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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L
11/21/06, Voice Mail System Maintenance
On Friday November 24, between 6:00 and 8:00 AM, there may be some short
outages of our voice mail system due to some minor repairs. If there
is an outage, during that time you will not be able to access voice
mail, and voice messages will not be accepted. Existing voice messages
will not be affected. If you have any questions, please contact
Telecommunications at x6566. [Notification-L]
11/17/06, OCS Backup Hardware Maintenance
We will be replacing the hardware that backs up our e-mail system
tomorrow, Saturday, November 18, at 8:00 AM. E-mail will be unavailable
from 8:00 AM until 10:00 AM. During this time, incoming mail will be held; it
will be delivered after service is restored.
We apologize for any inconvenience this downtime may cause and thank you
for your understanding.
Please contact Ted Fines at fines@macalester.edu or x.6781
with any questions or concerns. [Notification-L]
11/03/06, Limited Help Desk Services, November 6-8
All of ITS' professional Help Desk staff members will be attending an
international user services conference Monday November 6 through
Wednesday November 8. In their absence, Help Desk student consultants
and other ITS staff will keep the Help Desk open for regular hours.
Please note that during these three days, response to problem reports
will be slower than normal. We recognize the inconvenience this may
cause and ask you to bear with us as our staff participate in this
enriching professional development opportunity. [Bulletin, also 10/25, 10/31]
11/03/06, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, PCards and Banner
*If you use Banner or a PCard, DO NOT upgrade to Internet Explorer 7.*
*If you use Banner or a PCard, DO NOT upgrade to Firefox 2.*
Microsoft is releasing the newest version of their Web browser, Internet
Explorer 7. This new version will be distributed as an automatic update
to the Windows operating system - meaning it will come directly from
Microsoft to your PC. (Macintosh users will not be affected.) If you
use Sungard's Banner, or if you have a College-issued Wells Fargo PCard,
you should NOT install Internet Explorer 7. We are told that the software
will give users an "accept/decline" button. DECLINE.
Currently both Sungard and Wells Fargo are still testing IE 7. The new
version of the browser is known to have some incompatibilities with
Banner. It may or may not cause problems with PCard accounting. In both
cases the vendors are not giving us clear information about how
Microsoft's new product will work with Sungard's Banner and Wells
Fargo's PCard services. In the absence of such clear information, you
are strongly encouraged to DECLINE the update and continue using
Internet Explorer version 6.
Mozilla is also releasing a new version of the Firefox browser, 2.0.
This will not be pushed, but is available as a Web download. If you
have a PC and you use Sungard's Banner, or if you have a College-issued
Wells Fargo PCard, you should NOT download and install Firefox 2.
We are working to get straight answers from Sungard and Wells Fargo, and
we are told that their technical staffs are working on resolving
problems with IE 7. You are encouraged to hold off on upgrading
Internet Explorer and Firefox until we get these answers and pass them
along to you. If you accidentally upgrade to IE 7 and wish to backgrade
to version 6, please contact the ITS Help Desk at x.6525 or via e-mail
at helpdesk@macalester.edu. [Notification-L 10/25, also Bulletin
10/27, 10/31. Additionally, this information has been sent directly to
all PCard holders by the Director of Purchasing.]
10/31/06, Blocking Automatic Upgrade of Internet Explorer
This message contains instructions that must be followed TODAY, Tuesday
October 31. Happy Halloween!
Microsoft is releasing an upgrade to its Internet Explorer Web browser,
which will be automatically delivered as a Windows system update. As
reported in October's Bulletin, ITS has been warned about
incompatibilities between Internet Explorer 7 and both Sungard's Banner
and Wells Fargo's PCard systems. To protect Banner and PCard processes,
we have installed a 'block' that will prevent the automatic upgrade from
IE 6 to IE 7. This block is a temporary measure, and will be removed
when Sungard and Wells Fargo certify that their systems will work
properly with IE 7. No other automatic Windows updates will be affected.
Macintosh users and students may ignore this notice altogether.
To enable the block, you need to doubleclick on the "IE7 Blocker" icon
in the Novell Application Launcher window. If you do not see such an icon, follow
these steps:
*Close the NAL window
*Click the 'Start' menu and choose Run
*Type "nal" (without quotes)
*Hit Enter
Please note that this block prevents only the automatic upgrade of IE.
If you do not use Banner or a College-issued PCard, you may certainly
download and install IE 7, available directly from Microsoft here:
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/
If you are a Windows user who does not normally log into Novell, you may
download the IE 7 block from our own network, here:
www.macalester.edu/crash/software/pc/misc/ie7blocker.exe
If you have questions about the block or need assistance, please contact
the ITS Help Desk at x.6525. [Notification-L, also Bulletin Flash]
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