OIT News – May 2011 – Office of Information Technology

OIT News

Monthly news briefs, information and announcements
Office of Information Technology, NC State University
Issue 43, May 2011

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Follow OIT on Twitter @NCStateOIT
For up-to-the-minute reports on OIT systems, see SysNews
For help with computing problems, contact the NC State Help Desk

03: OIT to discontinue support for 802.11b devices on June 30
04: ComTech adds ncsu-max SSID to campus wireless network

05: SortSite software available
06: DELTA offers Google Apps for Education training workshops

07: OIT Lunch & Learns: “iPads in Education,” “GoLinks” and “iPhone Photography and Videography”
08: SAR training scheduled for June 7
09: Beware of fake tech support emails

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01: Unity/Webmail users can opt in to Google Apps @ NC State through May 20
The Google Apps Implementation Team is continuing to move faculty and staff email accounts to Google Apps @ NC State. This action was recommended by the Next Generation (NexGen) Email for Faculty and Staff Task Force in its July 2010 report. Unity/Webmail users can continue to opt in to Google Apps through May 20 by visiting Migrations: Unity/Cyrus/Webmail to Google. Afterwards, the team will schedule the migration of all remaining Unity/Webmail accounts.

The team continues to install and test the tool to migrate GroupWise/WolfWise users’ accounts to Google Apps and to prepare the many other aspects of the transition for these users. This summer, the team anticipates beginning a staged migration of these accounts that will continue into the next academic year.

For the latest news on the GroupWise/WolfWise migration to Google Apps, visit: Migrations: GroupWise/WolfWise to Google. For help with Google Apps, please contact the NC State Help Desk at 515-HELP(4357) or visit: Where do I go for Google help?

02: College of Veterinary Medicine to get new voice mail system today
Communication Technologies (ComTech) will roll out the new campus voice mail system to the College of Veterinary Medicine’s (CVM) users later this evening (Tuesday, May 17). The deployment was delayed to repair a hardware failure with the college’s voice switch. CVM Research Building users were previously moved to the new voice mail system with main campus users.

Once fully implemented, Cisco Unity Connection will consolidate the voice mail systems of main campus and CVM into one featured-rich system. It replaces the aging campus Octel voice mail system.

In addition to the traditional telephone interface, the new voice mail system allows users to access their voice mail via an email client. CAUTION: If users choose this option, then the NC State central email archiving and retention service will archive their voice mail. No one, including administrative personnel, can alter or remove archived voice mail messages until the 10-year data retention period ends. For more information, visit the Voice Mail Archiving at NC State Web page.

CVM users will be able to access the new voice mail system by dialing 513-6456. They will be able to access their old Octel voice mail messages by dialing 513-6200 through Thursday, June 30. For details, see Accessing Your Old Voice Mail.

For additional information on the new voice mail system, including new features, guides, tutorials and user documentation, see the Voice Mail Web page or the Quick Guide to Voice Mail. For other voice mail-related questions, please send an email to voicemail@ncsu.edu.

03: OIT to discontinue support for 802.11b devices on June 30
As it continues planning to move the campus wireless network to the latest Wi-Fi technology – 802.11n, OIT will disable support for 802.11b devices on Thursday, June 30.

These legacy devices do not support strong encryption such as WPA2, EAP and 802.1x, and they degrade wireless performance on 802.11g and 802.11n networks. Carter Finley wireless, which is a separate wireless infrastructure, will not be impacted. More information about this project is available on the ComTech Wireless website.

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04: ComTech adds ncsu-max SSID to campus wireless network
Communication Technologies (ComTech) announces the addition of ncsu-max, a new wireless service set identifier (SSID), to the campus wireless infrastructure. The ncsu-max service will be broadcast only through the “A” radios of campus’s wireless access points, which operate in the 5GHz wireless frequency range.

Since many classrooms are capacity designed for the “A” radio usage (known as instructional coverage), ncsu-max provides students and faculty a convenient way to connect to the less congested 5GHz range. Please remember that only those users with newer wireless client cards that support 802.11a will be able to see and connect to this SSID.

ComTech has made every effort to provide instructional coverage to all teaching spaces, but not all classrooms have wireless access. To use ncsu-max, please make sure you are in a classroom with a visible access point and be aware that the 5GHz “A” radio does not cover as great an area as the 2.4GHz “G” radio. For better performance outside of the classrooms, switch back to the regular ncsu SSID. For additional information, visit ComTech’s FAQ Web page.

05: SortSite software available

University IT Accessibility Services announces the availability of SortSite, a new tool that analyzes websites or individual Web pages for conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) Level AA, the proposed new federal standard for Web accessibility.

SortSite checks for accessibility issues, basic coding errors, browser compatibility, legal compliance issues, search engine optimization, valid code standards and usability issues. It is available in the Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) and as a locally run application. If you are interested in obtaining a local copy of SortSite, please contact it-access@ncsu.edu.

06: DELTA offers Google Apps for Education training workshops
The campus community is invited to attend the following Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications’ (DELTA) Google Apps for Education training courses.

“NC State Faculty & Staff: Going & Gone Google” will be held from 2 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. on Friday, May 20 in the Multimedia Seminar Center of D.H. Hill Library. Students have been using the official NC State Google domain for almost 18 months now, and employees are now making the move too. OIT and DELTA will provide an overview of how the employee migrations are progressing from the Unity/Cyrus and GroupWise/WolfWise environments. There also will be an opportunity to ask questions about the current Google Apps @ NC State service, and where it’s heading in the future. For more information or to register, visit DELTA Workshop Offering.
“NC State Course Use of Google Apps & Maps to Support Experiential Learning” will be held from 3 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. on Friday, May 20 in the Multimedia Seminar Center of D.H. Hill Library. This course is intended for teaching faculty and staff.Have you used Google Docs to collaborate with others or Google Maps to find directions? Probably. Have you ever used the Google Apps tools and maps to allow your students to become survey takers, or interns in a consulting firm for animal production operations, or biological agricultural engineers designing swine lagoons? Using three case studies, DELTA will demonstrate some experiential learning for students using some of Google’s tools, including Docs (Sites & Forms), Maps, and visualization APIs. For more information or to register, visit DELTA Workshop Offering.
“Using Google Apps to Facilitate Student Teamwork” will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on July 14 in ITTC Labs 1A and 1B of D.H. Hill Library. This one-hour seminar provides a description of the popular collaboration tools in Google Apps as well as a demonstration of these tools in distance education courses. Please visit DELTA Workshop Offering to register.

07: OIT Lunch & Learns: “iPads in Education,” “GoLinks” and “iPhone Photography and Videography”
OIT’s Brown Bag Lunch and Learn series will present the following upcoming workshops:

“iPads in Education” will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 18 in 417 Poe Hall.Nathan Stevens of the College of Education Media Center and Adam Rogers of NCSU Libraries will discuss how their organizations are utilizing iPad lending initiatives, how students are using iPads, and how faculty might integrate them into their classrooms. If you don’t own or have access to an iPad or iPad 2, you can try one during this session. If you do have one, bring it along! To register for this workshop, visit Classmate.
“GoLinks: NC State-branded Shortened URLs” will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25 in 216 Scott Hall.With GoLinks, university employees can create a short, memorable link that begins with http://go.ncsu.edu and redirects to a longer URL. Once created, the target of a GoLink can be changed without having to change the GoLink itself.
Nick Young of OIT Outreach, Communications and Consulting will explain how to create both customized and random GoLinks and how GoLinks might be used to track usage and effectiveness of your communications. To register for this workshop, visit Classmate.
“iPhone Photography and Videography” will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, June 28 in 216 Scott Hall. The iPhone 4 features a much improved camera that rivals and perhaps surpasses the quality of entry-level digital cameras. Hal Meeks of OIT New Media Consulting will provide a brief overview of alternative photo and video applications that allow you to squeeze even more functionality out of your iPhone’s camera. You will learn how to take better photos, how to take a variety of pictures beyond the iPhone default application and how to emulate traditional film cameras. Take your iPhone 4 camera from a decent point-and-shoot camera to a truly useful device for artistic expression. To register for this workshop, visit Classmate.

08: SAR training scheduled for June 7
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 Tuesday, June 7 in ITTC Lab 2 of D.H. Hill Library. Please visit Classmate to view available classes and to sign up for training.

09: Beware of fake tech support emails
Were you recently the recipient of an email message similar to this one?

> ———- Forwarded message ———-

> From:

> Date: Mon, May 9, 2011 at 01:08

> Subject: Help Desk

> To:

> Your mailbox has exceeded the storage limit which is 20GB as set by your

> administrator, you are currently running on 20.9GB, you may not be able to

> send or receive new mail until you re-validate your mailbox. To re-validate

> your mailbox please click or visit this link below to update your account:

> [URL altered to avoid use of the phishing form]

> Thanks

> Webmail Help Desk

If you clicked on the link in the email and completed the associated Web form, then you got phished! Phishing is an attempt to fraudulently acquire someone’s personal information (e.g., credit card information or login passwords) while masquerading as a trustworthy party. Phishing attacks occur most commonly through email or instant messaging, but they can also occur through phone calls, text messages or other electronic communication methods. Approximately 1,235 NC State computer users actually received this email. Within the past 30 days, the university received 6,000 phishing emails targeting webmail users and passwords. Despite efforts to filter phishing attacks with Google’s Postini Message Security, about 11 Unity accounts per month are being compromised via phishing.

If you responded to this email, OIT Security and Compliance says that it very likely that a hacker is now using your name and login information to send vast volumes of spam email through the NC State email systems or to access your personal information, putting you in danger of identity theft. You should change your Unity password immediately, using the Unity Password Change Tool, to prevent damage to yourself and the university.

You should never respond to any request you receive by email that asks you for your Unity ID and password. If you receive a phishing email, please forward it to abuse@ncsu.edu or call the NC State Help Desk at 515-HELP (4357). The Help Desk will never ask for your password via email or over the phone.

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OIT News is a monthly electronic news bulletin published by
Office of Information Technology
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North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7109
http://go.ncsu.edu/oit

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Visit the NC State Help Desk website.
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