March 2009 Archives

This weekend University IT Services upgraded the DNS and DHCP servers on the campus network. These are critical services that enable your computer to access the Internet. Following this upgrade, the University now has redundant DNS and DHCP servers in different locations around campus, ensuring that members of the University community will have uninterrupted access to the Internet in the event one server or network link fails.

If you experience problems connecting to the Internet or to campus servers this morning, please reboot your computer, as you may have obsolete information about the campus Internet connection in your computer's memory.

Steve Landry, CIO

From PC Support Services

Summary: The Conficker worm (a type of computer virus) is attacking unprotected computers. Infected computers spread the infection further and may result in loss of data and exposure of personal information. Computers with the latest updates from Microsoft and Symantec are protected. If your computer is not protected, PC Support Services asks that you update your Windows operating system and your Symantec antivirus software. Please follow the simple instructions below, or call the Technology Help Desk at (973) 275-2222 if you are not sure if your computer is protected or if you want assistance updating MS Windows or the Symantec antivirus software.

From Information Technology Services

Approximately 400 University faculty, staff, and administrators have moved from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange for their email and calendar. University IT Service plans to have all members of the community moved to MS Exchange email by the end of May. University IT Services wants you to be aware of some issues that everyone will encounter during this transition, as members of the community are in each system.

For example, while you can schedule meetings across both systems (that is, if you send a meeting invitation, it will appear in the calendars of all recipients, whether they are using the MS Exchange or Lotus Notes calendar), until everyone is in one system, rescheduling meetings will not work as expected (moving a meeting in one system will not move the meeting for users in the other system). If you have scheduled a meeting and need to make a change to the original meeting for any reason (e.g. new date, new time, new location), instead of "rescheduling the meeting" or updating the meeting invite, as you might now, you should cancel the existing meeting, notify all the participants via email and then issue a new meeting invite/request.

This past fall Seton Hall University launched a project exploring the use of an eReader in select classes. Approximately fifty faculty and students were provided with an Amazon Kindle eReader and select readings (including textbooks, literature, and blogs) to see if the Amazon Kindle provides a convenient alternative to traditional textbooks and whether itimproves the amount of reading students do and their comprewhension. This week the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center, in collaboration with Freshman Studirs and the University Core Curriculum Committee, released their preliminary findings from the Lindle Pilot Project. A summary of the results is available on the Educause Web site at:

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/Abstract/IntegratingAmazonKindleAS/48346

Steve Landry, CIO