Information Services Announcements, April 2005

INFORMATION SERVICES
April 2005
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L

04/26/05, Media Services Closed for Two Hours - Thursday
Media Services will be closed from 4:30 to 6:30 PM Thursday, April 28. [Bulletin]

04/22/05, Internet Downtime Sunday Morning
We will be working on changes to the Internet connection on Sunday, April 24. There will be intermittent outages between 8:00 AM and 12:00 noon while this work is being done. While the Internet is down, off-campus Web sites will be inaccessible, but on-campus Web pages, network file access, and printing will still work. Most of the outages should be 10 minutes or less in duration. [Notification-L]

04/22/05, Staff Retiree Gordon Best Honored at Staff Recognition Lunch
Gordon Best, recent retiree as Manager of Network Hardware, Computing and Information Technology, was honored at the Staff Recognition Lunch this week. The event provided an opportunity to honor Gordon for his service to Macalester. The following profile highlighting his background and contributions was read at the luncheon:

Gordon "Gordy" Best came to Macalester from the University of Minnesota a little over six years ago. When he was hired as Manager of Network Hardware, the College was still in the process of wiring all campus buildings and classrooms to our network, as well as upgrading older cabling. According to David Sisk, associate director of CIT, "it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that Gordy oversaw the completion of our network, both wired and wireless. By the beginning of Fall semester 2004, we had wired and wireless access to every building and classroom on campus, including residence halls, offices and public spaces. This was not a trivial accomplishment."

Sisk added, "I enjoyed working with Gordy because of his dry sense of humor and his very low tolerance for what he considered nonsense. 'Nonsense,' in Gordy's lexicon, included Apple computers, academic theory and most meetings: attending a meeting with Gordy meant putting your information on the table quickly and concisely, making a clear decision and then moving on to the next point. It was a pleasure to have Gordy as my colleague and I will miss him."

Gordy, we are grateful for your valuable services to Mac the past six years and we wish you all the best in your retirement. [Bulletin]

04/22/05, Phishing Scams: Don't Take the Bait
Identity thieves are coming up with many enticing new e-mail scams, all of them designed to trick you into revealing your personal information - such as bank account and credit card numbers, PINs, access codes, Social Security numbers, etc. Broadly, most such scams are called 'phishing' and use the same basic form, although there are many variations. In all cases, there's the bait (which you see) and the hook (which you don't see). If you bite, you'll be hooked.

Phishing bait can appear to be official correspondence from banks, financial services firms or online retailers. You'll receive an e-mail message warning you of compromised accounts or giving you notice of planned upgrades, which then ask you to respond (typically using a Web link) to "confirm/verify your account" by providing sensitive information. Such messages often use real images and text stolen from actual banks and retailers, and are very hard to visually distinguish from the real thing - even the 'From:' addresses may look legitimate (see a Bulletin posting of 3/15/05). However, real banks and retailers will not ask you to divulge sensitive information via insecure e-mail. It's that simple.

Phishing scams may also take advantage of you in other ways, such as appealing to your compassion and generosity (e.g. heart-rending appeals on behalf of terminally-ill people or social-justice causes), piquing your curiosity ("hi, I sent you some pictures but haven't heard back yet, did you get them?"), or attempting to fool you with confusing computer jargon ("your computer is running a Trojaned proxy server and is broadcasting spam"). Phishing scams may be disguised as PayPal or eBay account notices or as notices of "billing errors" by utilities like ComCast or Verizon. The list goes on, but you get the idea. To see a partial archive of recent phishing scams, go here:

www.antiphishing.org/phishing_archive.html

Here are some ways you can spot a phishing scam:

The message is not personalized with your name. Companies with which you do business will almost always personalize real correspondence.
The message uses scary or intriguing verbiage intended to get you to react immediately. Stop and think about any such message.
The message asks for sensitive information as noted above. This, by itself, is the surest indication of a scam.
The language in which the message is written contains multiple obvious errors or seems less professionally-edited than what you would expect from a reputable firm.
The message directs you to a Web page, and if you go to it, your browser's location bar shows that it is unsecured (http://) rather than secured (https://).

You can protect yourself from phishing scams by being skeptical of any e-mail message that seems to fit some or all of the characteristics above. You can also check non-profit Internet sites for further information, most notably www.antiphishing.org/. And you can always forward a suspicious message to the CIT Help Desk or your AIA for review.

Don't take the bait. [Bulletin, also 4/26]

04/20/05, Firefox and License Plates
Users of the Firefox web browser should immediately download and install a new release, recently made available. The version number of the new release is 1.03. If you are using any earlier version on any platform, please upgrade. It is a quick process. Download Firefox from Mozilla's web site: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/.

The Minnesota Department of Vehicle Services (DVS) online license renewal site was recently audited. Auditors found it 'easy' to break into the DVS site. Though no evidence was found of previous break-ins, the DVS has temporarily closed the site pending a review. Read the full story at: http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/04/19_mccalluml_tabsite/. [Notification-L]

04/19/05, A Telecomm Tip
When leaving a message for someone, please leave your direct phone number and last name if they are not familiar with you. You would be surprised at how many calls to the switchboard are "Simon (or any first name you'd like to insert) please". Thank you! [Bulletin, also 4/22]

04/15/05, Internet Connection Downtime Sunday Morning
We will be doing some upgrades on the Internet connection on Sunday morning, April 17, beginning at 8:00 AM. We expect it to be down for about an hour. The on-campus network will continue to function while this work is being done, so you will be able to print, access the Macalester Web site, and read e-mail if you are on campus. E-mail sent while the connection is down will be delivered when the connection comes back up. If you have questions, contact Geri Olson at x6171. [Notification-L]

04/15/05, Registration Now Open for Classrooms of the Future XI
Registration for the Classrooms of the Future Symposium is now open at www.associatedcolleges- tc.org/cotf. This year the symposium takes place on Tuesday, May 24, at the College of St. Catherine, with pre-conference workshops the preceding day. This year's theme is "Applications for Today."

COTF is a day of presentations, workshops and discussions about issues and applications of technology in higher education. Presentations provide an opportunity for faculty, administrators and support professionals to come together to talk about their practices for teaching with technology.

The symposium kicks off with a keynote by Sharon Smaldino, Morgridge endowed chair in teacher education at Northern Illinois University. A prominent figure in instructional technology, she has recently finished the eighth edition of her text "Instructional Technology and Media for Learning."

The afternoon keynote panel discussion will feature Ana Donaldson, who has recently published "Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction."

ACTC/COTF offers pre-conference workshops for a small fee on Monday, May 23. These have focused and exciting topics. Registration for these is separate and begins on April 15.

Hope to see you at The College of St. Catherine!
- Brian Longley, Media Services [Bulletin]

04/05/05, Message #1: What About E-Mail? (Take 2) - Today
Come hear plans for a new e-mail and calendar system for Macalester at noon today, April 5, in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall. See www.macalester.edu/email/. [Bulletin Flash]

04/05/05, What About E-Mail? (Take 2)
Come hear plans for a new e-mail and calendar system for Macalester at noon Tuesday, April 5, in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall. See www.macalester.edu/email/. [Bulletin]

04/05/05, A Telecomm Tip: 911
Calling 911? Or do you dial 9-911 from campus? Either one works. If you call from a campus telephone, the 911 dispatcher will know exactly where you are calling from. If you ever inadvertantly dial 911, please stay on the line and tell the dispatcher you dialed incorrectly. It is 911's policy to respond to all unconfirmed calls. [Bulletin, also 4/8]

04/01/05, In Memoriam
Please join Information Services staff members in extending your condolences to our colleague Marty Raymond. Marty's son Barry James Bohlander died March 20. A memorial service for Barry will be held at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in St. Louis Park, Friday April 8 at 1:00 PM. The family ask that in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (www.nami.org) in memory of Barry J. Bohlander. [Bulletin, also 4/5]

04/01/05, Limited Library Service - April 8
The 12th National Conference for the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) will be taking place in Minneapolis April 7-10. All Library staff members will be attending on Friday, April 8. The library will be open, but staffing will be minimal. We appreciate your understanding as we hope this professional development opportunity will lead to discovery of new means to improve services to the community. [Bulletin]

04/01/05, A Telecomm Tip: Leaving Messages Quickly
Did you know you can leave a message for someone without ringing their telephone? From any on-campus phone, dial 5666, then an extension. (This does NOT work from off campus.) You will go directly to the person's voicemail greeting. To speed things up even more, you can press the # key to skip their greeting (unless an extended absence greeting has been recorded).

If you have any phone or voice mail questions that you'd like to see answered here, call Telecommunications at x6566. [Bulletin, also 3/29]

04/01/05, Spring Cleaning for a Fresh Start
We in CIT are looking forward to a fresh start this summer with a new, improved e-mail server and client and we hope you are too! While we work behind the scenes preparing for the migration, the best thing you can do right now is some spring cleaning of your e-mail account. Having a leaner e-mail account (i.e. fewer messages) will not only help make your migration to the new system quicker and easier, but will also make your experience much more pleasant.

The coming weeks would be a great time to go through your mailboxes and delete old messages that you no longer need. It would be wise to download your large attachments to your computer where you can find and use them. Why not delete the out-of-date messages from your "sent mail" folder? If you would like advice on sorting or archiving old e-mail messages, call the Computing Help Desk at x6525. [Bulletin, also 3/29]

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