SHSU Information Resources Update

Happy Holidays!

The Mail Services department will come in on 12/28 to process SHSU mail. Departments wishing to pick up mail may do so from 11:00 a.m. till noon that Friday.

Some major conversion work is planned during the week after Christmas for the computing systems. The Server team will be adding and moving servers, the storage area network, and switches over winter break. Some intermittent outages are anticipated from December 27th to the 30th. Check the UCS blog for details closer to the time.

Working the Work Orders

Please login to the SamWeb Work Order system for your technological requests, whether it be programming, mass mails, t: drive permission changes, telephone repairs, purchases, exchange accounts, file restorals, Macintosh account requests, or any of the many other functions where Computer Services can help.

If you want to add new information or respond to updates, please make those within the WO. You will get an e-mail from the WO system letting you know when changes are made. If you will then click the Update WO link, and provide your comments there, rather than in a reply e-mail, the entire flow of that WO can be easily followed.

If you're new to the Work Order system, and would like one-on-one training, give the Helpdesk a call at 41950, or check out the training information.

Don't Monkey Around

In the past, some departments have used SurveyMonkey as an external method of surveying. You have a free on-campus solution: the campus Institutional Research office provides assistance with a web-based campus survey tool. They also provide other profile statistics for the campus community. Find out answers from the Fall 2007 Mini-Profiles.

Celebrate Learning

Open your presents early with our December training. During "Dead Week" join us for a few training sessions and holiday cheer.

Sessions include: Deck Your Course with Exams and Quizzes, We Wiki You a Merry Christmas, and The Twelve Tips of Office. Door prizes will be given at each session.

Check the Calendar for classes. You can sign up now to reserve your seat.

Sticking to Business

We are continuing to streamline functions to ensure we can meet the business needs of the campus. Therefore, temporary administrative access will only be granted for University-related installations. This will help reduce staff time in granting and monitoring these privilege changes and will also lower the risk that University machines are compromised by non-essential software.

Final Finals
Congrats on finishing another semester. You'll need your PIN for entering your grades on SamMenu. The Registrar's Office will be running those new PINs on 12/3 and providing those to your departments. Contact Kathy Hudson at 41046 if you have problems with your PIN.

Blackboard

The Blackboard SSL Certificate error has confounded our experts at Bb. They are continuing to work with us to eliminate this extra step that has caused such consternation. However, your information is and has been encrypted and safe.

A Blackboard technical specialist will come to SHSU in early January to implement our multiple server solution for Blackboard. This new system will allow us to balance the load Blackboard receives over multiple servers. Additionally, if one server were to fail, we can shift student and instructor access to the duplicate servers. These additional servers should create the robust system needed now at SHSU; it should be in place by your return for Spring 2008.

We will continue to keep you informed with the Blackboard blog.

Wanna Get Technical?

The Newton Gresham Library now provides the campus access to Safari Tech Books Online. You can reference the full-text of over 4,700 books. Go to the NGL site, click Databases & Indexes, and then choose S on the Alphabetical choice for Safari.

Staff

Angie Wright is moving from a position within networking to a new type of networking. Angie will be our Information Resources Project Coordinator.

Three additional positions have been created within Computer Services giving us twelve open jobs at this time. Please recommend and refer applicants to the HR site to apply.

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. The supported version of Microsoft's operating system is Windows XP. We are still evaluating the timeline for the move from XP to Windows Vista. It will definitely not occur prior to Summer 2008, and may be delayed till Christmas 2008.

Software Packages: The supported versions of office suites are Microsoft's Office 2007 and WordPerfect 12 for PC's. The supported version of an office suite for Macintoshes is Microsoft Office 2004. Microsoft has not yet released a new version of Office for the Macintoshes.

Hardware Configurations: The minimum requirements for SHSU local area network support for a PC are a 1Ghz processor, 512MB RAM, and a 40GB disk. With next summer's Vista roll-out, the minimum configuration will be a 2GHz processor, 1GB memory, and 80GB hard drive. The minimum requirements for a Macintosh on the LAN are a 733 Mhz processor, 512MB RAM, and a 40GB disk.

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. 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.