Just a reminder that Datatel/Merlin will not be available on Friday as ITS starts the migration to R18. On Monday, you will get an email that will state the status of our weekend work. Please read the email before logging into Datatel.
Also, if we are up and running on R18 on Monday please send any problems to the Help Desk where a ticket will be created. By doing that, it will allow the Datatel team so resolve problems quicker as they will not be interrupted by phone calls. We will then prioritize the requests and start resolving problems.
In an effort to combat the continuing spam problem ITS will be adding a new weapon to our arsenal. We will begin blocking suspected spam emails and storing them in a quarantine database for 14 days. This is being put into place immediately. On Monday - Friday the quarantine management system will send you an hourly email between 9 AM and 4 PM listing the emails that it blocked, it will look similar to the following.
It is likely that the system will block emails that are not spam, if this happens you can release those emails by clicking the "Release" button and your email should appear in your in box within a few minutes.
This process will definitely reduce the amount of spam that you will have to delete because it will aggregate all suspected spam hourly and then send you an E-mail Restriction Report.
Carnegie Labs and Teaching Stations
ITS and Maintenance have been working on the Carnegie computer labs. New carpet will be laid in the three labs, the electrical wiring and data ports will be moved from the floor, where they are easily kicked and damaged, to the walls and all cabling will be off the floor. Also, the computer desks in C210 will be will oriented to provide better teaching space. In addition, 100 all new Intel Core 2 Dual computers will be placed in the Carnegie computer labs and teaching stations in classrooms. The PCs that were in the labs and teaching stations will be cascaded to staff.
Digital Cable TV
Another weekend of work and problems keep arising. This has been a one step forward and two steps back project. Basically, when the infrastructure was laid in 1995 it was never fine tuned for cable. Data flowing through a network is not as sensitive as cable. Digital TV is more sensitive than cable. ITS staff are now having to splice and replace cable so that the digital signal will not lose strength as it traverses the campus. This was not planned, but as with most technology projects things do not go as planned. These seemingly unending problems have added significant time to the estimated go live date. We are still hoping to have digital TV ready when the students arrive.
