INFORMATION SERVICES
June 2005
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L
06/30/05, CARS Scheduled Downtime
The Jenzabar/CARS administrative system will be taken down this Friday,
July 1, beginning at 12:30 PM in order to perform a server migration.
We expect to bring the system back up the afternoon of Saturday July 2.
Please do not schedule any jobs to run during this period. If you have
questions please contact Ramón Rentas at x.6633. [Notification-L]
06/29/05, Problems Sending E-Mail, Workaround Included
This notification concerns the "old" e-mail server (using Mulberry).
Users in departments which have already been migrated to the new server
(using Thunderbird) can disregard this message.
We are experiencing problems with the outgoing mail server for the
second consecutive day. Incoming mail is being received, but when trying
to send mail in Mulberry, a "waiting" message appears and the message is
never successfully sent. Our network staff is working with the vendor to
resolve this problem.
In the meantime, there is a workaround to avoid the problem, which
requires a quick installation and a bit of configuration. Below are the
steps for the work-around:
06/27/05, Virus Warning, Fake 'Password Update' Message
Some users have reported receiving a fraudulent message regarding their
Macalester password. The message is a virus and should be deleted
immediately. As it happens, we are in a phase right now where we are
resetting passwords for people migrating to the new OCS e-mail system.
E-mail regarding those legitimate changes will come from Elias Echols
(the e-mail migration coordinator) or myself, Ted Fines. The e-mail server which
receives e-mail from the Internet has already been configured to discard
any messages bearing the signature of this virus.
Characteristics of the virus message:
'From' address shows 'mail@macalester.edu'. This is not an address we use in the 'From' field.
'Subject' reads "YOUR PASSWORD HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY UPDATED" or similar.
Attached file: approved-password.zip. This is a virus.
Body of message ends with: 'Attachment: No Virus (Clean)'. We do not tag any messages with this.
What to do:
If you have not opened, or just opened the message but not the
attachment, you're not infected. Just delete the message.
If you have a Macintosh, you're not infected. Just delete the message.
If you did open the attachment, AND unzip it, AND run the program it
contains, you may be infected. Please contact the Help Desk for
assistance if this is the case.
Were the message real it would contain our normal trailer to all announcement messages:
"Archived Information Services postings and announcements are available..." etc.
...and it would NOT be signed "The Macalester Support Team."
Remember to be wary of any e-mail with an attachment. [Notification-L]
06/23/05, Scheduled OCS Outage Tonight
System Outage Tonight [Thursday June 23 - ed.]
There is a scheduled OCS (Oracle Collaboration Suite) system outage
tonight. Now that we're all patched up and relatively few people are
using OCS, this is a great time to take another full image backup of all
three systems. This won't start until after 9:00 PM.
No, we won't need to down the system whenever we want to back it up
Oracle databases (where OCS stores everything) may be backed 'live' in
the middle of the day, and you'd never know it. The 'full image' backup
I am referring to is more for disaster recovery, kind of like how we
image desktop computers. This type of backup will allow us to image the
OCS systems if that ever is necessary. [Notification-L]
06/23/05, Message #1: Not getting an e-mail
response from a Macalester co-worker?
A significant problem
with the new e-mail system is affecting the departments and offices that
have already migrated away from Mulberry to Thunderbird. For everyone
who has already migrated, e-mail has been down since mid-morning on
Wednesday June 22, and will remain down into the afternoon of Thursday
June 23. These offices include:
Athletics
CIT
Educational Studies
Facilities Management
French
Humanities, Media and Cultural Studies
Library
Media Services
If your office has not migrated, your e-mail is not affected and should
be working normally. Any messages you have sent to a colleague in one
of the departments listed above are not being ignored - your correspondent
just hasn't seen them yet. Rest assured that all such messages will be
delivered as soon as the new system is fixed and brought back up.
In the meantime, you are strongly encouraged to follow up on important
communications via telephone or FAX. If you have questions, please call
the Computing Help Desk at x.6525. [Bulletin Flash]
06/07/05, New Administrative Computer System
After three years of research and deliberation, four local colleges
signed contracts on Thursday, May 26, to convert the computing system
that runs many of their administrative functions to the Banner
administrative software suite from Sungard SCT. This system will
replace the CARS product that has been the mainstay of the colleges'
administrative computing operations (in Macalester's case, since 1988).
In this context, administrative computing includes such functions as
accounting, registrar, payroll, human resources, admissions, financial
aid, some student services functions, purchasing, accounts payable, and
student accounts. Representatives of Bethel University, the College of St.
Catherine, Macalester College and Northwestern College gathered at
Macalester to conclude the evaluation and selection phase of the system
upgrade project and thereby begin the implementation process. Watch for
much more information on plans for the conversion this summer. - Joel Clemmer and David Wheaton [Bulletin]
06/07/05, Apple Computer Battery Recall
Apple Computer is recalling some lithium-ion rechargeable computer
batteries that were sold between October 2004 and May 2005. These
batteries were used with the 12" iBook G4, the 12" PowerBook G4 and the
15" PowerBook G4. Notification of this recall has been sent separately
to every faculty and staff member who has received one of these computer
models within that time frame, and who may therefore qualify for battery
replacement. Under the terms of this program, Apple will send a
replacement battery free of charge, as well as pre-paid postage for
returning a defective battery, if any existing battery qualifies for
recall.
Full instructions on how to determine whether a battery needs to be
replaced may be found on Apple's Web site, here:
https://depot.info.apple.com/batteryexchange/index.html?lang=en
You may also consult the Computing Help Desk (x.6525) or your Academic
Information Associate. If your battery is not one of those being
recalled, you need do nothing more. If your battery fits Apple's
criteria for exchange, everything you will need to begin the process may
be found on the same Web page.
[Bulletin, also 5/31]
06/07/05, Have Students?
We keep a summer Student Directory for use at the switchboard. This
directory attempts to include all Macalester students that are living
and/or working on campus this summer. If you have students working for
you who live off campus, and if they'd like their phone numbers available
to callers at the campus switchboard, please have them call x6566 or
x6000 with those numbers. Thank you! [Bulletin, also 6/14]
06/06/05, Migration of Special E-Mail Accounts
To: All Macalester faculty and staff
Subject: Migration of special e-mail accounts
The e-mail migration project is underway and going well but we need your
help. Many e-mail accounts are used for student organizations,
departments, special events or services and not for individuals. In
order to make the migration as seamless as possible, we'd like to
migrate these accounts at the same time as the departments that use
them. That's where you come in. The most efficient way to determine the
continuing need for these accounts is to hear directly from you.
If your department actively uses any special e-mail accounts, please
send a list of them to Elias Echols at echols@macalester.edu. Also,
please include any accounts that you had, but are no longer using, so we
can remove unused accounts.
Thank you,
Elias Echols
E-mail Migration Project Coordinator
[Bulletin Flash]
06/01/05, E-Mail Stats for April and May
*Recent virus outbreak stats*
Compare the e-mail stats for the month of May:
www.macalester.edu/email/stats/stats_2005-05.gif
to the stats for the month of April:
www.macalester.edu/email/stats/stats_2005-04.gif
The first column is just the date.
The second column shows the total number of messages bound for
Macalester (does not include internal e-mail).
The third column shows how many of those messages were determined to be
spam/viruses.
The fourth column shows the percentage of messages that were determined
to be spam/viruses.
Messages determined to be spam/viruses are discarded before ever
reaching Macalester. So for example on May 27th, out of 40,022 messages
destined for Mac, 24,459 were discarded automatically before ever
getting here. We understand people still get a lot of spam (I do too),
but understand that you are not getting a lot of spam
too.
If you compare April and May, you'll see that we received twice as many
messages in May as in April. Also note that we received nearly all of
those extra messages in the first week of May. In particular, May 3 was
a heck of a day for e-mail. Holy bananas. Virtually all of those extra
messages were caused by the recent Sober virus outbreak. Infected
machines all over the world were flooding our system (and everybody
else's) with virus-laden e-mail.
So, I'll take this opportunity to plug Symantec Antivirus. Get it, and
make sure your virus definitions are up to date! You may download it
at www.macalester.edu/cit/safecomputing/how_to_install.htm
Symantec Antivirus is FREE for all Macalester faculty, staff and
students. You may even download it for use at home! If you can't
download it from home, stop by the Help Desk and we'll loan you a CD of
it. [Notification-L]
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