Sam Menu & More

We are moving the administrative database to a more powerful server. The database will be offline the evening of March 18th starting at 6 p.m. During this move, Sam Menu, SamWeb, the SHSU Menu, Nell batch jobs, and SamInfo will be down. All SHSU faculty, staff, and student information will be unavailable during this time.

All systems should be up again by Saturday morning, March 19th. We scheduled it for the Friday evening of Spring Break to hopefully cause as minor an inconvenience as possible.

Scary Profiles

Your Windows login profile is designed to allow you the same environment whether you log in at your desk, in a lab, or at Java City. The smaller the profile, the faster you can log in. Not really a surprising revelation there! Profiles get scary if you save files on your desktop; then they can take on a life of their own.

Because of the load time and overall storage space concerns, try to trim whatever fat you can with your profile. Do not save any documents, mp3's, or pictures on your desktop. Cut and paste them elsewhere. If you are no longer using a program you installed, remove it and give the system one less application to load. Contact the Helpdesk for clean-up help if your wait to log in or log off is especially long.

This month, we will be implementing a Profile Management system for students. Students will be warned immediately with a popup message when they exceed their quotas. This notification will force them to fix the problem before attempting (and failing) to log off. Once they have deleted enough programs or files to safely save their profile, they can log off.

In labs, students can get help from their lab assistants. If they are working as student employees in your department and get the warning, you may contact us at 41950 and a Helpdesk Technician will remotely help clean up your student worker's profile.

Don't Get Scammed!

We have had complaints recently from faculty and staff that they were victimized by Ebay and PayPal e-mail scams. The fake Ebay message asking you to input your account information was reported by PC Magazine and others December 2003. The PayPal scam was publicized in September 2002. The Nigerian solicitation has been circulating for twenty years via e-mail, and as far back as the 1920's by letter.

Protect yourself. First learn from PayPal's seasoned advice. Using their tips, you will know the warning signs indicating a suspicious e-mail. You can then do a quick Google search with some of the wording from the questionable e-mail. You can easily find out if others have already reported it as fraud. Use your same common sense on the Internet as you would with a stranger asking you personal questions. Don't give away the store; don't be a victim!

We are testing and will be loading some updates to help prevent these "phishing" scams from reaching your SHSU e-mail address.  

Print a Page or Two on Us

Anyone need a toner cartridge 92295A for an HP Laserjet II, IID, III or IIID? How about a 92298A for an HP Laserjet 4, 4Plus, 4M, 4MPlus, 5, 5M, or 5N? Also available is a toner cartridge for the HP 4000 series. Thanks to Mgt/Marketing for sharing their leftovers. E-mail us and ask for the one you want.

As an additional reward for your taking the time to read the Update this month, we are giving away a box of Skilcraft 8 1/2" x 11" paper for a department. So you can print 4,000 pages on us! Be the first to write in requesting the paper.

Change is in the Air

The SHSU Alumni Membership Application is now a convenient online option within SamWeb.

A new version of Acrobat, version 7, is ready to go out to campus PCs and Macintoshes.

Service Pack 2 for WinXP will be pushed to your PC soon. The updated fix from Microsoft will eliminate some glitchy problems that you may have been experiencing.

Blackboard

Coming Soon!  Three ways to make the Blackboard experience better for you and your students! Be on the look out for these three new Blackboard Building Blocks.

Blackboard Search (Search LX)

Users can search for content within all of his/her Blackboard courses or within specific ones.  Searches are limited to the courses in which the user has access.  For a sneak peak at the possibilities, take a look at the Blackboard Search How-to Guide .

Blackboard Teams (Teams LX)

A tool for creating group projects and assignments.  Teams LX is a tool for problem based learning.  Teams allows students to work cooperatively in groups as they seek to formulate, organize and present their solutions online in the form of rich media websites .

Blackboard Journals (Journal LX)

Journal LX is a web Log Tool (blog) that allows the student(s) and or instructor(s) to create a web based journal in which they can add content at Regular Intervals.  Users can add links to other web sites, upload documents and images as well as comment on the Journal entries of others.

Schoolin'

When's the last time you learned a new technique or skill? Sign up for one of this month's technology classes. This month we are offering a course that will help you get the junk out of your inbox! Come back after Spring Break ready to learn how Blackboard does even more for you. There will be 4 courses dealing with Journals in Blackboard and collaborative group Teams Sites.

New Help

We know you HATE getting voice mail at 41950. So we have added an additional fulltime staff member to the Helpdesk. Norma Vazquez, a December 2002 Cum Laude graduate of the SHSU Computing Science program, comes to us from TDCJ-ID. She will be training in all areas of the Helpdesk from hardware to software to operations.

Adam Courville is joining the Systems group this month. Adam is completing an associate's degree at Montgomery College this summer. He also has an AAS in Electrical Engineering and a BAS in Automated Manufacturing from the ITT Technical Institute. One of Adam's responsibilities will be campus video conferencing.

What's Good, What's Not

The Helpdesk provides support for university equipment and software on the local area network. Each month's Update will now include the versions of software and minimum requirements for hardware.

• Operating Systems: The supported version of Macintosh machines is OS X. The supported version of Microsoft's Operating System is Windows XP.
• Software Packages: The supported versions of Office suites are Microsoft's Office 2003 and WordPerfect Office 2000 for PC's and Microsoft Office 2004 for Macintoshes.
• Hardware Configurations: The minimum requirement for SHSU Local Area Network support for a PC is a 1GB processor,  512mb RAM, and a 40GB disk. The minimum requirement for a Macintosh on the LAN is a 766mhz processor, 512mb RAM,and a 40GB disk.

Approved for campus-wide e-mail distribution by Associate Vice President Jim Stevens