ITS is pleased to introduce CounterSpy, a new tool to protect campus computers from all kinds of threats including spyware and malware. CounterSpy will replace Ad-aware on standard Windows computers.

The changeover will be done over the network beginning on Wednesday, May 21st. No action is required on your part. The transition will take a matter of minutes, be done in the background, and you may continue to work as usual during the process. CounterSpy will automatically scan for malware and spyware. If your computer isn’t connected to the network on Wednesday, there’s no need to worry. CounterSpy will install automatically the next time your computer connects to the network.

If you wish to initiate a manual scan or have other questions, please refer to our instructions and Frequently Asked Questions documentation.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Help Desk with questions.

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

Sophos Anti-virus Home Use Option enables Davidson College faculty and staff to install Sophos Anti-virus on one (1) personally-owned computer. These instructions describe how to install the application which will stay updated via the Internet each time you go online. Updates are downloaded, either manually or automatically, from Central Installation Directories (CIDs) on Davidson's Sophos web server.

ITS is pleased to announce the availability of Office 2007 for Windows. We would like to make the upgrade to Office 2007 as rewarding and trouble free as possible. To help guide your decision, please review the Key Information and Request to Upgrade.

Along with the release of Office 2007, Microsoft introduced a new file format for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In order for earlier versions of those applications to open Office 2007 files, a converter must be installed.

In preparation for the widespread use of Microsoft Office 2007 on and off campus, ITS will install the converter on standard Windows computers running Office 2003 on campus. The installation will take place on Monday, July 23. No action is required on the part of the computer user, as this “silent” install will take place via the campus network.

Information about the new XML format is available on the Microsoft web site.

Note: This information does NOT apply to computers running the Macintosh operating system or non-standard Windows computers.

Last week Microsoft released the final version of the Windows Vista operating system and Office 2007 to their enterprise clients. The anticipated release date for the general public is January 30, 2007.

ITS is testing these new versions and planning the rollout to campus in the new year. We anticipate the migration will start in the spring for computers in faculty and staff offices. Most computer classrooms and labs will migrate to the new versions in the summer.

Information about Vista and Office 2007 are available on the Microsoft Web site.

Beginning in October, ITS will make Dreamweaver 7 and Adobe Acrobat 7 available to faculty and staff for both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Please watch the top level ITS Web page under “News and Events” for the official announcement on how to request these software products.

Adobe has recently announced the addition of Acrobat Professional 8 to their software line but has not made the product available for use. When Acrobat Professional 8 is officially released, individuals using version 7 will have the option to upgrade.

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.

Microsoft is preparing the next version of Office for Windows. We are anticipating that Office 2007 (formerly known as Office 12) will be released early in the new year, although Microsoft has not yet announced an official date.

If you would like a preview of what's to come, visit Microsoft's web site and view a demo of the new user interface. It's quite different and very exciting. You may need to install a Flash plug-in to run the demo. Just follow the on-screen instructions.

ITS recommends that you refrain from installing the beta version of Office 2007 on your office computer. The latest beta version is very stable, but may cause unanticipated problems with your system.

It’s probably a sign of the times that security updates for computers are now national news. Read any of the Internet news outlets—The New York Times, CNN, or MSNBC—and you’ll see stories about security vulnerabilities in our software and what the vendors are doing about it. During April both Apple and Microsoft released sets of patches deemed “critical.”

Automatic Updating

Whether you use a Mac or a PC for your personal use, patch distribution can be handled either automatically or manually. For Davidson-owned Windows systems, patches are pushed out by a system called “Windows Server Update Services” or WSUS. The WSUS server synchronizes its patch inventory with Microsoft. After a period of testing and evaluation, most patches are approved for distribution. If your system ever asks you if it’s ok to apply patches, you should save your work first, and answer "yes." Automatic updates may also be configured on non-Davidson Windows machines. It’s one of the property settings of “My Computer.” On April 11 Microsoft released several critical patches, one in particular that addresses vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. Whether your system is Davidson-owned or not, you don’t need to visit the Microsoft Update site yourself; your system can handle updates automatically for you.

On the Macintosh side, the security patches were bundled into a “point upgrade” of OS 10.4—specifically 10.4.6. These point upgrades are more like the service packs periodically released by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Various Macintosh support programs also received minor upgrades making the complete suite of updates over 100 MB. Like a Windows machine, there are various ways of handling updates, the most common is by configuring the “Software Update” application under “System Preferences.” The Apple updates were released on April 5.

Exploits Typically Addressed

Often the types of updates released by Apple and Microsoft are very similar in the types of exploits that they address. The two main categories that they address the most often are buffer overruns and privilege elevation. The buffer overrun vulnerability can allow savvy attackers to execute their own programs that might attack your computer or take control of it. The privilege elevation vulnerability can allow an attacker to gain administrative control of your computer and cause further damage. At Davidson we make every effort to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to patching. The modern operating systems we use the most, such as Windows, OS X, and Linux, are extremely complex so vulnerabilities are bound to crop up. Staying up to date on security patches, like staying up to date on virus scanning software, is an important way to ensure the integrity of your system.

Problem: By default, documents created in Word, Excel and PowerPoint may contain revealing information regarding the document's author and/or commenters/editors.

Cause: This is the default behavior for Office applications.

Solution: The solution varies slightly for each program, but all are generally similar.

Important Caveat: These procedures do not anonymize tracked changes or inserted comments in a document. These items are attributed by their nature, and must be manually modified.

Mac OS – Office 2004

Word

Open Word and choose Word | Preferences | Security.
Under Privacy Options, check Remove personal information from this file on save. This will strip author name, initials, etc.
If you wish to be alerted when a document contains trackable information such as comments or edits, check the box marked Warn before printing, saving or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments.
Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.
Note: The command to remove personal information is not "sticky." It must be enabled for each document you want information stripped from.

Excel

Open Excel and choose Excel | Preferences | Security.
Under Privacy Options, check Remove personal information from this file on save. This will strip author name, initials, etc.
Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.
Note: The command to remove personal information is not "sticky." It must be enabled for each document you want information stripped from.

PowerPoint

Open PowerPoint and choose PowerPoint | Preferences | Advanced.
Clear the fields marked Name and Initials.
Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.
Note: This action is not "sticky," and must be performed for each new PowerPoint file.

Windows – Office XP, Office 2003

Word

Open Word and choose Tools | Options | Security.
Under Privacy Options, check Remove personal information from this file on save. This will strip author name, initials, etc.
If you wish to be alerted when a document contains trackable information such as comments or edits, check the box marked Warn before printing, saving or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments.
Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.
Note: The command to remove personal information is not "sticky." It must be enabled for each document you want information stripped from.

Excel

Open Excel and choose Tools | Options | Security.
Under Privacy Options, check Remove personal information from this file on save. This will strip author name, initials, etc.
Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.
Note: The command to remove personal information is not "sticky." It must be enabled for each document you want information stripped from.

PowerPoint

Open PowerPoint and choose Tools | Options | Security.
Clear the fields marked Name and Initials.
Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.
Note: This action is not "sticky," and must be performed for each new PowerPoint file.

Here's a quick quiz on passwords.

Do you share any of your passwords?
Do you use "password" as your password?
Is your password the same as your username?
Is your password something that would be easily guessed, like your last name, a pet's name, or "1234."
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions it is important that you read up on Password Security. Even if you think your password is secure check out the article to review your responsibilities for your accounts and passwords.

ITS offers three methods to faculty and staff for getting to your important information from off-campus. That information can be your email using the Outlook full client, files on Louise, or confidential information on Banner or another server. All of these methods provide secure access for your connection. Note: Entourage does not need any special configuration to access the email server from off-campus.

Methods for secure remote access:

RPC over HTTP - Remote Procedure Calls over HyperText Transfer Protocol - allows use of the full Outlook client.
WebDAV - Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning - provides access to files on Louise.
VPN - Virtual Private Network - gives you access like you were on campus.

Starting January 16, 2006 all Dell laptops purchased through ITS will come standard with a new wireless network card, the Intel Pro 2200. This wireless network card allows for a stronger signal, greater wireless range and a more intuitive user interface. The Intel Pro 2200 wireless network card replaces the Dell True Mobile wireless network card.