The Banner Activities Workgroup is in the final stages of their year long project.

Ellen Henshaw is the new IT Specialist for College Relations. Ellen is a Davidson graduate that brings lots of experience in the areas of data management, reporting, providing technical support, and training to end users.

Marcia Stoutjesdyk is the new Assistant Registrar. Although Hansford will continue to attend the BTL meetings for the next few weeks, Marcia will transition into the role of Banner Team Leader. Marcia comes to us from Grand Valley State University where she supervised the unit responsible for student records, transfer articulation, degree auditing and imaging. While at Grand Valley State, Marcia became quite familiar with the Banner Academic History module and welcomes the opportunity to learn more.

Following the policy enacted in October 2006, we have “locked” all Banner Accounts for Student Workers that were not slated to return to work in an Administrative Office for the Spring 2007 term. If conditions have changed and a student will work in your office and will need access to Banner, simply email a request to create or re-enable the account to the ITS Help Desk.

NOTE: All students must have their own user accounts.

Information Technology Services needs to hire additional students to staff the ResNet office next year. If you have in-depth computer skills, enjoy helping other students, and are able to move back to campus the week before classes start in the fall, then you would be a good candidate for this position. Freshmen and Sophomores are especially encouraged to apply. Email Lisa Smith for more information.

Students living in Senior apartments, here are some tips for printing to the printer in the Ryburn laundry room.

Every second Tuesday Microsoft releases patches for the Windows OS and related software.
This second Tuesday of February Microsoft released 12 patches.

This fall ITS offered centrally funded Adobe Acrobat Professional 7 and Dreamweaver 8 installations for Davidson Faculty and Staff. The ITS Department would now like to announce the availability of Acrobat Professional 8 for utilization on college-owned Faculty and Staff computers. Acrobat 8 may be installed as an upgrade to Acrobat 7 or to a system that does not currently have Acrobat.

Effective immediately, students who opt to run Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system will be allowed to connect their computers to the Davidson campus network. If you are considering this upgrade, ITS suggests that you carefully consider compatibility issues, as not all hardware and software is Vista-capable. The new operating system offers some attractive new features and technologies, but along with that comes a significant learning curve for support and troubleshooting. With that in mind, we ask two things of you during these initial proceedings.

Unified Messaging (UM)
Don't forget to sign up for Unified Messaging...a free service! Unified Messaging (also referred to as ‘voice mail/email integration’ or UM) is the process of moving voice messages into email. The voice messages are converted to sound (.wav) files and can be listened to from your desktop via Outlook (internal or external speakers/sound card required). However, if you prefer, you can still listen to new voice mail messages over the phone. Here are a few things to know about Davidson’s Unified Messaging service.

UM is available for Windows or Mac clients.

UM requires no additional software for the Mac. After your voice mail is UM-enabled, you will begin to receive your voice messages in your Entourage inbox.

Client software installation is required for Windows. The install only takes 5 to 10 minutes. Detailed instructions will be sent to you after your request has been processed.

The email server becomes the primary storage location for your voice mail messages -- a copy is retained on the voice mail server for quick telephone access. Stored voice messages become part of your email quota (they don’t take up much space, though). Please note, if you delete a message from your Inbox it is also deleted from voice mail and vice versa. You can now manage your voice mail the same way you manage your email.

Although you can receive your voice mail in email, you cannot retrieve your email from voice mail. ‘Text-to-speech’ conversion is not available at Davidson at this time.

To sign up for unified Messaging, send an email helpdesk@davidson.edu to the help desk with your name, extension and wheather you are using a Windows PC or a Mac.