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NEWS
FEATUREFROM THE CIOFYI
KUDOS TO . . .CONTACTS
NEWSOIT
Upgrades Novell Network & Calendaring To keep up with the latest versions of our campus network and personal calendaring system--and provide web access to both--OIT upgraded the Novell network and Netscape Calendar this summer. In the past, OIT ran two Novell 4 servers, commonly known as Novell 1 and Novell 2. These two machines provided the majority of file and print sharing on campus. However, Novell will no longer support version 4 in about one year, which is same time phase one of the Delta Initiative to transform all UMBC business systems will begin. Consequently, it became clear that a new solution was needed and that it should be implemented this summer rather than waiting until next year. Netware (Novell) 6 offers new features such as clustering, which will provide redundancy in the event of a hardware failure, as well as a new Web Interface that will allow users to save and retrieve files stored on the Novell servers from any machine that has a Web browser and an Internet connection. Another consequence of the new Netware 6 environment is that we now have more storage space for departmental files. Other than the server names being different on the new servers OIT does not anticipate any changes that will affect users. All of the drive letters, files, account names, passwords and printers will remain the same as they are now. For more information about the Novell upgrade, schedule and tips for a smooth transition, visit http://www.umbc.edu/novell6. Currently, about 1,000 people are using the Netscape Calendar personal and group scheduling software. However, Calendar is no longer offered in Netscape's latest browser and it could not be accessed by other Calendaring software. To provide easier, Web based access OIT migrated to CorporateTime on Monday, Aug. 5. CorporateTime developed Netscape Calendar and will automatically accept all dates, meetings and information currently stored in Netscape Calendar. CorporateTime will also synchronize with Outlook and Personal Digitial Assistants (PDAs) via special connectors. For more information, including links to client downloads and help sheets, visit http://www.umbc.edu/oit/corptime. OIT
Launches Redesigned Web Site For the past eight months an ad hoc committee of OIT staff has been working to update and redesign the OIT web site. Early on, the committee agreed that a redesigned site should address the following needs:
While the site design didn't change much--it was introduced last year--the organization and content reflect lessons learned from other university OIT sites, as well as interviews with UMBC users about what information they needed most often. Special thanks to Marie Toomes and Charles Myers, for their research and usability testing with users.
With a better idea of how the site should be organized--from the user's perspective, not OIT's--much of the streamlining and consistency of content was a result of Help Desk Consultant Danielle St. Cyr's efforts. "She really worked hard to pull information together--or even create it," says Joni Pentifallo, who chaired the committee. In addition to linking frequently used information directly on the homepage, the redesigned OIT site uses a new template--designed by Aaron Weidele--that will provide key links on the top of all OIT pages:
Since the ink is never dry on a web site, OIT will continue to develop its own, possibly moving it to a site-wide content management system this year. In the meantime, if you have any questions or find errors, please send email to oit-web@listrpoc.umbc.edu.
Five
Departments Win Teaching, Learning & Technology Grants
Co-sponsored by OIT and the Faculty Development Center, the Teaching, Learning & Technology Mini Grants are designed to enhance students' technological fluency and engagement in the classroom. This year, with an average award of $3,000, five departments have proposed the following ways to solve pedagogical problems and try new ideas:
All of the TLT award winners will present results of their projects during a spring 2003 TLT "Fair" or Brown Bag presentation. For more information, contact John Fritz at 410.455.6596 or fritz@umbc.edu.
The UMBC Internet CD is now available to help students, faculty and staff get their computers connected to the Internet. Whether from home using a modem, or from the on-campus residence halls using the ethernet network (Resnet), the new Internet CD has complete instructions and software for getting connected. Available at no cost from the OIT Help Desk and in The Commons during Fall Frenzy "free hours" (see below), the CD contains useful software for Macintosh and Windows 95/98/NT/2000, as well as UMBC catalogs and links, and a new Blackboard Basics tutorial. For more information, stop by the OIT Help Desk or visit http://www.umbc.edu/oit/cd. UMBC Licenses Oracle DBMS Software In late May, UMBC expanded its licensing agreement with Oracle by establishing what Oracle calls a "Campuswide Agreement." This allows UMBC to run Oracle's DBMS (Database Management System) on any campu machine and will provide software updates for the next five years. The advantage for faculty is that we can now use this software to support research, which previously was not supported under Oracle's Academic Agreement. This agreement allows UMBC to run Oracle on a wide variety of Unix systems and Windows. Anyone interested in getting a copy of Oracle for research should send an email to helpdesk@umbc.edu with the machine type and OS. Centralized Virus Scanning to Begin August 19 During the week of August
19th OIT will be deploying centralized virus scanning to the campus.
This means anyone using a UMBC mail account will have his or her
inbound and outbound mail scanned for viruses by our mail filter.
In the event that an infected message is detected both the recipient
and the sender will receive an automatic message stating that an
e-mail with the following subject line and header information was
sent. The infected original message will be discarded. This new
While this new service
will help with viruses delivered via e-mail it is still very important
that you have a local anti virus software program installed on your
machine. Your machine is still susceptible to virus We hope that you enjoy these benefits of this new service. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the Help Desk at 410-455-3838 or helpdesk@umbc.edu. OIT Staff Give Presentations at Summer Conferences Jack Suess presented "Project Management for Enterprise Directories" at the 2002 EDUCAUSE Seminars in Academic Computing, August 4-7 in Aspen, Colorado. His presentation will be available on the conference website at http://www.educause.edu/sac. John Fritz served as the New Media "faculty member" for the CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Summer Institute in Communications and Marketing, July 21-25 at Vanderbilt University. His presentations and handouts are available at http://userpages.umbc.edu/~fritz/case. Marie Toomes co-presented "Developing and Encouraging Web Standards" with DPET's Peter Davis at the University System of Maryland's Web Institute, July 14-16 at Salisbury University. The presentation will be available on the conference web site at http://www.esac.org/webinstitute02.
Fall 2002 Brown Bag Workshops Feature Two Presidential Teaching Professors 2002 Presidential Teaching Professor Robert Deluty and the 1999 recipient John Jeffries will both share their thoughts on teaching during the Fall 2002 Teaching, Learning and Technology Brown Bag workshops co-sponsored by OIT and the Faculty Development Center. Deluty will speak on September 25 and Jeffries will speak on November 7. Other speakers and topics include:
All workshops will be
held at 12:30 p.m. in The Commons (room TBA). For more information
including workshop descriptions, related web links, a video &
audio archive of past workshops, subscription to an email alert
service and online registration, visit www.umbc.edu/brownbag.
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Jack
Suess
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Why
I Switched From Windows to Mac OS/X - Initial Thoughts
By Jack Suess
Apple is running a series of commercials about regular people that have switched from running Windows to OS/X (www.apple.com/switch). Since I recently made the "switch" I thought I would share my thoughts on the experience.
I was drawn to try OS/X because I have always been a fan of an operating system called NextStep that was released in the late 80's for machines made by NeXT computer. NeXT was owned by Steve Jobs and when he returned to Apple a few years ago, Apple bought the rights to NextStep. I also wanted to better understand what problems Apple users faced at UMBC.
I am a dedicated laptop user so I purchased an iBook and gave up my Dell 4000 laptop. Most important for me was having compatibility with Microsoft Office. I'm happy to say Office V.X, which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Entourage - an Outlook like email and organizer, is fully compatible with Office 2000/2002. In addition, OS/X provides support for two browsers (Netscape 6 and Internet Explorer 5.1). If you use Netscape 4.7 you must run this in what is called OS/9 compatibility mode.
To make the switch, I needed two other applications: Netscape Calendar and a good terminal emulation program. Netscape Calendar is available under OS/9 compatibility mode-but using the new Corporate Time upgrade to Calendar, I can now use the web to access my schedule, too.
Compatibility mode allows you to run applications written for the Macintosh that have not yet been released on OS/X. Compatibility mode works reasonably well but requires that you dedicate RAM memory to the application. This means that if you use OS/X and will use compatibility mode you must have adequate memory. I recommend having at least 384 MB.
The benefits of switching to OS/X are that the machine never crashes and works great as a laptop using wireless networking. Under Windows, I always had problems with suspending my laptop; it was slow and often wouldn't come back properly. Under OS/X it works perfectly. Apple has also built in an application called System Update that will notify you and install updates and security patches. Also, I like the fact that many Unix applications are available for OS/X. Finally, the user interface on OS/X is very intuitive and easy to use.
What are the problems of switching? Printing was much slower than under windows, especially large PDF files. I also find that some applications I ran under Windows aren't available. For example, I'd love to have Microsoft Project or Visio for OS/X. I have access to an older PC when I infrequently run these applications.
Would I recommend this switch to others at UMBC? Definitely for science and engineering. I think OS/X has many of the benefits of Linux but also provides full Microsoft compatibility. For others I would say the jury is still out on whether it's worth switching to OS/X.
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For more information, you may want to contact the UMBC Macintosh Users Group (http://mug.umbc.edu), which also maintains a listserv (umbc-mug@listproc.umbc.edu) for announcing meetings and sharing tips. To join the list, use the "manage email subscriptions" link in the "Communications" tab in myUMBC. Just search for available lists and enter "umbc-mug" to subscribe. |
The
"Dot.Com Demise" Impact on UMBC Technology
By Jack Suess
As I write this in late July, the last two weeks have seen the technology sector take additional hits - the bankruptcy of WorldCom and the launching of an investigation of AOL Time Warner. It is hard to believe that as recently as 18 months ago the dot.com bubble was still expanding. Since then, most of these have gone out of business.
Luckily, I can say that to date UMBC has not been heavily impacted by these problems and the vendors we have as strategic partners are still prominent players in the technology marketplace. Our primary partners include Apple and Dell for microcomputers; Microsoft for office applications; Oracle for database; Peoplesoft for business system applications, and Cisco for networking equipment.
Over the last few years we have made some changes to vendors we work with - a case in point is SGI. For the last two years OIT has not been recommending large SGI purchases since we feel the vendor is too precarious to deliver on large purchases. As a company, we wish SGI returns to profitability and recaptures it's leadership position. A second case is Blackboard, a young company in the rapidly evolving e-learning market. We're optimistic that Blackboard will remain a key player but will watch them closely.
Finally, UMBC strongly supports open-source initiatives within higher-eduaction and outside to develop products that are not tied to a single vendor. In particular, UMBC continues to promote Linux on campus and is actively monitoring the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) being led by MIT.
| For more on the business of technology, see Dot.Bomb: Surviving (and Thriving) in the Dot.Com Implosion (McGraw-Hill, 2001) by '90 UMBC Alum Sean Carton, Chief Experience Officer and Managing Partner of Carton Donofrio Partners. |
Delta
Initiative Launches PeopleSoft Site
If you want a quick update on the Delta Iniative's use of PeopleSoft to re-engineer UMBC's business systems, then visit www.umbc.edu/peoplesoft. In addition to a summary of the major projects, you'll find a quick summary of upcoming working sessions, as well as a link to the Delta Initiative's Blackboard working site, which provides much more detail but also requires a UMBC userid & password. By default, all faculty and staff were enrolled in the Delta Blackboard site.
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OIT
to Host Commons Welcome Booth To help users during the hectic start of semester, the Office of Information Technology will staff a welcome and support booth in The Commons from noon to 2 p.m. on Aug. 27-29 and September 3-5. In addition to answering questions, OIT staff can help you with the following:
OIT will continue to staff the Help Desk (x5-3838 or helpdesk@umbc.edu), and users can enter or check requests for help online at http://remedy.umbc.edu. |
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Bill
Shewbridge
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Bill Shewbridge, producer/manager for OIT's New Media Studio, for completing his Doctor of Communication Design from the University of Baltimore this spring.
Keith Rosti, a systems analyst for the Delta Project, for completing his Master's in Information Systems from UMBC this spring.
Debbie Arnold, an IT support specialist for the Delta Project, for completing her Web Systems Specialist Certificate co-sponsored by UMBC's Division of Professional Education and Training and the World Organization of Webmasters.
Vergil Bushnell, Jon Reid and Aung Khant who are the May, June and July OIT Help Desk Consultants of the month, respectively.
The OIT Newsletter (www.umbc.edu/oit/newsletter) is provided as a service to UMBC students, faculty and staff, and to help keep OIT staff updated on the work and interests of their colleagues. For more information or to suggest story ideas, contact John Fritz at 410.455.6596 or fritz@umbc.edu.
| Editor | John Fritz |
| Contributing Writers |
Mike Carlin |
Office of Information Technology (www.umbc.edu/oit)
| Jack Suess Chief Information Officer 410.455.2585 or jack@umbc.edu |
| Victor Aulestia Director of Classroom Technology and Support 410.455.3809 or aulestia@umbc.edu |
| Mike
Carlin Director of Infrastructure and Support Services 410.455.2578 or mikec@umbc.edu |
| John Fritz Director of New Media Learning & Development 410.455.6596 or fritz@umbc.edu |
| Joe Kirby Director of Business Systems 410.455.3020 or kirby@umbc.edu |
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OIT Help Desk |
FEATURE