Our second newsletter as we count down the days to the migration of the WBS staff email system.

This special newsletter is only relevant to WBS staff and is the first in a series as we countdown to the migration of the WBS staff email system in late Feb/early March.

The SlideRocket application has been enabled for the mail.wbs domain. This application provides a novel way of creating presentations. Please note WBS Solutions cannot provide any support for this application. While it proved interesting and useful during testing it did occasionally crash. In the unlikely event that the software caused any wider problems access to it could be disabled without warning. Use at your own risk.

MY INFORMATION IS WRONG ON A WEBSITE, WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
All credit to the Marketing and Communications team for this.... Your information (name, phone number, publications etc) appears on various WBS/Warwick websites. Sometimes that information may be incorrect or missing some details. The Marketing & Communications Office have a very useful link that explains where the various bits of information come from. This helps you find out whom to contact or what to update to get the information fixed. See http://www.wbs.ac.uk/help/staff-profiles.cfm .


ACCESS TO THE STUDENT RECORDS SYSTEM (SITS)
From late 2009, in an effort to reduce costs, central IT Services stopped our ability to install SITS locally and all access from WBS was via the 'Thin Client' service. This has generally proved unpopular with users and IT Services have reverted to distributing client files to WBS. Any staff member requiring access to SITS should look for the application 'SITS Vision' in Run Advertised Programs (Windows 7) or WBS-Applications (XP). Please do not confuse this with the 'SITS ODBC' application which is different. If you cannot see this application please contact help@wbs.ac.uk . There are more details at http://help.wbs.ac.uk/kb/software/non_microsoft_apps/sits .


RETIREMENT OF GW ARCHIVE ACCESS
From 2008 until November 2009 WBS Solutions ran an email archiving product called GW Archive. Since November 2009 it has not been used to archive new email although it has been possible to access old messages via the 'Archive' link at http://webmail2.wbs.ac.uk. This service is little used now and this access will be retired on Tuesday 29th November. The archived email data will however be kept for a number of further years. If you require access to archived email please contact the Helpdesk (help@wbs.ac.uk).


PHOTO SLIDESHOW OF THE REFURBISHED WBS TEACHING CENTRE
The WBS Teaching Centre was substantially refurbished this summer to create a number of innovative and improved spaces. See some of the highlights at http://help.wbs.ac.uk/wtcslideshow . Any staff wanting to find out more about any of the changes are encouraged to get in touch.


GETTING RID OF THE IPRINT PRINTER AUTHENTICATION BOX
The very first time you try to print on a new computer, or immediately after you change your password, you will likely see a 'Printer Authentication' box and be asked to enter your username and password. On this interface it is strongly recommended that you tick the 'Remember my password' option or else you will see this each and every time you print. For a screenshot and more information see http://help.wbs.ac.uk/kb/hardware/printers/iprintlogin .


USE OF THEATRES STAFF FOLDER ON THE L: DRIVE
Many teaching staff use the Theatres_staff folder on the L drive as a convenient way of transporting presentations between offices and teaching rooms. Please be aware of the following:

1. The folder is intended as a temporary storage location
2. Space is limited. Please delete items after they have been used. Should the folder fill up items will be deleted without warning, starting with the oldest
3. This folder is not private. Although students have no direct access, they can see all contents from teaching room lectern machines
4. It is always prudent to have at least two copies of files so we would recommend you use this in addition to carrying your presentation on a USB memory stick or similar
5. This only works within the Business School. Do not use if you will be teaching in non-WBS rooms.

UPDATE ON GROUPWISE OUTSOURCING
This project continues to progress well towards the target date of February 2012. We are currently looking for potential 'early adopters' who would be keen to move from GroupWise to the new Live@EDU system in the next few weeks. This would not be appropriate for staff who need to share calendars and/or folders with other GroupWise users or make use of 'Proxy' functionality. If you would be keen to be an early adopter and have no need to use the collaboration or sharing functionality within GroupWise then we'd love to hear from you.


STAFF CHANGES WITHIN WBS SOLUTIONS
There have been some personnel changes within WBS Solutions. We are now comprised of two teams who cooperate closely together, under the strategic guidance of the Associate Dean for Technology (Professor Joe Nandhakumar) and the CAO. The Application Development team continues to be headed by Simon Harper while the Systems and Support teams have been merged into a new 'Technology Environments' team headed by Martin Chandler. Dene Statham takes over operational responsibility for the Helpdesk. Support requests should continue to be placed through the Helpdesk website (http://help.wbs.ac.uk), via email help@wbs.ac.uk or phone 22522. For any other issues please do not hesitate to get in touch with Simon, Martin or Dene directly as appropriate.

For information the changes have been the retirement of the long time Head of IT, David Wright; the move of Alan Braley to IT Services; the promotion of Sean Turner and Chris Greenshaw taking the opportunity of the EVLS to move on to pastures new. Sadly Tanya Podinovskaia is also leaving WBS Solutions although happily she isn't going far, having been promoted to the position of Technology Integrator for the Specialist Masters and Exec Education programmes.

UPGRADING TO OFFICE 2010
As part of the preparations for the outsourcing of the staff email system to Microsoft's Live@EDU product it is highly recommended that all staff upgrade to Office 2010. To do this please select the program Office 2010 from the Run Advertised Programs list (Windows 7) or 'Install Office 2010' from the Microsoft Office folder of WBS Applications (Windows XP). The upgrade is evolutionary in nature, nothing like the abrupt change introduced by the 'Ribbon' interface in Office 2007. It is important however to be running Outlook 2010 before the email outsourcing in February 2012.


iPADS @ WBS
It is possible to purchase an iPad for work use if you have access to the necessary discretionary funds or similar. For advice on this process plus how to get the most out of your iPad please see http://help.wbs.ac.uk/kb/hardware/ipads/


ALREADY GOT AN iPAD OR iPHONE?
If you haven't already setup 'find my iPhone' see the above link for more information on this free service that allows you to locate your device if it goes missing, remotely lock it or wipe your data.


USING THE WARWICK VPN (Virtual Private Network) TO ACCESS UNIVERSITY RESOURCES SECURELY
Warwick provide a free VPN service that allows you remotely to access university resources securely. Once installed and running on your computer this service allows your computer to appear to be located on the Warwick network, wherever you actually are. Some possible uses include: accessing software that requires a connection to the Warwick/WBS network (licence permitting), accessing services that are otherwise limited to computers on campus (see the following for an example) or logging into shared network drives. For more information and to install see http://vpn.warwick.ac.uk


WHAT SOFTWARE IS AVAILABLE AT WBS?
For information on what software is available within WBS and the University more widely see http://help.wbs.ac.uk/softwarelist . On that page the key resource is the PDF document that is automatically updated from our licence database information. Access to this is restricted to on campus computers only.. should you need access remotely please see the point above about accessing over the Warwick VPN.


REPORTING SPAM MESSAGES THAT SLIPPED THROUGH THE FILTERS
The WBS anti-spam system is outsourced to a commercial company, iCritical. Although they seem to do an excellent job some spam messages are bound to sneak through the filters. When this happens please do not forward the messages to the Helpdesk. Instead please forward them to submit-spam@icritical.com. They are then used by iCritical to tweak the filters to make them even more effective.


DO YOU USE CAPLAN OR GIVEWIN?
WBS Solutions are currently looking at migrating to 64 bit operating systems. This will give us the opportunity to run more powerful desktop systems with more memory. Unfortunately some older applications will no longer work. So far we have identified Caplan and Givewin as being unsuitable for use under 64 bit Windows. If you use either of these products please contact the Helpdesk (help@wbs.ac.uk).


REPLACEMENT OF ADOBE WRITER WITH PDF CONVERTER
Due to the age of our version of Adobe Acrobat (version 8 from 2005) we have replaced it with PDF Converter, a site licence for which is held by the University. This can be installed via Run Advertised Programs (Windows 7) or WBS Applications (XP). Prior to this change we compared functionality based on your feedback. The results of this are shown at http://help.wbs.ac.uk/kb/software/non_microsoft_apps/acrobatreplace . If you have Adobe Acrobat installed it will continue to function but it will no longer be available for new installs. PDF Converter is available as a free download to staff and students for installation on private computers, see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/its/servicessupport/software/pdfconverter