The technology planning for next year has been primarily focused on wiring and electronics for the growing network. The schedule for this work will attempt to minimize interruptions to class, residential and office schedules. Completion of a wiring project does not mean that it will necessarily be operative soon. The physical work is only one part of an implementation. The activation of the technology will be set by a schedule that takes into account key factors such as: instability of a new system, software installation, electronic installation, management, security, training, support and other work demands.

Our goal is to expand the network so that everyone who has need has some access to it. The end result will provide users with Email, Internet and access to other applications common to the network, such as the Library card catalog system.

To complete this work successfully while operating the growing system is a huge undertaking for the Facilities Department, the Telecommunications Department and numerous outside vendors. To ensure stability of the existing network capabilities while adding users, the activation has to be phased. The Technology Steering Committee will develop a sequence for activation of projects taking into account 1) the completion of the wiring 2) installation of electronics 3) goal of providing a base level of access to everyone before adding bells and whistles to some 4) what can be successfully activated, stabilized, protected and supported 5) development of governing policies.

The plan is to work through one project nearly to completion before beginning the next project. Therefore we will focus first on the completion of Phase 1 which includes completing the infrastructure, adding the MIS system to the network, completing the Library implementation and stabilizing the network.

At the May Board meeting, Trustees will be asked to approve budgets for the following projects listed in alphabetical order: 1) administrative offices, 2) classrooms, 3) faculty dorm studies and remote access, 4) student dorm rooms and day student remote access.

We cannot accomplish everything at one time, because much more is involved than simply turning a switch off and on. Both the Technology Steering committee and the Telecommunications Department want to undertake what we think can be successfully accomplished. Although we will try to minimize interruptions to daily activities, all of us will be affected to some degree. Implementing the technology will also involve work on the part of departments and individual users. The Telecommunications Department and/or consultants will work with users during our implementation of each project.

The broad scope of the implementation is described here. Much effort will go into detailing the work over the next several months. Please contact members of the Technology Steering Committee (Lynda Beck, Mark Bodnar, Don Briselden, Stephanie Casale, Jim Ekstrom, Joyce Kemp, Shelley Nason, Jackie Thomas) should you wish to share your comments or thoughts.

Training for Spring Term
by Robin Kay

We have now completed two terms of staff training. The training has been well received although we saw attendance decrease as the term progressed. The absentee rate for many classes has ranged from 20 - 80%, averaging out at about 30 - 35%. This absentee rate is no doubt due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that life gets very busy, very quickly at Exeter.

To reach more people using software for their work we are piloting a more personalized, department-focused approach to training this term. Training will be provided based on individual department needs. In addition to Windows, Word, Excel, Email, and Netscape training, we also look to help instructors integrate the use of computers into their classes (e.g. finding useful web sites for specific courses.) All requests should be made through the department heads to the Telecommunications Office. Please contact me (Robin Kay at 3598 or rkay@exeter.edu) if you have any questions about the range of training possibilities. Keep in mind that requests will be addressed on first come first serve basis.

Looking ahead to the next year, the Telecommunications Department plans to continue coordinating training on standard software for both the academic and administrative departments. We hope our sp[ring Term pilot programs increases the amount of staff we are able to train.

Spring Freebies!
Time for our spring contest to see how many users out there are using their email and reading EOL. This term we will give away "the Academic Edge Piranha Pack," a set of multimedia CD-ROMs of educational reference topics including Literary History, Asimov's Library of the Universe, History of Music, History through Art, Biological Sciences and More! To enter, send an attachment via email to freebie@exeter.edu. Create a document in MSWord that includes your name and the type of machine you have, Mac or windows operating system. Use email to attach the document to an email message. No macro viruses, please! Your email must be received by May 15th to be considered for the drawing.

Student Phone Return
by Tracy Kruczek

The Telecommunications Office is finalizing the process for student phone return for the end of the year. the students will be returning their phones by class at the Davis Student Center. This will start on May 30th. Even though they will be returning their phones, their voice mailboxes will stay active until June 8th.

Say Yes! (What to do about Suspicious Macros)
by Marilee Tuomanen

The Telecommunications Department has spent "a few" hours over the past 2 months getting rid of a macro virus on several campus computers. It is one that is passed from computer to computer from Macs to PCs and back again, in MSWord documents. Although most machines on campus have anti-macro virus protection for MSWord, there is still an option for users to open MSWord documents with macros enabled. This allows the virus to spread.

What's a macro?
Macros are lines of code, executed within an application, to automatically perform a repetitious task. Most users create macros that are unique for their use. You would recognize the macros you created yourself. The problem arises when a macro "sneaks" into your documents by someone sending you (via email) or giving you (on diskette) an MSWord document that contains a harmful macro. When you open the document, the macro is placed in your new document template and executes in your documents. Usually the person who passes the virus to you has no idea that they are distributing it.

The first MSWord macro virus was the Concept virus, also known as the Prank Macro, the Winword Macro or WBMV. The original concept virus doesn't cause damage, but variations of it have sprung up which are destructive. There are currently versions A, B, C, D, E, F, F, G, I and K.

Do I have the Concept virus?
You can see if the Concept virus is resident on your computer by looking in MSWord on the Tools menu, and select Macros. A window will display with all existing macros, good ones and bad ones, that are currently active in your copy of MSWord. Usually, you will see one macro, PresentIt, placed there by MSOffice if you have MSOffice installed on your PC. That is Okay. If you see any of the following: AAAZAO, AAAZFS, FileSaveAs and Payload then you have the concept virus or a version of the concept virus. Your new document template (normal.dot) is infected. Users of Word for Windows 95 version 7.0a have macro antivirus protection in the program already. For those with older versions of Word, a protective template, scanprot.dot, can be installed to clean up and protect your machine. This protective template is installed on most campus machines already, Macs and PCs. If you wish information on installing scanprot.dot on your personal machine, you can contact Telecommunications and we can email you the information.

Is scanprot.dot on my machine?
If anti-macro virus protection is installed, then you will see AutoExit, AutoSave, FileOpen and ShellOpen listed under Tools, Macro. Whenever you open a document that contains macros, you will be warned. The user should know the macros well, or always choose to open the document without macros. Remember that you do not need macros to read the text of a document and for the majority of us, the text is all we need.

Are macro viruses on campus?
The Telecommunications Department and the Library Staff have modified a version of scanprot.dot for the library lab machines and laptop loaners. The user will not be able to open a document with active macros on any of the library machines. The macros will always be disabled on those public machines. By taking this preemptive step, we can be more confident that macro viruses, know and unknown, will not spread from that source.

The problem experienced at the Academy over the past few weeks has been with a macro virus. A symptom of this virus is apparent when attempting to save a document and it is saved as a template. This "Autoclose" macro appears in the list of macros with no corresponding description, and simply deleting will not necessarily remove it. This virus can hang around for a bit but if it is not deleted, it will remove the Windows operating system files on a PC. Microsoft says to remove it effectively from your system, get the latest antivirus software from an antivirus software vendor. And latest is the operative word here. Your antivirus software is only as good as the last update. When you choose an antivirus software package, remember that there are no guarantees. There are several well-known programs, but few can detect all viruses and none can eliminate all viruses.

For the Academy machines, the Telecommunications department will be installing the latest version of Norton AntiVirus, continuing to work with individuals who have discovered viruses on their diskettes and systems, and educating everyone on protecting the Academy computers.

What can I do?
Here are a few tips to help you protect your machines, at work and home, from attack. These tips offer protection from all computer viruses, not just MSWord macro viruses:

Of course, if you never share diskettes, you never download files and you are not on a network, you are safe, right? Unfortunately, viruses have shown up in commercial software, right off the shelf. Viruses are a fact of computer life.

Please remember, if you ever see a message in MSWord, "…disable macros?" click on "Yes!"

Solstice, Mail Drop, Netscape Mail, Eudora ...
What's up with Email?

As the Academy moves toward inclusive email, the goal of having all faculty, staff and students online, there have been some growing pains and adjustments. The software that will best suit the Academy's needs is an email package that has the best features of Solstice, Mail Drop, Netscape Mail, Pine and Eudora and none of the limitations of those programs. The Academy will be migrating all network users to a single software package which provides the user with one interface for email, newsgroups, scheduling, browsing, composing web pages and a number of other functions. The rollout of this software should begin late this summer and continue into the fall. There are now temporary options for users, depending on how and where they get their email. What follows is a quick description of each email program available on campus.

Email Program	Platform	Features
Solstice (Roam)	PC	Can be used from any PC without downloading. Good option for shared and public machines.
Eudora	Mac or PC	Downloads new mail to diskette for portability or to hard drive for personal or office machine.
Netscape Mail	Mac or PC	Netscape interface. Address book and multiple mailbox features. Downloads new mail to personal or office machine.
Mail Drop	Mac	Can be used from any Mac without downloading. Good option for shared or public machines.

 

Information for Solstice Users

Solstice has been installed on several PCs around campus, in the Faculty Lab and the Department Rooms with networked PCs. In order to ensure that the email program will work for multiple users, the settings should not be changed. The example below shows the correct settings. If you need to set up Solstice on your personal machine, you would want your settings to match what is displayed below. This is the standard setup for all Solstice clients on campus. "My Full Name" is generic. "My Username" is inserted automatically when the user logs in.

Exeter FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Why did PEA need to upgrade the mail server?
The email service we have been offering for the past two years has been the standard used by most organizations and institutions on the Internet for the past decade. Its basic functionality could not provide the services the growing network demanded. In anticipation of future demands and standards currently being developed, it made sense that we consider the next generation of messaging (email) services. The previous email system, including hardware, would not provide a migration path to this standards-based messaging service.

Why can't I use Pine anymore?
Pine is not currently available on the mail server. It does not strategically fit within the framework of the messaging system being deployed.

Why can't I telnet to dominie?
There is currently no reason to offer that service. All resources currently available on the server can be accessed through one of the temporary email packages (Solstice and MailDrop) or an Internet browser such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer.

What is the "firewall"?
The firewall is a server (computer) which essentially monitors and directs traffic in and out of our campus network. It allows us to establish and enforce rules for accessing services both internal and external to our network.

Why do I have trouble downloading files (FTP) in Netscape?
We were experiencing excessive downloading of files to lab computers, which led to the installation of unlicensed software and the use of all available disk space on many hard drives. In an effort to reduce these support problems, we have restricted this service to only those individuals or departments requesting this capability and only on computers restricted to faculty and staff use. Call Telecommunications 3693 to request the service.

Why does it take so long to connect to the Internet sometimes (particularly in the afternoon)?
Think of the Internet as a school and the classroom as our campus network. The atmosphere of the classroom is greatly affected by the number (connections) and personality (type of use) of the students in each class. This combination creates a certain dynamic. Some better than others. Many things can happen to this classroom to affect the quality of the class. Loss of electricity construction outside, temperature changes, noisy class next door, unexpected or even expected visitors can all have an effect. Your decision to leave the classroom to go to elsewhere brings another set of variables into play. When you decide to enter that hallway directly affects how quickly you can get from point A to point B and what experiences you may have along the way. Entering the hallway between classes will almost ensure that your experience will be more congested than if you roam the hall while classes are in session. The Internet has these busy periods and the afternoon happens to be one of the busiest, so plan accordingly.

A Word about Word
by Donna Archambault

By now a majority of the campus has converted to word from WordPerfect. This change was needed as the network was being implemented. There were issues with WordPerfect: 1) we could no longer purchase WordPerfect as we had in the past (the program had just been sold to Corel by Novell and was being distributed differently) and 2) the version we owned could not meet the demands for network printing and file sharing. The transition has been smooth for some and difficult for others. Change is not always easy.

Word can do just about everything WordPerfect can. I have yet to run into a case where Word fell short. It may just be that you have to go about doing it in a different way.

Word Tip - Auto Text
If you are constantly typing a closing to a letter, a paragraph, inside address or even placing the same graphic in a document, use the Auto Text feature. To store an Auto Text entry, select the text or graphic (or both), then click on Edit, Auto Text, either accept the default name or retype a new name in the name box, then choose the Add button.

When you are ready to use the Auto text entry, either type the assigned name and press the F3 key or click on Edit, Auto Text, select the name of the entry you want, and Insert.

If you want to print out your auto text entries, you can do so by File, Print, in the Print What box, select Auto Text Entries, and click on OK.

In the example above, by typing PEA and pressing the F3 key, the complete address would appear in the place of PEA. This feature could save you a lot of time.

Questions I have been asked about Word:

I can't get my cursor to go beyond the bottom border line I have just created and every time I press enter, the border moves down.
Before you select a bottom border, you need to press "Enter" a couple of times then go back up to the line you want a bottom border and place it there.
*It is also recommended that if you have a lot of formatting to do to a document, type the document first, then go back and reformat. This will save you time in the long run.

When I insert a table at the top of my document, I can't make the table move down. It just seems to be inserting blank lines within a cell.
Press Ctrl-Home to move your cursor to the top of the document and press "Enter". This should move the entire table down the page.

How do I change the margins for different pages within my document?
You must section your document. To do this, at the location you want to change your page setting, select Insert (from the pulldown menu), Break, in the Section Break area of the box, press continuous, or Next Page depending on whether you want a break page or to continue the text on the same page. Then, change your margins. File Page Set Up - Notice that the Apply to should indicate This Section.

If you have any Word questions, please don't hesitate to call me at x3430 or e-mail me at darchambault@exeter.edu.

Question to the Help Desk:

How can I get a copy of an image displayed on the screen in Windows?
To copy an image of the window that is currently active, press ALT + PRINT SCREEN. This will copy the image of the active window to the clipboard. Open hour word processing document and you can paste the image from the clipboard into your document. Click the Edit menu in the document window, and then click Paste.

To copy an image of the entire screen, press PRINT SCREEN. This will copy the image of the entire screen to the clipboard. Open your word processing document and you can paste the image from the clipboard into your document. Click the Edit menu in the document window, and then click Paste.