SHSU Information Resources Update

R U Dragging?

The degree plan program, DARS, will be moved by October to a new clustered database system. This cluster is using new servers so they are faster. The cluster has more servers so it should dramatically improve performance. And with having a cluster of several servers, rather than just one server, we are less likely to have downtime. DARS can stay functioning while one of the servers is worked on.

In the interim, extra memory was added this past weekend and we hope this alleviates some of the sluggishness.

In the past two weeks, we have reorganized some of the Nell datafiles to help the response time for other programs. (This process is similar to going through your clothes closet and carefully putting everything away by color, season, and size. You should be able to find just the item you need more efficiently now----and the items that you never use are stored up in the attic. You can get them if you just have to but they're not in your way.)

If there are programs that you rely on heavily which are "slow as molasses," please let us know so that we can target solutions accordingly.

Do Unto Others ....

We want each faculty, staff, and student at SHSU to feel they are treated with respect and concern. If at any time, you do not have that experience with someone on the university Computer Services (UCS) staff, please visit directly with one of the UCS department directors (Jacob Chandler for Administrative Applications, Grady Mangum for Systems, or Nancy Sears for Client Support) or our Associate VP for Information Resources, Mark Adams. We will take steps immediately to address your complaint.

We also are requesting that you each do the same for our fulltime and part-time staff members. Last week we were referred to as "butt stupid" and "micromanaging termites" just to name a couple of the more endearing comments! Our student staff is especially vulnerable to abuse.

We appreciate the many, many of you who are unfailingly kind and are asking for restraint from the few others. Talk to one of the directors and/or your own department chair about your frustrations and we will gladly sit down together to resolve your issues.

Training

This month we're offering training on the new VoIP phones, Outlook, and Blackboard.

Additionally, we'll be offering training for new faculty. Please encourage the newcomers in your departments to attend one of these IT Orientation sessions.

Check the Calendar for class times and sign up now to reserve your seat. You may also request one-on-one training or training for your department. Just e-mail the Helpdesk.

Blackboard Day: August 15th

Sign up now for Blackboard Day 2008.

There are still seats to be had and freebies to be given to the first 100 SHSU faculty who sign up for Blackboard Day! We will be touching on topics that impact course development and student learning on many levels.

The Office of Academic Affairs, through ARAMARK, is providing conference registrants morning coffee and pastries, lunch, and an afternoon ice cream break.

We will be showing off all of the new features that Blackboard 8 has to offer. There will be a Bb Experts Panel in attendance for questions and answers.

This year we are adding a new layer to our Blog and Wiki capability as well as some great audio capture and editing software for podcasting or course resources.

New for Blackboard Day 2008 are courses on Captivate (a screen capture software) and a session on preparing your course to be fully online. Have you ever wanted to demonstrate to your students exactly how to find something or use a specific piece of technology? This can be especially challenging if your course is online, you only see your students a few times a semester, or you don’t have lab access. Captivate allows you to record every action that occurs on your computer monitor and create a flash movie to upload to your course. Pop up bubbles and audio can be added to give more oomph to your demo.

Are you teaching or preparing to teach a hybrid or completely online course? We have just the session for you. Learn how you can make your life and the lives of your students easier by tailoring your course to make it online accessible.

Trying to wrap your head around how you will use all of the course data? Why not “chunk” it? Make your course navigation a menu from which you would order. Learn how to make part of your Bb course a one-stop-shop so your students can find all of course resources in one place.

Come for the whole day and share ideas with your fellow faculty. You know you want ice cream!

Macintoshes Moving Forward

With the Leopard 10.5 operating system, campus Macintosh users have the ability to also upgrade to Office 2008 and be compatible with the rest of campus using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Access.

Some of the most interesting new features of 10.5 are Spaces, Quickflow/ Quicklook, to-dos in Mail app, Time Machine, and a better Finder.

Spaces is an application that allows a user to have several different desktops at once. One desktop might have email, calendar, and a word processor running, while another might be used for photo editing and webpage creation. You can switch between desktops and, thus, activities at the click of a button.
Quick Look displays documents, images, movies, and the like as an on screen image that can be graphically scrolled through like on a light table or slideshow. This is great for quick browsing of a document without actually opening it to ensure that the correct one has been chosen.
Users of iTunes will be familiar with this interface--this is also one of the cool new features in Finder.
To-dos can now be created from the Mail application by highlighting text within the message.
Time Machine is an automatic backup of the computer's hard drive. If something happens to the drive, you are able to restore the system from the last backup. The software also allows the scrolling back and forth through backup dates in a graphical fashion giving access to older versions of, or even deleted, files.

Additionally, the need to bite the bullet and switch operating systems is based on security concerns. Apple is no longer providing security updates for operating systems older than OS 10.4. Apple released the last update for OS 9 (9.2.2) in December of 2001. OS 10.3 was last updated in October of 2003, and 10.4 was last updated in November of 2007.

We recognize how very busy each of you are and how completely dependent on your workstation you are. But----we still need to inconvenience you long enough to upgrade your system! Although some of you question the risk in a "simple faculty machine," we would like to reiterate that it is not specifically your information that a hacker targets; they instead use your workstation as a disguised jumping-off point to hit other locations.

If you have a Macintosh and have not yet received a work order for it to be upgraded, please contact the Helpdesk at 41950 to have one created. If you already have a WO but have just been too swamped, please take time in the next couple of weeks to back up needed files as soon as possible and notify us so we may continue with the 10.5 deployment.

Telephones, E-mail & The Telcom Center

We want to send out a large thank-you to all for your patience with the conversion to a new telephone system and a new e-mail system. We will be finishing the conversion of all faculty and staff to the Exchange server e-mail system in the next couple of weeks. Students will be moved in September to the new e-mail system also. We want to get the first-of-the-semester-crunch over before we start this process. We don't want to add any more stress to the beginning of Fall!

For Macintosh users, the next operating system version, Snow Leopard, is slated to have built-in Exchange/activesync functionality.

Until then, you may connect to Exchange as an IMAP client using Entourage. You can also accept calendar invitations; those invites will be added to your local calendar.

Or you may use Outlook Web Access. This link is available from the main university web site as Exchange Mail.

We appreciate your cooperation in adapting to all the changes these past months. The countdown to the demolition of the Telcom center is now down to single-digit days!

Time to Upgrade/Replace/Clean Up

A recent campus install of software failed for a number of campus PC's due to insufficient space or other problems. Please check this report and if your PC node is on the report, create a work order (WO) on SamWeb or contact the Helpdesk to request an evaluation of your workstation's adequacy.

To learn the specifics about your PC, click Start, All Programs, SHSU Utilities, SHSU Check Computer Utility. Be sure to give us the results of that check when you call us or do the WO.

What's Good, What's Not, and What's Happening When?

The Helpdesk provides support for university equipment and software on the local area network. Each month's update will include the versions of software and minimum requirements for hardware with the new or changed information highlighted and bolded.

Memory Sticks: Purchase (and encourage your students to buy) flash drives that are USB Mass Storage Compliant.

Operating Systems: The supported version of Macintosh machines will be OS X, version 5 after the Leopard conversion which is underway. The supported version of Microsoft's operating system is Windows XP.

Software Packages: The supported versions of office suites are Microsoft's Office 2007. The new version of an office suite for Macintoshes is Microsoft Office 2008 and is being packaged for installation on campus machines.

Hardware Configurations: The minimum requirements for SHSU local area network support for a PC are a 1Ghz processor, 512MB RAM, and a 40GB disk. Our recommended configuration is a 2.53 GHz Dual Core
2 GB 800 MHz memory, and a 160 GB hard drive. The recommended configuration for a Macintosh on the LAN is a 1.6GHz PowerPC Single-core/Single processor, 1GB RAM, and a 40GB hard drive.

Computer Services may schedule significant periods of downtime for major system upgrades and maintenance. For your planning purposes, the weekend following each graduation will be set aside for scheduled outages. This month this will be the weekend of August 15-17. Additionally, certain systems may be unavailable on Friday nights after 6 p.m.

All offers, training, and software above pertain to faculty and staff at SHSU only. If you have any questions, compliments, comments, or concerns, please let us know.