Smartphones are feature-rich mobile telephones, available from all of the cell phone carriers in our area, enabling users to keep up to date with their calendars, contacts, and e-mail. These mobile telephones offer a number of advantages both to the College as a whole and to individual subscribers who are College employees.

FAQ

Q. Why is ITS making this offering available?
A. ActiveSync-enabled smartphones use our existing resources without additional servers or licensing fees. Smartphones are also device and carrier neutral, meaning we don’t have to specify a certain kind of mobile phone or a certain mobile phone carrier. The only requirement is ActiveSync.

Q. What is ActiveSync exactly?
A. ActiveSync is software installed in the mobile phone, allowing it to synchronize email, contacts, calendar items, and tasks with the same items stored on the College email servers. Normally you see this information only in Outlook (PC users), Entourage (Mac users), or through Webmail; ActiveSync enables our email server to send that same information to your mobile telephone.

Q. Do I have to do anything special to keep my phone synchronized, like pressing “send / receive” or some other button on the mobile phone?
A. No, it just stays in sync. This aspect of ActiveSync is called “push updates.” When a new email message arrives in your mailbox or an appointment changes, our email server notifies your phone and your phone automatically retrieves the changes.

Q. If my mobile telephone is receiving my email and appointments, do I have to pay extra for airtime?
A. Yes. To use ActiveSync you need to have a data plan with your mobile telephone carrier. We recommend that you subscribe to an “unlimited” data plan, usually around $50 per month before any discounts that may be applied. That fee is in addition to any voice plan you may subscribe to.

Q. So if I want to get my College email on my own Smartphone, that’s allowed?
A. Yes. And that’s a change from our previous position. In the past, because of the costs, we only supported College-sponsored phones for a very small number of users.

Q. Does Davidson require a certain Smartphone model or mobile phone carrier?
A. No. As long as the mobile phone uses ActiveSync to synchronize with our servers, we will support it.

Q. What about the Palm Treo phones? I’ve used a PalmPilot before and really liked it.
A. The Treo phones come in two varieties: some use the PalmOS like your PalmPilot did and other use ActiveSync. We support the Treo that uses ActiveSync.

Q. Please, just tell me which one to buy.
A. It all depends on your work style and your coverage area needs. From Verizon, we like the Motorola Q. That phone is most like a Blackberry. Cingular sells an HP iPaq that is very nice; it is more like a Palm Pilot and requires a stylus to operate. Here’s a list of carriers and models.

Verizon
Motorola Q
Samsung SCH-1730
Treo 700w
Verizon Wireless XV6700*

Cingular
HP iPAQ hw6515
HP iPAQ hw6510 (same as 6515, but without camera)
Cingular 8125*

Sprint
Sprint SmartDevice PPC-6700*

Alltel
UTStarcom PPC-6700*

*Device made by HTC, rebranded by all four carriers

Q. Will ITS help me configure my phone?
A. Yes. You can email the Help Desk to request an appointment. The configuration process takes about five minutes. You must be present, since it requires that you type in your network password.

Q. Does this assistance apply even if I buy the phone myself?
A. Yes. Because ActiveSync is the same on any phone that supports it, our procedure for assisting you is the same as well. We are happy to help.

As you’ve probably noticed from your own mailbox, we have seen a sharp increase in the amount of spam email being received by Davidson College. In a recent 15-day time span over 1 million spam messages were diverted by our email servers before they were delivered to individual mailboxes. But the spammers are clever. They work to alter their messages to circumvent the multi-layered protection we have in place to thwart them.

ITS uses a combination of anti-spam defenses including software on our email gateway servers (PureMessage with Internet Mail Filtering enabled). While every effort is made to catch as much spam as possible, not all spam will be caught. To combat spam that makes it through PureMessage, you can help by using the junk e-mail filters available in Outlook 2003, Outlook Web Access (OWA), and Entourage. Office 2003 users have this option turned on by default. By default, it is set to "low," but if you continue to get a lot of spam in your inbox, the filter can be set higher. (Actions / Junk E-mail / Junk E-Mail Options.) You can customize the junk filter for your particular email as well; for more information, search Outlook's Help for "junk e-mail filter." To quickly add a name to the blocked senders list, right-click the junk e-mail message, and click Add Sender to Blocked Senders List from the shortcut menu.

Entourage, Office 2000, and OWA users will need to turn on this filter via OWA by following the steps outlined on this Web page.

ITS continually evaluates how we can improve our anti-spam efforts. Be sure to read the Security Suggestions for more information.

How secure are your files on the Louise file server? Are you unintentionally allowing others access to sensitive information? It is in your best interest to learn more about what permissions are set on your personal and departmental folders.

Everyone with a network account has been given a folder on the campus network file server ("Louise") in which to store personal files. Each of these folders has a limit (or quota) of 100 MB of disk space.

Each department has been given 500 MB of space on Louise. This space can be increased to 1.5 GB by requesting it through the Help Desk. If more than 1.5 GB of space is needed, then a special request must be made.

Before you request a quota increase, be sure to take the appropriate steps to reduce the space you are already using.

Delete duplicate copies of files. Do you need versions 1, 2, 3, AND Final?
Delete any files that are no longer needed.
Move files from Louise to the hard drive of a personal computer or archive to CD.

Instead of calling the switchboard to locate a faculty or staff person's on-campus extension, try the Faculty-Staff quick search. Searches can be done by first or last name or by using only part of the first or last name.

ITS has been upgrading its entire portfolio of servers over the past several months. During November, the College’s SPAM control system, PureMessage, will receive a version and performance upgrade.

One of the main components of PureMessage is an heuristics engine that analyzes every incoming message to assess its likelihood of being SPAM. The engine assigns a score representing this likelihood and, depending on the score, messages are either dropped, quarantined, or delivered normally. The PureMessage quarantine is the component that most users see or use nearly every day; you receive notification that something is held in quarantine for you, along with a hyperlink to the quarantine. As you visit the quarantine Web page, you may then delete the messages or have them delivered normally.

Because spammers are constantly changing the content of their messages, the detection engine needs to be able to learn on the fly about new types of junk mail messages. Enhancements in the detection heuristics help ensure that PureMessage continues to differentiate between mail that should be delivered normally, mail that should be held for personal examination, and mail that should be rejected.

The new version of PureMessage will also streamline the notification process for messages held in quarantine. The url for checking the quarantine will no longer vary from day to day, but will be the same, allowing users to bookmark the page for future reference.

The volume of messages we process every day has also put stress on the system. When we install the new version, it will be on newer, higher performance hardware.

As Davidson’s liaison to the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE, pronounced as “nightly”), I invite you to participate in the broad range of opportunities offered through this organization. NITLE, a non-profit organization funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, offers a range of programming geared toward creating transformative learning experiences for and with students by applying technology in innovative ways.

Programming is offered in three general categories:
Professional development opportunities for faculty and staff.
Conferences, meetings, and seminars tailored around specific technology topics
Collaborative curricular development such as Sunoikisis and Al-Musharaka. Under Sunoikisis, inter-institutional collaborative team-taught courses in Classics have been developed. A similar collaboration under Al-Musharaka is growing in studies related to the Arab and Islamic worlds.

There is a nomination process and it is simply letting me know which opportunity you are interested in. As you look at the next three months of opportunities below, keep in mind our subscription to NITLE covers expenses for travel, food, and accommodation.

Emerging Technologies and the Liberal Arts Campus. Program Dates: December 8, 2006. Union College. Deadline: Friday, October 27. http://www.nitle.org/index.php/nitle/content/view/full/1215

Copyright and Digital Materials. Program Dates: January 7 – 9, 2007. Honnold/Mudd Library of the Claremont University Consortium. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1. http://www.nitle.org/index.php/nitle/content/view/full/1142

Managing Digital Collections: A Symposium on Technical and Organizational Interoperability. Program Dates: March 11 – 13, 2007. Smith College. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1. http://www.nitle.org/index.php/nitle/content/view/full/1143

Instructional Technology Leaders Conference. Program Dates: March 26 – 28, 2006. DePauw University. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1. http://www.nitle.org/index.php/nitle/content/view/full/1146

New Music and Media. Program Dates: April 12 – 15, 2007. Colorado College. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1. Details forthcoming.

Teaching with Media Resources in Middle Eastern and Asian Studies. Program Dates: April 27 – 29, 2007. Lake Forest College. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1. http://www.nitle.org/index.php/nitle/content/view/full/1148

Introducing GIS (iGIS). Program Dates: December 14 - 16, 2006. Nomination Deadline: Friday, November 3. Location: Beloit College. http://www.nitle.org/index.php/nitle/content/view/full/1217
Multimedia Narrative. Program Dates: December 18 - 20, 2006. Nomination Deadline: Wednesday, November 15. Location: Skidmore College. http://www.nitle.org/index.php/nitle/content/view/full/1127

Mur Muchane