Can’t get yourself connected?

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IWU has had some network issues around campus today. There appear to be two unrelated issues at this time. One is that internal e-mail traffic is intermittent. We have our own e-mail server that we manage ourselves. I don’t think any servers are actually down but I agree that things aren’t working correctly. We have people working on this right now.

A second issue is general slow performance of our Internet connection. I’ve heard this may be related to an AT&T router somewhere that is affecting our region.

I’ve requested that the IT people who have real details of these problems write up some sort of communication to campus so I hope we’ll hear more soon!

Update: Trey has posted some info on his blog.

Hidden perks of EDU e-mail

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A couple of websites are offering attractive discounts to those with EDU e-mail accounts. I thought I would share them here:

First, Dropbox is doubling their referral bonus to 500MB, and it works retroactively. By confirming my e-mail I have gone from 4.5GB of free storage to 6.8!

Second, Amazon has a new program called Amazon Student. This means a free year of Amazon Prime just for providing them with an EDU e-mail, school name, and major. This means free shipping on lots of items, which can really add up.

Henning Room upgrades

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Henning

We are proud to present the new presentation equipment for the Henning Room!

A new 54″ TV, VCR/DVD player, wireless presenter tools and a Mac Mini have been installed.

We expect similar carts to be installed in Shaw Hall and plan to evaluate them for use in the New North classroom building.

We still have a lot to learn about newer HDTV technology (I don’t even have HD at home) but so far with a few adjustments it is working well.

I recommend learning some Zoom In/Zoom Out keyboard shortcuts. Video and presentations look great in their native sizes but web text can look pretty little on a screen with this much real estate!

Are you getting email from yourself that you didn’t send?

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Are you getting email from yourself that you didn’t send? It is likely that

someone you have e-mailed has a virus on their computer and is sending

e-mail as you. Viruses are like that – they love to share and spread!

Has your account been hacked? Probably not. If you’re really worried,

change your password by logging into MyIWU and clicking on My Account in the

upper left hand corner of the screen. (Remember that any email client like

Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, Mail, etc. you use to check your mail will

need its password changed too.) It is a good idea to change your password

on a regular basis anyway.

What should you do or not do?

**DON’T CLICK on any links in the email. Chances are they include an

“executable file” that will try to install the virus on YOUR computer.

**DELETE the email. You didn’t really send it to yourself so go ahead:

Delete it! You can run a virus scan on your computer to be sure it is free

from viruses. (IT Services Help Desk can teach you how to do this – just

give us a call.)

Should you block the sender? Probably not because you will be blocking

yourself. Why? Sometimes people use email to move information (like a

document or a picture) from one computer to another. If you block yourself,

you won’t be able to get those things you really DO want.

Have more questions? IT Services is here to help! Contact us!

In Person: IT Services House – 1311 Park Street

Phone: (309) 556-3900

Instant Message: Use the Meebo Widget under the Resources tab in MyIWU

Email us: helpdesk@iwu.edu

Log a call with your question: help.iwu.edu

What is Technology anyway?

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I found a very interesting definition today:

Technology

Technology is a human innovation in action that involves the generation of knowledge and processes to develop systems that solve problems and extend human capabilities.

This is wonderful because it means our IT Services folks can be more than just “computer guys”.  I’m tired of thinking of technology as “gadget studies” and would rather focus on finding the right tools, electronic or otherwise, that enhance our ability to teach, learn, think, communicate, exist, and so on!

2 Tidbits: iPad and browser tabs

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This short essay makes some great points about the iPad. Is this device really helping us improve information flow or is it closing doors?

I also recently discovered a marvelous feature of newer browsers – the ability to drag browser tabs to the desktop to open it in a new window. So helpful!

I’ll stop now to avoid going on an Andy Rooney style tangent-rant.

Mathematica comes to town

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We have used Mathematica at IWU for a long, long time. I remember using it in Linear Algebra when I was a student back in the mid 90s. It was a bit cumbersome and you needed to learn the programming syntax, but it did the job.

This week, we learned that this software has really come of age. A Wolfram rep named Justin came to Bloomington to show us what is possible with the latest version. He used a Mathematica notebook to give his presentation, a welcome departure from the typical static, linear Powerpoint slideshow. Justin also demonstrated some cool tools for manipulating models, making charts, and constructing documents directly within Mathematica. I was most impressed by the amazing amount of data that is being curated by Wolfram. It is now possible to call functions that connect to a server over the web and pull in huge datasets based on cities, nations, chemistry, and astrophysics, among others. There are also thousands of pre-made demonstration files that can be downloaded for free. They have even released a free Player application that allows you to run and manipulate the demo files without a full copy of Mathematica.

I’m anxious to have him back to do the same talk for some folks outside of math and science. There are a lot of applications here for economists and political scientists in particular. In the time since I last used this tool, Wolfram has built an impressive engine for analysis – an engine we already pay for – that we can do a much better job of exploiting here at Illinois Wesleyan.

Two simple but helpful sites on the web

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I just found two very simple but helpful things! I’m so excited I had to share.

First, a nice list of specs for various popular video upload sites:

http://www.videomaker.com/article/14570/?utm_source=enews&utm_medium=email&utm_content=tip_enews_2010_02_1&utm_campaign=traffic

and second, a dummy image generator:

http://dummyimage.com/

(All you have to do is modify the URL to generate placeholder images of any size: http://dummyimage.com/390×321)

Both of these sites would have come in handy a zillion times over the last few years. Give them a try!

Thunderbird update and a word on the iPad

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First, let me say that I’m glad this iPad tablet is out in the open. If I had to read another drool-soaked article filled with speculation and rumors I might just go crazy. I don’t think it is exactly revolutionary, but it is cool. Almost big enough to serve drinks on, then play some Doodle Jump. The one thing I’m curious about is the cable connection. Apparently this thing uses the standard iPhone to USB cable, but I thought Apple was in on the consortium that settled on micro-USB as the universal charging format for mobile devices!? Maybe they didn’t get invited to that meeting. That minor quibble aside, I’d like to try one. Let me know if you need my mailing address to send me a demo iPad.

A while back I upgraded to Thunderbird 3.0. It has been pretty successful so far. I found the tabbed interface confusing at first – I would close the whole app instead of a single message since I was used to standalone windows – but found the option to switch from tabs to windows and back. Now I am full-time tabbing in Tbird and liking it. My Lightning calendar plugin was finally updated to fit in with 3.0, just in time for me to not need it anymore, but I appreciate the update.

A few other Thunderbird notes: Some users have found that Thunderbird attachments function in a very different way than Eudora. I refer to this as an issue of “attachment permanence”. Eudora had a discrete folder for attachments, so that when you received a message with files attached they were stored in a permanent place. This meant that some folks would open an attachment from an e-mail, edit it, save it, and reply. This reply would contain the modified file, since the original attachment had been modified but kept the same name. I suppose this means that their original attachment would not exist in its original form, but that is a separate issue. Thunderbird doesn’t do this. Attachments are part of the message and have to be saved or detached before you can modify them. Then they need to be reattached to a new message. The same thing is true of our web portal at IWU. If you open an attachment directly from a message it opens in a weird temp folder. Saved changes will be lost. This adds up to be a little more cumbersome than Eudora. On the other hand, Eudora hasn’t had a bug fix since October 2006 and the 8.0 beta is just built on Thunderbird anyway. I don’t think this issue alone can keep anyone from moving forward from Eudora to Tbird.

A second issue with Thunderbird is the quoting of headers. If you reply to an e-mail in Tbird, you get the original message quoted, but not the headers. You don’t see the date or sender or subject of the original message in the text of your reply. This is a strange problem and I don’t understand why there is no configuration option to customize what exactly is quoted in a reply. I have found, however, that the headers are quoted when forwarding a message. So I have proclaimed this to be a workaround: Don’t reply, just forward. Then change the “FWD” to “RE:” in the subject and copy/paste the recipient address and all is well.