July upgrades in university computing labs, InfoCommons

Over the next two weeks, general-use computers in the university computing labs and the K-State InfoCommons (in Hale Library) will be refreshed by the Information Technology Assistance Center. This maintenance will incorporate software upgrades and security patches that have been released since the winter maintenance refresh, as well as introduce some new software.

The following schedule shows when specific university computing labs and InfoCommons locations will be closed. Work in the K-State InfoCommons will be done during evening hours and in small pockets during the day to minimize disruption.

HyperSnap free upgrades, software for K-State faculty/staff

K-State faculty/staff who have a license for HyperSnap 5.x can get a free upgrade to version 6.x by going to www.hyperionics.com and downloading the latest version. If version 5.x is installed on your computer, it will automatically update your license to let you run the new version.

Free HyperSnap copies are still available for K-State faculty/staff on a first-come, first-served basis through a volume-purchase agreement. To request a copy, send e-mail to itac@k-state.edu. An e-mail response will provide instructions on downloading and installing HyperSnap. HyperSnap runs on any computer running Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003 Server, or newer. According to the manufacturer's website, 10 megabytes of free disk space is needed to install the program, with about 5 MB actually used after installation is complete.

HyperSnap is a software program used to capture screen shots of Windows programs. Screen captures can be copied into your favorite graphics program or saved to popular graphics file formats: BMP (Windows bitmap), GIF, JPG, TIFF, EPS (Encapsulated Postscript), PCT (Macintosh Picture), and more. For more about HyperSnap, see the manufacturer's website at www.hyperionics.com and select the "HyperSnap 6" link.

Security tip: 88 million and counting

Identity theft seems to be in the news constantly these days, and for good reason. According to the Privacy Rights Clearing House, more than 88 million data records containing private personal information have been involved in security breaches in the last 17 months. This organization has tracked all known security breaches involving personal information since February 2005 and the numbers are staggering. You can view the incidents and the running total at www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm.

So what is the security tip of the week? If your personal information is suspected of being stolen in a security breach, read this same organization's instructions on how to deal with a security breach.

IT by the numbers: Software training by iTAC

The number of K-Staters who have been trained on software products by the Information Technology Assistance Center from Jan. 1 through the present are listed below.

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     Betsy Edwards
Executive editor
     Rebecca Gould

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Aug. 5 (Sat)
K-State Online is unavailable during upgrade to version 6. 8 a.m.-midnight

Aug. 21 (Mon)
Classes begin for fall 2006 semester.

August
All residence halls will have wireless network by the start of the fall semester.

Fall 2006
Doctoral students will be required to submit dissertations electronically.

Fall 2007
Masters students will be required to submit theses and reports electronically.

Setting up extra credit. Some instructors prefer to add extra-credit points to an assignment. Others just use the extra credit (EC) function to add a small assignment that is totally worth EC points.

A work-around: One way to set up for extra credit is to make an online assignment worth a certain number of points in total. A manual aspect to the assignment may be added on, thus worth more than the collective total of the assignment. For example, a 100-point assignment may have a manual add-on worth 10 extra credit (EC) points. There is no limit on the amount that a manual assignment may be worth.

Note that the "Extra Credit" function labels an entire assignment as extra credit. There is no point limit for this assignment.

Receiving e-mail addressed to other K-Staters

Why do I sometimes get e-mail that's addressed to someone else's K-State address?

Either the original header information has been overwritten, bogus header information has been injected, or the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) field included your e-mail address. Messages with multiple addresses automatically raise a spam score, so senders of junk have learned to use the BCC field to hide mass mailings, thus reducing their score and improving their chance of getting through e-mail filters.

The message you got was probably auto-generated -- starting at the A's and continuing on. Spammers realize that their access to e-mail services will be slowed down if K-State and other entities start seeing too many messages from the same site, so they combine as many addresses as possible under one message.

What to do with this type of spam? Hit the Delete button.

K-State Online version 6.0 upgrade Aug. 5

The next upgrade of K-State Online is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 5. The system will be unavailable during the upgrade, which is expected to last from 8 a.m.-midnight. Service will be restored sooner if possible.

The updates to K-State Online in this release are based on feedback from faculty, staff, and students. Many changes are based on one key piece of feedback -- to streamline processes and make it quicker and easier to do common tasks. As a result, options have been added and updates have been made to the user interface.

Also, several heavily requested features have been added with this release:

• Timed assignments
• New question types include essay and matching questions
• Gradebook and Roster can be printed
• Archiving of Announcements
• The ability to e-mail students from the Roster before they've signed into K-State Online for the first time

A complete list of the updates is available at the K-State Online What's New page.

The Information Technology Assistance Center will be offering training covering the new features in version 6.0 as the fall semester begins. Check iTAC's training calendar or e-mail itac@k-state.edu for training opportunities. K-State Online training sessions will be published Aug. 1 on the calendar.

As always, your feedback is important. Please send suggestions or questions to help@online.ksu.edu.