INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
July 2006
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L

07/31/06, OCS Migration Status and Password Changes
Despite our best efforts to smoothly transition to the upgraded OCS 10 system, we encountered unexpected issues and reverted to OCS 9 during our weekend system maintenance.

As part of the migration process, your incoming mail password on OCS 9 was reset.

We strongly encourage users to change their e-mail password as soon as they have successfully logged in to e-mail. To change your password, please use our password change utility (at https://www.macalester.edu/cgi-bin/change_ocs_and_novell_passwords.cgi) or contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@macalester.edu or 651-696-6525.

For further details and up-to-the-minute information, please visit our news page at www.macalester.edu/its/news/. [Notification-L]

07/28/06, OCS 9 -> OCS 10 Upgrade Reminder
Hi Everyone,

This message is to remind you that we are starting the OCS 9 (Oracle Collaboration Suite) to OCS 10 upgrade today, Friday, July 28 at 3:00 PM. This means that OCS, which is our e-mail system, will be shut down starting at that time, and will remain unavailable into the evening. While the system is down, e-mail will not be available for reading or sending, and incoming messages will just be queued on another server. When OCS is back up, the queued messages will be delivered. No messages will be discarded.

We would like to provide you with a more specific time for when the new OCS system will be available, but currently 'later tonight or tomorrow morning' is about as specific as we can get.

We recommend and request that when OCS is again up, you take some time to review your mailboxes for a successful migration. The testing steps that we suggest you use as a guide may be found here:
http://netwiki.macalester.edu:8080/index.php/Category:E-mail_Migration_Verification_Steps

Please continue to visit the e-mail status and info page for the latest updates. Make a note of this link, because you won't be able to look it up in this message when e-mail is down!
www.macalester.edu/email

Thank you,
Ted Fines [Notification-L]

07/26/06, Fraudulent E-Mail Scam Warning
Hi Everyone,

Many of you may have received a fraudulent message, purporting to come from Microsoft. Windows users are at risk from this message; Macintosh users, as usual, are not. Here are the characteristics of the message:


If you receive this message, just delete it. If you have opened and read the message, you're still OK. Just delete it. However, do not click on the link in the message. The file it links to is a virus and may infect your computer. If you have clicked on the link and downloaded the file, please contact the Help Desk at x6525 for assistance with removing the virus.

Thunderbird will have intelligently warned users that the message may be fraudulent, and will have displayed this warning box on opening the message. Go Thunderbird!

A little more advanced, but very useful tip:
Firefox also helps with identifying scams. If you have Firefox open to OCS webmail and are reading a message, Firefox will display where a link goes before you click on it. This allows you to see, in a completely safe manner, what will happen if you click on something. To see this in action, just move the mouse over a link, and Firefox displays where the link goes in the bottom left corner of the screen. View an example of this here. You can see in this example how the fraudulent e-mail purports to link to Microsoft's site, but really links to some site in Romania (domains ending in .ro are in Romania). Thunderbird does this link preview display too. Try it!

Thank you,
Ted Fines [Notification-L]

07/24/06, OCS 10 Upgrade Happens This Friday
Hi Everyone,

This Friday, we will be starting the upgrade from OCS (Oracle Collaboration Suite) 9 to OCS 10. This is exciting, but unfortunately means there will be some interruption to campus e-mail service.

Starting at 3:00 PM on Friday, July 28, e-mail will be taken down to begin the upgrade process. It will likely be down the rest of the day Friday. We realize there is no 'good' time for e-mail to be down; we have chosen this day and time to try and minimize community impact, and regret any inconvenience this may cause.

For current updates on how the upgrade is progressing, why this upgrade is good (really!) and additional information, please visit the e-mail status and info page at www.macalester.edu/email/.

Thank you,
Ted Fines [Notification-L, also Bulletin 7/27]

07/20/06, Important new info about OCS -> OCS 10 migrations
Hi Everyone,

Updates on these topics were just added to the E-mail status page


Please visit www.macalester.edu/email/ for full information.

Thank you,
Ted [Notification-L]

07/18/06, E-mail Status Page and OCS 10
Hi Everyone,

We have a new e-mail status page, which you will find appearing as the startup page in Thunderbird. You may also visit it at www.macalester.edu/email. This page replaces the one with the stoplight, and will be kept more up to date. It is no torrid, bodice-ripping, lurid-covered summer read like others you may have been enjoying, but it has the information about e-mail you need!

What is the story with e-mail? Are we upgrading to OCS 10? When, why and how are all answered on the OCS Project Page. The only link you'll need to remember or bookmark is the e-mail status page where you may find e-mail status, current updates, and a link to the OCS 10 Project page.

Any questions are welcome, and should be directed to Marisa Brandt (brandtm@macalester.edu) or me (fines@macalester.edu).

Thank you!
Ted Fines [Notification-L]

07/06/06, Award-Winning Author Diana Abu-Jaber to Read from The Language of Baklava
Foodies and fans of Arab-American novelist and memoirist Diana Abu-Jaber are invited to a free, public reading of her work at 8:00 PM, Wednesday, July 12, at the Holiday Inn RiverCentre, 175 W. 7th Street, St. Paul. The reading will take place in the Cathedral Room. Abu-Jaber will read from her memoir, The Language of Baklava. Those interested in attending may contact the Holiday Inn RiverCentre at 651-225-1515 for more information. Other work by Abu-Jaber includes novels Arabian Jazz and Crescent. Her short fiction has been published in Flyway Literary Magazine, Tin House Magazine, and Story; her non-fiction in Gourmet and Saveur, and on salon.com. Additional information about Abu-Jaber is available on her official Web site, www.dianaabujaber.com.

The reading is sponsored by Al-Musharaka, a NITLE collaboration advancing teaching and curricular development in Arab, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies. The reading kicks off Al-Musharaka's summer seminar for faculty who teach courses on the Middle East, North Africa, or Islam at NITLE's participating colleges. The seminar will take place at Macalester.

NITLE is a non-profit initiative dedicated to promoting liberal education. We offer opportunities for faculty and staff from undergraduate, liberal arts-focused colleges and universities to use emerging technologies to improve their students' learning experiences. Our mission is to catalyze innovative teaching to enrich and advance liberal education in the digital age. Additional information about NITLE is available at www.nitle.org. Information about our Al-Musharaka collaboration is available at almusharaka.nitle.org and apps.nitle.org/blog/al-musharaka.php. [Bulletin]

07/06/06, iPrint Service Restored
Network printing services using Novell iPrint have been restored.

If you continue to have issues printing please notify the Help Desk at x.6525. [Notification-L]

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