ComputerServices

CLEAN ACCESS - NEW ANTIVIRUS SUPPORT
AVG will stop supporting version 8.5 on December 1st, so AVG users will need to upgrade or replace their antivirus by that date. The Clean Access NAC Agent now has added support for AVG 9.0 and Microsoft Security Essentials, a new free antivirus program from Microsoft that Computer Services recommends. You can download Microsoft Security Essentials at www.microsoft.com/security_essentials . We still anticipate upgrading for Windows 7 support during Christmas break. If you have any questions regarding Windows 7 or antivirus support, please contact computerservices@northpark.edu. (S. Orians)

CLEAN ACCESS - NEW ANTIVIRUS SUPPORT
AVG will stop supporting version 8.5 on December 1st, so AVG users will need to upgrade or replace their antivirus by that date. The Clean Access NAC Agent now has added support for AVG 9.0 and Microsoft Security Essentials, a new free antivirus program from Microsoft that Computer Services recommends. You can download Microsoft Security Essentials at www.microsoft.com/security_essentials . We still anticipate upgrading for Windows 7 support during Christmas break. If you have any questions regarding Windows 7 or antivirus support, please contact computerservices@northpark.edu. (S. Orians)

JIRA - New Helpdesk

Computer Services is preparing to move to our new help desk/project management software package.  Initially you will not notice much.  You may receive a few emails from a JIRA email address.  Don't panic, they are legit.  Early in the new calendar year, we will implement it for all new Computer Services requests.

Then you will notice a completely new interface for opening and managing Tickets (now called Issues).

Blackboard Maintenance

System maintenance caused blackboard to be down this morning between 6 and 6:15.  All services were back up by 6:30 this morning.  Please open a helpdesk ticket if you are having any issues connecting to blackboard.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

What does Live.edu Offer?

Free internet based services and other tools from Microsoft.

 

Live@edu – a complete solution from Microsoft for your school’s email and collaboration needs for students

 

Name	Description	URL
Live@edu	A free co-branded service offering student email (Outlook Live) and a range of collaborative online services.	http://get.liveatedu.com

 

 

Internet based services that you can access through your browser:

 

Name	Description	URL
Office Live Workspace	Online storage and sharing for teachers: ·         Allow students anywhere, anytime to access class information ·         Store course material, assignments, and class notes, and distribute them instantly ·         Manage schedules, due dates, and calendars in one place ·         Save money (and trees) by printing fewer documents	http://workspace.officelive.com/en-us/online-storage-teachers
SkyDrive	25GB of online storage – your USB stick in the cloud.  Access your files from anywhere.	http://skydrive.live.com
Live Groups	Create social or class groups for sharing, discussion and collaboration, features include: ·         Discussions ·         Calendar ·         Group SkyDrive for file and photo sharing	http://groups.live.com
PhotoSynth	Stitch photos together into an interactive and immersive panorama.  Capabilities include: ·         Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle ·         Zoom in or out of a photo ·         See where pictures were taken in relation to one another ·         Smoothly change viewing angle between nearby photos ·         Smoothly zoom in and out of high-resolution photos ·         Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing ·         Send pictures	http://www.photosynth.net
Microsoft Translator	Language translation tool that can translate text excerpts or complete web pages into a range of languages.	http://www.microsofttranslator.com
Live Spaces	Blogging and social networking platform.  Teachers can use this to maintain a blog for their class.  Students can use this to blog on academic activities, or to build themselves an ePortfolio of their work.	http://spaces.live.com
Worldwide Telescope	Explore the galaxies interactively in schools lessons.	http://worldwidetelescope.org/
SilverLight	A video streaming service offering 10GB of storage.	http://silverlight.live.com/

 

PC utilities that can integrate with online services:

 

Name	Description	URL
Windows Live Photo Gallery	A photo management application that has a range of editing and tagging tools.  The tool can also be configured to upload photos to a range of online photo galleries.	http://download.live.com/photogallery
Windows Live Movie Maker	Video editing software that can be used to produce a wide variety of end products.	http://download.live.com/moviemaker
Search Together	An experimental add-in for Internet Explorer that allows users to search collaboratively on topics.	http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/searchtogether/index.html
Widows Live Writer	A tool that allows a user to create rich blog posts on their blog platform of choice.  Works with Windows Live Spaces, and more.	http://download.live.com/writer

 

 Other useful free tools

 

Name	Description	URL
Zoomit	Useful tool that can zoom in and out of portions of your screen when used with a data projector.	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx
Community Clips	Record your desktop screen, with audio, and produce a wmv file of the end result that can be published to the web, emailed, or otherwise.	http://communityclips.officelabs.com/download.aspx
PPTPlex	Works in conjunction with PowerPoint and allows users to give more of a free-form presentation as opposed to the ‘normal’ sequential presentation.	http://www.officelabs.com/projects/pptPlex/Pages/default.aspx
Sticky Sorter	Support virtual collaboration in managing your next class brainstorm session.	http://www.officelabs.com/projects/stickysorter/Pages/default.aspx
Image Composite Editor	An advanced panoramic image stitcher. The application takes a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location and creates a high-resolution panorama incorporating all the source images at full resolution.	http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/
Microsoft Math: Word 2007 Add-in	Makes it easy to create graphs, perform calculations, and solve for variables with equations created in Word.	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=030FAE9C-704F-48CA-971D-56241AEFC764&displaylang=en

 

 

Teacher Resources:

 

Name	Description	URL
Teacher Toolbox	A load of free resources that a teacher can use in the classroom.  Lesson plans, templates, clipart, media, and more	http://www.microsoft.com/learningspace/TeachersToolbox.aspx
Innovative Teachers Network	An online community for teachers containing: ·         Discussion fora on various topics ·         Virtual Classroom Tours ·         Professional Development ·         Career mentoring for kids ·         Peer Coaching tools ·         Lesson plans and artifacts	http://innovativeteachers.com

 

Email - Keywords banned

In the ongoing email wars, I have now put rule in place to route any message inbound to our email server that contains all of the following words:

"password"
"username",
"validat"

Messages containing these words will wind up in the spam quarantine.

This is an attempt to block messages that people might be inclined to respond to with password information.

Email Update

As Frank kindly pointed out, there were/are still issues.  This email stuff is a mess and I will need to think through when to straighten it out in light of some longer term email thoughts.

1. All relaying of @northpark.edu email address to anywhere other than @vikings.northpark.edu accounts needs to stop.  If people want their NP email in a google account, set up a NP or vikings, and have Google pull it from our server to theirs.  Relaying messages is preventing me from scanning outbound email.
2. The lack of outbound email scanning is a contributing factor to us winding up on blacklists and just being blocked by various ISP.
3. Our servers have now been exempted from Microsoft's Inbound Spam Filtering.  I thought I had exempted them, but there are apparently multiple places where it needed to be done.  I had tested before, but apparently not in a spammy enough manner, so mine did not get caught.  I have retested spammier stuff and what was being blocked earlier in the day is now being let through.
4. We are actively exploring the possibility of using Microsoft to host all of our email.  We would then get rid of our exchange server.  The F/S Microsoft server would be fully trusted and federated with the @live service from Microsoft for the students.
5. We need to evaluate the impact of #4 on moving to Unified Messaging and/or presence.

So in summary, email is working again.  Providing someone does not get us blocked again...

Email Routing

Most outbound email is now being routed via Microsoft's mail servers.  These messages will be scanned for viruses and SPAM before Microsoft delivers them.

Blackboard, ListServe, and our Exchange server are now sending directly to Microsoft.  This should eliminate any problems with Blackboard or ListServe having any relay issues for external domains.  Hopefully, MS will intercept any spammers from campus, and be less likely to get blocked.

10/22 updates.  Saga continues.  Blackboard is happy, but Listserv is not.  Listserv and MS seem to be having an argument.  Some stuff goes through, but not all.  Listserv is now relaying via smtp.northpark.edu

Right Fax

Our fax server was confused.  I am not sure for how long, but I have now unconfused it.

Email Update

Boy this is being a rough year for email stuff...

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have received complaints about missing emails and other issues related to delivery. 

Some of the problems are being caused by people giving away their passwords to spammers, who then spam via our servers.  This gets us blocked and blacklisted by various entities.  To get around this, I choose from a couple of different servers when sending our email.  When they block one server, I change over to the other one.  Each server has advantages and disadvantages.  However, BB and listserv always pointed to one server.

In the other post I mentioned that I had altered the way listserv and blackboard routed their emails.  This was done to eliminate potential spam interference from one of our servers.  After Johnnie provided me with some good info on the problem, I tracked down the current issue.

The new routing I put in for BB & Listserv went to a server that will not "relay" messages off campus. 

So since BB is stupid, and has very limited email options... I will re-point the BB server in the morning to a more appropriate relay server.  To do this I have to shut down BB.  I will provide an update in the morning on what was actually done.