Exeter On-Line

Spring 2003 Issue                        Publication of Information Technology  

Summer Technology Projects
by Shelley Nason

During the spring term IT will be planning for the annual summer projects. In addition to regular maintenance and support of the summer programs, the majority of our work is geared to making our network resources more easily accessible from anywhere and through a common interface – the web. The work will be done behind the scenes and community members will participate in testing before these resources are officially rolled out. The official rollouts are planned for the start of the Fall Term. The community can plan on loss to network services during the summer if or when work on the electrical high yard causes scheduled power outages on campus.

The IT summer projects include:

  • Implementing an enterprise version of Blackboard, which provides a portal interface and a mechanism for administrative offices to provide content through a web interface to the community. As part of this project IT and MIS will work on reducing the number of different usernames and passwords currently needed to log into network resources.
  • Installing a web public events and Academy master calendar.
  • Evaluating how to and planning for increased file storage and expand backup capability, while departments are working to clean up files save on network drives
  • Increase bandwidth for residential use of the network.
  • We are currently in an RFP process for local and long-distance voice services and may change providers depending upon the outcome of the RFP.
  • Working with Facilities to provide voice, data and commercial TV services for their renovation projects. Some of these projects include Peabody, the upgrade to the electrical high yard and expanding card access to more dorms.

If we learn that we need to perform work that will impact the community’s use of voice and data network services will we try our best to schedule the work after hours and therefore reducing the amount of impact to the community.

 

S P R I N G   C L E A N   U P   D A Y

     Do you have an old computer system gathering dust in your attic? As a part of this year's Environmental Day on April 16, the IT and Facilities Management Departments are working together to help members of the Academy community dispose of hazardous technology waste.

     If you live in a dorm, simply bring your old computer down to the common room and students and staff will see that it is removed. If you live off campus, bring your system to the Facilities Management training room. The limit is one CPU and one monitor per employee (no keyboards, mice, printers or other peripherals please.) If you have any questions, email support_desk@exeter.edu.

 

Blackboard User Conference 2003
by Vi Richter

In February, I was fortunate to attend the annual Blackboard User Conference in Baltimore along with John Wilson of our MIS department. It was an affirming event, in that 1400 users attended from a great variety of venues: K-8, 9-12, private and public, traditional 4-year colleges and graduate schools. Also present was the newest and fastest-growing kid on the educational block: the distance education school (more on that later). It was encouraging to meet colleagues from St. Paul’s School, UNH, Colby-Sawyer, University of Southern New Hampshire, Dartmouth, UNC, Princeton, Georgetown, West Point, Smith, RPI, and University of Amsterdam, to name just a few of the broad spectrum of institutions sending educators and technologists to the conference. I also was able to meet the (oh-so-young) chairman and co-founder of Blackboard, Matthew Pittinsky, and reacquaint myself with Blackboard vice president and PEA Class of ’88 Patrick Supanc, who will be returning to Exeter for his 15th class reunion this spring.

Along with the pleasure of meeting these individuals came a continuing discussion of where the Blackboard product is headed, how users might have input into that product development, and a host of interesting scenarios of how our sister institutions are using the software. I attended three days of terrific presentations on how the Blackboard Community Portal, an upgraded version of Blackboard, has been implemented at other institutions. As Exeter prepares for a similar implementation (currently slated for September 2003), the suggestions and issues raised by these schools were invaluable. (Watch this publication for more details as our new Blackboard Implementation Team develops our own Community Portal.)

In addition to presentations, I also attended the keynote session, led by Frank Newman, Director of the Futures Project and Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Brown University. Mr. Newman spoke at length about the research his group has undertaken with regard to the future of education. His examinations yielded several interesting findings and predictions, which I’ll list for the reader to ponder:

  1. Education has become a market force. The competition is higher and different than in years past. The institution is more responsive and accountable to those outside pressures than ever before. He feels market pressures will overtake a school’s ability to maintain how it traditionally operated (and he cites the college athletics market force as an example of a similar change).
  2. A school’s Internet presence was the “most potent vehicle for students choosing a particular college” according to his research.
  3. Print textbooks are likely on the way out. Many schools are replacing them with electronic content “modules” that are accessible within a course management system, such as Blackboard. Interestingly, I had had a similar discussion this past month with our Bookstore manager, John Maier, who hears the same predication from his publishers.
  4. The traditional walls separating academic departments are softening, if not being eliminated, as well as the historical wall between staff and faculty. Many individuals have more to offer than a single specialty; thus teachers are crossing departmental lines when they have more than one area of expertise. Teachers are also filling their professional lives with staff roles as well. And staff who have expertise in a particular area are being brought into the classroom to share their professional knowledge with students.
  5. Curriculum development and course design changes are in the wind. In many traditional schools (and in most of the for-profit education centers springing up) teams of expert content specialists are creating online coursework. These master teachers then train instructors to present the content to students, rather than teaching the courses themselves.
  6. Education is becoming global (not just international). MIT has opened campuses in Singapore and France. Harvard and Stanford are exploring satellite campuses overseas as well. An institution is no longer a “place.”
  7. For-profit educational institutions are gaining enrollment ground (and large profits).
  8. Online learning may take one of several forms:
    a. Use of technology for resource location (library, research and corporate databases, online books, web-based expert content)
    b. Traditional classes that utilize course management technology to ease the administrative chores of teaching and to store content, assessment, and assignment information. (These are referred to as “blended” or “hybrid” courses.)
    c. Fully online courses utilizing all the features of course management systems: audio, video, text, and interactive group and individual communication. This content is web-delivered and available 24x7x365.
  9. Mr. Newman predicted that students of the future will be able to take whatever course they want from whichever expert they wish at any institution they choose at any time—a profound change from the way in which we think of education now. And one that bears serious thought in light of the allegiances (or lack thereof) students might have to a particular institution they’ve attended. Imagine sharing our alumnae/i with other private high schools!
  10. Finally, Mr. Newman claimed that educators have their heads in the sand on this topic…believing that nothing will ever change the traditional prep school and Ivy-League educational institution…that they have too much social weight in our country to disappear. His prediction is certainly an interesting one, though, and noteworthy, particularly for an institution such as Exeter.

In between the general and break-out sessions, there was a vendor fair of Blackboard partner corporations, where I found some very interesting items, some of which are new to market and some that have been around a while. One company had developed an easy-to-use audio-recording product that sat right inside the Blackboard course. It would allow a language teacher to include audio and video lessons and quizzes and it also would let students record and compare their audio to the teacher’s voice—something I would have found very valuable when I was studying foreign languages. Another product was a file management system that also worked within Blackboard—where you’d go to find your files, share or not share them, add meta-data (information about the most recent revision, the owner and who has change rights to the item). Although many of these products are in the early stages of development, it was clear to me that web-based delivery of materials (whether for a course or our daily work) will become the norm soon. What a lovely thought for those who travel as part of their jobs or work from home often…it might one day be possible to work from your desk when you’re not actually at your desk!

Survey Results
by Donna Archambault

On February 3, IT sent out an electronic survey to 300 randomly selected users to find out what they think of technology services. We were very pleased that 107 of the 300 users responded to our survey. From the results, we found that users are generally satisfied with the services we provide, although they would like improvement in some areas. Users appreciate that there is a support desk to call when they encounter technical problems; there is also second level support when resolution is not resolved on phone, and that IT offers a variety of training sessions, as well as help from our student techs.

On the dormitory side, Internet connectivity seems to be a concern. Students would like to have accessibility to the Internet after 11:00 pm and would like the connectivity to be consistently up and working by reducing the traffic that causes slow or intermittent connectivity. Students also don’t necessarily know how to get to their network files from the dorm, which makes it difficult when completing some homework assignments.

What do we plan to do to improve our services?

  1. Be constantly aware that users expect follow up within a timely fashion.
  2. Communicate more frequently when work or interruptions will occur in our network services
  3. Continually update ourselves on community needs.
  4. For the dormitory connectivity, we have put in place a system in which we can monitor Internet traffic and we will work to ensure an equitable allocation of bandwidth.

For students needing to get to their home directory or Harkness work folders, they must create web folders. Instructions on how to create web folders can be found on the IT web site.

Again, we appreciate your feedback and encourage users to contact us at any time with comments.

File Clean Up
by Donna Archambault

Can you believe that some of us have been saving to network drives since 1996? The amount of file storage has grown over the years and our backup process takes a snapshot of the files at 3pm and then the back up process will run throughout the day until the next night’s back up. While we research, plan for and upgrade our current backup and storage system, we are asking our community to clean up and organize their electronic files.

All faculty and administrative departments have access to a disk space tool, which can be used to review file and folder space. Faculty can review their disk space by going to http://harkness.exeter.edu/qreports/ Administrative offices should work with their ATL to review their disk space.

If departments need assistance going through files to determine what should and shouldn’t be removed, please contact the support desk to make an appointment. We also offer the service of burning archival files on to CD for storage and future use.

Below is file clean up information to keep in mind. (This is a reprint from the Spring 2000 Exeter On-Line.)

Space is finite on Academy servers. Here are some steps that we can take to address the storage limitations now:

  • Limit the saving of personal files to the network.
  • Remove personal electronic files by deleting them, emailing them to your home's personal computer, or bringing a diskette or CD on which to save them and transfer them to your home computer.
  • Once you have determined that you have all the files you need, remove duplicate files that may have been created when your computer was replaced or rebuilt.
  • Move any work files to the departmental shared directory (F drive), rather than maintaining them in your home directory (H drive).
  • Identify one individual to maintain copies of files that are shared by multiple people to prevent more than one person from saving copies of the same file.
  • Define which previous editions of an annual or monthly recurring publication you need to maintain electronically.
  • Take advantage of merge functions rather than creating and saving the same document over and over (for instance, use Merge to produce a letter where only several pieces of information change).
  • Organize your files in a manner that indicates, "actively used" versus "historically saved" (archived) files. Doing so will make duplicates more evident and will allow backup processes to only backup changed files.
  • Clear Netscape cache files, by going into Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Cache and push both the Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache buttons.
  • Do not save files for long-term use to the desktop. If you have a file on the desktop and intend to keep it, move it to an appropriate place within the departmental shared directory.
  • Do not save executable files that were not installed on your machine during its build process.
  • Plan routinely scheduled time for file cleanup and organization. Checking files and file structure regularly will make the task much easier.

Training Tip

Q: Dear Exeter Online,
In many applications, I notice that on the menus a letter is underlined, such as: File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, and Tools in Word. Why are these letters underlined?

A: You are observant. The underlined letters, used in conjunction with the Alt key on your keyboard, were how these menus were accessed before the mouse was invented. For instance, if you needed to get into the Page Setup dialog box, you could press Alt + F to open the File menu, and then the U key (by itself, without Alt) to open the Page Setup dialog box. (In the File menu, notice that the u in Page Setup is underlined.)

The Alt keyboard shortcuts do not see as much use these days, but can be helpful when there is a problem with the mouse.

Netscape Upgrade
by Support Desk Staff

With Netscape 4.X, the Support Desk occasionally has to refer people to the Internet Explorer browser, because certain pages don’t display correctly. The new Netscape 7 can handle any web page. It offers users better handling of web sites that use advanced design features, advanced bookmark capability, and an improved user interface. The look and feel of the program is more modern, but most of the tools and commands are in the same location. Two exceptions: the familiar Communicator menu is renamed the Window menu, and a new Tools menu has been added in Netscape 7. The stability of the program is only a little better than the old Netscape, but overall the changes are a much-needed improvement.

Over the next year, IT plans to upgrade Netscape to the latest version. However, for administrative offices that use Netscape Calendar, this may not be an option unless members of the department move away from the NS Cal. Netscape no longer supports or provides a calendaring application. As an alternative, IT implemented Netscape’s electronic calendar, which we refer to as eCal. eCal is available through the web and can be accessed anywhere in the world. If you would like more information on eCal, please contact the Support Desk, x3693.

Phone Scam
by Tracey Lulek

The information contained in this article was forwarded to us. It is a warning for a telephone scam in which people are asked to call a specific phone number; the call is then billed to the caller for an exorbitant amount of money.

It appears that the area code 809 scam is back in full force again! And with all the new area codes popping up, 809 may look normal...but it is NOT friendly and NOT a normal area code! Be very cautious of messages left on your voice mail, answering machines, pagers, fax machines, and now, email!

Don't respond to emails, phone calls, or web pages which tell you to call an "809" phone number. This is a very important issue of Scam Busters because it alerts you to a scam that is spreading *extremely* quickly, can easily cost you $2400 or more, and is difficult to avoid unless you are aware of it.


We'd like to thank Verizon for bringing this scam to our attention. This scam has also been identified by the National Fraud Information Center and is costing victims a lot of money. There are lots of different permutations of this scam.

HERE'S HOW IT WORKS:
You receive a message on your answering machine, voice mail, pager, etc., which asks you to call a number beginning with area code 809. The reason you're asked to call varies. It can be to receive information about a family member who has been ill, to tell you someone who has been arrested, died, or to let you know you have won a wonderful prize, etc.

In each case, you are told to call the 809 number right away. Since there are so many new area codes these days, people unknowingly return these calls.

If you place the call from the US, you will apparently be charged $2425 per minute. When the call is answered, usually by an automated attendant (machine), you'll get a long recorded message, or be left on hold for a few minutes, as they will try to keep you on the phone as long as possible to increase the charges.

Unfortunately, when you receive your phone bill, you could easily be charged $2,495 or more, $24,100 is not unusual!

WHY IT WORKS:
The 809 area code is located in the British Virgin Islands (The Bahamas). The 809 area code can be used as a "pay-per-call" number, similar to 900 numbers in the US. Since 809 is not in the US, it is not covered by U.S. regulations of 900 numbers, which require that you be notified and warned of charges and rates involved when you call a “pay-per-call" number.

There is also no requirement that the company provide a time period during which you may terminate the call without being charged!

Further, whereas many U.S. homes and businesses have "900/976 number blocking", to avoid these kinds of charges, that blocking does not work in preventing calls to the 809 area code.

We recommend that no matter how you get the message, if you are asked to call a number with an 809 area code that you don't recognize, just disregard the message.

Be wary of email or calls asking you to call an 809 area code number. It's important to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of this scam, since trying to fight the charges afterwards can become a real nightmare, because you did actually make the call. If you complain, both your local phone company and your long distance carrier will not want to get involved and will most likely tell you that they are simply providing the billing for the foreign company, which they are.

You'll end up dealing with a foreign company that argues they have done nothing wrong!

Other area codes in the Caribbean that should be treated with extreme caution are: 242, 246, 264, 268, 284, 340, 441, 473, 649, 664, 758, 767, 784, 787, 868, 869, 876

To learn more about phone scams, check out the Verizon web site.
http://newscenter.verizon.com/kit/servicestandard/scams.vtml

Outlook and RTF
by Marilee Tuomanen

Why is it when a user opens an email with an attachment titled "winmail.dat", the attachment cannot open?

This problem begins on another email server. The sender is using Microsoft Outlook 97, and this problem is caused when Outlook 2000 looks for something called the TNEF Correlator field. Winmail.dat and APPLICATION/MS-TNEF (Microsoft Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format) message parts are encoded in a proprietary format only Microsoft Mail and Microsoft Exchange can read. (They can indeed contain things like Excel spreadsheets and Word documents, but the documents will be impossible to extract.) When Outlook 2000 receives a message that contains Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) information, it looks in the message header for the TNEF Correlator field. If it isn't there, then it puts the TNEF information into a DAT file, which is why you are seeing Winmail.dat. Outlook 97 doesn't put the TNEF Correlator field in the message header, so Outlook 2000 is forced to put that data into a DAT file. Outlook sends email as RTF and it goes to a mail client that cannot read RTF but gets sent along with the winmail.dat file.

Our mail client does not have a problem reading RTF, however it cannot control how Outlook reads TNEF. If an Outlook 97/98/2000 user sends e-mail formatted as Rich Text (RTF), and it goes to a person whose mail client does not support RTF, then the mail will arrive as a plain text message and everything else, including attachments, will be in an unreadable winmail.dat file. So if that file is forwarded to our mail server, the attachments continue to show up as an unreadable "winmail.dat" file. Once it gets altered at another mail server, there is nothing our mail server can do to "undo" the package.

Since the winmail.dat and MS-TNEF message parts are useful to other MS Mail users, and since even a message apparently going elsewhere might get forwarded back to an MS Mail account, we generally suggest passing them along and letting non-MS Mail users just ignore them.

There are two ways for the original sender (Outlook user) to prevent this from happening:

  1. When composing new messages, make sure to set the format to "Plain Text" (Format menu > Plain Text).
  2. When sending to a recipient that you know has no RTF mail capabilities, modify the recipient's contact record to indicate this. Go to your address book; click once on a contact name, and then click the "Properties" button. Then, click on the folder tab that says "Name," and at the bottom of the window you'll see a checkbox that says, "Send e-mail using plain text only." Check this box, save the changes, and you will be all set.

More info and links can be found in the Microsoft Support Knowledgebase: Winmail.dat Attachments Included in Received Message.

Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q241538

Windows Media Player

FYI – A piece of advice for anyone who uses Windows Media Player at home or work - pass along to anyone else you think would appreciate the info.

Protect your online identity by configuring Windows Media Player

If you're like most people, online privacy is of the utmost importance to you.

When you're using Windows Media Player to play an audio CD, your identity may be compromised a little more than you're comfortable with, as Media Player automatically downloads album and artist information to add to your listening experience. This may sound innocuous enough, but Media Player also identifies your computer to the site where it's downloading this information in order to increase playback quality and allow you to receive information about the media streams over the Web. If this bothers you, you can easily disable the feature.

All you need to do is to open Windows Media Player and then choose Tools | Options. Select the Player tab, and then deselect Allow Internet Sites To Uniquely Identify Your Player. Then click OK.

Something to note … this option is set to allow your information to be shared … a default setting. This is something that has to be changed per user, something that we should add to our "User Setup" process.

What is Spyware?
by Stephanie Casale

Monitoring and maintaining the security of the network is a primary concern of any enterprise's technology department. If you have a personal computer connected to the Internet, security should also be a primary concern. Firewalls and virus checkers can help protect your hardware from deliberate attacks, but users can unwittingly invite trouble simply by visiting a web page or downloading and installing an interesting piece of software. If you are concerned about your personal privacy on the internet, you might want to investigate products that monitor your computer for spyware, adware and web bugs.

One such product, called Spybot, defines it this way : "Spyware is software that transmits personally identifiable information from your computer to some place in the internet without your special knowledge. Spyware is typically not the product you install itself, but small add-ons, that you may or may not disable during install. In most cases, the EULA somewhere has a few lines telling you about privacy matters, but typically most users don't read the complete EULA and never know they got spyware on their system.

"A less threatening sort is adware. Adware is similar to spyware, but does not transmit personally identifiable information, or at least the collector promises not to sell it. Instead, aggregated usage information is collected. Adware is also often a side-effect of spyware, as both monitor you for a sole purpose – delivering you advertisement that is especially tailored to your habits."

A web bug is a graphic, usually 1 x 1 pixel in size, placed on a web page or in an email that is designed to track who visited the page and when.

Products in this category include Spybot, Ad-aware, Bugnosis, PestPatrol, SpyStopper, SpySweeper. Some are freeware, others are for purchase. One word of caution: if you do decide to try a product like this, please read the directions and understand what the product is doing. If used incorrectly or too aggressively, there is the potential to damage your system.

Speed Dial
by Tracey Lulek

Tired of looking up phone numbers for local businesses? Use the speed dial numbers listed below. To dial these numbers using speed dial from an analog phone in your dorm or classroom, pick up the handset, press 173 then the two-digit number that is beside the business you want to call. For example, to call Bay 99, pick up handset and dial 17300.

SPEED DIAL LIST:

00 Bay 99
01 Head Hunter's
02 Mane Event
03 Town & Country Barbershop
04 George & Phillips
05 HELPWARE
06 Rite-Aid Drug
07 Walgreen's
08 Burnham Dry Cleaners
09 Ioka Theatre
10 Hoyt's Newington 12 Cinema
11 Domino's
12 The Inn at Exeter
13 Mama Lena's
14 New England Pizza
15 Penang & Tokyo
16 Pine Garden
17 Romeo's Pizza
18 Supreme House of Pizza
19 Szechuan Taste
20 The Tavern at the River's Edge
21 Exeter Packaging
22 Exeter Town Post Office
23 Blockbuster Video
24 Movie Scene
25 C&J Trailways
26 Caren's Caravan
27 Flightline Seacoast
28 Hampton Shuttle