OIT News

OIT News – May 2010

By Office of Information Technology

OIT News

Monthly news briefs, information and announcements
Office of Information Technology, NC State University
Issue 31, May 2010

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For the up-to-the minute reports on OIT systems, see SysNews:
http://sysnews.ncsu.edu
For help with computing problems, contact the NC State University Help Desk:
http://help.ncsu.edu

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01: OIT service outages possible for Sunday, May 16
02: OIT to implement Postini e-mail archiving, antispam and antivirus services in June
03: Google Apps @ NC State is available for students
04: Walk-in Center announces operating hours for summer
05: Claim your generic WolfWise accounts before May 19
06: Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus for Windows available for faculty and staff
07: SAS 9.2 download is available via BiTorrent
08: Central IT extended maintenance scheduled for May 29-30
09: OIT Lunch & Learn: “Get Started with Mobile Web Applications” in May
10: OIT Lunch & Learns: “Wolflands,” “Digital Camera” & “Usability” in June
11: SAR training scheduled for June 9
12: Beware of fake antivirus programs

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01: OIT service outages possible for Sunday, May 16
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) recommends that NC State units, faculty, staff and students plan to avoid using OIT services, if possible, from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 16. NC State’s Facilities and Operations department has scheduled an emergency campus-wide power outage from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. on May 16. As a result, certain OIT-provided services may operate at reduced service levels, and others may have to be shut down.

Currently, OIT expects critical services such as grade processing, Web services and e-mail to remain available. To get updates about specific OIT services impacted, as well as the duration of impact, visit the SysNews Web site.

02: OIT to implement Postini e-mail archiving, antispam and antivirus services in June
In June, OIT will implement two new services for its centrally-supported e-mail customers: Google’s Postini Message Discovery, a data retention/archiving system to automatically save all e-mail (sent and received) of university employees, and Postini Message Security, antispam and antivirus services for e-mail protection.

State law requires all university employees (including student employees and post docs) to retain and archive public records related to university business, including e-mail and other electronic records. The new data retention/archiving system will help employees follow the appropriate legal retention procedures for e-mail only. Employees are still legally required to retain other electronic records.

The new retention/archiving service will save e-mail for a period of 10 years for faculty and staff customers of the central e-mail systems – Unity/Webmail and WolfWise/GroupWise. Faculty and staff who conduct university business via e-mail should use one of the central e-mail systems so that once the central e-mail retention system is implemented, they will have their e-mail retained. Regardless of the system used, faculty and staff have a legal responsibility to save copies of their e-mail. OIT also recommends that faculty and staff who may have been using Unity/Webmail or WolfWise/GroupWise for their personal e-mail to consider moving their personal e-mail to a non-university e-mail system so it is not retained in the business archive.

Phase II of the Postini project will involve investigating how best to move existing historical e-mail into the new retention/archiving system.

In addition to the retention/archiving initiative, OIT will consolidate two separate enterprise antispam and antivirus filtering solutions in an effort to reduce costs and complexity. Postini Message Security will replace both Sophos PureMessage for Unity/Webmail and M+Guardian for WolfWise/GroupWise.

OIT will also hold information sessions about these new Google products for faculty and staff in the near future. For more information on the Postini project, visit the Postini Implementation Project Web site.

 

03: Google Apps @ NC State is available for students
OIT is on schedule this summer to migrate the e-mail accounts of students who haven’t already moved from Unity/Webmail to Google Apps @ NC State, the new official student e-mail and collaborative suite. The move is anticipated following the June launch of Google’s Postini Message Security, a new antispam and antivirus service for campus e-mail. Postini will also be used to archive faculty and staff e-mail and for initial routing of all ncsu.edu e-mail.

Since the April launch of the Google Apps beta service, more than 6,900 students have signed up for Google Apps accounts. With Google Apps, students receive Gmail with more than 7 gigabytes of storage space and access to the suite of popular Google Apps collaboration tools, all from their university @ncsu.edu e-mail address. In addition to Gmail, students get Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Talk, which are also accessible via many mobile devices.

Students can continue to opt in to the beta service until production services go live. OIT will create Google Apps @ NC State accounts for those students who did not opt in during the beta period. For more information about NC State’s implementation of Google Apps Education Edition, visit the Google Apps @ NC State Web site.

04: Walk-in Center announces operating hours for summer
The OIT Technology and Media Support Walk-in Center located in Room 101 of the West Dunn Building (corner of Dan Allen Drive and Thurman Drive) will be operating on a modified schedule during the summer sessions.

Effective Monday, May 17 through Saturday, Aug. 7, the Walk-in Center’s hours of operation will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

The Walk-in Center will be closed Saturday, May 29; Monday, May 31; Saturday, July 3; and Monday, July 5. The center will resume its normal operating hours on Monday, August 9. For more information, visit the Walk-in Center Web site.

 

05: Claim your generic WolfWise accounts before May 19
If you are responsible for any “generic” WolfWise accounts, remember to identify the ownership of them before May 19. Unclaimed generic WolfWise accounts will be disabled after this date.

Generic accounts typically have names like “intern01” or “temp-staff09” or another general name chosen by a department when the account was created. Unlike a regular WolfWise account, generic accounts are not directly tied to an individual staff or faculty member’s Unity ID, so the WolfWise team may not be able to identity account ownership.

For more information and instructions on how to claim your generic WolfWise accounts, see “Reminder: WolfWise Generic Account Data Cleanup/Collection” in SysNews. Send your questions or comments to help@ncsu.edu.

06: Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus for Windows available for faculty and staff
NC State faculty and staff can now download Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus for Windows from the Software Licensing Web site. This update, which replaces Office 2007 Enterprise, is available for use on university-owned computers as part of the NC State Office Campus Agreement.

Office 2010 for Windows should be available in the Microsoft’s Software Assurance Home Use Program (HUP) on June 1. The cost is $9.95.
07: SAS 9.2 download is available via BiTorrent
With assistance from the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (PAMS), OIT is offering SAS 9.2 (both 32 and 64-bit) downloads through BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol. This process requires users to be on campus when downloading SAS 9.2 software and is much faster than traditional downloads. For more information and to download SAS 9.2, visit the Software Licensing Web site.

08: Central IT extended maintenance scheduled for May 29-30
OIT will extend its maintenance windows hours May 29-30 to allow more time for major system maintenance. Extended hours will be from 12:01 a.m. Saturday, May 29 to 9 p.m. Sunday, May 30. OIT will notify campus of any system outages as more information becomes available. For scheduled system changes and updates, please view the Change Management Calendar and the SysNews Web site.

09: OIT Lunch & Learn: “Get Started with Mobile Web Applications” in May
OIT’s Brown Bag Lunch and Learn series will present “Get Started with Mobile Web Applications” from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 18 in 216 Scott Hall.

Jason Casden and David Woodbury from the NCSU Libraries will discuss the ongoing development of mobile Web applications for the Libraries’ mobile site and will share tips and strategies for creating useful mobile applications that are accessible on all Web-enabled mobile devices from flip phones to the iPad. To register, visit Classmate.

10: OIT Lunch & Learns: “Wolflands,” “Digital Camera” & “Usability” in June
 OIT’s Brown Bag Lunch and Learn series will present the following workshops in June:

  • “A Look at Wolflands, NC State’s Second Life Community” will be held from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 8 in 216 Scott Hall. Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, provide an immersive experience, creating a social presence and building community in online courses. Amanda Robertson, DELTA senior multimedia specialist, will discuss NC State Wolflands, which is NC State’s presence in Second Life, and will show how NC State faculty are using this tool to provide experiences in sophisticated laboratories not physically available to students, and in comprehending molecular interactions not visible to the naked eye. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Exactly what is usability testing and how can it benefit you and your organization? “The Basics of Usability” workshop will be held from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, June 22 at 216 Scott Hall. Jennifer Riehle of OIT Design, Education and Outreach will explain what usability really is, the benefits and challenges of usability testing, and how paying attention to usability during the design and development of both Web pages and Web applications can improve the user experience. To register, visit Classmate.
  • “Choosing a Digital Camera” will be held from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, June 24 in 216 Scott Hall. Choosing a digital camera is no easy task. There are countless models with numerous features at various prices. Christopher Donald of OIT Design, Education and Outreach will help you see the complex considerations in digital photography through a clear and concise lens. For more details on this workshop and to register, visit Classmate.

11: SAR training scheduled for June 9
Security Access Request (SAR) training for campus requestors and approvers of access to secured university data will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, June 9 in the ITTC Lab 2 of D.H. Hill Library. Please visit Classmate to view available classes and to sign up for training.

12: Beware of fake antivirus programs
Within the first 12 days of May, OIT Security and Compliance (S&C) has already detected more than 400 Trojans or other malicious viruses, all originating from fake antivirus programs that are popping up across campus. The S&C staff expect this total to increase, far exceeding April’s total of 1,043.

Fake antivirus scammers manipulate public trusted Web sites, such as Facebook or Tennis.com, to frighten users with pop-up messages warning that supposed scans have found malicious software on their computers. The scammers generate these pop-up screens to sell programs to fix the purported problems, but when users click to accept the offer, malware code is installed on their computers. Many users fall victim to these attacks, infecting their computers with all kinds of malware viruses, purchasing useless antivirus software, and then providing their credit card information as payment to these scammers.

These types of threats are increasing in prevalence, and there is an upward trend in the number of new domains that appear each week. Google Inc.’s recent analysis of 240 million Web pages over the past 13 months revealed that fake antivirus programs accounted for 15 percent of all malicious software it detected.

To protect yourself from these threats, please close your Web browser immediately whenever you see a pop up about antivirus issues from anywhere other than the security program that you have installed on your computer. The university requires students, faculty and staff connecting to the campus network to have a university-approved antivirus program installed and kept up-to-date. The university also provides free antivirus protection – Trend Micro OfficeScan for Microsoft Windows and Intego VirusBarrier X5 for Mac OS X – to the campus community.

To download these antivirus programs, visit the NC State Antivirus Resources Web site. Please make sure your installed antivirus software is actively scanning and that it is receiving updates. If you have any questions, please contact the NC State Help Desk at 515-HELP (4357) or via e-mail at help@ncsu.edu.

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For help with computing at NC State, contact the NC State University Help Desk:
help@ncsu.edu, phone 515-HELP (4357), or visit Room 101, West Dunn Building.

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