UNHCE Information Technology & Distance Education Blog: May 2004 Archives

The Leadership Team recently decided:

1. Only L Team members can approve the posting of web content including who
can post and manage blogs
2. Material for posting on the web will no longer be accepted in WordPerfect
3. Oversight for the web content will be as follows:
- front page-Peg, Holly and Nancy
- administrative and intranet- L Team
- program area content- Program Leaders
- interdisciplinary content- Program Council (PLs, Interdisciplinary team chairs and Nancy)

Any staff wishing to use a blog should contact their program leader for approval, and then contact Steve Judd to have it set up.

I read a recent article that estimates that 83% of all email traffic in the U.S. is unsolicited spam. Therefore, I thought I'd republish some information from the April 2003 ITDE Newsletter concerning filtering spam using Eudora:

Reducing email SPAM – help from UNH CIS.

In recent weeks you may have noticed that some of your email has additional headers in it that refer to X-MailScanner: Found to be clean and X-MailScanner-SpamCheck. These new headers are the result of CIS implementing virus scanning and SPAM checking on all email that is passing through the cisunix system. A large portion of our email passes through this system as well. The benefit of the new virus scanning program is automatic – should a virus be detected in incoming mail, you will receive a notice telling you what the virus was and what measure was taken to prevent the virus from making it to your computer.

In order to take advantage of the SPAM checking portion of the implementation, SpamAssassin, you will need to set up a filter in Eudora. Members of the ITDE team have implemented this filter at varying levels of sensitivity with consistent success. CIS has posted a detailed "howdoi" for setting up this filter located at the following URL: http://pubpages.unh.edu/notes/eudora_filter_howdoi.html

Although the document states that the instructions are for Eudora 5.2 and Windows XP, they work fine with Eudora 4.2 and other Windows OS versions. Additionally, if you have questions or problems while trying to set up the filter, please contact the ITDE office and *NOT* the CIS contact listed at the end of the document.

Please make sure to check the folder you send the messages to, as some messages may be marked as spam, that shouldn't be. If that is the case, you can modify the filter per the instructions, or contact the ITDE team for additional information.

Please read the newly approved policy for ITDE Support of UNHCE Staff Home Computers. Boiling it down: ITDE will not provide support for computers not owned by Extension and we may require the user to bring Extension-owned computers, that are used at home, to an Extension location to be serviced.

We have changed the format of the Staff Biographies to be more consistent and match the new web design. The biographies are now stored in our staff database, to make it easier to display them in different ways, and to enable individual staff to edit their own biography.

To edit your biography, log in to the Staff Database menu. If you have an existing biography, click on Edit Bio. If you don't have a biography yet click on Add Bio. This will bring you to a Flash-based interface to create or edit your biography. (Note: this requires Flash Player 7. Internet Explorer will automatically update the player if necessary. If using Netscape, and the form doesn't appear correct, please upgrade the player at the Macromedia Website. Most computers in the county offices have been upgraded to Flash 7.)

The biographies are organized uniformly: A main narrative and then sections for Educational Background, Program Specialty Areas, Experience, Select Publications, Current Research, and Professional Associations. If any of these areas has no entries, it simply won't show, so you don't need to fill them all in. The editing form is fairly straight forward, but we are working on a help file to assist in using it.

Biographies can also display a picture of the staff member. If you would like to add or update your picture, please email it to Stephen Judd.

If you have comments or questions about the system, please post them here or email Stephen Judd.

As I'm sure many have noted, there is an attack going around that is forcing computers running Windows XP, 2000, or NT to shutdown prematurely. The problem is coming across the network, not through an email attachment (discussed in detail in a MS Security Bulletin). To resolve the issue or prevent it from occurring, please complete the following steps:

1) From an unaffected computer in the office, download the Microsoft patch for the problem - XP or 2000. Create a CD or Zip disk with this file on it.

2) On each computer running XP or 2000, disconnect the network cable and run the downloaded patch.

3) After the computer reboots, reconnect the network cable and run LiveUpdate to update your virus definitions. Do a complete virus scan of the computer.

4) If the problem is not resolved, contact the ITDE Support Line (Hot Seat - 862-0351) for further assistance.