November 2006
Farewell
Please join us in Austin Hall on November 30th from 2:00 till 3:30 as we honor and celebrate the career of Jim Stevens, our Associate Vice President for Information Resources. Jim will be retiring that day after 36 years at SHSU. Jim started as a faculty member Fall '70, and moved into administration with the official recognized need for "computer services". Things have changed a bit in that timeframe!
Jim's leadership has provided the SHSU community with innovative functions at an affordable price for a generation. Telephone registration was considered novel in Texas when implemented at SHSU. VOIP telephones at Sam are generating international news stories today. Jim's direction has included a variety of far-reaching decisions: from agreeing to pay $30 for something called an internet site address, to creating the concept of a "Helpdesk", to advocating an agreement where all faculty receive workstations replaced on a three-year cycle, to moving from a mainframe to servers.
Jim's calm demeanor, positive attitude, technological vision, research skills, and true commitment to make SHSU the best campus possible will be sorely missed.
Campus Forum--Twice as Nice
The Home Security/Laptop forum has been moved from November 2nd to November 9th. The time and place remain the same: 3:30-4:30 p.m. in the AB4 Olson Auditorium. Come learn how to protect your laptop and/or home computer.
A new SHSU Registration program has been created within SamWeb. We're using our Thursday, November 2nd time to instead introduce this program to the campus. Come preview the new system before Registration opens the following day. This presentation will also be in the Olson Auditorium from 3:30 till 4:30.
Don't Jump to the Wrong Conclusion
Do you require Read Receipts for your e-mail? This doubles the amount of mail that has to go back and forth---and it's not a reliable indicator of who reads the e-mail. Many recipients have their e-mail set up with a preview pane. They can actually read the e-mail without clicking Open. Therefore, you may never get a Read Receipt---even when it was read.
Excel with Excel
MisterExcel.com offers tips on customizing Excel to your preferences. Normally pressing Enter moves your cursor down one cell. If you would prefer, the cursor can move to the right, left, or up. Simply select Tools - Options - Edit. Change the dropdown menu for Move Cell Pointer Direction after Enter from Down to Right (or Left or Up).
Training
Is your web site accessible to all? Do your departmental/class Internet pages comply with federal, state, and local laws? Come to this course and find out how you can reach out to people affected by cognitive or visual impairments.
Staying in touch with the constituencies that matter to you the most can be done through e-mail for much less O&M than USPS postage. Find out how to create an effective electronic bulletin that won't be pegged as SPAM. Bring pictures and content files and you can completely build an online newsletter. Sign up now.
Miscellany
SPSS 15 is currently being tested by professors now; SPSS 14's license will not expire till the new one is installed.
AMOS 7 Firefox 2.0 (plus associated plugins) will be installed shortly.
Reminder: do not use exchange or unxmail (or any other server name) as part of your e-mail setup. This way changes made with new equipment won't interfere with your receiving your mail.
Blackboard
This month's on-campus training courses are targeted for Blackboard faculty teaching online or hybrid courses. First learn how you can get a pre-built template course for Bb with step-by-step instructions and pre-loaded content items. Next is a repeat course from last month designed for complex techniques students just cannot comprehend from only hearing about them. Instead, demonstrate exactly what steps to take. Register for this course and learn how to create your own how-to movies. Students can then view the movies till they get it.
Hails
Drew Pilling (AAP006) has joined the Administrative programming staff. Drew has worked for Computer Services as a student operator, programmer, lab assistant, and technician. He has been a patient voice on the Helpdesk phone for years. His primary area will be COBOL programming.
 Also joining the programming team is Beverly Robb. Beverly is a 2006 summa cum laude graduate in Software Engineering from Colorado Technical University Online. She will be assisting in the conversion of the database.
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 is OS X, versions 2, 3, and 4. 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 12 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 1Ghz processor, with 512mb RAM, and a 40GB disk. The minimum requirement for a Macintosh on the LAN is a 733 mhz processor, with 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.
All offers, training, or software above pertain to faculty and staff at SHSU only. If you have any questions, kudos, comments, or concerns, please let us know.
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