Aggressive pricing on refurbished MacBook Pros

Refurbished MacBook Pros at $899 each will soon arrive at the Union Computer Store. (Compare this to $1,449 for the same refurbished units on Apple's site. These units sold new for $1,999 retail and $1,799 education price.) The Union Computer Store has already ordered 50 from Apple, and interest is high.

Contact the store promptly (computerstore@k-state.edu, 785-532-7319) with your questions or to reserve one of these units, because availability beyond the 50 already ordered is dependent on Apple's supply. Arrival time should be before the holiday, but is not guaranteed. An education ID is required at the time of purchase.

These refurbished 15-inch, aluminum models come with a one-year warranty and are eligible for Apple's extended warranty (AppleCare). They have 2.0 Intel Core Duo (different from the current Core 2 Duo, but can run Windows XP). They include SuperDrive (DVD burner), 512MB RAM, 80GB hard drive, 128MB video card, iSight, remote, Airport, Bluetooth, the iLife suite, and the standard Mac software. See the related Apple Certified Refurbished Products statement.

Library trading some spaces with iTAC

Hale Library’s Microforms Unit is trading places with the IT Help Desk and Media Development Center this month. Microforms will be moving to third floor, next to Government Publications, and the third-floor service desk will serve both government publications and microforms beginning Dec. 18. The government publications/microforms service desk will be closed Dec. 25-29.

The Media Development Center will be closed Dec. 16 through Jan. 7, 2007. It will reopen Jan. 8 in its new space in Hale Library’s Rooms 213 and 213A. The IT Help Desk will relocate from Room 313 to Room 214 on Dec. 27 and will be open throughout the move. As of Jan. 8, checkout of all computer and media equipment will be handled out of Room 214.

More information about service hours is on the following websites:

• K-State Libraries
• IT Help Desk
• Media Development Center

InfoCommons, Justin lab to get new computers

Over the winter break, iTAC will be deploying 145 new computers in the Justin university computing lab and various areas of the K-State InfoCommons. These workstations are similar to the Dells deployed this summer in Seaton and Dickens university computing labs as well as the Dells deployed in the InfoCommons. These new computers are part of the standard rotation cycle that has been implemented to ensure the campus community has high-quality computing resources.

New LCD projectors, plasma screens for technology classrooms

Over the winter break, iTAC staff will be upgrading four new LCD projectors and two Plasma screens in the technology classroom environment. These upgrades are a part of the standard replacement cycle that was implemented to ensure cutting-edge technology in the technology-classroom environments.

LASER Project update

K-Staters can visit the LASER Project site for updates on the progress of the student information system. Bookmark laser.k-state.edu/sis.html to learn about what the functional teams are working on each month, and to review the minutes from the latest steering-committee meetings.

Union computer store hours during semester break

The Union computer store's schedule during the holidays and semester break:

Security tip: Safe online shopping for the holiday season

The National Cyber Security Alliance and the National Consumers League offer the following tips for shopping online to help avoid becoming a victim of online fraud:

• Don’t shop online while using an unencrypted or open wireless network. Hackers and thieves can use your open/unencrypted or a store’s wireless network to capture your financial information.
• Secure your computer before shopping online. Before connecting to the Internet or shopping online, take the following three core precautions:
  
  1. Install anti-virus and anti-spyware programs and keep them up to date.
  2. Install a firewall.
  3. Regularly update operating system and application software.
• Know who you’re dealing with. Before shopping online with an unknown e-store, check out the seller (for example, with the Better Business Bureau at www.bbb.org) and be sure to get the name and physical address of the seller in case something goes wrong. If you’re buying gifts on an online auction site, check the track record of the seller before you bid.
• Don’t give away your financial information to unsecured websites. Make sure when providing payment information, the beginning of the website's URL address changes from "http" to "shttp" or "https", indicating that the purchase is encrypted or secured.
• Protect personal information with common sense and technology. Be suspicious if someone unexpectedly asks for personal information. Identity thieves send out bogus e-mails about problems with consumers’ accounts to lure them into divulging personal information. Consider using multi-factor authentication services when offered by online retailers as a way to secure your information.

See the full press release, and visit www.fraud.org and www.staysafeonline.org to find out more about how to protect yourself online.

IT by the numbers: Electronic Grade Submission system training

These are the numbers for Electronic Grade Submission system training this fall semester:

• 10 face-to-face orientation sessions offered
• 64 people attended a face-to-face orientation session
• 132 people completed the online tutorial
• 196 total people trained this semester
• 13 perfect scores (22/22) on the online assessment

Totals to date since the program started in fall 2005:

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Managing editor
     Betsy Edwards
Associate editor
     Aimee Hagedorn
Executive editor
     Rebecca Gould

Popular IT

IT events
and deadlines

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

Dec. 11 (Mon)
Open forum: "Evolution from Computing to Information: How Can it be Accomplished?" by Patrick Pow, IT associate vice provost candidate. 10:45 a.m. Union 212

Dec. 19 (Tue)
Deadline for submitting topics for TechBytes in spring 2007.

Dec. 22 (Fri)
Last day to remove personal files from the technology classrooms.

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

Create Semester Copy. On the Assignment Listing page you can select one or more assignments and then click the Create Semester Copy button to create a version of the assignment for an upcoming semester.

This copy keeps all the same properties, questions, etc., so it is the easiest way to reuse assignments from one semester to the next.

Samsung D900, PowerPoint display, WID

I'm interested in the Samsung D900 cellphone in last week's IT tools and toys article, but the link was for a UK page. Is it available from U.S. companies?

A Google search only gave links to UK sites. But an Amazon.com search netted new and used Samsung D900 phones, with new models at $394.42.

When I project an image from PowerPoint using an LCD projector, not all of the display shows on the screen. Why?

This is probably due to an image problem. To fix it:

1. From the Start menu, go to Settings, then Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Display icon.
3. Click the Settings tab.
4. Move the Screen resolution arrow to the middle of the line.
5. Click OK.

On my faculty/staff ID card, which number is my Wildcat ID?

Your WID is the number beginning with an "8" in the upper left-hand corner of your Wildcat ID Card. It will be your number as long as you are at K-State. For details, see Understanding K-State IDs.

The long number under your name is the ISO Number that's encoded on the card's magnetic stripe. If your card is lost or stolen, K-State will deactivate that number, so unauthorized people can't access your resources (such as campus buildings and rooms; vending and printing; your Cat Cash On-Campus Debit Account; and meal-debit plan). When you get a new ID card, you'll be assigned a different ISO number.

Google Calendar

[Editor's note: This is the second in an informal series on free Google products that are available to the public. Several were featured in an Oct. 6 TechBytes presentation.]

Continuing with our "Google tools" series, we will be looking at Google Calendar today and some of its best features.

1. Easy navigation.
   You can view your calendar by day, week, month, or a custom view such as "next four days". You can also list all events as an agenda.
2. Add events easily.
   Google has natural-language processing that makes it easy to add events. For example, type in "Coffee with a friend at Radina's, 7 a.m. Sunday" and it plugs the event into the appropriate place on your calendar. It also uses the same technique to recognize events in your Gmail messages and add those to your calendar.
3. Import/export events from/to other programs.
   Calendar events can be imported from other calendar programs like Yahoo Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. Google Calendar can be exported as iCal, XML, or HTML, which allows events to be viewed in other applications such as RSS readers.
4. Set up event notification in multiple ways.
   Google calendar can be configured to send notifications via e-mail, SMS (on cellphones), or as pop-ups. One option lets you send all events in a day as an agenda list every morning.
5. Send e-mail invitations to others.
   Invitations can be sent (similar to eInvite) via Google Calendar. Responses and comments from those you invite can be seen all on your Google Calendar.
6. Display your calendars on a webpage.
   Calendars can be displayed on a website, and other people can save individual events or all the events from your site into their calendar. There is an option to include calendars in public events (which is useful for departments/organizations).
7. Share your calendars with friends and others.
   All information on your calendar can be shared with others in various ways, such as based on user ID or with everyone. You can limit sharing of only "Free" or "Busy" events, or all the events.
8. Display multiple calendars at one place.
   It has a good interface to display multiple calendars simultaneously using different colors. For example, you can have a "Soccer Mom calendar", a "K-State Work calendar", and a "Holiday Projects calendar". Each can display separately or all together as a master calendar.
9. Add others information to your calendar (weather forecasts, etc.).
   Once you log into your Google Calendar, you can search for others' public calendars. Events on those can also be added to your calendar. Information can include events, weather forecasts, phases of the moon, and more.
10. Use your calendar on handhelds.
    Third-party vendors have started developing tools to seamlessly synchronize mobile devices with Google Calendar. This feature is in a preliminary stage, and some people have been using it with mixed results.

For more details, see the Welcome to Google Calendar webpage. A free Google account is required before you can set up a calendar.