Issue: November 2017 2017-003
Planned Internet Outage
Our ISP, I-Light, is planning on comprehensive outage on Friday, December 1st, from midnight to 6 a.m. The I-Light engineers are upgrading multiple core routers in succession. The effort may not take all six hours, but the group reserves that window. If I-Light cannot complete the work on the 1st for whatever reason, the I-Light team will complete the work on December 3rd, presumably during the same time window.
Freebies from Microsoft
We repeat the following from September, but the information bears repeating.
OneDrive for Business – Microsoft provides all faculty, staff, and students with 1Tb (that’s a lot) of online storage. Using the OneDrive for Business client (available for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android), access your documents from anywhere including a browser.
Office Pro Plus – Microsoft also provides free licensing of its Office suite. The suite includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android. You can download the software from the Office 365 portal online at https://login.microsoftonline.com. You are licensed to use Office on up to 5 desktops or laptops AND 5 phones or tablets.
Available Online Office Training – There are two ways to obtain free Microsoft Office training. Microsoft produced this site, Office 365 Training Center, for all Office 365 customers. We are Office 365 customers. For more comprehensive training, we enrolled in Microsoft’s Imagine Academy, a collection of courses across Microsoft’s product line to include Office. To access Imagine Academy, please email Help Desk.
A New SpartanPrint Is Coming
By the end of the academic year, we’ll have decided on the technology to provide printing services to both campuses. Codenamed SpartanPrint v3.0, we’re evaluating how everyone/anyone interacts with the main printers on campus. We’re considering such features as color and stapling, scanning, copying, and more. We’re interested in the printer’s physical interface, the way one logs into a printer, and more. Finally, we’re considering different hardware and software vendors.
In the coming weeks, possibly as early as December 11th, we’ll have demo units on campus. You’ll be able to test the printers yourself and provide us feedback.
If you want to participate in the selection committee, please email Help Desk. Likewise, if you have suggestions to improve the current SpartanPrint system, please email Help Desk.
ChetAdvisor, Modern Browsers, and a Known Bug
ChetAdvisor works differently for different MU constituents. Students register for classes, check their transcript, and more. Faculty members review budgets, check class rosters, enter grades, and more. Staff members review budgets and more. However, as users access ChetAdvisor in a tab in an open browser window, failure to close the window can cause an error to appear. Closing the ChetAdvisor tab is not sufficient.
If you don’t close the window containing ChetAdvisor, you will eventually receive an error message that warns that you reached the cookie limit. While this error might harken one back to the days when mom strove to maintain your appetite for supper, in this case, cookies are tools of the Internet. To avoid this issue, we strongly recommend that you open a new browser window for any ChetAdvisor instance you intend to open. For example, in Chrome, click on the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner and choose New window.
Avoid Saving Documents to the Desktop
Students who log into MU-owned computers should avoid saving documents to the computer’s desktop. In some cases, the documents might disappear when you log out of the computer and log back into that computer or another computer on campus. ALWAYS save documents on your H:\ drive or OneDrive for Business.
Contributions Welcome
Do you want to know more about a particular topic or know a helpful IT tip? Please send them to Help Desk.