Academic Computing Center

Evergreen’s technical help docs is getting a fresh new face. Check it out at http://wikis.evergreen.edu/computing for tips and step by step instructions on using technology at Evergreen.

Microsoft is pushing Apple-like deals with their Windows 7 OS to the student population.  Seems they see the market value in building stronger relationships with the student population which is good for us.  From now until Jan 3, 2010 you can download Windows 7 for 30 bucks.  That’s a pretty big switch for Microsoft who will be charging the regular public $119.99 after October 22 when it’s due to release.  FYI, you won’t be able to get a license key before Oct. 22 but you can download the OS now.  To apply, to to Microsoft’s 741 site and you can sign up.

Student personal shares that up to this point have been hosted on Calawah, will be moved to the new fileserver Orca this evening (Friday Sept 11). At the same time there are scripts in place to automatically create a student personal share for every current student.   Help docs have been written to help students connect to their new fileshare locations (see help wiki link below). If folks need help with this, please refer to this page or to the computer center help desk at X6227 who can help walk through the process of getting access to data both on and off campus.

http://wikis.evergreen.edu/computing/index.php/File_Space_Overview

This is the last step in consolidating Masu and Calawah into a single server for students, student groups, academic programs and academic research shares. After this, shares on Masu and Calawah will be turned off.

Lets say you have a video that needs to be edited for class. It’s due…a week from now. Thing is; you have no idea how to edit video! In fact, when people say ‘Final Cut,’ you think it’s a horror film. This doesn’t have to be you! Even the most novice of computer users can become well acquainted with any program of their choice using the self-paced tutorials on Lynda.com.

Lynda.com was created by the Evergreen alumni Lynda Weinman. She’s taught at schools such as Art Center College Of Design, so it’s obvious that she knows her stuff. Lynda has helpful tutorials on programs such as Dreamweaver, AfterEffects, Final Cut Pro, Microsoft Office, and even web based programs like Twitter! The tutorials come in either video or by step by step instructions, so anybody can follow along at the leisure of their own pace.

Students can check out accounts for the software tutorial website, Lynda.com at the Computer Center Help Desk. Just make sure to bring your school ID and we’ll check one out to you. The cyber world is your oyster, learn how to grab for that pearl!

Usability is how useful an interface is. When it comes to websites, usability can be measured through surveys and focus groups. A website has high usability if information is quick and easy to find and the content is laid out well. Websites with low usability have redundant links, labyrinth navigation, and leave the user unsatisfied and frustrated.

Last Friday, a usability study was posted to my.evergreen.edu. The survey will be there all summer, and is an attempt to identify the common usability problems with my.evergreen.edu. Once these problems are identified, a reorganization and re-languaging of the site will take place and be tested with student focus groups. A new organization of my.evergreen.edu will go up at the end of fall quarter 2009.

You can participate in this process by taking the usability survey located under the “News” header on my.evergreen.edu. Or you can take the survey directly by going to:

http://collab.evergreen.edu/surveys/myusability

If you’re excited by the idea of a more usable my.evergreen.edu, visit the survey’s website and join the discussion around the survey and my.evergreen.edu usability:

http://collab.evergreen.edu/groups/myusability

Please take the survey when you have a chance, you’re feedback will help make a more usable my.evergreen.edu!

Student email services should be quicker and more reliable based on some changes that Network Services made in the past week. The latency problems that many students reported seemed to stem from the way our anti-virus software was configured on the email server. If you have any email related problems or notice any issues, please contact Academic Computing at Contact.

Student email services will be a little different starting Dec 12. Over the course of several months, a workgroup has identified issues with the current email system that warranted immediate action in order to deal with an unacceptable level of message delivery failures. Problems related to slow or non-delivery of messages are increasing as more of our systems become reliant on email communication. For full text of these changes with rationale, please go to the email help pages

Read the rest of this entry »

If you are wondering if your home browser is the right one to be using with Evergreen’s on-line Learning environment (AKA elms AKA moodle), then check out our help page on system requirements for moodle. It will help you to make sure that you have all you need to be able to access, upload and download stuff from your course page.

Many people can be (and obviously are) lured into phishing schemes by clever scam artists. Do you think you can detect the difference between a legitimate source and a phishing scam?

Carnegie Mellon University had built an interactive game where users learn how to identify phishing URLs, where to look for cues in web browsers, and how to use search engines to find legitimate sites. Try it out! Play Anti-Phishing Phil and see how you do!

How do you get to your moodle site? How do you access files from off campus?? If you were wondering about this and more, check out the wiki!

Read the rest of this entry »