Computing and Telecommunication Center Newsletter Summer 2002

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 items of interest that we at the CTC are working on this summer.

HelpDesk-Campus Operators

Sykes Enterprises notified the University that they will no longer support the 24/7 800 number support line used mostly by Virtual College students. Sykes takes calls from Virtual College students who ask questions about VC courses, registration, financial aid, Blackboard, and other issues. After reviewing an outsourcing option, the University decided to handle this traffic in house. The campus operators, being students, are in a position to answer questions about the University, and they can be trained about Virtual College procedures.

We are pleased that the campus operators will relocate to the HelpDesk area and, more importantly, will become a more integrated unit under the direction of Tom Webb, Manager of Telecommunication Services. Melanie Chapman, who oversees the campus operators, and Nancy Geier, CTC HelpDesk Supervisor, will work together on training and overseeing the two operations, and they will both report to Tom. They will become knowledgeable about both operations and will coordinate their efforts where it makes sense to do so. Because the campus operators staff will relocate from the Akers Energy Building to Tomanek Hall, they will be able to assist each other in supervisory responsibilities.

Mike Michaelis, Virtual College Assistant to the Dean, will train the campus operators on the Virtual College operations, continuing the training effort that he used to do for Sykes but now training the FHSU campus operators. Other trainers will meet with the operators as needed; they include David Renteria, CTELT Web Course Developer, on Blackboard, Joey Linn, Registrar, on a broad range of issues involving the Registrar's Office, and staff from Student Affairs.

The campus operators will be able to better help both the Virtual College students and the on-campus students after the training cycle has been completed. Both the HelpDesk staff and the campus operators will participate in training in telephone etiquette and in using some call-tracking software. Both serve to provide quality customer service. Melanie Chapman will coordinate many of the training activities, and she will assist in training classes for the staff.

Sykes had their own call-tracking software. David Rent aria located some inexpensive software that the operators will use to record their interactions with the Virtual College students, and the HelpDesk folks will use to record their support calls. Over time, the staff will create a knowledge base that they will use in answering calls. This knowledge base will be available on the web too, so that the operators will refer callers to answers on the web. In addition, the software has an instant messaging feature that enables support staff to interact with inquirers on the web. An indicator signals whether HelpDesk/campus operator staff are available for instant messaging. Some users prefer using the instant messaging capability over voice interactions on the phone.

Some small renovations need to occur in TH113 to make room for the campus operators and their supervisor. We expect the Physical Plant staff to complete those changes before the fall semester. We trust that these behind-the-scenes changes will benefit the students and prospective students.

Other HelpDesk News

We have noticed an increasing use of scanners for digital reproduction. Students use the scanners for producing portfolios requiring reproduction of photographs. Apple has featured its iPhoto software for photographs and iMovie 2 for video productions, and those products have proved popular at the consumer level. Both IBM-compatibles and Macs use PhotoShop for manipulating and printing images, and we have Photoshop on both platforms at the HelpDesk.

During the summer we will be upgrading the two units in the HelpDesk area to get an acceptable response time from both platforms. Higher resolution requires more processing power. Waiting for long periods while the images are rendered becomes less and less acceptable. The new units should be much more responsive than the older processors. We encourage faculty to send students to the HelpDesk area for these video needs.

Summer Mail Cleanup!
by Mark Griffin, Mgr, Servers & Desktop Systems

This is a reminder for everyone to clean out their Notes mail Inbox over the summer. There are many users out there who are over their mail quota. You know who you are! You receive a warning every time you start your Lotus Notes.

You either need to delete your E-mail or archive it. Deleting your mail is self-explanatory. If you archive your E-mail, you will still have access to that old mail on your own work PC. The mail will be saved in a database on that computer, not on the Notes server.

To archive selected documents, you can put a checkmark next to particular documents that you wish to archive, then click Actions - Archive - Selected Documents. Or, you can go into Actions - Archive - Settings and set it up to automatically archive all documents that are over a certain age (eg. all documents over 180 days old). After entering the settings you wish, click Actions - Archive - Archive Now.

If you have trouble archiving, please contact me at mgriffin@fhsu.edu or call me at 4026 and I will gladly help you. Cleaning out your Notes mail will help our system run more efficiently. Thank you for taking care of this important maintenance issue.

BEWARE KAZAA

I'm unsure of the number of Kazaa users that we have on our campus but I am hopeful that it is only a small number. For those that don't know, Kazaa is a peer-to-peer file-sharing network typically used for sharing music, picture, or movie files across the Internet.

In concept, this is really cool! However, Kazaa may be sharing numerous other files to those on the Internet! This could include Word or Excel documents, E-mail files, temporary web files, etc.

The following is an excerpt taken from the IDG News Service on 6/7/02 written by Scarlet Pruitt:

Kazaa, which boasts millions of users performing more than 85 million downloads a day, is one of the most popular peer-to-peer applications available. But although users are well aware of its song and movie-swapping capabilities, a significant number of them don't realize that all the files on their computers are potentially up for grabs, according to the report.

"Our research shows that people are currently sharing and downloading personal files from Kazaa, and are capable of doing so with users oblivious to any private data being shared," wrote researchers Nathaniel S. Good, from Hewlett-Packard Laboratories' Information Dynamics Lab, and Aaron Krekelberg, from the University of Minnesota's Office of Information Technology.

"While facilitating file-sharing and searching, the systems do a poor job of preventing users from sharing potentially personal files," the researchers said.

One of the main problems the researchers discovered with the interface is the way in which the application creates a default directory of files to be shared, which Kazaa calls the "download folder." Many users do not realize that when they add files to the download folder, all the files in the directory, as well as the directories below it can be recursively shared.

Over a 12-hour period, the researchers performed regular searches for Microsoft Outlook Express E-mail files, figuring that users did not intend to share personal E-mail messages on the Kazaa network. Of 443 searches performed over the 12-hour period, 61% of the searches returned one or more hits for the E-mail files.

Additionally, other tests turned up word processing documents, Web browser caches and cookies and financial software files.

Many of the faculty and staff at FHSU have files on their PC that contain private information about students or other faculty/staff. I encourage everyone to do their best to protect this information on their computers. By not using Kazaa similar programs, you have eliminated this particular risk. If you do continue to use this program, please use special care in its configuration.

CTC HelpDesk News
by Nancy Geier, CTC 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.

Please encourage your students to activate and use their Scatcat E-mail accounts. Accounts are provided to students free of charge. The Scatcat user name and password is used to access computers in many computer labs on campus, and 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 posted on the CTC HelpDesk home page at http://www.fhsu.edu/ctc/helpdesk/.

Where to Find E-Mail Addresses

Student, faculty, and staff E-mail addresses can be found by using FHSU's E-mail address search page. This page can also be found by clicking on the "Search FHSU" link from the FHSU Home Page (http://www.fhsu.edu/).

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 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!

Faculty Access for On-Campus Labs

As many of you already know, a new process using the student Scatcat login has been implemented in many on-campus computer labs over the past several months. A link to logon assistance information and a current list of labs using the new login process is located on the CTC HelpDesk home page.

As part of this project, faculty Scatcat accounts have been set up for some faculty who frequently work in computer labs. If you need access to one of these labs, call or stop by the CTC HelpDesk to find out if an account has been created for you or to request an account. Please allow up to two working days for the creation of a new account.

CTC HelpDesk Summer Hours

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

Virus Warnings: What Should I Do???

At one time or another, you have probably been the recipient of a "Virus Warning" notice. If so, you have probably wondered... What should I do? Should I panic? Should I pass this warning along to everyone I know (as the note probably suggests), or should I simply ignore the warning and delete it?

First of all, DON'T panic. While some virus warnings may be legitimate, as a general rule, these notes are simply hoaxes. At Fort Hays State University, any valid warnings will come from system administrators or other staff within the Computing and Telecommunication Center. In the past, these warnings were also widely publicized through the news media (for example, the Code Red virus).

So, you ask, what should I do?? The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) web site at http://HoaxBusters.ciac.org/ provides some excellent advice. It provides information on how to identify a hoax warning, how to identify a valid warning, and what to do if you think a message is a hoax. A quite useful feature of the site is a list of common virus hoaxes. Two other reliable sites to check for identifying virus hoaxes are http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp? and http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html.

If you receive a warning, do not circulate it without first checking with an authoritative source, such as one of the web sites given above or a system administrator. In addition, most anti-virus companies publish web pages containing information about widely known viruses and hoaxes. One key to identifying a possible hoax is that the warning usually urges you to pass it along to everyone you know. As stated on the CIAC web site, "When in doubt, don't send it out."

If you investigate a virus warning and feel that it may be legitimate, do not send it to everyone you know! Forward it to the CTC HelpDesk at helpdesk@fhsu.edu or to one of the system administrators in the CTC. If the warning is legitimate, we will then take proper action to inform any users who may be at risk.

Armed with a little education about how to identify these bogus virus warnings, we can all help reduce the amount of "junk" mail circulating about on the web.

User Services News
by Viv Zimmerman, User Services

CTC Labs Hours

Summer Hours
(Effective June 4 through July 26, 2002)

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

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.

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.shtml .

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.

Lab Fees

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:

Reserving a CTC Computer Lab

Canceling Your Reservation

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.

LN 5.0 Hints & Tips. . .

Ambiguous Name Dialog Box

We've had several calls recently about a dialog box that appears when sending notes through Lotus Notes to the Faculty and/or Staff groups. When using either of these groups, you probably have received an Ambiguous Name dialog box after clicking on the Send button.

If this box appears, it merely means that more than one match was found for the name. For instance, when sending a note to the Faculty group, this Ambiguous Name dialog box appears with the choices of "Faculty" and "Faculty Senate". Click on Faculty and then click the OK button and the note will go to everyone in the Faculty group.

The same may happen when a note is sent to other groups or users that have a common word within their group name, or first or last name. Scroll through the list in the Ambiguous Names dialog box, click on the desired group or user, and then click the OK button. Your note will then be sent to the appropriate group or user. Caution: If you click the Skip Name button, that group or person will not receive the note.

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. If you want to print these instructions for further reference, right-click in the right window where the topic is displayed and choose Print . 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. It is also important that you not share passwords with others. If you have student employees who need access to Lotus Notes, CICS, or other systems to perform duties in your office, please contact us to set up an account. Many offices have set up generic student Lotus Notes or CICS accounts for student employees in their offices and merely change the password each time a student employee quits.

LN Password Information

It is always a good idea to change your passwords periodically. If you have not changed your Lotus Notes Client and/or Internet passwords for quite some time, it might be a good idea to change them now. The Client password is the password that you use to logon in your office and the Internet password is the password that is used when accessing Lotus Notes from the Web interface (tiger.fhsu.edu) 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. You can make both passwords the same if you like.

Changing Your LN Client Password

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

You may continue working; however, from now on, you must use your new password the next time you start Notes or if you clear your logon.

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:

This will change the password used to access your E-mail through use of the POP3 server (for example, if you access your E-mail using Internet mail software, such as Netscape Mail) and the password used to access LN through an Internet browser.

CTC Staff Directory

For your convenience, we've included a revised copy of the CTC Staff Directory as the last page of this newsletter, http://www.fhsu.edu/ctc/people.shtml.