With final exams and papers upon us, it is important for students to remember to exercise caution when using email as a method to transfer files.

If you frequently email yourself documents and edit them as email attachments, please read advice from ITS on how to avoid losing your documents by improperly saving them.

Please visit http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/x15271.xml for more details.

On Monday, March 24 ITS will be upgrading its Internet service with an approximately 50% boost in speed, from 42 megabits per second to 62 megabits per second. At the same time, we are building in growth potential for speeds as fast as one gigabit.

As you may know, Congress passed a law that changes the start and end dates for Daylight Saving Time (DST). The end date for DST is Sunday, November 4th, 2007.

Microsoft released the patch for the Daylight Saving Time change in August. ITS has already applied the necessary update to all campus servers and college owned computers. As a user, the update should be transparent to you and requires no additional action. Campus Apple computers did not require any updates for the DST change and are unaffected.

More information about the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Daylight Saving Time change is available from the US Department of Energy http://www.energy.gov/about/EPAct.htm

Students, when you are emailing faculty, staff, and even other students, you should follow some basic guidelines so that your email communication makes a positive impact. Here are some suggestions:

• Use only your Davidson email account to correspond with your professors—or any employee of the College, for that matter. (A student with an email account like Quirkygirlie476@aol.com might not realize how unprofessional that looks if she is applying for a Dean Rusk grant!)


• Be courteous and respectful. That's common sense, right?? Fill in the subject line, DO NOT SHOUT, and begin your message with a respectful salutation like "Dear Dr. Soandso."


• Quickly get to the point. Be specific and present what you have to say in a cohesive manner and in good English.


• At Davidson, you’ll get a prompt reply amazingly often, but don't expect it. Always allow at least one business day for a response.


• Always be the one to conclude the correspondence.

We are pleased to announce that ITS will be supporting the new Apple iPhone connected to Davidson's Exchange 2007 e-mail system and our newly expanded Wi-Fi network.

Students who are returning to campus early can get help connecting their computers to the campus network. ResNet student staff members are available and are ready to help. Here are the details:

August 1-August 22, 10:00AM-6:30PM

(weekdays only)

Student Computing Center, Belk Residence Hall

(across from the Laundry)

No appointments are required, but students do need to remain with their computers and assist with the setup process.

On Tuesday, July 24 we will be upgrading the Clean Access hardware and software beginning at 6:00 a.m. Major work should be completed by 8:00 a.m., with testing continuing throughout the day.

Between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. service interruptions are possible for the following access types:

• Residence halls
• Wireless networking
• Open (unassigned) network ports in buildings and labs

Off campus access to the network via VPN will not be interrupted; however, active users that logon during the maintenance period may have to re-logon after 8:00 a.m.

Recent graduates, please note that the date for deleting your network accounts has been extended to Friday, June 29. On June 29, this means that your Davidson email account will no longer be active.

ITS provides detailed information on what you need to do to prepare for your account's deletion.

The end of the semester is quickly approaching and you might be wondering when various facilities will be closing.

Public Labs

The Student Computing Center and the Tomlinson Lab will be open 24/7 until May 16 at 5:00 PM, at which time they will close for the semester. Please remove all of your personal items from the labs prior to this date and time.

The ITS lab in the Library will be open according to the Library schedule.

The Union lab will be open whenever the Union is open.

The Windows Computer Classroom (CHA 3130) will be open extended hours from April 30-May 9 (open from 6:00 PM - 8:00 AM on weekdays and 24 hours on the weekend). It will be open regular hours (6:00 PM - 1:00 AM) on May 10, Reading Day. When finals begin, the lab will continue to be open regular hours on weekdays until May 15, but know that exams will be given in the facility during the day. On Saturday, May 12, the lab will be closed because final exams will be given in the facility. On Sunday, May 13, the lab will be open 6:00 PM - 1:00 AM. The lab will officially close for the semester on May 16 at 5:00 PM.

Please note that student staffing will be inconsistent, so if you find that the printers need supplies or there are other problems with the lab or the equipment, please email the ITS Help Desk.

The ResNet Office

The ResNet office will be open until May 9 after which time it will close for the semester. After May 9, ResNet email and voicemail will be checked by ITS professional staff, but only emergencies will be dealt with. If you have an emergency, please make that clear in your message and state the nature of the emergency.

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.

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

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.

ITS, Auxiliary Services, and Physical plant are working together to improve network and phone connectivity for Patterson Court. With the renovation of Patterson Court 9 to the new Outpost we are taking this opportunity to bring the Davidson College Network Fiber Backbone and Digital Phone system to the Outpost. The new fiber route is just the start of what we plan to be an increase in network and phone performance for all of Patterson Court in the future.

Have you tried to login to Outlook Web Access (OWA) using just your username and password only to get an error message that your login has failed?

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.

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.

ResNet has Moved The ResNet office has moved out of Belk and into the Tomlinson Residence Hall. You'll find the office on the second floor of the building in what used to be the television lounge. ResNet is now holding normal office hours, Sunday-Thursday, 7:00-11:00 PM.

This is a much roomier location and so we can serve many more students at one time. Many thanks to Leslie Marsicano who generously offered this space to us.


Support for Off-Campus Students
Students who are living in off-campus, college-owned housing can still have access to many on-campus resources.

You can access Louise, the server where you can store up to 100 MB of files.

You can have access to the full Outlook client. Mac users, if you have setup Entourage correctly, then you already have access to a full email client.

For support with your telephone, please fill out an on-line form. This will create a Help Desk case and will forward it to the proper staff person in ITS.

And, for support with your computer, please contact the ResNet Office. This year, we have installed two lab computers in the ResNet office, so you can work on papers, check your email, etc. while you wait.


Laptop Lounge Since the ResNet Office moved to Tomlinson over the summer, we have found a new use for the vacated office in the Student Computing Center in Belk. It is now a "Laptop Lounge." This is a quiet space where you and your laptop can get some work done.

Just plug in a network cable to your computer, log into Clean Access, and you're ready to work. There is no more need to unplug the network cables from the lab computers! (By the way, please don't unplug cables from lab computers. Often cables don't get plugged back in correctly and then the computer doesn't work for the next student who tries to use it.) We hope you enjoy this new facility.

Please do your part in helping to keep the Laptop Lounge clean! Everyone loves a clean work area!


Lab Computers in Knox, Irwin, and Akers Over the summer, ITS installed lab computers in the lobbies of the Knox, Irwin, and Akers residence halls. While there are no printers in these locations, we hope that you will enjoy having access to lab computers where many of you live.

Knox and Irwin offer two Dell computers in each lobby; Akers offers one Dell and one Macintosh.

Many thanks to our friends in the Residence Life Office, particularly Leslie Marsicano, for providing some of the funding for this project!

Downloading and sharing copyrighted materials (video, music, books, etc.) without permission from the copyright owner is against the law. United States copyright laws provide, among other things, that the owner of a copyrighted work has the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work and distribute copies of such work to others. Therefore, any person other than the copyright owner who copies, uploads, downloads, swaps or engages in similar activities with respect to a copyrighted work without the express written permission of the copyright owner is committing a federal crime.

Davidson College receives notices of claimed copyright infringement related to students downloading and sharing video and music via peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent, KaZaA, eDonkey, LimeWire, etc. The College is obligated to respond to complaints of illegal activities or inappropriate use of the campus network. The consequences of copyright violation are serious and policies and procedures have been adopted (see link below) to ensure that Davidson College remains in compliance

Should you need assistance removing a peer-to-peer application from your computer, please contact the ITS ResNet office (email resnet@davidson.edu or phone x2900, option 2,1).

http://www2.davidson.edu/its/pubkb/doc_view.aspx?id=865&sub_id=80&cat_id=21

File sharing seems to be a great way to get any music or video you want without paying for it. But whether you know it or not you already are paying for it. File sharing across the Internet takes up bandwidth on our connection to the Internet, so we have to pay for a connection that is about twice the size that we would need without file sharing. That eats up a little tuition.

When a file sharing application gets out of control and requires that we find out what went wrong on the network, that takes away time that we could otherwise use to improve network services. When we get a notification from a media company that someone on campus is sharing a file out to the Internet, we spend time finding whose computer the file was shared from. When we find out, we temporarily suspend the network connection for that computer to make sure that the sharing stops. We do this to protect campus network participants from being sued by media companies. The Dean of Students, VP of Academic Affairs, or the staff member’s supervisor talks with the person involved to make sure he or she knows the college's policy on file sharing. And finally we require a form to be filled out to make sure that file sharing has stopped. All this causes us to lose otherwise productive time and subtracts from the quality of services provided by the staff involved.

Occasionally when some new twist on file sharing occurs, we meet with Deans and Vice Presidents and sometimes lawyers to ensure that we are following both the law of the land and the spirit of life on campus. Again this subtracts from their time in trying to make the college function as smoothly as it can. Although you might not notice it now or even while you are at Davidson, it is the fine grit that slowly wears away the gears that run the college. When your parents see another bump in tuition or when you graduate and are asked to give to the college, remember that you are paying a little bit of that for something that you thought was free.

Because we respond quickly to requests by media companies to stop sharing their content, we believe that the likelihood that any individual on campus will be sued is very low. If it ever happens though, that individual will, in effect, foot the entire bill for everyone’s dine and dash habits.

If you are backing up your computer with the Maxtor OneTouch drive, you should check at least once a month to ensure your backups are taking place.

To check if your backups are running on a Dell with Windows XP: click Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Scheduled Tasks. Locate your Weekly Backup task and ensure the “Last Run Time” date listed is no later than 3 weeks ago. If your system indicates a date older than 3 weeks ago, please email the Help Desk and request that someone check your backups.

The Mac backup is an exact duplicate of the user's home directory, so verifying is just a matter of checking that the contents of the backup drive match the contents of the backup source (i.e. the home directory). You can also open SilverKeeper and look at the Status tab for a summary of the date and outcome of the backup attempt.

If you do not have a Maxtor OneTouch drive, please email your request to the Help Desk. This option is available to both Mac and Windows XP users. If your computer's operating system is Windows 2000 and if it has a Davidson College property tag over 4000 you will need to upgrade to Windows XP prior to the installation of your Maxtor drive. You will need to submit both a Maxtor drive request and a Windows XP upgrade. Please use davidson\username when prompted.

Apple, Dell, and other laptop manufacturers voluntarily recalled millions of batteries last month. Because these batteries may overheat and cause a fire, they will be replaced at no-charge to their customers.

Learn more about the recall, determine if your battery has been recalled, and how to request a replacement.

Apple

Dell

In addition, Toshiba America today announced a voluntary exchange program for Sony-made batteries in select Dynabook and Satellite models sold in the United States between March and May of 2006. This does not affect any College-owned machines, but if you use a Toshiba Dynabook or Satellite at home, you may wish to contact Toshiba support at (800) 457-7777 to determine if your machine is part of the recall.

Two years ago, ITS implemented a Customer Satisfaction survey that is generated automatically when a Help Desk case is closed. We sincerely appreciate everyone who took the time to share general comments, well-earned praise, and well-deserved criticism.

Your responses to the survey were reviewed weekly by ITS management. We use the input to help shape and improve our service.

The time has come for us to take a short hiatus and revise the questions. No surveys will be generated over the summer. The Customer Satisfaction survey will return in the fall and will be generated randomly rather than when every Help Desk case is closed.

Our sincere thanks for your feedback; we look forward to your continued input. If you have suggestions or comments about the Help Desk service or the survey, please email Lydia Lorenzin, Director of Computing Support Services.

Students Returning to Davidson in Fall 06 or Spring 07:

The following message contains important information about computing over the summer and next year.

1. Changing your network password. Passwords expire every 180 days which means many students' passwords expire in July. If you want to change your password before you leave campus or if it expires while you are away, you can now pull up the main ITS web page in a web browser and click on the link that says “Change Your Password” (lower right corner). Enter the information as prompted to change your password.

2. Windows 2000 support ends in the summer of 2006. If you are currently using this operating system, you’ll need to upgrade to Windows XP. Davidson College provides this software. See this article for more information.

3. Take your network cable with you. If you brought your network cable with you or if you found one waiting for you in your room when you arrived on campus, please take it with you. This cable is yours to keep and you’ll need it for the rest of your time on campus.

4. Unsubscribe from any listservs you are no longer interested in. Most listservs send “unsubscribe” instructions when you first get on a list, so look for that message and follow the instructions.

Have a safe and happy summer break!

Upon graduation, students are granted perpetual use rights for the Microsoft Office suite. This means that you will be licensed for use of this software on your personal computer after you leave Davidson.

The following conditions apply if you choose to keep Office on your personal computer:

The license cannot be upgraded to a later version of Microsoft Office.
There will be no product support available from Microsoft Corporation.
There will be no product support available from Davidson College/ITS.
If you would like to receive a Support License Confirmation Letter, please email the Help Desk with the words "License Confirmation" in the Subject field.

Your email, web, network, and Blackboard accounts will be deleted on Wednesday, June 14. Your telephone number and voice mailbox services will be deactivated on May 22. Please read below for important information on the status of your accounts after graduation.

If you are graduating and leaving campus, you will need to do the following before you leave:

Download and save any important email messages from your mailbox on the Exchange (email) server. Your email cannot be recovered once your account has been removed. Instructions are available.
Download and save any important files from your personal folder on Louise in the Users directory. Your files cannot be recovered once your account has been removed.
Your Blackboard account will be disabled. Download and save any important work from your Blackboard courses that you would like to keep. Your files cannot be recovered once your account is disabled.
Check your voice mailbox. Your voice mail messages cannot be recovered once your mailbox has been removed.
Remove yourself (or have your address removed) from any listservs to which you may belong.
You will also need to alert any correspondents (both in and outside of Davidson College) of the different email address that you may be using after you leave the college. The Alumni Association offers free email accounts for Davidson alums. Contact the Alumni Office for more details. Note: these accounts are not managed or supported by ITS.
If you will be employed by Davidson College after graduation:

You must email the Help Desk by Friday, June 2 at the latest with the following information. Please include the words "Senior Account" in the Subject field.

Your supervisor's name and department
The title or description of your position
The end date of your employment
Your network and web accounts will remain (including your email address, your web folder, and your personal folder on Louise). You should consider purchasing pre-paid cards for your long distance needs.

If you are not graduating:

Please email the Help Desk by Friday, June 2 at the latest so that your network account, telephone number, and voice mailbox will not be deactivated. Please include the words "Senior Account" in the Subject field.

If you do not notify us of your status by Friday, June 2 and your account is deleted on June 14, ITS will not be able to retrieve your email or files.

What is a blog?

A weblog or “blog” is an easy-to-use, web-based application that enables users to publish content to the web via a standard web browser. Postings are chronological and typically presented in reverse order. Blogs are primarily used as journals or diaries, usually on a specific topic.

Teaching with Blogs

In the classroom, blogs are primarily used for simple collaboration, student portfolios, and rudimentary course management. Students and faculty can post draft papers for peer review or participate in group research. Blogs also enable collaboration outside of the course, drawing participation from other institutions and the community at large.

Davidson blogs

At Davidson, we deployed a pilot blog server using an application called Movable Type. Although external blog services like Blogger are available to any individual, a Davidson blog gives us the flexibility to modify the structure, add multiple editors, create our own branding and limit blogs to campus access by request. Our pilot course blog, Pressing Matters, was created by the Instructional Technology Group for Jennie Buckner's “Critical Issues in Mass Media” course. The blog is used to create a public forum for discussion about the current state of the American press. Click here to read more about the course's use of the blog. ITG trained two students in the class who, with assistance from our staff, customized the blog to meet the needs of the class.

We hope you will review the course blog by clicking the link above. In the Fall, ITG will create a course blog for Dr. David Martin's "Davidson in India" program. If you have any questions about course or research blogs or would like to set one up, please contact ITG at any time.

Languages - Kyosung Koo (x2648)
Music - Jason Brewer (x2659)
Social Sciences and Humanities - Kristen Eshleman (x2583)
Sciences and Math - Bill Hatfield (x2897)

ITS strives to make our public labs great work spaces for students. You can help us by adhering to the following guidelines.

Keep the labs clean: If you leave a workstation for more than 15 minutes, remove your personal items and log out from the computer. Recycle any paper, bottles, and plastic you do not need. Throw trash into trash receptacles. If you spill something in the lab, clean it up.

Print only one copy: If you need multiple copies of a document, print the first copy, and then have the Copy Center photocopy the rest.

Report problems with equipment and/or facility: Please don't try to fix problems with the equipment. Instead, report the problem to the student consultant on duty, or to the ITS Help Desk if the lab is unstaffed. You can also report if you notice a water leak, lights out, or some other problem with the physical building.

Save files to your personal space: Because the lab computers are designed for multiple users, do not count on saving files to the computer you're working on. Instead, save to your personal space on Louise, to a CD, or to a USB keychain drive. Be especially careful when you're working on files that are in your Outlook email. You have to say "yes" twice to "Do you want to save changes." Otherwise, you will lose your work.

Post personal fliers on bulletin boards: If your best friend is having a birthday or your team is having a game, please post those announcements on bulletin boards the campus provides. We only allow lab-related postings on the walls and doors of our lab facilities.

Chat quietly: The person next to you might be writing her Senior thesis or the guy across from you might be working on his statistics assignment. They will appreciate quiet voices when you are chatting with your friends.

Use cell phones courteously: Please turn your cell phones to vibrate mode and step out of the lab to complete your cell phone conversations.

Public Labs

If you need to compute over spring break, then you're probably wondering what the ITS public lab hours will be.

The Student Computing Center and the Tomlinson 3rd Floor Lab will be open 24/7. As usual, you will need your CatCard to gain entrance to the labs.
The ITS lab in the Library will be open according to the Library schedule.
The Knobloch Campus Center 4th floor facilities will be open according to the Union's schedule.
The Windows Computer Classroom (CHA 3130) will be closed from Friday, Feb. 24-Saturday, March 4. It will reopen on Sunday, March 5 from 1:00pm-1:00am.

Please note that student staffing will be inconsistent, so if you find that the printers need supplies or there are other problems with the lab or the equipment, please call x2900 and report the situation to the ITS Help Desk.
The ResNet Office

The ResNet office will be closed from Friday, Feb. 24-Saturday, March 4 for spring break. During this time, ResNet email and voicemail will be checked by ITS professional staff, but only emergencies will be dealt with. If you have an emergency, please make that clear in your message and state the nature of the emergency. It will reopen Sunday, March 5 at 7:00PM.

Have a safe and fun spring break!

If you notice that a system, network, or telephone service is down, you may wonder if you should report the problem. Below, we have provided information about times you might expect service to be down due to regular maintenance. We have also highlighted some Web pages that report maintenance schedules and server status. Hopefully this will help you decide if you should report a service outage.

Does the service problem occur during a time when regular maintenance is scheduled for the service? System, Network and Telephones/Voice mail devices may periodically be rebooted between 5:00 and 8:00 AM without notification. Voice mail maintenance is routinely performed the first Friday of each month between 7:00 am and 8:00 AM.

Is there a posting on the web about the outage you are seeing? Check the Downtime and Outages Web page to see if there is a scheduled maintenance outside of the normal maintenance window.

If the time is outside of a maintenance window and no special announcement about the service being down has been made, please check the Server Status web page to see if the service is active, inactive or under repair. Any service without a green check mark is known to be problematic and is being addressed by ITS staff.

These web pages will help you determine if you should report a problem to the Help Desk. Please also know that ITS uses a number of different monitoring systems to determine if there are problems with services and, if there are, selected staff members are notified.

Over winter break, Information Technology Services, the Union, and Residence Life collaborated to make two new computing facilities available to the Davidson student body. The fourth floor of the Knobloch Campus Center (KCC) now offers 10 computers...8 on desks out in the main area and 2 next to the fireplace on that level. The printer for these computers is located on the third floor near the elevator. The four kiosk stations and the Library computers in the Union will now also print to the printer on the third floor.

Additionally, the Residence Life office graciously offered the third floor TV lounge in Tomlinson (a space that was under-utilized) to ITS at the end of last semester. There are now 8 computers and a laser printer in that location.

Students will have access to the KCC computers anytime it is open and will have 24/7 CatCard access to the Tomlinson Facility.

The computers and printer that are in the KCC were moved from the Belk Mini Lab. We decided to close that facility after a long series of water problems threatened the health and safety of students working in that area. The large lab in Belk, the Student Computing Center, is still open 24/7 and students can use their CatCard to access to that facility as normal.

Several incidents have been reported to ITS that students are unable to access the campus network. We have discovered that a wireless access point is giving out bad network addresses and causing users not to be able to gain access to the Davidson network.

If you have recently purchased or received a wireless access point, do not connect the device to the network. If you have any questions or concerns, please email ResNet.

Also, please take moment to review the Davidson College RF policy, which states: Faculty, Staff or Students shall not deploy their own production wireless systems because of the security, consistency and interference problems that would entail. ITS reserves the right to restrict any wireless system deployment.

To combat the pervasive problem of spam, ITS implemented PureMessage in May of last year. PureMessage scans email coming in from the Internet and assigns a spam score to each message. Messages that receive a spam score that falls within the spam threshold as defined on the server are quarantined, and messages that receive a spam score below that level are delivered to your inbox.

Fortunately, PureMessage has helped tremendously with the spam problem. Server statistics indicate that, on average, PureMessage has determined that approximately 60% of all email from off campus is spam. However, spam continues to be a problem. Even with the Outlook junk email filter enabled, spam still sometimes makes it to your inbox.

As another layer of protection from spam, ITS will be implementing the Exchange Intelligent Message filter on Monday, January 23. This filter will scan messages that either did not get scanned by PureMessage because they were sent to a distribution list, or messages that received a spam score lower than the PureMessage threshold defined on the server. Messages passing through the Intelligent Message Filter are assigned a “Spam Confidence Level" (SCL) which ranges from 0 (unlikely to be spam) to 9 (very likely to be spam). Initially, the SCL on the server will be set to 9. This should ensure that only the messages that are most likely to be spam will get sent to your junk email folder. This is how the Intelligent Message Filter will work:

If a message receives an SCL of 9, the Intelligent Message Filter checks the recipient’s safe senders list as defined in Outlook 2003 or OWA and then one of two things happen:

If the sender is on the recipient’s safe senders list, the message is delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
If the sender is not on the safe senders list or if no safe senders list is defined, the message is delivered to the recipients junk email folder.
If a message receives an SCL below 9, the Intelligent Message Filter checks the recipient’s blocked senders list as defined in Outlook 2003 or OWA and then one of two things happen:

If the sender is on the recipient’s blocked senders list, the message is delivered to the recipient’s junk email folder
If the sender is not on the blocked senders list or if no blocked senders list is defined, the message is delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
ITS will be monitoring and fine-tuning both PureMessage and the Intelligent Message Filter in an attempt to further reduce spam. Stay tuned for more information and details as they becomes available.

For this process to work correctly each user must have junk mail filtering turned on. Office 2003 users have this option turned on by default. Entourage, Office 2000, and OWA users will need to turn on this filter via OWA by following the steps outlined in the online kb article.