What is a Thin Client?

Wikipedia’s definition is rather technical: A client computer which… depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the remote server.

Simply put – the user’s desktop environment – wallpaper, preferences, shortcuts – all reside on a central server that is hosting numerous desktop machines.  Those servers are hosting virtualized desktops.  There are applications designed to maximize performance of hardware to allow those servers to host many instances of a computer on a single machine.  Processing and memory are all distributed and used in an efficient manner to give each virtual computer what it needs at any given moment.  At Wesleyan, we have been working with virtual technologies for over three years.  Virtualized servers are commonplace and allow us to minimize hardware costs by having a few powerful machines host multiple servers.

Only one year ago did we begin to look at this as an option for desktop computers. The replacement of desktops is laborious and expensive. In response to economic demands, we have lengthened the replacement cycle to 4 years.  Many administrative users have not had their machines replaced in longer than that. The prospect can be daunting for a user. Replicating the environment and data takes time.  Users don’t often have the time to give to that process and prefer to wear their machine out before having to go through the transition to a new one.  While desktop costs have come down considerably in recent years, there are still associated costs including electricity and proper hardware disposal.

Pilot Testing the Virtual Desktop

ITS began testing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to determine its feasibility for specific groups of end users.  Good candidates are users who use standard applications or web-based applications, don’t have intense graphic design needs, and don’t depend on a large number of external devices.

Initial results internally were promising enough that we developed a pilot group of users who had badly aging desktops.  Those users received thin clients in replacement. In a VDI environment, each user has his/her own virtual desktop. This machine looks and acts like a physical computer desktop. The user can perform all the same takes he/she did on the physical desktop including customizing wallpaper, creating shortcuts, and saving data locally to the C drive.   When powered on, the thin client immediately connects to this machine and the user sees the standard Windows login screen.  If there is any problem with the thin hardware itself, it can be swapped in minutes and setup to connect to the user’s desktop with almost no downtime.

In spite of the internal results, once the testing went into the pilot group, there were performance problems.  These problems were significant enough that we did not expand the pilot until we researched and ultimately addressed the underlying causes.  Our success in doing so has afforded us a more solid understanding of the VDI environment. Consequently, we focused our effort on building a more robust infrastructure that can sustain expansion.

Lab and Common Area Connections

Another common application for thin clients is in labs or common areas where computers are available for very limited applications. In this case, a user will login to a Terminal Server session with access to applications such as email, web browsing, or Microsoft Office.  This is a good solution where multiple users will be logging into a machine and will not be saving data locally.  This differs from the Virtual Desktop described above because users do not have flexibility over their desktop environment.  There is limited access to a pre-defined set of programs.  Individual users cannot add or change the configuration.  Examples of this include McNair lab, Career Resource Center, email kiosks in ST Lab and PAC lab, and various student employee work areas on the campus.  This is a cost effective way to provide all the function necessary without older hardware and slower boot times.

Virtual Desktop Fact or Fiction

A thin client is a watered down version of a computer and doesn’t do all the things my old computer can do. – Fiction

The thin client connects to a virtual computer with a full installation of Windows that is the same as one installed on physical hardware.  Thin clients can support USB devices, printers, and even dual monitors.

ITS can see what I am doing while I am working on my computer. – Fiction

ITS staff cannot see what a user is doing any more than on a physical machine.  What ITS can see are performance issues on the virtual computer (memory or processor problems) and this allows us to respond much more quickly to potential issues that may interfere with the user.

Thin clients rely completely on the network. – Fact

Thin clients connect to virtual computers (or Terminal Servers) that reside in the data center.  They depend entirely on network connections.  Wesleyan enjoys a high availability network and downtimes are rare.  Since so many services are now delivered via web applications and other central services, network downtime affects both thin client users and those on physical machines alike.

If I have trouble with my thin client, there is nothing that can be done to make it better. – Fiction

Not only are there several configuration options, making virtual hardware changes is much easier than making physical ones.  Additional memory and processing can be added to a virtual computer rather easily.  At times, simple configurations within Windows will resolve issues in the same way it does on a physical machine.

In Closing…

We now have 27 virtual desktops throughout campus in both academic and administrative offices.  An additional 19 are in labs and kiosks.  While certainly not all users are candidates for this technology, it is working well where feasible and is an environmentally friendly solution with the potential to have long-term savings without sacrificing productivity.

Campus Phone Question

Many users continue to ask why is it that announcements including emergency communication cannot be sent to campus phones so that it “lights up”. We want to get this question out of the way first. The telephone switch and the voicemail system that we have are more than 15 years old. Whereas they work well for most of our telephony needs, there are some features that are simply not available in this system. Upgrading the system to have some of these features is a very expensive proposition and we have determined that strategically, this is not worth the investment at this time.

In terms of technology, “lighting” each phone extension in this system is a 2-3 second operation per extension (when nothing else is happening in the voicemail system). We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 phone extensions that need to be “lit”. When this operation is being performed, the voicemail system will practically be unavailable. Also, the moment some users begin seeing the light, they are likely to try to access the voicemail. This has a cascading effect of lengthening the delivery process and frustration. I am sure you will agree that in an emergency, this model is not likely to work! This is precisely the reason why we do not want to “light up” the landlines on campus.

Bulletin broadcast delivery works differently and is fast, but unfortunately it does not light up your handset! Consequently, you may not be aware of the emergency message – until another voicemail message actually activates the light.

Current Procedures

Our current procedure for campus emergency notification relies on updating the website as well as Connect ED. Connect ED can send the information to the recipients in different ways and most importantly fairly quickly. It can send voice messages to land line phones and cell phones, emails and text messages to cell phones. While all of these delivery mechanisms may look trivial, there is a lot that goes behind it. For example, Connect ED has special arrangement with Cell Phone providers so that the sudden blast of messages are not treated as some kind of SPAM.

This is the value they bring to the table – guaranteeing quick delivery through multiple communication channels and detailed reporting, so after the message has been sent, within a few minutes we know how many of our users listened to the message, how many let it go to the voicemail, how many wrong numbers etc. And doing it through an outside vendor has the ultimate advantage that it is not hurting our own resources which are likely to be very busy during such an emergency.

In order for this system to work accurately, the data that is used must be accurate. All faculty, students and staff have been reminded through email to update the emergency contact information in their respective Electronic Portfolios. We have even run some tests during the past three years to test how well the system works. The administration sent several messages through this system on May 6th and 7th. We felt that the overall success rate was excellent. Just so you know, we noticed some issues with email deliveries. We worked with them on Thursday, May 7th and resolved it.

As a part of the University’s Emergency Planning initiatives, the administration has designated staff members from Public Safety, Communications, and the Dean’s Office as the ones who are responsible for sending out these messages. They have been trained on the use of the system and it is Vice President for Student Affairs, Michael Whaley, who sent out all the messages during the recent crisis.

Of course, the University website is an important outlet for the information. Whereas Connect ED sends the information to your home or cell phone (Push), the website requires you to come there to look for information (Pull). Depending on where you are, one is better than the other. This is the reason why we try to disseminate the information in all possible ways. It is also the case that when there is a campus emergency, the web server and the network is going to be extremely busy. Though we try to do our best to make sure that the web server is responding, several unanticipated events take place that complicate our ability to manage this.

For example, during this recent episode, CNN published a Wesleyan URL on their story on Thursday, and we believe this generated additional hits on our server which slowed down the network performance. With the help of Connecticut Education Network (CEN), who is our network provider, we were able to increase the network bandwidth, which improved the performance.

Despite all of these planning, things don’t always go exactly as planned. Sometimes, we need to improvise and use the well tested low tech tools such as Word of Mouth. So, if you happen to receive the email before anyone else, please pass the word along, as accurately and calmly as possible, so that it reaches your colleagues and others in the vicinity.

Importance of keeping your Emergency Contact Information Accurate

We collect emergency contact information for everyone as described below. This information is sent to Connect ED once a day. It is therefore extremely important that you keep your emergency contact information accurate. Whenever the phone numbers or alternate email address where you wish to receive campus emergency changes, it is important to update the information.

• Undergraduate Students can update their phone numbers and their parents’ phone numbers by visiting the Enrollment, Hold & Addresses link in the Student portfolio or by navigating to the following http://quicklink.wesleyan.edu/ved.
• Graduate Students can update their phone numbers and email addresses by visiting Enrollment, Holds and Addresses under my Enrollment status in the Graduate Student portfolio or by using the following link http://quicklink.wesleyan.edu/GRADved.
• GLSP Students can update their phone numbers by visiting the “Address Verification Tab” of the “GLSP On-Line Registration” in your portfolio or by using the following link http://quicklink.wesleyan.edu/GLSPreg.
• Faculty and Staff can update their campus-wide emergency numbers through the Personal Profile link in the Employee electronic portfolio or using the following link http://quicklink.wesleyan.edu/personal_profile.

In the Future

Obviously no one wants to see a campus emergency… But, being prepared for it something we all need to do. I am sure, we will get together and go over the procedures and refine them as needed. Please write any suggestions that you may have for us.

We are often asked – “Why is it that the public wireless hotspots at places like Starbucks offer a very simple wireless access, while Wesleyan wireless requires a more elaborate login procedure?” The answer lies in the differences in the services provided. Public hotspots are typically providing only a connection to the Internet; the network is not connected to private file or Web servers that contain sensitive data, so there is much less need to require authentication.

At Wesleyan, however, access to our wireless network potentially grants access to servers with private data, therefore we require authentication and also ensure that machines connecting to our network do not represent a threat to our data.

Connecting to AirWes
Wesleyan’s wireless network is called AirWes. Users will see this listed in their available wireless networks. After selecting this network, users need to open a web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc). Upon opening, the web browser will open to a Cisco Clean Access page. ( Cisco Clean Access is a software which ensures that the computer that is connecting to the wireless network is “security compliant” – that it has the critical updates installed, has a virus protection software installed etc.) At this point, the process differs depending on whether the user is on a Mac or a PC.

Mac users will login directly on the web page. Once logged in, users will be able to browse and connect to their data resources.

The first time a Windows PC connects to the wireless network, it will need to download a client software that will install automatically. After the installation, the program will open up and require the user to login. Once logged in, the user can browse and access network resources normally. Upon subsequent connections, the Cisco Clean Access client will open automatically. Further downloads will only be required only when there is an update to the program.

It is important to note that any Wesleyan student with a Windows PC will have to go through the Cisco Clean Access checking your laptop for security compliance. In addition, faculty and staff members who have access to some of the highly sensitive data are also subjected to this compliance test. In order to determine if your laptop will be subjected to this additional step, please contact your desktop support staff.

If you have not connected to our wireless for a period of time or are negligent in applying all the required updates, there will be considerable delay in connecting to the wireless network. This is because, you will have to apply all required updates before connecting successfully to the Wesleyan network. Please take this into consideration when you plan to use your Windows laptop for presentations.

Guest Access
Visitors must first get a guest account and then follow the steps described in the previous section to be able to login to Wesleyan’s wireless network.

• Visitors attending events should be asked to contact the organizer of the event to get guest access.
• Any member of the Wesleyan community can create guest accounts using the application “WesNetwork Guest Computer Accounts” application in the Tools and Links section of the Electronic Portfolio.

It is extremely important that the visitors who wish to use their own laptops for presentations are asked to arrive early and connect to the Wesleyan wireless. Since most of them will not have Cisco Clean Access software, installing it requires time.

Visitors connecting this way can access the Internet and any Wesleyan network services that are accessible from the Internet. There are many Wesleyan specific services including printing which will not be available to them.

Additional Encryption
For additional security, Wesleyan also offers WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) encryption on the wireless network. Users who wish can add this level of encryption to their connection in order to protect the data that is traversing the radio waves between the laptop and the access point.

Step by step instructions for configuring WPA security is available at http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/wireless/.

Wired vs. Wireless Connection Speeds
While wireless connectivity is commonplace and more than adequate for most daily activities, wireless connectivity on campus will typically be slower than a wired connection. For the purposes of e-mail and general Web browsing, most users will not notice the difference. However, as speed demands increase due to downloading files, streaming video, or any other bandwidth intensive application, performance will typically be better over a wired connection. There are two main reasons for this:

• Each wireless connection has less bandwidth available to it than a wired connection. Wireless connections at Wesleyan in areas of very good signal strength top out at approximately 50 Mb. As you move into areas of lower signal strength, bandwidth drops off. By comparison, a wired connection to the Wesleyan network will be steady at 100 Mb.
• Wireless access points are shared. As more users connect to an access point, the bandwidth available to individual users is reduced. We are constantly evaluating the usage patterns of our access points and add additional access points in high traffic areas. However, wireless access speeds will, by the nature of the technology, vary as more users connect. Wired connections are not shared, so the 100 Mb bandwidth to the Wesleyan network does not fluctuate with use.

ITS maintains information about the wireless network and best practices regarding security at http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/wireless/.

Of course, even people who have heard of blogs and wikis might still be uncertain about just what they are and — more importantly — how to use them effectively. In what follows, I will touch on both of these questions and also offer some practical advice on how to get a Wesleyan blog or wiki that will suit your needs.

What are they?

Let’s start with the Wikipedia definitions, though as you read this posting, you will find that these definitions are too narrow.

Blog – “A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.”  – Wikipedia

Wiki - “A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.” – Wikipedia

Blogs and wikis, first and foremost, are web-based applications for creating and publishing content (including images, sound, and video) on the web. As such, blogs and wikis offer the usual advantages of second generation web apps; they…

• minimize the need for expensive desktop software
• facilitate working on one document from several computers
• make it easy to collaborate
• provide a platform for publishing, either to a restricted audience or to the world
• help make one’s work not only accessible to, but also discoverable by others
• include optional functionality to allow audience participation
• provide mechanisms to notify subscribers of new content

In addition, all Wesleyan blogs and wikis offer versioning, a feature by which you can track changes to your work and restore older states if desired.

What’s the difference?

Blogs and wikis differ primarily in the way they structure information. Blog “posts” are typically presented in reverse chronological order, an arrangement that emphasizes new material and lends itself to journalistic, but also to discursive or narrative projects. Wiki “pages,” by contrast, are typically organized by subject matter into a relatively stable hierarchy. Blogs grow linearly, post by post; wikis grow geometrically as each “area” is elaborated and new areas are added.

Of course, the reality is more complicated than the neat division I’ve just suggested.

Wesleyan offerings

There is no shortage of free blog and wiki services on the open web, but there are good reasons you may prefer to use a Wesleyan service:

• You can take advantage of our personalized support resources
• Our blogs and wikis tie in to the Wesleyan directory for easy user management
• We can offer Wesleyan branding where appropriate

ITS offers two blog and two wiki tools for use by the Wesleyan community. A number of factors will determine which tool is best for you. In making the decision, it is important to know what your goals are for the site.

Pedagogical uses: Blackboard blogs and wikis

Blackboard blogs and wikis, for example, are particularly suited to pedagogical projects. For an instructor who is already using a course Blackboard, it is a simple matter to add a blog or wiki to one of the content areas. The students will not need to acquaint themselves with a completely new course tool.

Blackboard blogs and wikis can enrich the classroom experience and promote meaningful student contributions to course content. Students might take it in turn, for example, to post course-related articles, images or videos to a class blog. Alternatively, groups of students might share responsibility for assigned areas of a class wiki that can then serve as a communal resource.

To get a Blackboard wiki or blog:

• Go in your Blackboard to the content area where the blog or wiki will reside
• Choose Edit View and then choose “Blog” or “Wiki” from the “Learning Unit” drop-down
• Choose “Go” (to the right of the drop-down)
• Set the options you desire in the set-up window
• Submit the form

You should feel free to contact your ACM if you have questions about the set-up.

If your goal is for the students to produce content for an audience beyond the classroom or beyond the temporal limits of a single semester, you may want to consider using WordPress instead of either the Blackboard blog or wiki.

For public consumption: WordPress sites at Wesleyan

WordPress, one of the most commonly used blogging tools on the web, is a great choice whenever your content is meant for a broad audience. We support WordPress MU (Multiuser) at Wesleyan. WordPress sites are flexible in terms of both design and information architecture. We have developed a number of Wesleyan themes which can be further individualized to suit a variety of needs and tastes. WordPress also works with a number of plug-ins that expand and enhance the functionality of your site.

We are currently using WordPress for a variety of scholarly purposes:

• Professional scholarly profiles (see the directory at faculty.wesleyan.edu )
• Small conference sites (New England Renaissance Conference 2008 , for example)
• Lab sites (Cognitive Development Lab, for example)
• (Public) Course sites (African Presences I: Class Projects , for example)
• Presenting scholarship (in development)

We also use WordPress for:

• Announcements (e.g., ITS System Announcements )
• Leadership blogs (e.g., Roth on Wesleyan )
• Administrative sites (e.g., Class of 2012 )
• Newsletters (e.g., The Wesleyan Connection )
• Technical documentation (e.g., Google Apps )

You will find detailed instructions on requesting a WordPress site at: http://blogs.wesleyan.edu/ . Currently, any faculty member, WSA student group or administrative staff can request a blog or wiki. We plan to extend the offering to all students by the middle of this coming March (2009).

Internal documentation: Confluence wiki

Wesleyan uses a Wiki software called Confluence. Our Confluence wikis lend themselves to various kinds of internal documentation:

• Project management
• Meeting minutes

You will find detailed instruction on requesting a Confluence wiki at:  http://blogs.wesleyan.edu/

Written by Kevin Wiliarty, Academic Computing Manager for the Social Sciences

Web search engines crawl the web using “spiders” at some unspecified intervals, start at the home page of a website and traverse a set of pages that are linked from there. Then they traverse links in each of those subsequent pages until they run out of links. When they examine the content of each of these pages, they perform “indexing” (a process that helps the search proceed faster) based on the algorithms that are proprietary. You can read more about how a Web Spider or Crawler works at Wikipedia.

The website owner can also use a facility that is honored by all search engines to protect a portion or the entire website from being indexed. You can read about how to do this at the Web Robots Page .

As you can imagine, trying to do this on literally millions of pages takes a very long time and this is why some pages may not be indexed for some period of time. Here, we provide some simple tips on how you can improve the searchability of your websites.

The common theme that will emerge from below is that as a content provider, you need to anticipate how the visitors to your website are likely to search for information contained in your web pages. As a first step, you can use your own search experiences in preparing your pages. So, avoiding terminology that is understood only by a small section of the readers is very important. For example, very Wesleyan-specific terms and highly technical lingo should be avoided if you want to attract a wide range of audience to your site.

A Short and Descriptive Title

It is important first to have a title for the document. Secondly, it should be short and describe the content really well. When you go to your web page, all the browsers show the title at the top of the browser window. If it is blank, you know you don’t have a title. All of the HTML editors such as Frontpage or GoLive provide a way for you to manage the page titles (if you view them as HTML, the title is enclosed between <title> and </title> tags).

We also encourage you to use [Wesleyan University] as a part of your pages that are hosted on Wesleyan servers.

If you do a Google search, the very first line you see is the title of the page. Make sure that the title describes the content of the page well. If not, refine the title until you are satisfied. Please remember that your changes will not affect the search results immediately.

Short Web Pages with vigorous content are better

There are two schools of thought on how to structure content – one long page that contains all relevant content, with navigational aids at the top (using name tags); or individual pages that address a specific topic.

In the former case, all content is accessible with just scrolling down a page; printing will require one to print the entire page; maintaining can be clumsy because you now have one long document to work with; loading time for such a document is longer and the reader may not be patient to wait;

In the second case, pages address specific topics, so they are concise; they require additional work in terms of structuring navigation; they tend to require more mouse clicks to move around; however, they load fast; printing can be easy if you are interested in specific topics, but if you want the entire set, it is harder;

It turns out that from the search perspective, the recommendation is to have short pages that are to the point – terse and vigorous. Obviously this is very dependent on what you are trying to do and may not be applicable to all instances. For example, if you have a long report or a published paper, then the approach to break them into shorter pages is not appropriate. However, having the abstract separately, with a link to the entire document would help readers find the content faster.

Linking is important

First of all, in order for your page to be indexed by a search engine, it needs to be linked from other pages. For example, at Wesleyan, there are departmental pages and individual websites that are available to faculty and staff. When you prepare a new website, make sure that it is linked to the appropriate page(s) rather than making it standalone.

In addition, the more linked your pages are form other sites, the better are the chances that it will be placed appropriately in the search results. Since linking is key to the search results, it is also important that you link other relevant institutional websites in your web pages. For example, if you find that a faculty colleague’s research and publication pages are relevant to the topic that you are writing about, you should consider linking those from your site. It is this collective linking that will benefit the entire community in terms of search and drawing more visitors to our web.

Finally, use descriptive texts as hyperlinks. In other words, rather than saying things like “click here”, say “click here to visit the Wesleyan University homepage”.

Use Structural HTML elements in organizing your pages

Many of us tend to avoid basic organization of web pages based on sectioning or even using the paragraph tags. From search perspectives, having some of the basic HTML structural elements such as section headings, text marked as strong (instead of simply bold), bulleted lists do make a difference and the text at the top of the page seems to make a lot more difference than the text at the tail end of the page. So, try to use these features whenever appropriate. Most HTML editors provide these features. For example, Section headings are the HTML equivalents of <h1> (Section) or <h2> (Subsection) type of tags which are rendered differently. Each of the suggestions in this document, for example, are coded with Subsection tags.

Hopefully, you will take some time to revise your website and apply the suggestions provided here. I would like to thank Adrian Cooke from University Communications for prompting us to write about this topic as well as provide pointers.

Wikipedia offers this definition of spam:

Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages . . .

Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam)

When configuring our antispam tools, ITS frequently hears from users who are concerned that our system may reject legitimate e-mail. Our anti-spam system allows users to have significant control over how aggressively spam is filtered. At conservative settings (which is the default), the risk of rejecting a legitimate e-mail is extremely small.

So how does filtering work? Every mail message that comes through our mail servers is evaluated by our spam filtering system, called SpamAssissin. Most spam mail messages have certain identifying characteristics. SpamAssassin looks for the presence of these and assigns a score. Some characteristics are scored higher than others. For example, a message with “Viagra” in the subject line is likely to receive a relatively high score on that criterion alone. Other criteria might be an abundance of non-alpha characters or the prevalence of capital letters in the body of a message. Each criterion has a value associated with it. Each message ends up with a total score based on these criteria. We have found this system of using blended criteria to assess spam probability is highly reliable.

Users can tell the system how to handle messages based on the total spam score. The system can perform three actions on suspected spam: tag, move, or delete. Tag simply means that it appends the subject line to inform the user that the message is suspected to be spam. Move will tag the message and move it to a junk email folder. Delete means the message is removed from the system.

Until recently, Wesleyan users had the option of declining Spam filtering entirely. For security reasons, we now require minimal spam filtering for all accounts, but users still have significant control over how aggressively to act on suspected spam.
The default setting tags messages at a score of 9, moves them to a junk folder at a score of 15, and deletes them at a score of 20+. These settings have been tested by users in the community and ITS and have been successful. In spam terms, a score of 20 or higher is virtually guaranteed to be spam. If more proactive filtering is desired, users can select from two additional presets which will cause the system to tag, move, and delete messages at lower spam scores.

Users on Exchange will see their “moved” email in their junk email folder. Cyrus users will see a junk email folder in their Web Mail where they can look at the messages. Eudora users will need to login to Web Mail to see the Junk Email folder.

To look at individual spam settings, users can go to EPortfolio, Tools & Links, SpamAssassin Configuration http://quicklink.wesleyan.edu/SPAM. From here you can set your level of filtering as well as add addresses to the whitelist or blacklist. A whitelist is a list of known good addresses that Spam Assassin will always allow. A blacklist is a list of addresses that are always junk.

Within your email client (Outlook, Eudora, etc), you also have the ability to set Junk Mail settings. This can work in conjunction with your SpamAssassin settings, although often you may find that it is not necessary to have both.

In Outlook, Junk Email settings are under, Actions>Junk Email>Junk Email Options.
For more information:
http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/changing-the-junk-e-mail-settings-in-outlook-2007/200314

For setting local spam settings in Eudora:
PC
http://www.yale.edu/its/email/howdoi/eudora/junkmail-filtering.html

Mac
http://www.it.iastate.edu/pub/gag341/gag341.html

A word of caution: local junk email settings are more likely to tag legitimate email and are easier to mis-configure. In an effort to combat that and prevent false positives, users may allow all messages from a domain (such as Wesleyan.edu). In doing so, they may be opening themselves to more spam since spam messages usually masquerade their source. The best course of action is for users to evaluate their flow of email and determine if anything more than SpamAssassin settings are needed.

Spam filtering is far more of an art than a science. Applications have to learn and re-learn as the sources of spam modify their methods to bypass new filtering technologies. A minimum level of spam filtering is both wise and necessary to protect the Wesleyan user community from being inundated with unwanted, and often harmful, messages.

Background:

Thin clients are ideally suited for people who primarily use the Microsoft Office suite of applications and a Web browser. With the exception of a couple of offices, most of the University business can be conducted through these applications since almost everything we do happens on the web. Thin clients are not suited for graphics heavy applications such as Adobe Photoshop, or for streaming high quality video in real time. Thin clients typically support Windows and Linux operating systems; Mac OS is not supported.
A thin client looks like a tiny computer, complete with mouse, keyboard, and monitor.  Your experience will be very similar to using a desktop – on the monitor you will see a screen asking you to login and after login you will see your windows desktop. You can interact with the desktop just like your own desktop, except all of this is running on a remote server and the data is stored also remotely. In other words, you will be interacting with a “virtual desktop”.
Advantages:

Support: Over the years, the proliferation of desktops and laptops and the availability of thousands of applications freely available on the Internet has made it a challenging task to support thousands of computers in an organization. Every day, software companies issue updates to their software and expect  users to apply them. In some cases, applying these updates will cause disruptions to other software installed on the computer. In a thin client environment, most of the updates and maintenance are done on the server without having to visit individual offices. If there is an issue with your thin client, it can simply be swapped with another device, and you will be up and running within a few minutes.. In comparison, repairing or replacing conventional desktops or laptops is typically much more disruptive and time consuming.

Data Storage: In the desktop/laptop model, users store hundreds of gigabytes of data, both work related and personal. Backing up this data requires significant effort. Laptops introduce the added burden of safeguarding data, should the laptop be lost or stolen. Thin client solutions mitigate these problems because data is stored on the server, making backups simpler and minimizing the risk of data falling into the wrong hands. In addition, this will presumably ensure the separation of personal data (such as digital photographs and music) from work-related data.

Cost: Thin clients are cheaper than conventional desktops or laptops. In addition to the lower acquisition costs, support costs in terms of the time and effort from ITS personnel will be reduced and. power consumption will be far less. Additionally,  data storage and backup  costs will be less because presumably one would only store work related data on the servers.

Green: As mentioned above, this is a much greener solution based on power consumption.  Also, because thin clients have a much longer life cycle relative to conventional computers, they generate less waste. Also, because they are much smaller, recycling is more efficient when they do reach the end of their useful life.

Limitations

Graphics Applications: Thin clients are not suited for high-end computer users who tend to use very specialized applications, specifically those that require intensive graphics. Although thin clients will be able to display typical Web sites and general business applications, they are not suited for producing high-end graphical images. The same is true about viewing high-resolution streaming videos. For most users, however, the graphics capabilities of thin clients are more than adequate.

Stationary: Unlike a laptop, the thin clients are not easily transportable. Laptop users who switch to a thin client will experience a very different style of accessing and working with their files and data. Whereas data stored on a laptop can be retrieved and worked on even when you are not connected to a network, in this model, network connectivity is essential to get access to your data.

Printers and Other Local Devices: Although printing to networked printers will be possible from a thin client, you cannot attach a local printer to typical thin clients. Most thin clients provide one or more USB slots so you can attach any external USB device to it, but the types of devices that are supported vary depending on the application, the operating system, and the thin client hardware.

Our plan is to find the right opportunities to roll this out. Recently, we implemented a thin client lab for CRC, replacing their aging computers. Here is what Mike Sciola, Director of CRC has to say about this.

When ITS first proposed ‘Thin Client’, I wasn’t familiar with the concept.  As they talked me through the scenario, I jumped on the opportunity to be the test site.  Most of the CRC’s resources are Web-based these days.  Over the years, our old computers became slower and slower. They also were not secure, and we were constantly fighting a pileup of downloads, saved document with viruses, and the occasional hacker/jokester who would reset the background wallpaper to, let’s say, a view that didn’t fit with our mission.  Because we were running 9 independent computers, everytime there was a problem or an update, it would take significant staff time to get all 9 back to good working order.

Since switching over to the Thin Client solution, the results have been excellent.  The thin client terminals have been stable and lightning fast.  Security is Fort Knox tight.  Students are able to access their documents through WesFiles.  And best of all, when there is a problem, there is only one actual computer that needs to be worked on.  When the problem is solved, all 9 Thin Clients are set to go.
We have discovered a few challenges as we’ve rolled out all of our on-line resources, but ITS staff have been great in finding fast solutions or advising us as we negotiate patches with our off-campus vendors.

All-in-all, we’re thrilled — “A+”!

If you have any questions about this technology or are interested in exploring a move to this technology, please write to its@wesleyan.edu and we will respond to you.

We explain here the reasons why certain E-mail attachments are blocked and offer alternatives to receiving these.

E-mails, especially files attached to them, may contain dangerous viruses or worms. We use software to electronically scan e-mails and take appropriate actions to protect the computers of our users as well as the Wesleyan network from the viruses and worms.

All e-mails addressed to Wesleyan users are electronically scanned by a program called MailScanner. If the e-mail contains attachments, MailScanner first consults a table containing potentially dangerous file name extensions such as .zip and simply removes them from the e-mail as a safeguard. It informs the recipient that it removed the attachment, but does not send the same information to the sender of the email.

If the attachment is not one of the potentially dangerous ones, it is then passed on to the virus scanner. At Wesleyan, we use software on the mail servers called Sophos to remove any files that are infected with a virus or worm.

Administrative staff, administrative assistants and a few faculty members have been converted to Microsoft Exchange Server. They use Microsoft Outlook or Entourage for accessing their e-mails. All e-mails that are sent by a Wesleyan Microsoft Exchange user to another goes through a similar procedure for file blocking and virus scanning, but using different software. 

The list of extensions that are not allowed as attachments can be found here.

We offer two suggestions on how to bypass the file blocking if you really trust the sender and the file that is being sent to you.

1. When you receive an e-mail indicating that a file has been blocked, open the Wesleyan-Attachment-Warning.txt file that is attached to the mail to note the name of the file that was blocked. You should send an e-mail to the original sender explaining that a file he/she sent was blocked, that he/she should rename the file by removing the extension, such as .zip, replacing the extension with any three characters not on the list of blocked attachments (“aaa” works fine) , and resend the attachment. If this renaming has been done correctly, and the attachment is in fact virus free, you will see it in your e-mail. Now you should save the attachment (rather than double clicking on it to open it) and rename it with the proper extension on your computer so it can be opened.
2. If you are a WesFiles user, you should use the sharing option explained in detail here: https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/xythoswfs/static/en/sharing.jsp. You can create a folder and share it via a ticket that you send to the original sender. By clicking on the ticket link in your email, the sender will be directed to a web folder to which he/she can upload one or more documents and notify you. If you have any questions on how exactly to do this, please contact your desktop support staff or the ITS Helpdesk.

These events are submitted to the system by clicking on the Submit an Event link found in the events calendar page. Submitting an event requires a valid Wesleyan email address and password. The events can be categorized into one or more categories that are available in the system as well as marked as “Wesleyan only” (Only computers on campus network or those connecting from outside using VPN will see these events). The events calendar interface provides various ways to look at these events – either by date or by categories. In addition, we provide basic and advanced search of the calendar.

Once the event is submitted, the Events & Scheduling office verifies that the event’s location has been reserved and the Public Affairs office proofreads the text. When these two offices approve the event, it appears immediately in the events calendar. If the on-campus location has not been reserved or if the Public Affairs office finds errors in the description, the event request will be returned to the requestor for further action.Calendar RSS Feeds and Customized Email

If you are familiar with RSS Feeds and use them on your desktop (such as the Google Desktop ) or websites (iGoogle or Bloglines), you can subscribe to Events Calendar feeds. You will find RSS icons on several of the Events Calendar pages which provide the subscription links.

If you would rather be notified of these events by email, we provide an application that allows you to do this. In your electronic portfolio, in the Tools & Links bucket, you will find the application Customize Events Calendar. When you click on this application, you will see the options shown below. Please click on the thumbnail of the image below to see details (A new window will open).

If you have already customized your calendar email, you will find that the appropriate checkboxes are checked. This application allows you to choose the categories of events that you wish to add to the email, the days of the week that you would like to receive these emails. These emails will contain all events belonging to the categories that you chose and will show the date, time and the title of the event. If you wish to see more details, you can choose the additional fields that should be added to each event in the email. It is important to click on Save Settings to save your changes.

Each event in your email is a clickable link that will take you to the details about the event by opening a browser window. As you can see, this is a very useful tool that lets you customize the email about Wesleyan events. If you only want to know about events on Fridays and the weekends, you may want to choose the categories of interest and choose to receive the email on Thursdays. These emails are typically sent out around 11 AM on the day that you chose.

Hope you find this useful and will use this application to know more about the rich collection of campus events and enjoy them!

Wikipedia describes it as “In computing, phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.”

I am sure that many of you have received official looking emails from eBay, PayPal or your online bank and some may have either inadvertently clicked on a link in the email or responded to it. This posting was prompted by the most recent phishing attempt – an email from support@wesleyan.edu sent to some of the Wesleyan users on Feb 26, 2008 asking them to respond with their password. As soon as we found out about this, we took the necessary actions, such as blocking further emails from the computer that was sending these messages and informing our users not to respond to it.

There are excellent resources that provide advice on how to avoid phishing attacks and we provide links to a few of them below. Please take a few minutes to read them.

• How to Avoid Phishing Scams from the Anti Phishing Working Group
• Anti-Phishing Phil From CMU
• Recognizing phishing scams and fraudulent e-mails

If you receive any emails that request personal information such as password, credit card number or your bank account number, treat it with suspicion and DO NOT RESPOND TO IT IMMEDIATELY. Please note that ITS and most of the financial institutions will never request personal information be sent over Email. Consult with your financial institution or ITS on the legitimacy of such email – almost always, the answer is going to be “delete it”.

Basically, all of them advise you to:

• Be suspicious of any email that asks for your personal information.
• Avoid clicking on links in these emails (Instead, open a web browser and navigate to your financial institution’s website directly). Some of them can create such lasting damage to your system that you may have to reinstall the operating system from scratch.
• Always make sure that any website where you provide personal information shows a security lock.

So, how are the hackers able to do this?

• The first step is for them to collect millions of email addresses. Unfortunately, this is fairly easily done and there are many e-mail address harvesting programs that are out there to do the job.
• Then they simply steal the graphics and text styles used by the institution that they are trying to fake, so that the email looks legitimate.
• The final step is to make the emails to look as if it is coming from a legitimate email address. You might wonder how can someone not associated with Wesleyan can send an e-mail that appears to come from a valid wesleyan email address. The answer is that this is fairly easy to do, though in recent years the technology is making it harder to do.