SHSU Information Resources Update

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2009-2010. Resolve to do one thing to protect the network and your workstation this year: Log off each night.

You have heard this one before, but it bears repeating. Recently, we sent out the newest version of Adobe Acrobat. Over 200 workstations did not get the update because they were left logged on overnight. While you are sleeping, the computer network is working on protecting and updating your computer, but it cannot accomplish that goal unless you log off nightly and leave your computer on.

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

No way to forget old acquaintances with Facebook, Twitter, and blogs galore. The Helpdesk posts announcements about changes or fixes on the Helpdesk Blog. We did remove the comment section on this because we wanted to ensure that all complaints or suggestions were dealt with promptly and documented within the Helpdesk Call Logs and Work Orders.

Want to decide if your department should be using social media? Check out this article on 10 ways universities can (and should) use twitter.

The SHSU Bulletin Board is being taken down since new better commercial methods are now available. Lots of time has been expended keeping inappropriate spam posts from this site and the traffic has decreased as SHSU students are using Facebook and Twitter instead.

Getting Organized in 2009-2010

By default, all new full time faculty and staff have access to the T: drive folder for their department. If you want to request access for student assistants or others, please submit a workorder through the Computer Services Workorder System on SamWeb. Be sure to include the full name with the username and whether they will need read or read/write access. At that time, we will also provide a complete list of any other individuals who may have access so that you have an opportunity to remove anyone who should no longer have this privilege.

As a reminder, university drives (including your S: and T: drives) are specifically for university-work-related files. Please do not store your personal files. Remember: any files saved on university servers are subject to the Open Records Act.

The New and The Old

Technical support for Blackboard, eCollege and ITV equipment now fall under the division of Distance Education and Learning Technologies for Academics (DELTA).Please contact Jacob Spradlin at 294.3929 for Bb or eCollege questions and Craig Schlicher at 294.4942 for classroom projectors or other peripherals.

Networking and workstation issues for classrooms can be reported to the UCS Helpdesk at 294.1950. Faculty: Please report all classroom issues to your department secretary to help us establish a single point of contact and avoid duplicate workorders for the same issue.

Software for the New Year

A list of the software which will be available via the PC network for the Fall 2009 semester is provided.
Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland

Resolving to Have a Back-up Connection

The new AT&T Protected GigaMAN circuit is scheduled for September 30th.
May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions. ~Joey Adams

Looking Forward to the Future

SamWeb work orders must be prepared a week in advance for any workstation or telephone moves. Please provide enough lead time for a technician to be scheduled to assist. Also, if you are having a third-party vendor install technology equipment for your department and you will need the assistance of the UCS-Systems Networking team or the UCS-Client Support maintenance team, please create a WO at least one week in advance.

First Hire of the Year

Matt Taylor joined the UCS-Systems department full time in the networking section. Matt will be serving as a Network Analyst with the network team. His director, Grady Mangum, says "I am grateful for the excellent service Matt has provided campus as a student worker and look forward to the contributions he will make to our Department and the quality services provided by UCS to the University community."

What's Good, What's Not, & What's Happening When

All SHSU technological purchases should be processed through the Computer Services SamWeb Work Order system.

The Helpdesk provides support for SHSU 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.

Floppy disks (3 1/2" or 5 1/4") should not be used as a storage device for University information.

Wireless peripherals such as mice and keyboards have proven problematic in the campus environment and should not be purchased and/or installed.

Operating Systems: The supported version of Macintosh machines is OS X, version 5. The supported version of Microsoft's operating system is Windows XP.

Software Packages: The supported versions of office suites are Microsoft's Office 2007 for PC's and for Macintoshes Microsoft Office 2008.

Hardware Configurations:

The minimum requirements for the SHSU local area network support for a PC are a 2.5 GHz processor, 1.5 GB RAM, and an 80 GB disk, with 15 GB free. Our recommended configuration is a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB memory, and a 250 GB hard drive.

The minimum configuration for a Macintosh on the LAN is a 1.6GHz PowerPC single processor, 1GB RAM, and a 40GB hard drive.

The Information Resources division 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. and on holidays. To permit patches and routine updates, managed Macintosh nodes may be automatically rebooted between Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday morning at 8 a.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.