @aol.com addresses, @hotmail.com addresses, etc.). Outgoing messages are being delayed by minutes to hours (it varies). We are working with the vendor on this problem and will have it fixed as quickly as possible. [Notification-L]

10/13/04, FirstSearch Database Update
FirstSearch database connectivity issues are still being resolved. In the meantime, links for FirstSearch resources on the main library Online Indexes title list Web page have been altered to provide access via an alternative connection until our primary access is restored - see www.macalester.edu/library/resources/indexes/index.html#title. LESTER links have NOT been changed - LESTER links will NOT work for FirstSearch at this time.

FirstSearch Indexes include:
AGRICOLA
Alternative Press Index
BasicBIOSIS
Books in Print
Business & Management Practices
Consumers Index
Contemporary Women's Issues
Dissertation Abstracts Online
FactSearch
GEOBASE
GPO Monthly Catalog
Media Review Digest
PAIS International
PapersFirst
Periodical Abstracts
ProceedingsFirst
Wilson Select Plus
WorldCat
[Notification-L]

10/12/04, FirstSearch Databases Temporarily Unavailable
We apologize for the inconvenience, but our access to FirstSearch bibliographic databases has been temporarily cut off. We are working with the vendor to restore service. We will post an update via Notification-L when service is restored. For further information call the Library Reference Desk at x6618. Thank you for your patience. [Notification-L]

10/08/04, Interlibrary Loan: Problem with Notification for Electronic Documents
The library has had some problems related to sending e-mail notifications for Interlibrary Loan articles that have arrived in electronic format. We encourage all people who have requested ILL articles to check their ILLiad accounts, http:// macalester.hosts.atlas-sys.com/illiad/illiad.dll, and look for their articles in "View/Download Electronically Received Articles." Articles are only available for download for 7 days. If the article arrived more than 7 days ago, prior to 10/1/2004, you should click on the "View Request History" button. If an article has been moved to your Request History list without your having seen it, then you will need to request the article a second time. The 7 day period has now been extended, so no more articles should be moved to your Request History list prior to your viewing. All other Interlibrary Loan e-mail notifications are working properly.

Library staff are working to fix this problem as soon as possible. If you have any questions please contact Aaron Albertson, (651) 696-6530 or albertson@macalester.edu. [Bulletin, also 10/12]

10/08/04, Your Information Technology Ideas?
We are setting up open meetings with academic divisions to hear your recommendations and concerns about technology and information services in general. Course support software, improved e-mail and computer funding are examples of areas we would like to develop and need to hear from you. All meetings are open to all faculty: if you cannot attend the one scheduled for your division, please feel free to attend one or more others. If you wish to attend all such meetings, that's great too. The two meetings scheduled so far are as follows:

October 13, Olin/Rice room 350, 12:00 noon to 1:00 PM
October 14, Carnegie room 304, 12:00 noon to 1:00 PM

Additional times and places are coming, including at least one meeting at 4:30 PM. [Bulletin, also 10/12]

10/06/04, Strange E-Mail Activity Since Yesterday
Many users have reported receiving e-mail regarding messages that they sent months ago (e.g. notification of a failed delivery from March is just showing up today). Other strange emails will have text like "Purposely aborted message," or similar messages that are puzzling.

The problem is that a couple of tasks that were supposed to be running on the mail server hadn't been running. This caused many undeliverable e-mail notification messages to not reach the senders. As in, you'd never be notified that the e-mail server couldn't deliver your message.

What is supposed to happen is, if an e-mail you send can't be delivered after two days of trying, the message should be sent back to you with a message stating that it could not be delivered. It will also have a (probably cryptic) message stating why it could not deliver the e-mail. Since we just reenabled that correct behavior yesterday, messages that the server has been trying to deliver since May will be returned to you now. From now on, failed delivery attempt behavior should be correct. [Notification-L]

10/05/04, E-Mail Server Problem Today
The e-mail server had big problems today. Mail bound for off-campus just wasn't leaving, for the most part. Then, in the process of fixing that problem, on-campus mail was seriously slowed down also.

Mail will have been delayed, not discarded (lost). I can't 100% guarantee that every single message is intact, but the mail server doesn't just discard mail on its own. If it can't deliver a message for some reason, the message will just continue to sit in the queue until it can be delivered.

A group has been formed which is actively looking into a new mail system for Macalester. We realize the importance of e-mail for academic and administrative work, and like you are dissatisfied with the current system. A top criterion for the new system is reliability. You will hear more about this in the near future. [Notification-L]

10/01/04, CIT Summer Task List: Final Update
You may recall a list of summer projects and goals CIT published on July 6. That list was updated on August 18 to reflect then-current progress toward our goals; a second and final update is now available. If you wonder what we did over the summer and how it might affect you, please take a look. You can find the updated report at www.macalester.edu/infoservices/planning/citsummerstatus9-30.html. [Bulletin]

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