• July 15, 2008

Major network upgrade this weekend impacts all central IT

by Neil Erdwien, Computing and Telecommunications Services
published July 15, 2008

The network in K-State's Data Center will undergo a major upgrade starting 9 p.m. Friday, July 18, and lasting until 5 a.m. Saturday, July 19. Access to all K-State central IT resources will be intermittent during this time, including but not limited to e-mail, iSIS, K-State Online, the eProfile, and www.k-state.edu. Systems will be affected to varying degrees. Although some services will only be affected for 30 seconds, others may be down for hours. K-Staters should not depend on systems being available at all during this maintenance window.

As more information becomes available, it will be posted on the IT Status page.

Departments: New K-State website facilitates sharing property

by DeeAnna Fugate, Controller's Office,
and Betsy Edwards, Information Technology Assistance Center
published July 15, 2008

The Controller's Office has created a website to allow departments to post excess property and to look at what's available from others when it is convenient for them. Take a few minutes and look around the K-State Interdepartmental Exchange website that went live July 7, and note these limits:

  • Anyone can view the site and its contents.
  • Only K-Staters (with a current eID) can create an account and subscribe to the e-mail lists to be notified when items become available.
  • Only departmental inventory contacts will be given access to post and/or request items (in order to facilitate proper record keeping). Those who wish to post items must obtain authorization from the Controller's Office.

The website cannot be used to list personal property and, as always, university property cannot be transferred to individuals for private use. For more information, contact DeeAnna Fugate (785-532-6525, dkfugate@k-state.edu) and/or review the online Help section for instructions on how to sign up and use the site.

iSIS update: Billing notices for fall semester posted today

by Aimee Hagedorn, Information Technology Assistance Center
published July 15, 2008

Beginning Tuesday, July 15, students will be billed for the fall 2008 semester in the new student information system known as iSIS. Earlier this month the student accounts module went live in iSIS, with all student financial records converted from the Billing Receivable System (BRS) and KATS to iSIS. The due date for the fall semester billing is Aug. 15.

Scanning to optimize PDF accessibility with library scanner stations

by Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson, Disability Support Services
published July 15, 2008

Hale Library's scanning stations can speed up the time it takes to scan your books. Since images of text are not accessible, use the following options to enhance the accessibility of the file:

  • Scan as PDF files
  • Use the Black and White setting
  • Use Medium Resolution
  • Use Book mode for large texts (Getting text to appear level is key for efficient Optical Character Recognition.)

You can then open the file with Adobe Acrobat version 8 and add real text to your text images. To make a file accessible, see Adding Real Text to PDFs.

For more information on scanning text, see Converting Text Images into Text Files.

Upcoming K-State Online feature: Streaming Flash video

by Molly Small, Office of Mediated Education
published July 15, 2008

Instructors may sign up for a pilot group for the new Flash video conversion feature in K-State Online version 8.0.

This Flash video conversion tool will work as a wizard to convert certain video formats (AVI, QT, MPG, and WMV) into Streaming Flash Video. Streaming Flash videos can be watched directly in your course without the need for students to download multiple players for each video file type.

K-State Online 8.0 will be released Aug. 11. The system is scheduled to be unavailable 11 p.m. Aug. 8 through 8 a.m. Aug. 11. See K-State Online 8.0 What's New for more information on Flash video as well as other new features in K-State Online 8.0. Contact Scott Finkeldei, curtain@k-state.edu, if you are interested in participating in the pilot group for the Flash video conversion tool.

eTips July 22: Microsoft Office tips

by Cathy Rodriguez, Information Technology Assistance Center
published July 15, 2008

Cathy Rodriguez will present an eTips session on "Microsoft Office Tips" at 3 p.m. Tuesday, July 22, desktop webinar via Wimba. Join this session to learn a variety of tips that will make using Microsoft Office easier. Some tips will include keyboard shortcuts, pasting text without formatting, special formatting options in Excel (dates, fractions, etc.), and much more.

eTips registration is required at least 24 hours in advance to allow time to add you to the session and ensure your workstation is configured properly for accessing the session.


Microsoft Office 2007 tip: Interactive guides ease transition from 2003

by Cathy Rodriguez, Information Technology Assistance Center
published July 15, 2008

Are you having trouble finding specific commands in Microsoft Office 2007? If so, check out Microsoft's interactive guides. These guides can be opened from a web browser or downloaded and opened from your computer. The application:

  1. Simulates Office 2003 products.
  2. Allows you to click on commands in the 2003 version, and then displays where that same command is in the 2007 version.

In addition, you can download mapping workbooks that show all Office 2003 commands and where they are located in Office 2007.

Security tip of the week

Tips for proper disposal of computer hard drives, other media

by Harvard Townsend, IT security
published July 15, 2008

As stated in last week's security article, K-Staters must be careful to remove sensitive data from computers and other storage media before disposal. This process, called "media sanitization," is described in NIST's special publication 800-88 titled "Guidelines for Media Sanitization" (PDF) which an upcoming ITEC policy will require state agencies, including K-State, to follow.

Here are some practical tips on proper media sanitization gleaned from the NIST guidelines and other best practices. In the following tips, "media" refers to all kinds of digital storage devices like computer hard drives, magnetic tapes, USB flash drives, CD-ROMs and DVDs, etc.

  • Reformatting a hard drive does not adequately purge the old data — it can still be recovered with easily obtained file-recovery software.
  • If the media is going to be re-used, purge the data before reformatting by overwriting the media with random data at least three times. A popular freeware tool that does this is Darik's Boot and Nuke.
  • If the media contains confidential data, it cannot be re-used outside of K-State. It must be physically destroyed. Keep this in mind when disposing of old computers, since you may need to remove the hard drive before issuing the DA-110 form (PDF).
  • Do not assume the media does not contain confidential data. A university in Pennsylvania asked 25 faculty if they had SSNs on their computer. Three said "yes," 22 said "no." When the security team analyzed the hard drives, they found SSNs on all 25 computers.
  • The proper method of media sanitization depends on the classification of the data stored on it, whether it will be re-used, and whether it is leaving your organization's control. See Figure 4-1 on Page 12 of the NIST 800-88 guidelines (PDF) for a helpful diagram of the decision flow.
  • Smashing a disk drive with a sledge hammer or drilling holes in it are inadequate forms of physical destruction — the media must be "incinerated, pulverized, shredded, or melted," depending on the media type.
  • The State of Kansas has contracts with companies that can safely destroy media. More information will be provided in a future InfoTech Tuesday article.
  • Appendix A of the NIST 800-88 guidelines (starting on page 17) provides recommended sanitization methods for different types of media.

One must also properly dispose of paper copies that contain confidential information, such as shredding them with a micro-cut crosscut shredder. Next week's article will provide advice on features to look for when buying a shredder.

K-State Online

How to set up new roster for existing course?

by Cathy Rodriguez, Information Technology Assistance Center
published July 15, 2008

I created a course last semester and now I want to set it up for this fall's semester. How do I set up the roster?

Before importing your students into your course, you must add a section or sections within a semester to hold your students. You add a section by doing the following:

  1. Under the Users section of your Course Tools page, click the Semesters & Sections link.
  2. Click the Add sections to link next to the semester you want to add a section to.
  3. In the Section Label boxes, type a section label for each section you want to create (example: MWF 1:30).
  4. In the Reference Number boxes, type the course reference number for each section being added.
  5. Click the Add button and then click the Close button.

Note: If you want your course to be available to your students for a longer or shorter time period than a standard semester, you can create a "custom semester" where you choose the start and end dates for the course.

Put free Google Analytics tool on central webpages?

by Betsy Edwards, Information Technology Assistance Center,
published July 15, 2008

Can I add the free Google Analytics tool on our department webpage so we can see our web traffic? Our department site is on K-State's central web server.

Yes, K-Staters can add the free Google Analytics tool to their space on the central website. However, support is not provided for free tools like this.

Spotlight

LinkedIn for professional networking

by Aimee Hagedorn, Information Technology Assistance Center
published July 15, 2008

LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is the latest networking site for professionals. In addition to tracking business contacts, LinkedIn allows users to actively recruit and be recruited for jobs. There is also a section for recommendations, where users can be recommended for positions by their peers or supervisors. To find out how LinkedIn is different than MySpace and Facebook, view the brief YouTube video What is LinkedIn.