INSIDE

From Dave's Desk
by Dr. David Schmidt, Director

We hope that you are having a good summer. Enjoy the somewhat slower pace of the summer semester. Soon we will be back in the hectic pace of the fall semester. Following are some of the many projects that we at the CTC are working on this summer.

Sungard Bi-Tech

As you might recall from the last CTC Newsletter, we purchased a new administrative system from Sungard Bi-Tech. We are in the very early stages of implementation of this comprehensive system.

The application and database server has arrived. Mark Griffin and Andrew Fleming have assembled it and have loaded the operating system. For those interested in further details, it is a Sun Enterprise 3500 with four CPUs. We believe this machine will have enough power to handle the load for the foreseeable future.

The other main physical component addresses web access to the software. Cheryl Helget is configuring two new rack-mounted Compaq PCs that will provide web browser access to the system. Most of us will use the web exclusively. We have purchased two web servers so that the system will balance the load and for redundancy (in case one fails). Microsoft's Windows 2000 advanced server operating system has the ability to balance the load between and among servers. This is particularly important during times of peak demand. Universities usually experience peak demand during times of student enrollment using the web, so we want to be prepared for that demand.

We are talking weekly with Sungard's designated project manager for the FHSU implementation. By the time you receive this newsletter, some of the technical staff from Sungard should have come to campus to install the new student system, the financial system, and the Oracle database. We are eager to have some hands-on experience with it. They should load some test data, so that we can become familiar with some of the modules. In the intervening time we are looking at the manuals, the file structure, and preparing in other ways.

Mike Lacy and John Kaba have created an issues database in Lotus Notes to track issues and issue resolution for the Sungard implementation. We are preparing a training room with a speaker phone so that Sungard can provide some remote training.

Action Plan Progress

The Micro computing staff members (Mike Nease, Mark Orth, and Mike McLain) have made progress installing PCs purchased with Action Plan monies. They have completed the new Biology lab (25 PCs) in Albertson 321, the Chemistry lab (26 PCs) in TH321, and the CTC Training lab (11 PCs). Also, roughly half of the Provost's PC Action Plan for new faculty PCs has been completed. The Art Department has installed their new Macs and printers. In addition to completing the Provost's PC Action Plan, there is still more work to do. The English Department composition lab/classroom in Rarick Hall will be completed before fall, and the Geoscience lab upgrade (TH125) will be finished before fall. TH125 was a CTC lab, but enrollments have increased in the Geoscience courses, so we agreed to swap labs. TH125 is now the GIS lab and TH121 is an open PC lab (see the article TH125 Lab Relocated on page 2 of this newsletter for more specific information).

Mediated Classrooms

Jack Jackson and Odus Trober have worked with Physical Plant staff to bring three new Mediated classrooms on line. They added one in McCartney Hall, one in Picken, and one in Rarick Hall. They plan on adding three by the end of summer and four more in fall. As time goes by the quality of the document cameras and the LCD projectors improves. We have noticed that some of the newest laptops have difficulty synching up with the LCD projectors. If you experience difficulties, call Jack or Odus. We appreciate your participation in the Mediated Classroom survey that we sent out to you at the end of the semester.

These are some of the projects that we are targeting. Dan Pfeifer, Bob Rajewski, and Vaudene Hiller

have worked on providing the Ethernet ports for the new labs, and Dan has ordered new switched hubs for Residential Life. Tom Webb is making a number of trips to Topeka to assist evaluating the vendors bids for telephone service for the state. Jane Rajewski works with academic departments to complete the TEVAL evaluations. Doug Storer worked with Craig Karlin on PowerFaids, and that project has gone well. Larry Rupp has dealt with the complexities of Raiser's Edge with Alumni and Endowment.

Since this is the end of the fiscal year, there are a lot of year-end activities to complete on the administrative systems. For example, Lee Gross is handling requests from departments on personnel/payroll matters. Viv Zimmerman is preparing training materials for new faculty and staff, Nancy Geier is completing new documentation for the dialup accounts and student E-mail, Alvin Hearne is gearing up to run all of the year-end reports, and Jackie Leikam is assisting Darlene Schippers with the year-end telephone system reports and also putting in the Resource 25 software that will be used by Connie Nichols of the Provost Office for event and class scheduling. Other CTC staff are busy working on many different projects at this time also.

CTC HelpDesk News
by Nancy Geier, HelpDesk Supervisor

Student Scatcat E-mail Accounts

All students are automatically provided with Scatcat E-mail accounts upon enrollment at FHSU. The accounts must be activated before they can receive E-mail. The activation process allows students to set their own passwords.

Approximately 45% of the Scatcat accounts have been activated since the new address format and new activation process were put in place on June 1, 2000. This can be compared to an estimated 25% of accounts that were used prior to that time.

Please encourage your students to activate and use their Scatcat E-mail accounts. Accounts are provided to students free of charge. Important notices about FHSU activities and services are sent to students via their Scatcat accounts. If students prefer to use different E-mail accounts (such as Hotmail or Yahoo!), they should activate their Scatcat accounts and then forward their Scatcat mail to their account of choice.

Complete information about how to activate and use student Scatcat accounts and how to forward mail from a Scatcat account to another account is available from the CTC HelpDesk home page located at the following address http://www.fhsu.edu/ctc/helpdesk/.

Attention New Faculty and Staff...
Here's how to apply for Internet service through FHSU

FHSU provides Internet service to faculty, staff, and students through "Internet Dial-Up" accounts. "Dial-up" is a process that enables you to use your computer's modem to connect to the Internet by 'dialing in' to FHSU's remote access server. By using telnet software, the connection also enables you to access the IBM mainframe and UNIX servers. There are some minimum system requirements a computer must meet in order to do dial-up.

If you are interested in applying for an account, just stop by the CTC HelpDesk (Tomanek Hall, Room 113) to complete an application. A photo ID is required. There is no service fee for faculty or staff accounts.

For more information about Internet Dial-Up accounts or other services provided by the CTC HelpDesk, view our web site at http://www.fhsu.edu/ctc/helpdesk/, call us at (785) 628-5276, send E-mail to helpdesk@fhsu.edu, or visit our office in Tomanek Hall, Room 113.

Welcome to Fort Hays - we hope you have a great summer!

CTC HelpDesk Hours

Summer Semester Hours
(Effective June 5 - July 27, 2001)
 

Summer Interim Hours
(Effective July 28 - August 19, 2001)
 

Fall Semester Hours
(Effective August 20, 2001)
 

Office hours are subject to change. They are posted outside our office (TH113) and may be viewed from our home page.

Internet Bandwidth Doubled!

Fort Hays State University receives its Internet service from the Kansas Research and Education Network (KANREN). Prior to April 12, 2001, we connected to the Internet via KANREN over three T1 lines. In theory, this provided roughly 4.5 MB/sec of bandwidth; we actually received less due to congestion. The lines traveled through a collector at Kansas State University, through a larger "pipe" to Kansas City, and then out to the rest of the Internet.

We are excited to announce that FHSU is now a point of presence for KANREN with a direct link to Southwestern Bell Internet Services. Our link now goes to Topeka and out from there. We will be a collector for some other 785 sites (some Unified School Districts and libraries). One major advantage of this change is that we can now be guaranteed to receive the bandwidth we pay for. Approximately 10 MB/sec has been allocated for our use.

You should notice that Internet speeds have improved. Of course, the final speed received depends on many factors, including the speed of your modem and the quality of your telephone lines.

User Services News
by Viv Zimmerman, User Services

CTC Labs Hours

Summer Hours
(Effective June 5 through July 27, 2001)

The summer semester hours for the CTC Tomanek Hall computer labs are:
 

Summer Interim Hours
(Effective July 28 - August 19, 2001)
 

Fall Semester Hours
(Effective August 20, 2001)
 

As always, if you have questions, feedback, comments or suggestions regarding our labs, please let us know; send a note to vzimmerm@fhsu.edu. For more information about our services or hours, visit our web site at http://www.fhsu.edu/ctc/labs/ or stop by TH127 (next to the elevator) and check with the lab monitor on duty.

TH125 Lab Relocated

We have recently switched and moved the room for the Tomanek Hall Computer Lab 125 to Tomanek Hall Computer Lab 121. All of the classes and workshops that had been previously scheduled in TH125 have been transferred to TH121.

There are 28 workstations and the instructor computer is up at the front desk. There is a projector and screen connected to the instructor computer.

Effective immediately, please note this change of rooms in any training letters for workshops or classes that you may have already scheduled in this lab or want to schedule in the future. If you are requesting this lab for a future workshop or class, please check the schedule on Lotus Notes -- the name of the calendar is Calendar, TH121 Pentium Lab -- if the lab is available on the desired days, submit a Request for Computing Services and indicate TH121.

Reserving CTC Computer Labs

We have posted information on a web page to aid faculty or staff who are unfamiliar with submitting a Request for Computing Services to reserve our CTC TH123 Mac Lab or the TH121 Pentium Computer Lab for a class or workshop. The information for reserving either lab can be found on our CTC labs web page at http://www.fhsu.edu/ctc/labs/reservinglabs.html .

The CTC TH123 Mac Computer Lab and CTC TH121 Pentium Computer Lab are available for reservation by current faculty and staff. If any FHSU club or organization wishes to reserve the lab, the club or organization sponsor must submit the request. Faculty or staff must submit a CTC Request for Services to reserve the lab. We are unable to schedule the labs without this request and you may not bring a group over to use any CTC lab without a reservation. You may have your secretary submit the request for you.

If viewing these instructions from the web, you can find additional specific information about either lab by clicking TH123 or TH121. Please keep in mind that the TH121 Lab has a seating capacity of 28 workstations and one workstation for the instructor (at the front of the room) and the TH123 Lab has a seating capacity of 24 workstations and one workstation for the instructor (at the front of the room). Please comply with the room capacity and do not exceed the limit. There are no extra chairs or desks available for use in either lab.
 

• NO food, beverages, or tobacco products are allowed in the labs.
• For security purposes and your protection, all three of the CTC computer labs are equipped with video surveillance cameras.
• NO connection of personal laptops, zip drives, or other peripherals is allowed in any of the CTC labs.
• Users may not load any special software in any of the CTC labs. If your class requires that special software be loaded, see the section Reserving a CTC Computer Lab for specific instructions.
• The lab supervisor is Viv Zimmerman. If you need to contact her, call 4031 or send E-mail to vzimmerm@fhsu.edu .

There are no fees for regular FHSU classes or FHSU workshop lab reservations; however, fees are assessed for any class or workshop for which you charge the participants a fee.

Mac Lab fees $25 per hour for use of the lab and an additional $15 per hour if a lab monitor is required for the entire workshop.

Pentium Lab fees $30 per hour for use of the lab and an additional $15 per hour if a lab monitor is required for the entire workshop. If you will need to print a large volume, we would appreciate that you bring you own paper.

CTC Lab Hours

For a list of our lab hours, see the CTC Lab Hours article in the User Services section of this newsletter. Check our lab web page for special hours posted for holidays, finals week, interim breaks, summer semester, and other special announcements.

Checking the Availability of Labs

Prior to submitting the request, please view the Lotus Notes TH123 Lab (Mac) Calendar or TH121 Lab (Pentium) Calendar to see if the desired lab is available by doing the following:

• Access your Lotus Notes calendar, click on the Tools button, and select Open calendar.

• From the FHSU Address Book, search for the word calendar in the Open Calendar dialog box and then scroll through the list of calendars to find either lab.

• Click on the desired calendar and then click the OK button.

• View the dates you want for your lab reservation and check lab availability.

• If the desired lab is available, see the section below for Reserving a CTC Computer Lab. If the desired lab is unavailable, check the FHSU Computer Labs Information Page at http://www.fhsu.edu/ctc/labs to see if another campus lab is available.

• Click on the CTC Request for Services icon and click on the Information Center button. You must include the following information for each reservation on the request: which lab is needed, Department, Course number, Section, Course name, Dates and times lab is needed -- if needed for multiple days or the entire semester, also include the beginning and ending dates, Instructor name, number of students in the class, and what software will be used -- if you need special software installed, please include this information on the request and hand deliver the software to the CTC secretary in Tomanek Hall 101 after the request is submitted. She will give the software to the appropriate person.

• Click the Submit button when you have completed entering your request. You will receive an E-mail note from the CTC confirming your reservation. It is wise to check the LN TH123 or TH121 Calendar in a day or two to verify that your reservation has been posted correctly.

If your Tomanek Hall Computer Lab reservation for workshops, classes, or seminars needs to be canceled, please submit a CTC Request for Services so that we can cancel your lab reservation or contact Viv Zimmerman at vzimmerm@fhsu.edu or at (785) 628-4031. We can then make a note on the schedule indicating that the class has been canceled. This is helpful if workshop participants come to the lab and ask us about the workshop or if others want to schedule another class in that time slot.

Need Assistance Submitting RCS?

If you need assistance with submitting the request, contact Viv Zimmerman at 628-4031 or send a note to vzimmerm@fhsu.edu .

Need Assistance Using the Lab?

If you need assistance for equipment or software problems during your workshop, please contact the lab monitor on duty in Tomanek Hall 127.

Lotus Notes 5.0 Hints and Tips. . .

Certificate Expiration Message

An important part of your Lotus Notes ID file is your certificate. Most users have only one certificate; however, some users may have multiple certificates. Certificates tell the LN servers that your ID has the proper security to access the LN servers and databases at your company or organization.

When your ID is set up, your certificate is set up with an expiration date several years in advance. About 60 days before your certificate is set to expire, LN will begin displaying a warning message about the upcoming expiration. You can bypass this message but don't ignore it.

If you logon to Lotus Notes and receive this warning message that your certificate is about to expire, please follow the directions on the screen and send the updated certificate request to Mark Griffin. If you have trouble with this procedure, please contact Mark Griffin at 4026 or Andrew Fleming at 4433 for assistance. It is very important that you update the certificate prior to its expiration date because if it passes the date shown, you may not be able to logon or recover your Lotus Notes files.

Filtering New Mail

Before we had Lotus Notes, many users used other E-mail systems that allowed them to dump mail messages into different folders. The R5 version of LN has an easy-to-use rules-based feature that allows you to look for information contained in various fields of a note that can be compared and then told what action needs to be taken if the comparison is met. For example, if you are on a certain listserv and you would like any notes received from that listserv to be filed into a folder, this could be done by setting up a rule. Or, if you get a significant amount of mail messages from any of your classes, you could have your students always include the name of the class in the subject line when sending you a note. Then you could set up a rule so that all mail with this class name in the subject field be filed into a specific folder.

If you would like to filter some of your mail into folders using this feature, click on the Help Menu, choose Help Topics, choose Index in the left window, enter Filter, click on the drop-down arrows by Filtering mail and using rules, and double-click on Filtering new mail using rules. Then right-click in the right window where the topic is displayed, and choose Print if you want to print these instructions for further reference. Hit Esc to exit the Help Menu.

You can also find information about Working with Rules in our FHSU CTC Handbooks Database on Lotus Notes. To load this into your Databases Bookmarks folder, click on the File Menu, Databases, Open, change server to NotesHub/FHSU, double-click on the yellow apps folder, and then find FHSU CTC Handbooks and bookmark it in your Databases bookmark folder and click the OK button.

If you need assistance setting up a rule, contact Viv Zimmerman.

End of Semester Acct Maintenance

With the summer semester already in process, it is important that you notify Viv Zimmerman at vzimmerm@fhsu.edu whenever faculty, staff, or student employees terminate employment with your office so that we can remove their IDs and update our group mailing lists and security tables. Thanks to all of you who have already sent us this information.

It is imperative that all security is removed for those who no longer work in your office.

LN Password Information

If you have not used your Lotus Notes through the browser since the hacker intrusion earlier this year, you must change your Lotus Notes "Internet" password before you are able to logon. This is the password that is used when accessing Lotus Notes from the Web interface or via the POP3 server. User accounts will not have Web or POP3 access to their accounts until they change this password. The information to change both the Client and Internet passwords follows. Now might be a good time to change both passwords.

Changing Your LN Client Password

If you are using the LN Client and want to change the password, follow these steps:

• Choose File, Tools, User ID.
• Enter your current Notes password and then click OK.
• Then click the Set Password button in the User ID dialog box.
• Enter your old password and click OK. The Set Password dialog box appears.
• Enter your new password and click OK.
• Enter your new password again and click OK. Notes then accepts the new password and you see the User ID dialog box.
• Click OK to exit the User ID dialog box.

Passwords are case sensitive and must have at least four characters. You may use letters, numbers, or a combination of letters and numbers. Try not to use a password that is easily guessed. Never use "lotusnotes", your "LN ID", "the last four numbers of your SSN", or anything that would be easily guessed such as your "birthday" or "phone number" as the password. Be sure to change your password anytime you feel that it has been compromised.

The password always goes with the user ID. It is specific to the user.id file on the computer that you are working on. The password is secure; it never goes out over the network.

Changing Your LN Internet Password

We recommend that each time you change your LN Client password you also change your LN Internet password just for the sake of convenience. It will be easier to remember the passwords if you keep these passwords the same. However, the passwords may be different if you so choose.

For the average user who is just occasionally checking E-mail from home or looking at the calendar, it may be easier to do this using the browser. The browser address for checking your E-mail/calendar when you are away from your desk or from home is tiger.fhsu.edu .

You must logon to the LN Client to change your LN Internet password; if you use LN through browser access only, contact Viv at 4031 or Jane at 5819 to change your password. Follow these instructions to change your Internet password:

• Open the FHSU Address Book on the NotesHub Client and click on People in the Navigation Pane.
• Search for your name or use the Scroll bar to find your name. Double-click on your name to display your personal information.
• Click the Edit Person button. In the first section, go to Internet password and highlight the data that is shown (it is an encrypted version of your current password) and type in your new password to replace it. Write down your password and keep it in a secure (locked) place.
• Click the Save and Close button. LN will automatically encrypt your password upon exit.