Technology@Wooster

The Colleague (Datatel) system will be unavailable between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and midnight on Friday, April 18.  During this period important system maintenance will be performed and data will be transferred from the legacy system into Colleague.  ScotWeb will also be unavailable.  We regret any inconvenience this may cause.  Please contact Marlene Brown at x2304 with any questions you may have.

Over the last few days the College webserver (http://www.wooster.edu/) has been experiencing instability.  We are currently working with the Director of Web Services to identify the source of this problem and to correct it.  This instability does not impact ScotWeb.

Should you be unable to reach ScotWeb via the link on the College homepage, please remember that you can access ScotWeb directly at http://scotweb.wooster.edu.

Colleague and ScotWeb will be unavailable between noon and midnight on Saturday, January 19.  During this period IT will be working to copy data from the legacy administrative software system used by the Development Office to Colleague. This process is a critical part of the implementation of Colleague Advancement—the Datatel module dedicated to the Development and Alumni Affairs Offices.  In addition, IT will be transferring applicant data from the Admissions recruiting system into Colleague.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Questions can be directed to Marlene Brown at x2304.

Last summer, IT implemented a network access control (NAC) system in all student residential spaces.  The NAC is designed to prevent computers that are infected with viruses or worms and computers that are vulnerable to such infections from connecting to the campus network.  This will prevent the spread of infection and help to ensure that the campus network and other IT resources operate effectively.

When students arrived on campus at the beginning of the fall semester and plugged a computer into a network jack, the NAC required that the student authenticate and register the computer. Following registration, a software agent was installed on the student’s computer. This agent scanned the computer for infection and vulnerabilities. If infections or vulnerabilities were detected, the student was directed to the appropriate IT resource for assistance. During that initial semester of the NAC’s operation, infected or vulnerable computers were not prevented from accessing the campus network. This was done to promote a smooth implementation of the NAC. From now on, student computers found to be infected or vulnerable to infection will be prevented from accessing the campus network. Students with infected or vulnerable computers will be directed to the appropriate resource for assistance.

Additional information about the NAC can be found in the following locations. Questions about the NAC should be addressed to the student help desk at xHELP (x4357).

• Network Access Control Set to Debut
• Network Access Control Implementation Set
• Network Services & Wireless Networking

In an effort to increase service to member institutions OarNET, the College’s internet service provider, will be performing maintenance 11/21/2007 between 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. Connectivity issues are expected when connecting to sites on Internet2. Internet and IntraOhio connections are not expected to be interrupted.

We regret any inconvenience this important service may cause.

The Office of Information Technology has identified an issue with the MacBook line purchased for faculty and staff last year. Some of the Seagate hard drives installed in MacBooks that have matching model numbers (ST96812AS and ST98823AS) and firmware versions of 7.01 may lead to failure or data loss. Users can locate the firmware revision for their hard drives by going to Mac OS X’s System Profiler program, looking under Serial ATA.

According to a November 6, posting by Powerpage.org, “In test cases, ‘The read/write heads are detaching from the arm and plowing deep gouges into the magnetic platter,’ said Retrodata Managing Director Duncan Clarke. ‘The damage is mostly on the inner tracks, but some scratches are on the outer track — Track 0 — and once that happens, the drive is normally beyond repair.’”

Apple and Seagate are currently investigating the problem. There is no word yet on a recall from either group.

More information on the problem can be found at the following website:

http://www.techworld.com/storage/news/index.cfm?newsid=10532

The Office of Information Technology will be closely monitoring this problem and will alert users of any changes.

In the mean time, regular data back-ups are recommended. Each faculty and staff member is provided network storage space on Wooster’s file server. Important data files should be saved to the network storage space. Files stored on network storage spaces are routinely backed up by IT. Information on how to access these spaces can be found at the following web site:

http://www.wooster.edu/technology/help/networking/NFA.pdf

Bacause network storage space is limited, users are discouraged from storing personal MP3 or Wav files, Photos, and other multimedia files on these storage drives.

Questions can be directed to the Employee Help Desk at 330-287-3000 ext. 1111.