Technology of the Month

I Use a Computer At Wesleyan

For many of us, “work” at Wesleyan means interacting with a computer on a regular basis. You are likely using one right now looking at this. In addition, when you work and use technology in a classroom, computer lab, office, dorm room, or simply on the lawn on a warm spring day, you may use Wesleyan licensed software, access restricted Wesleyan web pages, remotely control another Wesleyan computer, or login to the Wesleyan domain. You can do these things because you are either using a Wesleyan computer located on campus or you’ve given proof that you are a member of the Wesleyan community (student, faculty, staff, alum or guest) by providing a username and password.

But What About When I Leave Campus?

When you leave campus with your laptop, or go home and go online, you may want to access these same Wesleyan resources from off campus. VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a tool that you can use from home, from a conference, or from anywhere off-campus that has a high-speed connection to the Internet. Once you’ve connected to VPN you can then access many of the restricted Wesleyan resources you regularly work with when on campus by going through the same process you would if you were “at” Wesleyan.

VPN? Not Unless You Have To

It’s important to note that VPN is not necessary for accessing everything at Wesleyan and it slows down your computer. So, if you want to just check Wesleyan email, get access to our library systems, etc., you should not use VPN.

You Don’t Need VPN to Use These:

Here is a list of things you can do off campus without using VPN.

• Check your Wesleyan e-mail
• Go to the Wesleyan home page, http://www.wesleyan.edu/
• Log onto ePorfolio and use most parts of ePortfolio
• Look at unrestricted Wesleyan web pages
• Browse the Library systems
• Get to files stored on Dragon or Condor via SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol)

You Do Need VPN to Use These:

On the other hand, you will need VPN installed, and running before you can begin to do the following (when off campus):

• Access Wesleyan Administrative Systems (SFIS, HR, Millennium, FRS, etc.)
• Use license restricted Wesleyan software
• File share not using SFTP
• Start a Remote Control connection to a campus computer (XP Remote Control, PC Anywhere, VNC, etc.)
• Log onto the Wesleyan Domain
• Access security-restricted web pages like PeopleSoft or some protected parts of your ePortfolio

It Sounds Interesting But You Want to Learn More Before You Set It Up:

If you are intrigued, but would like answers to common questions on VPN before you try it, visit this site: http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/vpn_faq/vpn_faq.html or contact the Help Desk (x4000) or your Desktop Support Specialist.

All My Browsers Closed and VPN Won’t Start:

It’s important to note that you should close all of your web browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, etc.) before you start VPN. Otherwise VPN will close them for you in order to establish a secure connection. In addition, the most frequent cause of VPN failure particularly on PCs is personal firewalls (particularly Norton Firewall). If you use a personal firewall you may need to configure it to permit VPN.

You Are a Mac User and Want to Run VPN:

If you are a Mac user you’ll need to log onto your Employee ePortfolio and go to VPN Software Download located in the “Tools and Links” section and follow the instructions to download and configure the VPN client on your computer. The ITS Helpdesk (x4000) or your Desktop Support Specialist can provide help if necessary.

Using VPN on a Mac:

Once VPN is installed and configured, double-click the VPN icon and click Connect. You then simply have to enter your standard Wesleyan username and password. The message: “Wesleyan University. Unauthorized Access Prohibited - VPN” indicates that you have established a connection. Click OK.

It will take a few more moments for the login to complete. When it does, the dialog box will disappear and you will be fully connected.

You will now be connected to the VPN server and you can use or connect to restricted Wesleyan resources.

To terminate your VPN connection, open the VPN application and disconnect.

You Are a PC User and Want to Run VPN:

PC users need to use Web VPN which allows them to simply open up a web browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape, etc.) and enter the following in the URL line: webvpn.wesleyan.edu At the WebVPN login screen you have to enter your standard Wesleyan username and password. Detailed instructions are here: http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/vpn_faq/webvpn.html in case your browser blocks pop-ups, or you are prompted to make other configuration changes.

Using VPN on a PC:

When you are prompted, “Do you want to enable access to the local area network?” Click Yes, and you�ll see a message indicating that your SSL VPN connection has been established. In addition, you will see a small key-shaped icon in your System Tray (lower right-hand corner of your screen).

You will now be connected to the VPN server, which will gives you rights to the same Wesleyan resources you usually enjoy on campus.

To terminate your VPN connection, right-click on the key icon and select: Disconnect.

You Are a Linux User and Want to Run VPN:

If you are a Linux user you’ll need to log onto your Employee ePortfolio and go to VPN Software Download located in the “Tools and Links” section and follow the instructions to download and configure the VPN client on your computer.

In a perfect world, we would all have an unlimited amount of space on the Wesleyan email server. We’re working on increasing the email quota. In the meantime, here are some helpful hints to keep your email account under quota:

About Email Quotas

When you exceed your email quota it means that the amount of email stored under your account ON THE WESLEYAN EMAIL SERVER (one of the central computers that stores and processes your email) has exceeded the limit that has been set for you. In order to bring your email account back under quota, you must remove some of the messages stored on the central email server where your account resides. If you use Webmail, please note that, in addition to your Inbox, data stored in any other folder on the email server also counts toward your quota.

While over quota you are still able to send email to any destination and receive Wesleyan email but any email sent to you from outside of Wesleyan will be rejected and the sender will receive a non-delivery report. As soon as your account is again below quota, full email functionality is restored.

Email Programs

People on campus utilize a variety of email programs to read and send mail. Each of these interacts with the mail server in a slightly different fashion. Some download all of your mail to your own computer and may or may not leave it on the mail server. Others read it directly from the central email server and do not remove it unless you specifically tell it to. To bring your account back under quota you need to deal only with that data that is stored on the central email server.

Bringing your Account Back Under Quota

Using WebMail

The best way to do this is to use Wesleyan’s web-based email program since it manipulates your email directly on the email server. It has recently been enhanced to include features to make quota management even easier.

To log into WebMail:

• Open your EPortfolio and click on WebMail under Tools and Links. Alumni can access WebMail from their WesNet account under the Alumni Resources menu. Otherwise, open a browser and type webmail.wesleyan.edu in the address bar. You will be asked to log in with your email username and password.
• The contents of your Inbox will be displayed and on the left you will see a listing of your email folders as they exist on the email server.
• Below the folder listings you will see a link labeled Folder Sizes. Click on this to see how much data resides in each folder and to determine where data needs to be deleted.

Deleting individual messages in WebMail:

To delete one or more messages, click on the box to the left of the message(s) to be deleted and then click on the Delete button located just above the headings. Please note that this does not permanently delete the item, but just moves it into your Trash folder (see below for instructions on dealing with the Trash folder). To remove all of the messages in a folder click on the Show All command, then click on Toggle All, then click the Delete button. These techniques can be used with your Inbox, Sent folder or with folders that you have created. There is a much quicker way to do this for the Spam and Trash folders (see below).

Sort By Size

If you need to determine if there are very large messages (or, more likely, messages with very large attachments) click on the small button to the right of the Size heading. It will change from a square to a triangle to indicate that your mail has now been sorted by size. You can click on it a second time if you wish to reverse the sort order. You can also click on the indicator next to any other heading to use that item as the sort order.

To remove messages from your Spam or Trash folders:

If you have any messages stored in your Spam or Trash folders you will see a (Purge) command next to them. Just click on (Purge) to permanently eliminate all messages in that folder. The (Purge) command is not displayed when the folder is empty. It may be a good idea to review the messages in your Trash folder before purging just to make sure that legitimate email has not been moved there. This is recommended if you have recently changed your spam settings and may not be certain of the results.

The Sent mail folder:

A copy of every message you have sent when using WebMail had been stored in your Sent folder. Many people don’t realize this and eventually it becomes very large and pushes you over quota. Click on this folder and delete any sent messages you do not need to keep.

Getting Help with Email Problems

Faculty and Staff should contact their Desktop Support Specialist and students should call the ITS Help Desk at x4000.

In recent years, Wesleyan has added a number of portfolio applications that contain personal data. These applications include: Benefits Open Enrollment, Performance Evaluations, MERA Summary, SRA Contribution and many more.

In response to requests from users, we have added an additional security feature to the Employee EP which allows users to Lock/Unlock portfolio applications. The Lock/Unlock Applications tool can be found in the Tools & Links Section of your portfolio. When a user locks an application, it remains inaccessible until unlocked with the user’s email password.

Clicking on Lock/Unlock Applications will present a list of applications with check boxes. To lock each application, simply choose the checkbox. Once you have made your selections, click the Lock Selected Applications button at the bottom of the page. Your applications are secure!

The locked applications will not be clickable in the portfolio. You need to unlock them before accessing them.

Unlocking is just as simple.

• To unlock one application, click the lock icon and enter your email password.
• To unlock multiple applications, click the Unlock Applications link at the top of the screen. Choose the applications to be unlocked and enter your email password.

Lock/Unlock Applications is a great portfolio tool. However, it does not take the place of a locking screen saver that will protect all the applications and data you have on your computer. If you need help further help, please do not hesitate to contact your desktop support person: http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/desktopsupport/

Librarians, technologists, and other information-centric fellow travelers have been singing the praises of a not-so-new technology for years: RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is the technology that allows Blogs (web diaries and commentaries) to be distributed throughout the web, and also is an increasingly popular way for information stored in various databases to be discovered both by websites and the people who read them. For example, National Public Radio and the New York Times both offer a wide array of RSS Feeds . The most popular way to access RSS is what is known as an RSS Reader. Bloglines and Google Reader are two popular RSS Readers .

Fine, you might say, but why should I care? I have email. I have a web browser. Why would I want yet another way to access the same information?

The major advantage of using an RSS Reader over other information-gathering tools is that the RSS Reader keeps track of what is new and provides various ways of clipping, storing, organizing, and sharing this information with others. If you keep track of 20 blogs or other information sources, an RSS reader will check them automatically and let you know when there is new material. You can even read that material from within the RSS Reader, and thus avoid having to learn the navigation and typographic conventions of each individual blog.

Okay. An RSS Reader is more efficient. But I still need to be convinced: what useful information can I find via an RSS Reader?

Wesleyan publishes a wide-array of information that can be read via an RSS-Reader, including our events calendar, our classified ads, announcements on the home page, and a feed of what’s new in the library catalog. There are also a small number of Blogs that our community publishes that you may want to read. We’ve created a set of links to these feeds, as well as a collection of feeds that we think might be of interest to the Wesleyan community at http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/rss/ . Increasingly publishers of newspapers, magazines, and journals are creating RSS feeds of their materials. (We began to suspect that it was time to introduce the idea of RSS to the Wesleyan community when we heard the Car Talk guys talking about their RSS feed (see http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/rss.html )).

I’m sort of convinced. So what RSS Reader do you recommend?

There are three main types of RSS Reader: 1) Web-based readers are distinct from the other three types because they do not ‘live’ on your own computer. You access them via the Web. There is no software to download and you are not tied to a particular machine. Bloglines and Google Reader work this way. 2) Some web browsers, notably Firefox with its “Live Bookmarks,” can handle RSS. 3) There are a number of stand-alone desktop readers. Many of them are free, though some come with a price tag. We’ve set up a page at http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/rss/readers.htm that provides an overview of these various readers. A second page at http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/rss/feeds.html offers guidance on how and where to find feeds of interest to you.

To get started with RSS, we recommend either using the Live Bookmarks feature within Firefox, or creating an account on Bloglines . (We’ve also created a brief movie on how to use Bloglines for those who want more detailed information about the possibilities of RSS, available at http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/rss/bloglines.html .)

Is there a topic that you would like to see us write about in an upcoming post? Let us know by writing it down via the comment form below. No topic is too simple or obvious. You can also just ask us a general question.

We’ve also posted a list of future topics so that you can see what we plan to write about in upcoming posts.

New Printer Capabilities Encourage Conservation
Printing on both sides of a page conserves natural resources and expense. Central Purchasing and ITS are in the process of rolling out a fleet of new Ricoh printers. Among the many capabilities of these new printers is the ability to easily and reliably print on both sides of the page.

ITS, Project$ave and the planet Earth encourage you to:

• Print only when necessary (most documents can be distributed and stored electronically).
• Whenever possible use two-sided (duplex) printing.

PC Two-Sided Printing Instructions (General instructions for Ricoh) **

For Individual Documents
From the print dialogue box, click on Properties/Preferences button.
From the Duplex drop-down, Choose “Open to Left”.
(more than likely you will want to experiment with the various duplex options)

For Printer Default
From the Startup Menu, go to Printers and Faxes.
Double Click on the Printer model you wish to change.
From the “printer” menu, choose properties.
From the “General” tab, choose “Print Preferences”.
From the Duplex drop-down, Choose “Open to Left”.
(more than likely you will want to experiment with the various duplex options)

Mac Two-Sided Printing Instructions (General Instructions for Ricoh) **

For Individual Documents
From the print dialogue box, change the Copies and Pages pop-up to Layout. In the section that says “Two-Sided” choose “Long-edged binding”.

For Printer Default
From the print dialogue box, change the Copies and Pages pop-up to Layout. In the section that says “Two-Sided” choose “Long-edged binding”. To save this setting, set the Presets pop-up to “Save As…” and give the setting a name (Duplex seems appropriate). Then click Print to print the document. You must print to save the Preset as the default.

** If these instructions do not work, please contact