Exeter On-Line

Spring 1999 Issue                      A Publication of Information Technology  

Telephone Tips
by Tracey Lulek

Call Dialing Instructions
Calls within the local calling area (see list below, which is also available in the Campus Computing and Voice Handbook and in your Bell Atlantic phone book) are free from Academy phones and can be placed from most Academy phones by dialing 5, followed by the phone number. All other calls require 5-1-603 before the phone number in order to be dialed (provided the particular phone is programmed for long distance calling).

Local Exchanges from Exeter
Epping 679, 680, 734
Exeter 395, 583, 770, 772, 773, 775, 777, 778
Hampton 926, 929, 967
Kingston 642, 874
Newmarket 659
Raymond 418, 895
Rye Beach 379, 509, 964
*Portsmouth 245, 294, 334, 422, 427, 430, 431, 433, 436, 438, 457, 559, 570, 766
South Hampton 274, 394
*Bell Atlantic recently added Portsmouth to the local calling area for calls dialed from Exeter.

On Campus Fax Machines
Please do not use the automatic redial feature when receiving a busy signal. Please stop the call and redial the number manually. Due to the differences in answer supervision from our switch and the phone company's switches in different areas we may be charged for those busy calls when using the automatic redial feature on our fax machines. Answer supervision is the phone switch recognizing when a call starts and when it ends and this differs from state to state and overseas. If you see numerous charges for repeated calls on the fax portion of your monthly department telephone bill it is from using the automatic redial feature.

Directory Assistance
When a call is placed to Directory Assistance (555-1212) from an Academy phone, the Academy is charged $.75 per call and these charges add up quickly. An alternative and economical means of finding directory information is to look up the information on the internet. Many websites provide directory information by name, number, residential or business listing. The next time you need a number, direct your web browser to www.555-1212.com, www.411.com, or to one of the many new directory information sites.

Caller ID
Everyone with a display screen on their telephone should see the digits displayed of people calling in from off campus now that we have upgraded our telephone system to ISDN lines. If you have a display screen and you have never seen the telephone number of the caller displayed, please call Telecommunications at x3693 or send email to the Support Desk to report this. We can program your telephone to show the number. The only times you may not see a telephone number displayed is if the caller has it blocked by the phone company, the area the caller lives in doesn't have the technology to pass the number on, or if the call was transferred from the switchboard.

From the Support Desk
by Vi Richter

Consumable Supplies
The following supplies are consumables which departments need to order if replacements are needed:

• Remote Controls
• Toner Cartridges
• Paper
• Laptop Ethernet and Modem Connectors (the connector may not be stocked separately and the entire card may need to be ordered).

Excel Data Entry Forms
If you use Excel to store data but like the feel and appearance of using a data entry form, Excel has a feature called the data entry form which can create an entry form based on the column headings in your spreadsheet. To find out more about this feature, call the Support Desk at ext. 3693 to ask for the Excel Data Entry Form handout.

Drag & Drop Printing in Word
Here's a quick way to print a document. Locate the icon for the document you wish to print (in you're My Documents folder or elsewhere). Locate the icon for your printer (in My Computer…Printers). Click on the document's icon and drag it over the printer icon and release ("drop") it. The document will be sent to the printer and should print shortly. This relieves the user of having to open the application (Word), open the document and choose File Print. If you wish, you can also create a shortcut to your printer on your desktop so that it is even more convenient to drag and drop your documents to the printer.

Passwords, Passwords, Passwords
We are fortunate on campus that our network, email, and remote access passwords synchronize automatically. On other campuses, users may be required to maintain separate passwords for each area and change them every 30 days. Although waiting for the email password to synchronize after changing our network password requires patience, the sophisticated synchronization feature makes it possible for us to have one password, rather than three or more. You may want to wait until the end of the day to change your password so that by morning the synchronization may have completed. Windows95 users -- generally laptop users -- please feel free to call the Support Desk prior to making your password change, as we may be able to save you a little time by stepping you through the process. If you anticipate being away from campus for more than a few days and haven't change your password recently, please change it prior to leaving campus, so that it will not expire while you are away and prevent you from accessing your email.

Housekeeping
Individual departments are responsible for keeping their shared directories manageable. Files which are no longer needed should be archived and removed. Folders should be organized in a systematic manner which is used by all who access the shared directory. Also, please avoid using punctuation in your filenames, certain characters (for instance, the "/" character) in a filename prevent it from being backed up.

Year 2000 and Personally Owned Computers (non-Macintosh systems)
by Marilee Tuomanen

On campus we are in the process of updating Academy non-NT PCs (these are mostly office laptops and library loaner laptops) to the most recent version of Windows95, referred to as Windows95 B or Windows95 OEM Service Release 2. This update to Windows95 B avoids problems with the DATE and DIR Commands that will appear in the year 2000. If you did not update your home system from Windows95 A, you may experience the following problems:

The DOS DIR command displays file dates using only two digits to represent the year, instead of four digits. When you use the DOS DATE command to set the current date and you type the year as only two digits from 00 through 79, the DATE command displays the error message "Incorrect date format."

To determine the version of Windows 95 you are running, follow these steps:
1. In Control Panel, double-click System.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Locate the version number under the System heading and then see the following table:

To work around this problem, type the year using four digits when you set the date to 1/1/2000 or later using the DATE command. To resolve the problem you can download the Win95y2k.exe file from the Microsoft Software Library found at the www.microsoft.com website.

Product Issues:
The Win95y2k.exe update does not resolve some other minor issues with Windows95 and the Year 2000. I have extracted from the Microsoft web page some other minor issues with all Windows95 versions. These are all considered to be minor issues and would not affect the typical user. Windows 95 in all versions is considered by Microsoft to be "Year 2000 Compliant with minor issues."

• WINFILE.EXE - Windows File Manager does not display or sort dates beyond the year 2000 appropriately. When using Windows File Manager to view the contents of folders, and users have selected to view "all file details", the dates of files created in the year 2000 and beyond may appear as follows:
  January 1, 2000 would appear as 1/1/;1
  February 3, 2023 would appear as 2/3/ 3
  March 5, 2036 would appear as 3/5/=6
• COMMAND.COM - The DATE command (internal to COMMAND.COM) does not appropriately handle 2-digit dates from 00-79. Entering 2-digit dates within this range returns the message "Invalid Date".
• MSWALLET - When entering credit card information in versions of Microsoft Wallet before 2.1.1383, users must enter month, day, and year for expiration dates beyond 2000. Otherwise, information may be parsed incorrectly. For example, entering a credit card with expiration 5/01 will be parsed as May 1st of the current year.
• OMCTL32.DLL - When Regional Settings from Control Panel is set to use two digits for years, the Date/Time Picker function may not return the proper date. To ensure proper handling of dates: set Regional Settings to 4-digit date handling.
• VDHCP.386 - Winipcfg/all - IP Leases obtained on or after 3/01/2000 are reported as having been obtained the previous day. The system date is displayed correctly but the DHCP client reports an incorrect date.
• MICROSOFT VIRTUAL MACHINE Year 2000 issues have been reported in connection with Microsoft virtual machines based on the Sun Microsystems Java Development Kit (versions 1.1.1-1.1.5). Applications written in Java that make use of the java.txt.SimpleDateFormat class library may parse 4-digit dates incorrectly.
• TIMEDATE.CPL -Time and Date control applet - When the date is set to February 29 the applet will display the 29th day on years other than leap years when using the tumblers to scroll the year ahead or back.
• DIALER.EXE - Phone Dialer applet - The show call log option doesn't display date correctly after successful completion of telephone call. If date is adjusted to the year 2000, the date will display as 100, 101, 102, etc.
• XCOPY.EXE - When using xcopy in real mode with the optional parameter /D:date, xcopy does not accept years entered as 2 digits except for the years 80 - 99. The message "Invalid date" is displayed. When using xcopy in protected mode (from within Windows) 2-digit dates are accepted but are recognized as being within the 20th century (02/05/01 is seen as 02/05/1901).