An add-on to our Voice over IP (VoIP) phone system allows emergency messages to be broadcast over the speaker in Cisco phones. Testing and configuration will continue over the next week. Work will begin to develop procedures for emergencies. We will continue to install emergency phones in classrooms and integrate the emergency system to public address and fire systems in various buildings.
We've administratively held back the automatic upgrade from IE6 to IE7 on campus computers until the end of spring semester to minimize disruption and to allow web sites to fix compatibility problems. There are a number of new features in IE7 including improved security, phishing protection, a search bar and tabbed browsing windows (now standard in most browsers). IE7 also integrates RSS feeds that you'll hear more about that this fall.
Menus have also changed. The familiar menu bar will reappear if you press the Alt key.
SCSU has a nice site that illustrates the differences between IE6 and IE7 on the Introduction to Internet Explorer 7 page.
This upgrade will remove existing search bars. If you have questions you can call the ITS helpdesk at 389-6654.
Office 2007 is currently available for those who wish to upgrade. Training is available now for staff, faculty and student employees and will continue through summer and fall. Currently, no determination has been made to have broad campus adoption of Office 2007, but it is available now to those who would like it by calling the ITS Help Desk. Office 2007 reorganizes icon and menu bars into a new ribbon bar, improves charts and graphs, and has built-in ability to save documents in PDF format to list a few features. Outlook users are also excited about improvements.
Vista is an upgrade to Windows XP operating system. ITS is testing hardware / software compatibility, planning how to roll this out to the campus and working on product support. Eventually, Vista will replace XP as the campus Windows standard OS. Departments may begin planning for replacement of older computers. Laptops benefit the most with Vista's improvements in wireless and hard disk encryption and new laptops are likely to be transitioned first.
At this time, support for Vista is limited. Training will be available and announced as departments begin to transition.
Students will be able to use Vista and Office 2007 at various computer labs and kiosks throughout campus. So far, CSU lower level, ML 1st floor, ML045, ML047, ACC 118, ACC119, ACC 125A and ACC sections A, B & C will be transitioned this summer. Office 2007 will be configured to save files in Office 2003 format to reduce file compatibility issues.
Students, faculty and staff may purchase Vista at academic prices for home use:
* Faculty and staff may use Office 2003 or Office 2007 at home for University business use at no cost for the license. Bring your computer to the ITS Help Desk for installation.
* A new version of Office for Mac is being beta tested and will be released soon.
A new version of MavMAIL will be available in August. We'll have screen shots and a list of new features soon at the MavMAIL webpage. Some features that you will like are:
In December, we hope to have MavMAIL integrated with the Cisco phone system so you will be able to listen to voicemail, listen to e-mail, control meetings with voice commands all from a phone, and voice messages will be in compressed file format. It also includes capabilities for desktop electronic faxing.
MavMAIL is available to all students, faculty and staff.
D2L-based courses will be offered to all faculty and staff beginning this summer. All MnSCU institutions will participate in this program which is comprised of three modules that should take 15-45 minutes each to complete. It will teach best practices for using computers, identifying private information and what to do if a breach of information is found. The goal is to adequately protect private information and to prevent costly and harmful identity theft of our employees and students.
In conjunction with Security Awareness Training, departments may purchase PointSec hard disk encryption software for their computers from the Computer Store. The cost is around $40 per computer and installation will be done by the ITS Help Desk. This is critical for any notebook computer that contains (or had contained) private information. It is also recommended for desktop computers that would be at risk of having private information obtained if stolen from the office.
This software works transparently to the authorized employee. However, if the computer is stolen, the thief will find that everything on the hard drive is strongly encrypted and unreadable. It will also be very difficult and time consuming to try to decrypt the information.
This software is available for Windows XP. We are looking for similar software for Mac OS X and a solution should be available soon.
Remember that the safest place to store data is on MavDISK. Storing information on USB drives, hard drives, iPods, CDs and DVDs are at a high risk of being lost, stolen, or unreadable due to device malfunction. The ITS Help Desk is here to help you.
Students will be able to use MavCash to purchase books and merchandise at Barnes and Noble University Bookstore later this summer. Parents can add value to their student's MavCash account online at the MavCash page.
MavCash can also be used to purchase food throughout campus and in both vending machines and campus dining locations. A 5% discount is provided to students, faculty and staff in these locations.
