Please take the time to view the information at http://www.grinnell.edu/its/labsoft. This page will contain the software and version information for the next school year. It will be updated on June 1 with new data. Contact your support team if you have any questions.
Faculty information for summer and/or extended leave
As you prepare for your summer, and for some of you a semester or more away from campus, you should keep in mind the following:
Office 2007/2008 upgrade:
Over the summer, we will transition machines from current versions of Office to Office 2007 and 2008. Watch your email for more information, or visit http://www.grinnell.edu/its/office.
Secure FTP:
On June 9th, we will discontinue the use of standard FTP, and use only Secure FTP for access to files from storage. Both have been running for the past few months. The helpdesk has a listing of FTP clients that support Secure FTP at http://ucdb.grinnell.edu/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Help.SecureFTPClients. We will provide more information as the time approaches.
Passwords - Your password expires every 190 days. If you have not changed your password recently, it may expire while you are away from campus. Take the time to log in and enroll in Password Reset. This will allow you to manage your account while you are away from campus. It includes the ability to unlock your account and reset your password, as well as filling out security questions so that we can help you as well.
Reading Mail - As always, you can use Outlook Web Access to read your mail from off campus. If you wish to use another mail client, instructions for configuring using our Secure SMTP setup are found at http://www.grinnell.edu/its/email/secure.
Managing Mailboxes - Sometimes during a long absence people have issues with their mail quota. A reminder that deleted messages are not gone until you remove them from the Deleted Items folder. You can circumvent this by using Shift+Delete, which will immediately remove the messages from the server. Attachments (especially large ones) should be saved locally and removed from your mailbox to keep usage down.
Updates - When your machine is on campus, ITS automatically handles many updates to the operating system and other software. For an extended absence, you should periodically update your operating system and antivirus program to maximize your protection.
*PC Users : Go to http://update.microsoft.com. This will patch both your Windows and Office installations. Your antivirus program, Trend, will update back to our server as usual.
*Mac Users: Periodically run the Software Update (found under the Apple). This will keep your systems up to date and patched.
VPN - If you use a laptop, we do have VPN (Virtual Private Network) available, which creates a secure connection between your machine and our campus network. This makes available any campus-only resources (databases, software, etc) to you wherever you are. It is not for use at all times, and does not replace the need for you to acquire internet access, but can be beneficial.
As always, please contact the helpdesk or your support team if you have any questions.
Departing Faculty
As you leave Grinnell, it is suggested that you burn a CD (or otherwise electronically transfer) with files you have created and used here. Additionally, if you wish to download and take a copy of emails with you, you can configure a mail client to do so, or if you use Outlook, create a "Personal Folders File" (pst) that creates a file that can hold multiple messages, and then be burned to CD, or transferred electronically in other ways.
Your grinnell.edu email account will stay active until December 1. See above for hints about managing passwords and quotas from off campus.
