ITS has compiled a list of tips and short cuts that can be used with the new voice mail system.  Click on the attachment below to access that information.

 

Have you called the Help Desk and not talked with a person and worried whether or not your problem has been recorded?  No need to worry we programmed the voice mail system to automatically log your request into RT Tracker, our logging system for problems.  As you know, we staff the Help Desk with student workers.  Even though we start the term fully staffed our student workers may quit (it is stressful to listen to problems all day) or may be ill.  This would account for your not talking with someone.  We are trying to remedy the problem and have a warm fuzzy body in place but we can not always guarantee that it will happen.  In the meantime, please rest assured that if you leave a voice mail message we know about it.

 

Many times during a day members of the ITS staff check RT tracker to identify problems that need resolution; so your request is heard and properly categorized.  As a reminder our priority for fixing problems is Institutional; Instructional; Departmental; Individual who cannot complete their work due to technology problems; Individual who can do some of their work with technology problems.

 

Have you seen an increase in spam?  ITS is constantly adding programs to help fight spam.  On a normal day North Central College receives about 150,000 emails for our approximately 5000 email accounts.  Of the 150,000 email messages we identify about 75,000 of those as spam.  We use two methods to identify and block spam before it's delivered, Real-time Block lists (RBLs) and Spam URI Real-time Block lists (SURBLs).  RBLs block spam based on who is sending the email.  We consult 4 different lists that contain the address of know spammers, if any email we receive was found to be sent by someone that is listed on one of the RBLs we discard the email and do not deliver it.  SURBLs block spam based on the content of the email.  If an email is not rejected by an RBL than our antispam program, GWAVA, analyzes the email and looks for any web address contained in the email body.  If the email message has a web address GWAVA looks to see if this URL is listed in any of the 4 SURBLs, if it is the email is discarded and not sent to the recipient.

 

Think our students are not tech savvy?  Here is an email from one of our students: " Lately the internet at NCC has been pretty poor, and I have been  getting a latency that ranges anywhere from 500 to 1000 ms (millisecond or a thousandth of a second) the last  couple of days.  Before this the internet here was amazing at NCC this year.  I was just wondering what the cause of this is, and how  long it will last before it gets restored."  Emails like this sure keep us on our toes technology wise. 

 

Internet latency--what is this? Latency, in general, is the period of time that one component in a system is spinning its wheels waiting for another component. Latency, therefore, is wasted time.  In networking, the amount of time it takes a packet to travel from source to destination. Together, latency and bandwidth define the speed and capacity of a network right down to milliseconds.