Helpdesk

The past two weeks have unfortunately been typical for Fall semester start-up. Dealing with Coliseum registration, office moves, dozens of new faculty, and thousands of new students has once again taxed the system a bit! We apologize for the fact that many of you have gotten the Helpdesk Voice Mail instead of one of our staff. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we can get back on track. We appreciate your patience.

Almost Like Being Here

We are now testing a new service to permit access to your University profile from anywhere. We would like your help in assessing it.

The terminal service is named "remote.shsu.edu" since you can now remotely access your University profile. The remote.shsu.edu terminal service offers your full SHSU PC desktop even if you are off-campus, teaching at the University Center, or lounging on the beach in Hawaii. 

Please give us feedback on how well it works for you. After we complete this testing phase and determine the scalability and resources needed, we plan to extend this service to students. Remote access would allow your students to use the T: and S: drives from anywhere.

• Macintosh Users: Download Microsoft's terminal service for Macintosh OS X machines. Launch the client and type remote.shsu.edu and click Connect.
• Windows Users: Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Communications, Remote Desktop Connection, and type in the server name: remote.shsu.edu. Alternatively, when you are off-campus and using Internet Explorer, you can remote connect through a University web site.
• Linux users: Use the rdesktop or tsclient commands for remote.shsu.edu.

Asking for Help

If you have been here forever, you remember software requests as Gold-R requests. More recently, you have entered an S for Software Request on the Nell SHSU Menu. The Nell version has now been replaced with the SamWeb system. We are starting out the new fiscal year, as of September 1st, with the Internet version.

Please enter both your Administrative software requests and your PC, Macintosh, printer, and telephone work orders through the browser-based SamWeb system. The SamWeb work order system is under Computer Services and is available after login to SamWeb.

• If you are entering a software request, be sure to include the specific name of the program, such as ROST01RG. If you have screenshots or documents that you would like to attach, you may do so. We recommend that you save the attachments in PDF so that any user can easily open them.
• If you are entering another type of work order, include what you have done to diagnose the problem, and the University tag numbers if the equipment is to be moved.

This is the perfect time to use the system for all your work order requests---since the Helpdesk is so swamped with phone calls with semester start-up. Save your time waiting for a voice mail return and put your Computer Services Work Order request directly in the queue.

Macintosh New OS

Apple has not yet notified us of any progress with combining the new OS on the Mac server with Firefox. As a reminder, Apple's browser, Safari is your alternative.

Podcasting

Academic Instructional Technology has a new Introduction to Podcasting webpage for those interested in producing their own podcasts.

Podcasting is related to RSS news feeds; people with the free software may subscribe to mp3 audio stories to be played on their computer or an mp3 player, like an iPod. These technologies are a natural progression in content broadcast for courses. Students can subscribe to audio lectures and text-based notes, and have them automatically downloaded.

You may subscribe to this and future podcasts.

Check and Double-Check

If you teach with or have your students use a laptop in a classroom (such as AB1, 213), you may have set your computer to print to the printer in that room.  When you return to your normal location, your laptop is still configured to that room's printer.

Please recheck your print configuration/defaults carefully before printing. Otherwise you may find out belatedly that your correspondence or exams are printing in another building. You don't want your confidential print-outs sitting in a lab along with student papers, for the taking.

Blackboard

Do you want to get more oomph out of your Blackboard course? Do you want to leverage Blackboard to more effectively reach your students?

Try out our Blackboard Template Course: a pre-built Blackboard course with pre-identified content areas that can be easily customized to meet your needs. Each content area has "recommended content" as well as information about how to create the content. Materials for students on navigation, resources, and other functions and features have been created and are ready for you to tailor and put into your courses, complete with graphics.

If you would like your own copy of the template course, just contact Jacob Spradlin at 43929 or spradlin@shsu.edu.

Training

Check out this month's training calendar. The NGL is offering several sessions for faculty: Refworks, Turnitin, and Research Databases for Business, History, Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences.

We are offering two more chances for new faculty at SHSU to attend a Classroom Tools Technology Orientation. The Technology Training Calendar contains enrollment links to these as well as Blackboard and E-mail Inbox cleaning courses. Our Blackboard courses this month include two "You Call It" courses where you just show up with your questions and problems and we will work with you to find answers and solutions.

As always, we offer training by appointment. Just use the link on the calendar for Training by Appointment.

Freebie

Color (T005) and Black (T003) cartridges are available for an Epson 900 series printer for your department. Write us if you could use these cartridges. Color toner cartridges or a drum kit for a departmental HP 4550 printer are also up for grabs.

If you have computer supplies that you no longer need, we will take them off your hands. Thanks to departments--President's Office, Educational Leadership & Counseling, and Management & Marketing-- for allowing us to pass supplies on to users who can take advantage of the supply. Thanks also for reading the Update.

Dell Purchases - for Work or Home

You can now go directly to Dell's site to get the special SHSU pricing for the items that your department needs. This option will allow you to specify the exact configuration that you want---and know immediately what the pricing will be. You will then send your E-Quote number in with your Work Order request for the purchase. Computer Services will still place the actual order for you through Purchasing.

You may receive special Dell pricing for personal purchases also.

Staff--Lots of Changes

Ken Swiech is the new Inventory staff member in the systems group. Andrew Jahnke has taken over Steven Piraino's duties in installing software to the network.

Rick Gattis has transferred to our Helpdesk field team from the Physical Plant. He and Ronnie Whitlock will be supervising the student teams that will be coming to your offices. Dustin Thornton is now the supervisor for the Nell/server operations team that mans the Helpdesk 24/7. Bill Thomas is overseeing the switchboard operators. Norma Vazquez is now in charge of the 41950 Helpdesk team. Lucrecia Neff is the project manager for all these areas.

Kayla Stephenson is the new Lab Manager, and Jacob Spradlin is the project leader for this group. A new staff member, Joel Knox, will be joining this group on September 16th.

We have hired twenty new students this month. We appreciate your patience as we get the year started.

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 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. 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 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.

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