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From the CIO's Office: Mesh Wireless on Campus
We have deployed a new technology on campus: mesh wireless! What this new technology does for us is to extend the campus' academic network to the outdoors and other areas that have not had wireless before. There is now an Ethernet "bubble" over the main campus. Anyone using a notebook computer or device with a wireless network adapter can now access the network from anywhere on the main campus.
For example, you may be using your Tablet PC while you are in the Kimbel Library, accessing the network through the access points in the building. You realize you are late for your class in the Edwards Building. As you rush out of the Kimbel Library, your Tablet PC will seamlessly shift over to the mesh network. You can continue your internet work while you walk to the Edwards Building. As you enter the building, your Tablet PC will connect to the building's access point without ever loosing connection.
The mesh network also extends into buildings through the windows. Many of the residence hall students on the main campus that did not have wireless access before, can now connect through the mesh network. Our next step will be to add access points to the residence hall areas that do not have access through the mesh network so that we have 100% wireless on campus – inside and out!
The ubiquitous network infrastructure that we now have in place (wired, wireless access points, and mesh network) will provide the foundation for building exciting new technologies as we move forward. Currently, we are the only public institution in the state with a comprehensive mesh wireless network. We strive in ITS to fulfill our mission of providing leading edge technology and related services for utilization by students, faculty, and staff to augment and enhance education, research, and administrative functions.
Happy computing! M. Marozas.
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ID Theft: Be more vigilant in 2008
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), the identity theft problem will grow globally in 2008, and scammers will use more sophisticated tools to target users. Just recently, educational institutions, including Coastal were targeted with a phishing attempt asking students, faculty, and staff for account passwords and other sensitive information. The ITRC website provides very helpful identity theft preventive measures. In addition, users should verify sources asking for information via email, phone, or mail. Sensitive information on flash drives or laptops should be encrypted, and users should be careful with pop-ups and install anti-spyware software.
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Did you Know? Daily Blocked Spams and Viruses
Did you know?
Over 600,000 email messages are daily received from off campus; 92% of these messages are spams and blocked.
Over 14,000 email messages, excluding distribution lists, are exchanged daily on campus.
Over 40 viruses are blocked daily.
Over 23,000 email accounts and 66,000 distribution lists are maintained on a regular basis.
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People News: Denny, Mark & Joe
Denny French has assumed the responsibilities as the Coordinator for the Residence Hall Tech Support, mainly supporting students. He will coordinate and provide technical support, workshops, and direct assistance to resident students. He will also supervise the microcomputer labs & Resident Technology Consultants and assist with computing initiatives. Denny will continue to provide technical support to a few academic and administrative areas on campus.
Mark Finn has joined the ITS Team as a System Support Technician during the evenings and weekends. Mark has earned a B.S. degree in Information Systems Technology from George Mason University and has extensive background in Storage Area Network technology.
Joe Minter has joined the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning's (CETL) TEAL Lab as an instructional technology specialist. Joe will be responsible for smart classroom training and support. He earned an MAT and a graduate certificate in instructional technology from Coastal Carolina University. Prior to working at CCU, Joe taught for Horry County Schools and spent 25 years serving in the Coast Guard.
  
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Office 2007 & Vista: Should I Upgrade?
The number of Office 2007 and Vista users continues to rise. So far, 204 users upgraded from MS Office 2003 to MS Office 2007 and 57 users upgraded from Windows XP to Vista since last year. The question that most ask is "Should I upgrade?" Although the upgrades mentioned did not cause any major problems careful assessment is advised, especially when upgrading to Vista. There are some hardware constraints and a few software incompatibility issues that should be considered; users who wish to upgrade should consult with their
IRCs.
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Novell No More: Active Directory is here
As most of you already know, Novell is no longer the network operating system used on campus. Microsoft Active Directory has replaced Novell to enhance & facilitate authentication as well as the sharing of network resources such as documents and files. Active Directory allows for a centralized management of multi-platform (Apple, Windows, and UNIX) network resources and user data among faculty and staff members. By now, all users should be able to authenticate using Active Directory; the IRCs continue to provide assistance with this process if needed.
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Team IRCs: "Team IRCs is very proud to serve you"
Team IRCs is pleased to provide technical support to the Coastal community. Team IRCs can help faculty and staff members with a wide range of computer hardware and software issues. They help with the recommendation, purchases, and installation of computer hardware and software applications. In addition, they troubleshoot a variety of computer equipment and application problems. They serve as liaisons between faculty/staff members and other ITS units to resolve network and email issues to ensure the end user satisfaction. They assist with the implementation of initiatives, maintenance of department-specific labs, and servers. Team IRCs support more than 1,100 faculty and staff members, 2,400 computers (including labs), 37 department-specific labs, plus many types of hardware equipment and end-user applications. Team IRCs is very proud to support the academic experience of faculty and staff members.
Photo courtesy of Helaine Cohn
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Student Computing Services: "Serving students is a passion"
Centrally located, Student Computing Services provides effective and friendly services to all of CCU students, especially freshmen and Residence Hall students. The staff of Student Computing Services is mostly comprised of student assistants, who are eager to help other students. Student Computing Services (SCS) is responsible for the management/maintenance of the general-access and microcomputer labs, operation of the Student Tech Support Center, and tech support for the Residence Halls. Student Computing also assists with the implementation of student programs and initiatives. SCS can help with general technical and account inquiries, desktop & laptop inquiries, Residence Hall tech inquiries, spyware and virus issues, color/bw transparency printing, academic related projects, and application tutorials.
In 2006-2007, the labs had over 60,000 visits, comparing to 51,000 visits in 2005-2006. In 2006-2007, the Tech Support Center served more than 1,000 computers (students walk-ins), serviced close to 500 students over the phone, and helped over 130 students via emails.
We are proud of our SCS staff members and student assistants. http://www.coastal.edu/scs
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CETL/TEAL: A Dynamic Team
The CETL/TEAL Team continues to provide great services to faculty and staff members. In January 2007, the TEAL Lab offered 11 sessions in which 33 faculty and staff participated. In January 2008, the TEAL Lab offered 44 sessions with an attendance of 117 faculty and staff members. The TEAL Lab now offers Saturday and evening training sessions! The upcoming TEAL sessions for the month are posted at www.coastal.edu/teal/training. Please contact Suzanne Thompson at suzanne@coastal.edu for more information. Blackboard has 600 courses so far for Spring 2008, comparing to 500 courses in Spring 2007. Please, contact Tracy Gaskin at tgaskin@coastal.edu to add your course to Blackboard.
New sessions in spring 2008:
- Unix: Basic Commands
- Blackboard: Managing Your Cross-listed Course
- Vista and Office 2007: What's New
- Outlook 2007: What's New
- Flash and Actionscript: Building a Flash-Based Website
- Second Life: Language Learning Online in a 3-D Virtual World
- InDesign: Beginning
- LiveText (New Generation!): Creating Rubrics and Documents
- Joomla: Updating your Website
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Online Surveys: Finding the Right Tool!
As requested by the Provost, a committee has been formed to assess various online survey tools and identify the right tool as a campus-wide solution, taking into account cost and currently used tools. The committee has met several times and assessed numerous tools including, VOVICI (currently used by the College of Business), SNAP, and Inquisite. A recommendation will be made to the Provost by March of 2008.
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Office 2007 Professional: For $79 WOW!
Under the Student SELECT agreement, Student Computing Services is able to provide CCU students with MS Office Professional at discounted prices; currently at $79. Faculty and staff members are also eligible to purchase the license. Please CLICK HERE for more details .
Or contact Student Computing Services at (843) 349-2908.
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From the Editor: Good Bye Gig! Hello Tera!
The days of Gigs are on their way out and the new talk of the town is Tera. Teraflops and Terabytes are no longer the primary measure of performance and storage capacity for supercomputers; they are becoming familiar terms to the personal computer world as we know it. While Intel, Inc. is making progress on the "Tera-Scale" computing initiative that will allow personal computers to operate at one Teraflop and above http://techresearch.intel.com/articles/Tera-Scale/1449.htm, companies such as Hitachi have already developed the first consumer-based terabyte hard drive. So, what is a Tera? A Tera is a trillion; a one followed by 12 zeros: 1,000,000,000,000. For a computer to operate at one Teraflop, it means it can process one trillion calculations per second; a storage device that can store one Terabyte, it can store one trillion bytes of information. To put things in perspective, Patrick Di Justo presented the following terascale guide in a WIRED magazine article.
One Teraflop is equivalent to:
100,000,000,000 pocket calculators,
287 Pentiums 4s,
1 Xbox 360,
.56 Playstation 3,
10,000 Cray-1s (Cray-1 an earlier supercomputer),
and 5,000 iPods.
One Terabyte is equivalent to:
333 copies of the human genome,
1,537,752 books,
127,455 ,
and 12 hi-def copies of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Transferring Terabytes of information over the Internet is a whole different ball game.
Tera Bye, A. Haddad
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Special Thanks to:
Donna Rogers, Web Services
Grant Collins, Writing Center
Helaine Cohn, Wall College of Business
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