Technology of the Month

Over the past several years, we have seen tremendous growth in the need for centralized document storage, fueled by the increased use of the web for information dissemination as well as increase in the use of rich media (high quality images, music and digitized videos) in teaching and research. As we progressed, we accommodated these needs based on the best technologies available at the time of implementation and taking into consideration the need to support Windows, Mac, and UNIX operating systems. Today, the total central storage being used is over 20 Terabytes and we are not done!

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Many of you have broadband (DSL or Cable Modem) access at home and also have a wireless router that allows you to connect several computers to the Internet (and to each other) wirelessly or over a wire. Unless you have followed the instructions in your user manual to secure your wireless router, your computers may not be adequately protected against intruders. This posting includes general guidelines on configuring these devices properly. Due to the variety of wireless routers that are available, it is not possible to give specific configurations instructions here, but the suggestions below should help you get started. Continue Reading »

Discussion on the global climate crisis and Wesleyan’s role in providing leadership on this issue has been both informed and passionate. President Roth’s initial posting on the issue and the subsequent response by students, alumni, faculty and staff, have contributed to momentum towards helping Wesleyan become a more sustainable institution and community.

One component of this process has been President Roth’s commitment to sign the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment which will encourage Wesleyan to “move the campus forward in concrete ways towards a smaller environmental footprint and climate neutrality” (taken from an email from the Sustainability Advisory Committee). In tandem with this institutional commitment, the Wesleyan community is being encouraged to individually pledge to work towards sustainability by signing a Community Climate Agreement which is available in the Personal Information section of the Electronic Portfolio.

We thought this is a good time to introduce some best practices regarding “Green Computing” as well as talk about what ITS will be doing in the next few months to contribute towards this worthy initiative. Each of these recommendations and suggestions provides you with the chance to make a difference. We urge you to adopt as many of the following suggestions as you can, and to reply to this blog with other ideas that you might have to add to the list.

• Turn Your Computer and Monitor Off: When you intend to leave for the evening, go through a full Shut Down, and then (if you have a separate monitor) turn off the monitor. While using the “Power Management” settings of your computer does save energy, and while in many cases, the difference between a computer and monitor that is on “energy saving mode” power vs. the computer and monitor that is fully shut down is very small, it is always better to shut the computer off if you plan not to use it for a stretch of time. This will extend the life of your computer and save energy at the same time. For an illustration of power usage for various devices on the Gustavus Adolphus College, click here. You should note that the cost of Electricity in Wesleyan’s wood frame houses and off –campus is roughly 66% more expensive than on campus, so turning your computers and monitors at home can add up to significant savings.
• Turning a computer off does not harm the computer: It is a myth that turning computers off and on creates surges that damage the computer. Here is relevant information from Ohio University Green Computing Guide which points out that the heat stress from being “on” is far more damaging to the computer than being turned on and off.
  • Myth: It is bad to turn off the computer.
    Truth: Computers are now designed to handle 40,000 on/off cycles. This is considerably more cycles than the average user will initiate in the computer’s 5-7 year life span. Turning your computer off helps reduce heat stress and wear on the system.
• Buy Green Computers: If you are looking to buy a new computer, take a few minutes to research the most “green” and environment friendly computer and peripherals that satisfies your functional needs. Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool – EPEAT provides an excellent rating system that includes not just the power management, but such details as whether they use recyclable material for packaging.
• Think about replacing the worst offenders: Take an inventory of computers in both your offices/labs as well as homes. Older computers and monitors tend to be very inefficient. Especially the bulky old CRT monitors. A CRT monitor can cost Wesleyan up to $120/year, whereas an LCD screen of the same size can cost Wesleyan up to $25/year. Similarly, a Mac G5 (without the monitor) can cost Wesleyan up to $270/year, whereas a Mac 17” laptop can cost Wesleyan up to $30/year in electricity costs. If you can afford to get rid of old inefficient technology, please do. We do offer recycling for computing equipment.
• Turn off printers when they are not being used and turn them on only when you need them:
  Printers left on all year around can cost Wesleyan between $45 and $440 per year (!) in electrical charges.
• When possible, avoid printing on paper – read drafts on the screen, use the track changes feature to manage edits, print in smaller fonts (that are still comfortable to read) and use double sided printing (choosing appropriate paper on certain printers such as inkjet is important to avoid ink on the back side from showing on the front side). If you are a faculty member, consider making  your readings, assignments, exams, etc. available in electronic format. If you want to learn more about how to do any of these, please contact your Academic Computing Manager or your Desktop Support Specialist.

We have formed a “Green Computing Committee” at ITS to look into and implement several other suggestions for reducing the energy usage of the computers and other systems that we support. In order to accomplish the items listed below, we need the cooperation of faculty members, students and staff. Several of them also will have serious financial impact. The committee will look at all of these factors and come up with a plan of implementation by late December.

• Backups: We currently offer a remote backup service for faculty and staff desktops. Those who signed up for this are asked to not switch their computers off when they leave. The reason for this is several-fold. Firstly, the majority of backups are scheduled to occur when you are out of the office so any slowdown due to the backup, occurs when you are away. Secondly, because the backup does not save files that are currently being worked on, scheduling the backup to occur when the majority of people are away from their desks insures that all files are backed-up. We plan to ask you if you are willing to schedule your backup during the day. This would require you to bear with a slight slow down in your computer’s response as it is backed-up, and to try to limit the number of open files during the backup period. Due to server capacity, not everyone can be backed up at the same time, so we would spread out the backups over the course of the day. Given that we have over 600 computers participating in this backup program currently, we are likely to see significant savings in energy consumption. Up to $185 per year, per computer could be saved.
• We are also researching other kinds of desktop backup software that would reduce the slowness caused by the backup.
• Public Computers: We will examine computers in the public computer labs and develop a workable policy to manage usage of these machines. One of the suggestions has been to replace separate PCs and Macs with a Mac Duos. However, we have to make sure that all applications work flawlessly on a Mac Duo before committing to doing this. A more attractive proposal is to implement an automated power management policy that shuts down the computers when the lab is closed (or when we are on semester breaks, etc.) .
• Duplex Printing: We will develop a workable plan for installing duplex capable printers in public labs. This requires significant financial commitment from us, so we need to look at the best way to roll out the plan and possibly give incentives for double sided printing.
• Environment-Friendly Purchases: We will commit to buying the most environment friendly hardware for central services. We have already begun doing this, but we will commit to consulting the EPEAT ratings for hardware before purchasing.
• EPEAT Ratings: Our computer store staff will be trained in “green computing” best practices, Energy Star and EPEAT ratings, so that they will be better positioned to answer questions from the customers about environmental friendly computers and peripherals.
• We will also look at various ways to indicate the ratings (using labels) on the computers and peripherals we sell in our computer store.

Backing up the data on your computers is extremely important. Despite the fact that the reliability of disks have gone up tremendously in the recent years, they do fail and the effect of losing data can be devastating. In this posting we explain 1) what we do to backup files on our servers, 2) the desktop/laptop service that we provide for faculty and staff, and 3) some pointers about backing up data at home.

We use a system called Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) from IBM to manage all our backups. It is a very versatile system and helps us manage the backup with very little human intervention. The basic premise of TSM is “incremental backup” – which simply means “backup ONLY the files that have changed between the last backup and now”. Obviously, when you start for the first time, all the files will be backed up and subsequently only the files that changed and any new files created since the last backup will be backed up.

All the relevant data on our servers such as dragon, condor, and mail servers are backed up every night. If you signed up for the desktop backup service, the backup starts sometime after 6 PM every night. The exact time is unpredictable because it is a function of the load on the server. Laptop backups begin sometime after 12 midnight. The desktop or laptop that is scheduled to be backed up needs to be on at the time of backup. The status of backup is shown in the top frame of faculty and employee portfolios and the user can look at more details about the backup by clicking on the “Desktop Backup Status” link in the Tools & Links” bucket.

TSM provides hundreds of options, but there are three that are worth mentioning here:

• Exclusions – we exclude files that have no value being backed up. These are typically operating system files and temporary files which, even if we were able to restore, cannot be used.
• Number of copies of a file – We can configure how many copies of a file to keep in the backup. Sometimes, an earlier version of a file is more useful than the most recent one, so having multiple copies is very useful. For example, if you overwrote one of your documents by mistake yesterday and realized the mistake only today. Last night’s backup would have saved the overwritten document. What you would need is the previous night’s version. We typically keep 2 copies of each file and in some cases the files on servers have three copies.
• Deleted File – Sometimes, one may accidentally delete a file on the disk, realize the mistake a few days later and would want the file back. We configure TSM to keep a deleted file for sixty days, anticipating such situations. The choice of sixty days is indeed arbitrary, but increasing the number of days would consume a lot of hardware resources.

If you are a faculty or staff member and have not signed up for this service, we strongly encourage you to do so. Please contact your desktop support staff to learn more.

Backing up data on home computers

Most of us have one or more computers at home for family use and we very rarely backup the data on these machines. Some of us have attempted to backup what we feel are important files on several CDs or more recently on DVDs. The problem with this approach is, unless one is extremely careful about cataloging what is on these disks and keep them safeand easily accessible , this is not going to be a reliable system.

There are many remote backup services available on the internet. If you feel comfortable with the idea of your data being backed up elsewhere, then you might want to consider this. Our recommendation is that go with a reliable and respected company even if it costs more. It is your personal data that you are backing up and you certainly don’t want it ending up in the wrong hands. As an example, you might want to consider AT&T Online Vault which costs $7.95 a month for the first 2 GB and $2 for each additional GB. Please note that we do not endorse any particular remote backup vendor because we do not use them. You need to do the necessary research before picking a vendor.

If you are not comfortable with the remote backup idea, we suggest that you look at purchasing a large external USB disk drive that can hold backups of all your home computers with additional space for future expansion. You can purchase a 250 GB or 500 GB external disk at the Cardinal Technology Center located in Usdan Center. With a disk like this and a versatile backup software, you should be able to make reliable backups. Here are some pointers:

• Buy a large external USB hard disk (250 GB or 500 GB).
• Purchase a good backup software.
• Many backup software, including the one that comes with Windows XP, tend to store the entire backup as a single file in a format that is not humanly-readable. Browsing and restoring files from such a file is cumbersome. Look for a software that lets you copy the files and directories to the backup disk as is.
• Look for a backup software that lets you save only files that have changed since the last backup. It should also provide you with an option that will not remove files from the backup disk automatically if it was deleted from the source (your computer). You can always manually delete any file(s) from the backup disk to save space.
• Make up a realistic schedule to do backups. If you chose the right software, only the first backup will take a long time. Subsequent ones will complete fairly quickly.
• The easiest method is to connect the backup drive to each machine in the house and backup the information. Create different subdirectories on the backup disk for each of your machines.
• If you are an advanced user, you can leave the backup disk connected to one machine and perform the backup across the network rather than moving the hard disk from machine to machine.
• The natural question is, what happens when the backup disk itself goes bad. Of course, to protect against this, you need a second external disk to which you can copy. But, let us be realistic, let us first get the first disk going… So you understand how this whole thing works, and how easy it is to do. Then you can go get that second disk…

We suggest you look at a program like SyncBack for Windows operating system (a few of us use this software at home and like it). It allows you to configure rules for incremental backup, exclude files from being backed up and is relatively easy to set up and use.

Our Mac expert, Todd Houle, says that there is currently not a good software for the Macs except the usual copying from your computer (either full disks or manually selecting a subset) to the external disk. Todd points out that this is one area where the new Mac OS 10.5, called Leopard, excels. Please read about it here.

Your data is extremely important and backing it up is extremely important. Hopefully the pointers that we have provided here would help you get started.

If you already backup your home computers and want to share how you do it, what software you use and any other useful pointers, please add a comment.

Since we are still a long way from the ‘paperless office’, it is not unusual to receive a printed copy of a document that you really need in electronic format. If it is not available in that form your choices are to re-create it (seldom an appealing option) or scan it to create a digital image.

Almost all of the leased Ricoh copier/printers on campus can easily be configured for document scanning. This is a convenient way to convert a printed image to a file. The Ricoh machines can be set up so that you can either send the file to someone via email or store it to your departmental folder on Dragon.

Your Desktop Support Specialist can set this up for you and other members of your department. Once configured, all you need to do is place your document on the platen and press the Scan button on the console. The touch-screen display will show a special scanning menu where you can indicate whether you want to scan to email or send to a shared scan folder. You must also indicate your identity – your name or initials will appear in the display so they can be selected. This is both for security purposes and because your email address has been input as part of the configuration. You have the choice of sending the scanned document to your own email address or to another which you can type into the console on the touch-sensitive keyboard which will be displayed.

Once scanned, the file will be stored with a name based on the time & date of its creation and a file extension of .tif. If it has been stored in your shared scan folder, you should then copy it to a more appropriate folder and rename it.

It is important to understand that the scanned image that is created is just that – a digital image of the printed page that you scanned. It cannot be edited in a word processor. This limits the purposes for which the file can be used.

If you would like to be able to use your copier for document scanning please contact your Desktop Support Specialist to arrange for the configuration.

Using Remote Desktop

Have you ever been frustrated because that one critical file or email that you desperately need is on your office computer and you are either at home or at a conference? Remote Desktop is a tool that can help you in situations like these. It allows you to access your computer from another computer anywhere on the internet. In order to take advantage of Remote Desktop, you need to configure both the computer that is being accessed as well as the computer that will take control. Of course, if you keep all your work on a laptop or on a network file server, you may never need this technique.

In this write-up, we will explain how to control a campus computer from an off-campus location. With Remote Desktop, you don’t have to worry about whether the programs or data you need are on your off-campus computer since they are all on or accessible from your campus computer. Likewise, you don’t have to worry about whether your home computer is fast enough or has enough memory to run your programs. Everything is running on your campus computer and only the screen images and keystrokes are being transferred across the Internet.

Another question that you may have is, what if you are at work and you want to access to your home computer? This is complicated and unless you are an advanced user who understands networking, we strongly discourage you from trying to do this. If you do not set up the network access properly, your home network may be open for access by computer hackers.

In order to establish a Remote Desktop connection to your campus computer, there are a few requirements:

• The campus computer must be turned on and connected to the network

• The computers must be running either Windows XP Professional or Mac OSX

• The off-campus computer must use VPN to establish a secure connection into the campus network. For instructions on using VPN please click on the following link: http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/vpn

The specific configurations for the campus and off-campus computer differ according to whether they are Macs or PCs. Please select the appropriate link below for configuration instructions. We recommend that faculty and staff work with their Desktop Support Specialist to configure their computers for Remote Desktop sessions.

Remote Control between two Windows XP computers

Remote Control between two Mac OSX computers

Remote Control a Windows XP computer from a Mac OS X computer

Remote Control a Mac OS X computer from a Windows XP computer

Introduction to the Wesleyan Wireless Network

Wesleyan provides wireless networking throughout most of the campus, including academic and administrative buildings, dormitories, and many outdoor spaces. While the strength of a signal can vary locally as a result of physical obstructions or transient interference, ITS has recently made significant upgrades to the wireless network in order to reach areas that previously had absent or unreliable signals. If you are aware of an area that continues to have a weak signal, please let us know by emailing wireless@wesleyan.edu. Your feedback lets us know where to focus our efforts in improving service.

Compatibility (with a special note about Windows Vista)

The Wesleyan wireless network is typically compatible with any machine that is equipped with an 802.11b or 802.11g adapter. Windows XP, Macintosh OS X, and Linux machines can all connect to the network. Machines running the newest Windows operating system, Vista, have had difficulty connecting to the wireless network. We recommend that you wait to upgrade to Vista while we work to resolve these issues.

Speed

The wireless network is rated for speeds up to 54 Mb/sec, though in practice, these speeds are seldom achieved. Each wireless access point may have several users connected to it, and the total speed is divided among all users. Consequently, more popular areas will typically yield lower speeds than less used areas. Signal strength also plays a large role in connection speeds. As a rule of thumb, wireless speeds are just fine for Web browsing, streaming music/video, e-mail, and small file transfers. If you will be working with very large files over the network, you will be better served by a wired connection, which is consistently several times faster than a wireless link.

Unauthorized Access Points

In some areas where the Wesleyan wireless network has been unreliable, users have attempted to set up their own wireless access points to fill the gap. It is critical that you do not do this. Unauthorized access points potentially open up our network to unauthorized users. Also, unauthorized access points emit radio waves that interfere with Wesleyan access points and make it impossible for us to provide complete coverage in these areas. We then must spend time and resources to find and shut down the unauthorized access points. Our recent wireless upgrade has already filled in many of the gaps in our network. Again, if you find others, let us know at wireless@wesleyan.edu

Logging In

Users are required to login when using the Wesleyan wireless network. Requiring wireless network logins provides a way to restrict use of the network to faculty, staff, students, and authorized guests. You must log in to the wireless network before using any wireless network services, including e-mail, Web browsing, and accessing files on network drives.

Once you have configured your computer to connect to the wireless network, you can reach the wireless network login page by launching any Web browser and opening any Web page that begins with http://. You will be automatically redirected to the login page.

Note: Pages that begin with https:// cannot be redirected. If you use a page that begins with https:// as your home page, please browse to any Web page beginning with http:// to reach the login page. Once you have logged in, you will be able to reach https:// pages without a problem.

You should login to the wireless network with your Wesleyan username and password. Once you have logged in, you will be able to browse to any Web page, and use other networking services such as e-mail and Dragon access.

Please note that wood frame houses have their own access points separate from the main Wesleyan wireless network and have different connection procedures. For more information on wireless in Woodframe houses, go to:
http://helpdesk.wesleyan.edu/tipsheets/woodframe/woodframe.shtml.

Security

Because the wireless signal can be potentially intercepted as it travels through the air, the wireless network is potentially less secure than a wired connection. While the risk of someone eavesdropping on your wireless communication is typically very small, you should be aware of the risks and what you can do to make your data more secure.

AirWes vs. AirWesLS

Wireless users join the network by connecting to AirWes or AirWesLS. AirWes differs from AirWesLS in that it uses an encryption method called WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). WEP encrypts data as it is sent back and forth between your computer and the wireless access point, which makes it unreadable to electronic eavesdropping. For directions on how to configure WEP at Wesleyan, go to:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/wireless/data/wireless_config.html
You will be prompted to log in with your e-mail password to reach this page. AirWesLS does not use any encryption, requiring less configuration but also providing less security.

Problems with WEP

In real terms, the added security provided by WEP is marginal for a couple of reasons. First, the WEP key is very widely known throughout the Wesleyan community, and anyone with the WEP key can unscramble the encrypted data. Also, the WEP encryption protocol is relatively easily broken, so a determined hacker could defeat the encryption even without knowing the WEP key. We are working on solutions to these security issues, which will be discussed in greater detail below.

Secure Protocols

You can safeguard your data by using secure protocols such as HTTPS and SSH to transmit the data. Secure protocols will protect your data from being read in transit even if you are not using WEP. In addition, secure protocols are more secure than WEP alone because your data will be encrypted at every stage between your computer and the remote computer with which you are communicating. By comparison, WEP encrypts your data at only the wireless stage between your computer and the wireless access point. Not all remote machines will be configured to allow you to use secure protocols, but it is a good idea to use secure protocols whenever they are available, even if you are also using WEP. Below is a table showing common secure protocols and their less secure equivalents.

Most servers at Wesleyan support or require secure protocols, and you are strongly encouraged to use them.

Upcoming Changes for the Fall

Starting this fall, we will be rolling out a new way of connecting to the network that will encrypt your data much more reliably than WEP. The new method will also be much more convenient to configure than the current AirWes procedure. Once the new system is in place, we will phase out AirWesLS, and all users will connect to the wireless network using safe and convenient encryption. In addition to the new encryption, we will be rolling out a system that will scan machines for viruses and security vulnerabilities. If a machine is found to have security problems, the system will show the user how to remediate the problems. All security issues must be resolved before a machine is allowed to join the wireless network. These measures will help ensure that the wireless network does not become a conduit for infected machines to spread viruses throughout our network.

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/