AUGUST, 2005

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New Server Room Comes On Line

More than a year of planning and a summer's worth of construction have culminated in the opening of a new computer server room in Milne Library.  This facility provides a stable, secure and state-of-the-art space for servers belonging to Academic Computing Services and the Administrative Computer Center.  It will also provide room for expansion and a home for redundant machines to support the College's information technology systems.   Many thanks go out to everyone involved in this project from Academic and Administrative Computer Services, Telecommunications, Facilities and Planning, Maintenance, the staff at Milne Library and Finance & Administration.

A new space for the Library's document archive was also built as part of this effort.  Substantial cost savings were realized by sharing environmental control systems and combining construction costs into a single project.

The Information Technology Help Desk

The Help Desk is the central clearinghouse for any problems related to computer hardware and software.  Open 93 hours a week when classes are in session, a phone call to 436-4567 will put you in contact with a trained student worker who will be able to help you solve most problems right over the phone.  If the problem proves to require the assistance of the College's professional IT staff, the student worker will open what is known as a HEAT ticket.  HEAT is a system that helps us assign, track and complete tasks related to reported problems.  If the student technician decides to open a ticket for your particular problem, you will be given the ticket number and the name of the staff member the ticket is assigned to. 

When a ticket is created and assigned, an alert goes out to us in the form of an email and an actual alert in HEAT's Alert Monitor, an application that sits on our desktop computers.  Alert Monitor will pop up on our computers, and we can then read the ticket and respond to it.  If the problem is an extremely serious one, the technician at the Help Desk may also choose to make a followup phone call to make certain we know the ticket has been assigned.

Meanwhile, as soon as we become aware of the ticket, we will contact you to get additional information about the problem and to make a plan for solving it.  This may be as simple as giving you the solution right over the phone or as involved as scheduling a visit to your office, possibly accompanied by one or more additional support people with the expertise to fix the problem.  In any event, you should hear from us within 24 hours (usually a good deal sooner, but it depends on our workload at any given moment).  We encourage you to call the Help Desk at any time to get an update on your ticket or to give us more information. 

Besides being a system for keeping track of complex problems in a complex environment, the Help Desk and the HEAT system form the core of a knowledge base for the many people involved in supporting Information Technology here on campus.  Twenty to thirty of us meet on a weekly basis to discuss technology issues that affect the college, and problems tracked in HEAT often provide patterns of information that are passed to everyone in the group.  This keeps us up-to-date and makes us better at what we do. 

We regularly survey those who have used the Help Desk to get a sense of how well we are serving the College community, but if you have specific suggestions for improving service you can call Teri Weigl at 3079 or email her at weiglta@oneonta.edu.

Technology Training

There are many different kinds of technology that staff members encounter as part of their work on campus.  Training is available to cover most of these technologies - there is always someone available with experience to help you become familiar with its use.  This training can be done in a formal, large-group setting for an afternoon or even a whole day.  It can also be very informal, one-on-one, short-term or specific problem-solving-mode training.  We're very flexible!

If you have a need for technology training of any kind, from how to use a digital camera to becoming fully expert on the use of Microsoft Excel, you can call the Help Desk and ask for a ticket to be assigned to Phil Bidwell of Administrative Computer Services or Jim Greenberg of the Teaching, Learning and Technology Center.  We will contact you to find out what kind of training would be best for you!

New Calendar file for Outlook Available

Users of Microsoft Outlook can download the latest set of dates for inclusion in Outlook Calendar.  To do this, open Outlook and then go to your Internet Explorer Browser and type in http://www.oneonta.edu/calendar.hol.  Click "Open" and you will get a dialog box that offers you choices of which date sets to load:

Check the boxes next to the date sets you want and click OK.  Outlook will load the dates and you will be all set!

Email Spoofing

We occasionally get emails that look very legitimate and seem to originate from within the campus, sometimes from apparent Computer Services staff members:

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From: webmaster@snyoneva.cc.oneonta.edu
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 6:13 AM
To: Professor, Joe D.  (PROFESJD@oneonta.edu)
Subject: Your Account is Suspended For Security Reasons [Virus Cleaned by SOHPOS]


Dear Snyoneva Member,

Your e-mail account was used to send a huge amount of unsolicited spam messages during the recent week. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and confirm the attached document so you will not run into any future problems with the online service.

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to cancel your membership.

Virtually yours,
The Snyoneva Support Team

Don't be fooled!  We would never conduct business in this flippant fashion.  If your account was in fact sending spam, we would contact you directly before making any investigation into the cause of the problem, usually by phone or in person.  If we did send you an email it would be from a specific staff member and would clearly explain the problem we are trying to solve.

This email example is designed to get you to open the attached document, which in all likelihood was designed to compromise the recipient's machine and create further havoc.

The phenomenon of creating emails that appear to come from legitimate sources is called "spoofing".  It is relatively easy to do and impossible to guard against due to the inherent design of electronic mail.  Therefore, you should regard with skepticism any message that seems a little unusual, and pick up the phone and call the Help Desk (or the person it appears to be from) before taking it seriously.

If you have a question for Computer and Telecommunication Services about:

Computer Problems or Related Issues - Call the Information Technology Help Desk at 436-4567

Telephone Service or Problems - Call the Office of Telecommunications at 436-2577

Directory Assistance - call 436-3500

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