IT Announcements
03/12/10: Early Morning Maintenance March 16, 2010Charter Communications has notified us that they will be performing maintenance on the fiber line Tuesday, March 16th.
This could cause a possible one hour outage of services between the hours of 1:00 AM to 6:00 AM.
VLS IT
03/03/10: Caution! Fake Email
There is an email circulating that asks you to confirm your account details (see text below) - this did not come from the VLS IT Department.
REMEMBER:
- We will never ask you to send any login credentials via email
- Don't ever send passwords via email [sending email is like sending a postcard in the mail - anyone can read it if they want to]
- Report any suspicious email by forwarding it to bademail@vermontlaw.edu as an attachment (if you use the Webmail interface, just select 'forward')
(Fake Email Content:
You are expected to verify your email account to avoid mailbox shutdown :
Login Username:
Login password: **************
To avoid shutting down of your mailbox which could lead to loss of your important files on our server,you must send these details on receipt of this message.
Thank you very much.
Webmaster
End Fake Email Content )
Thanks for doing your part to keep our network and your personal data safe!
This is an announcement from the Vermont Law School Information Technology Department
02/19/10: New Free Public Internet Access Points
The IT department has exciting news to share.
Yesterday we completed the work necessary to add four more public access points on campus. These access points are located in Yates (covering the ELC conference room), Hoff Lounge, Oakes 012 and the last one in the middle of the third floor of Oakes (with coverage in the rooms to either side).
These Wireless Access points will allow campus visitors convenient internet access while on campus. Each access point has speeds of 3 to 7Mb.
These wireless access points are in addition to the access points in Chase and the Library.
Enjoy!
VLS IT
02/12/10: Voicemail Is Back Up!
We are sorry for the delayed voice mail system recovery this morning. The system took longer than anticipated to reinitialize.
The voice mail system is now back up and running.
We would like to remind you that normally a power outage situation or a battery change will causes problems with the voice mail message lights and they have to be reset. Please go into your voice mail ( even if the light is not on) and check/listen to all messages, this action will reset your light and ensure that you do not miss any important messages.
VLS IT
02/12/10: Voicemail Down
Unfortunately, the voice mail feature did not recover as expected after replacing the batteries at 7:00 a.m. this morning. This means that you cannot access voice mail and calls will not ring to voice mail.
Incoming, outgoing and internal phone calls are working normally.
We are in touch with the vendor and working on resolving this issue as soon as possible.
VLS IT
02/11/10: Battery Replacement for Voicemail System
The IT department will be replacing the batteries in the voice mail system tomorrow morning at 7:00 A.M.. We expect the voice mail system to be available for use by 7:45 A.M..
Normally a power outage situation or a battery change will causes problems with the voice mail message lights and they have to be reset. Please go into your voice mail ( even if the light is not on) and check/listen to all messages, this action will reset your light and ensure that you do not miss any important messages.
Thank you for your patience and support,
VLS IT
01/12/10: Campus Schedule (R25) Maintenance
The campus calendar and schedule, R25, will be undergoing an upgrade and maintenance today. Because of this, the schedule will not be available online for about 5 to 10 minutes at some point today, probably around 11am.
12/15/09: Planned Server Maintenance on 12/21, 12/28, 12/29
On December 21, 2009 the IT department will be replacing assorted hardware connectors and fiber switches. Services will be unavailable the entire day.
On December 28th and December 29th the IT department will be completing necessary upgrades to an assortment of network software, fixing the secure certificate issue with webmail as well as support the Buildings and Grounds team as they set up building automation and monitoring. Service will require both days from 8 am until 5 pm. Intermittent access will be available during those times, but it will not be dependable. Access will be available after 5pm on both days.
Durin these periods there will be no internet service (with the exception of our limited public access points), no email, and no file access. There will be no webmail access. Email sent to VLS email accounts during all service periods will be held and delivered when servers come back online.
Please take the following precautions to insure that your time on these three days is as productive as possible:
1) Let individuals you expect to be in critical communications via email on these days know to contact you at an alternative email address. No email will be lost during this maintenance window.
2) Make sure you have all documents or other files that you wish to work with on your local hard drive or USB drive on these days.
3) If internet access is paramount to your activities, plan to use the Chase Center or Library public access points via a laptop.
The IT department will send an email announcement when service is completed on each day. We regret any inconvenience.
The IT department thanks the community for its understanding and support.
VLS IT
12/4/09: System Maintenance Tomorrow (Saturday)
In the interest of network stability throughout the final exam period, the IT department will be performing critical server maintenance on Saturday morning between the hours of 5am and 10am. During this period there may be no internet service (with the exception of our limited public access points), no email and no file access. This network service should resolve the intermittent issues that have been occurring since the vendor maintenance on November 25.
Please take the following precautions to insure that your time on Saturday morning is as productive as possible:
1) Let individuals you expect to be in critical communications with on Saturday morning know to contact you at an alternative email address.
2) Make sure you have all document or other files that you wish to work with on Saturday on your local hard drive or USB drive.
3) If internet access is paramount to your studies, plan to use the Chase Center or Library public access points via your personal laptop on Saturday.
The IT department will send an email announcement when service is completed. We regret the inconvenience to our community during this critical time.
The IT department thanks the community for its understanding and support.
VLS IT
11/25/09, 4:24pm: Groupwise Webmail is back up; Network Drive access still unavailable at this time.
11/25/09: Groupwise Webmail and Network Drive Access are Down
During this morning's maintenance work, access to Groupwise web email and network drive files via NetStorage was lost. We are working now to restore these services as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your patience.
VLS IT
11/24/09: IT Service Window Wednesday 6 - 8am
The IT department will have a maintenance window on November 25th from 6am to 8am. At this time several failed battery units in the Data Center will be replaced by our vendor, American Power Conversion Corp. (APC). This window was selected based upon the availability of our vendor in order to create the least impact to VLS operations.
When the battery units are replaced, all of our systems will be down. Our servers will be rebooted immediately upon replacement of the batteries and necessary power checks.
No email or internet access will be available during this period. Our website will be down and no file access will be available.
We apologize for any inconvenience and thank the community for its patience and support.
VLS IT
10/09/09: EMAIL VIRUS NOTICE
Emails are circulating on campus that have attached zip files containing viruses.
If you receive an order confirmation for something you did not order, forward it as an attachment to bademail@vermontlaw.edu for inspection.
VLS IT
09/30/09: Warning re: Installing Toolbars with Internet Explorer 8
We are sending out this announcement to avoid potential problems which may significantly impact Windows computers. If you have Internet Explorer 8, we recommend using caution when installing additional toolbars, especially the ask.com toolbar. We have seen instances where this renders the computer unusable (unable to boot). Attempts to repair the affected file corruptions have failed, requiring reinstallation of the entire Windows operating system and all software.
NOTE: The most common way for toolbars to be installed in Internet Explorer is via other software that you choose to install. Many installations (particularly Sun Java Runtime updates) have the option to install additional items, and the check boxes to agree to these installations will be checked by default.
We recommend that you uncheck any boxes for these additional products unless it is something you need for your work.
How do I tell what version of Internet Explorer I have ?
On the menu bar, click Help > About Internet Explorer. If the Help option is not visible, right-click anywhere on the toolbar area and select 'Menu Bar' to show the main menu.
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This is an announcement from the Vermont Law School Information Technology Department.
IT Portal: http://it.vermontlaw.edu
Helpdesk e-mail: helpdesk@vermontlaw.edu
Helpdesk Phone: x1355 or 802-831-1355
09/23/09: Network Difficulties
We are experiencing network difficulties today. Our network administrators are trouble shooting the problem. We expect to have some network instability throughout the afternoon as we work to overcome the problem. The IT department will send an update as soon as we have more information.
During this network instability you may experience some of the following difficulties:
We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to quickly resolve the issue.
VLS IT
06/22/09: K: Drive restored to WEDNESDAY 17 June Version
The error we experienced on Thursday evening was an issue between our Novell cluster nodes and the storage network. We were unable to recover the volume on the storage network. The K: drive was rebuilt using data from the tape backup. The data was restored to its state as of Wednesday night.
Please double check your documents and review any work you may have done on Thursday. Any work stored on the K: drive on Thursday was NOT restored.
We appreciate your understanding and apologize for the inconvenience.
VLS IT
06/18/09, 9:15pm: Email and Network Drives restored, except for K:\
We are working to restore the K:\ drive now, but all other systems are once again functioning normally. Thank you for your patience.
VLS IT
06/18/09, 8:23pm: Network Issues; Email Down
As of 7:30 this evening, a critical failure occurred on our network cluster. The network drives (K:\, J:\, etc.) are currently down. Email is down. We are working to repair the issues at this time and will post as soon as these services are restored.
We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience.
VLS IT
06/16/09: Avoid a Privacy Nightmare
You receive an email that says someone you know has sent you photos on Tagged.com. If you click the Yes button, you come to a webpage where you can sign up for free to see the photos. If you click on No, it brings you to a page to enter your information to not receive any more invites from this person. The only good choice? Don’t click on anything in the email – just delete it.
The site entices you to enter your email address and password so you can share your photos with everyone in your address book. If you have an email address associated with a major provider (Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, etc.), it will even show you the appropriate icon next to the login box. Now everyone in your address book (friends, family, business acquaintances, etc.) will receive a similar invitation that appears to come from you.
These types of social engineering tactics are becoming more prevalent and increasingly sophisticated. They count on the fact that you are busy and distracted and won’t read carefully exactly what is presented on the screen, or that you are so anxious to see these photos that you will be willing to give up a little bit of your privacy to do so.
The really bad part is that what you have now done is give this company full access to your email account, not just the contacts. There is no way to undo what you have just done; the only option is damage control. Change your email password and then share this with the person who the invitation pretended to come from.
Time Magazine just posted this article on the subject last week: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1903810,00.html
For more reading on the dangers of social networking sites, see “The Downside of Friends: Facebook's Hacking Problem” at http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1895740,00.html
Security Reminder:
The VLS IT department will never ask you for account passwords or other sensitive information via email. Recently emails have been sent to VLS mailboxes with subject lines such as 'Mailbox Shutdown Notification' or 'Mailbox has been deactivated.' These communications request that you reply with your login details. These are fraudulent emails and should be reported to the IT department.
NEVER send your login information to anyone via email, for any of your accounts.
To report suspected fraudulent email of any kind, forward it as an attachment to bademail@vermontlaw.edu. Emails forwarded using the WebMail interface automatically are attached. In the Groupwise client, click the down arrow on the right side of the Forward button and select 'Forward as attachment.'
Thank you for your support, VLS IT
05/19/09: System Maintenance TOMORROW
The IT department is conducting an upgrade of the storage area network this Wednesday 5/20 (tomorrow).
5/20/2009 (Wednesday) This upgrade involves the installation of physical hardware and will require up to 5 hours of network down time. This will mean no email or file access from 7 am to noon on this day. Printing will continue to function and internet access will be available during this time. Please plan in advance by gathering Wednesday's work on your computer's local (C:) drive Tuesday before leaving for the day.
We appreciate your patience and support as we perform this critical upgrade to our network. Contact IT with any questions or concerns about this planned maintenance.
Thank you,
VLS IT
05/14/09: Wireless Service Maintenance Completed
The maintenance action on our wireless networking equipment is completed.
Please Note:
If you have bookmarked the wireless login page in your web browser, you will need to update the link.
The wireless login page is now at: https://10.11.1.2
Thank you.
VLS IT
05/12/09: Wireless Service Maintenance This Thursday
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,
The IT dept. will be performing maintenance on the Wireless Network Thursday morning May, 14th. We expect the wireless connectivity to be unavailable for about 1 hour. We plan to have wireless network service restored by 9 am.
Thank you for your continuing patience and support,
VLS IT
05/07/09: Upgrades 5/11 and 5/20
The IT department is conducting an upgrade of the storage area network this coming Monday 5/11 and Wednesday 5/20.
5/11/2009 (Monday) The first phase of the upgrade on Monday does not require any network outage, however, please save often!
5/20/2009 (Wednesday) The second phase of the upgrade involves the installation of physical hardware and will require up to 5 hours of network down time. This will mean no email or file access from 7 am to noon on this day. Printing will continue to function and internet access will be available during this time. Please plan in advance by gathering Wednesday's work on your computer's local (C:) drive Tuesday before leaving for the day.
We appreciate your patience and support as we perform this critical upgrade to our network. Contact IT with any questions or concerns about this planned maintenance.
Thank you,
VLS IT
04/22/09: Off-Campus Email
Early this morning the internet gateway for our Email system went down.
What this means: Email leaving campus for address other than '@vermontlaw.edu' will be delayed. Inbound email from off campus sites will be delayed.
We are working to restore service as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.
VLS IT
04/13/09: Brief Webmail Outage
Webmail was down briefly today from 11:25 - 11:42.
We are sorry for the inconvenience.
VLS IT
04/02/09: Update on Conficker Computer Worm
The Conficker worm failed to cause the many world-wide expected problems on April 1st. But that does not mean that it won't activate at a later time, the malicious hackers can tell their worm to do something any day of the year.
Continue to keep your virus definitions up to date, run scans and Microsoft Window updates.
Be careful about searching for Conficker removal software on Google. Scammers have managed to get fake security sites among the top searches. Bogus sites are designed to steal your credit card information and could install malware on your computer instead of a legitimate security program. Use only trusted sites such as those from a reputable company like Symantec, McAfee, and other well-known virus software companies.
03/30/09: *ALERT* Conficker Virus on April 1st (Wednesday)
Per last evenings 60 Minutes program, "one of the most dangerous threats ever, a computer worm known as 'Conficker,' is spreading through the Internet right now. By some estimates, 10 million computers have been infected worldwide." No one knows what the payload of the virus will be - yet. April 1st is the media reported "delivery" date for the payload of this virus. Under this scenario on April 1st computers infected with the Conflicker virus will access the internet and receive instructions from a remote computer. These instructions could be things like sending the hacker's system all of your passwords, credit card information and account numbers.
It is important to note that even if your anti-virus is up to date, your computer may remain infected or vulnerable.
The IT department has the following recommendations:
1) Make sure your anti-virus is up-to-date. A final virus definition update on 3/31 is recommended.
2) Turn off your personal computer on 3/31 prior to midnight. Listen to the news for an update on the status of the virus. As long as your system is not connected to the internet, your system is safe on April 1st.
3) Turn off your work computer on 3/31 at the end of your day. This is a full shutdown with power off. On April 1st, you will be able to resume work as normal unless otherwise notified.
IT will post updates on the IT website and send phone messages regarding the status of the virus. Viewing the IT webpage while on campus will not endanger your computer. If necessary, IT will have taken steps by 8:30 am and posted relevant information.
As with any virus situation, if you have reason to believe that your computer is infected, please contact the VLS helpdesk for assistance: helpdesk@vermontlaw.edu or Ext. 1355
VLS IT
03/24/09: WebMail Experiencing a Problem
The IT department is aware that some community members are experiencing difficulties with webmail. We are working to quickly resolve the problem. We will provide further information as it becomes available.
We are sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and support.
Thank you,
VLS IT
03/23/09: Email Delayed Delivery
There was a brief mail server hiccup on Saturday evening, which caused email to back up on the server. The server has been checked and is working correctly; the backlog of email is in the process of being delivered. No email was lost due to this issue.
VLS IT
03/19/09: Prof. Hanna's Classes Cancelled Today.
Professor Hanna's Evidence and Con Law are cancelled for today, Thursday, March 19, 2009.
03/09/09: IT Spring Break Services, Updates and Outage Information
The IT department is taking the opportunity provided by Spring Break to perform some much needed maintenance on servers and other equipment. Below is an anticipated schedule of these plans; we will inform the community if we must deviate from this plan:
Monday 3/9/09 -- Xiotech (our main storage area) update and upgrade. We shouldn't experience down time, however, save early and often and plan to have *no* file access between the hours of 6am and 10am. IT suggests placing any files you will need Monday morning on your local machine or a USB memory stick on Friday afternoon. Please take a moment and plan ahead.
Tuesday 3/10/09 -- GroupWise Web Access (Webmail) will be down briefly between 9 and 10am to apply *another* security patch. While we do not expect a prolonged outage, please do not expect to have off campus access to email during that hour.
Wednesday 3/11/09 -- Between 6 AM and 8 AM on Wednesday morning there will be a several network outages as we make security updates and upgrades to our Firewall. Please save often and do not expect network access reliably during this time.
Also on Wednesday the Library computer lab will be closed for maintenance. The Chase computer lab will be available during this time.
Thank you for your patience and support, The VLS IT Team
03/06/09: Delayed Write Error - what you should do
We recommend taking the following precautions when working on any documents stored on network drives, until we are able to resolve this issue.
To avoid losing your work: Never close the software via the red X in the corner. Use "File, Save As" or the key combination CTRL-S to save the document.
If you get a delayed write error: Save the document again.
It's also a good idea to save your document to a second source such as a USB key.
If you get the delayed write error and all else has failed in attempts to save your document, do not close out of the program or log out of the computer. Please call the helpdesk at ext 1355 and we will help you.
Thank you for your patience and support as we work to resolve this issue,
VLS IT
IT Spring Break Services, Updates and Outage Information
The IT department is taking the opportunity provided by Spring Break to perform some much needed maintenance on servers and other equipment. Below is an anticipated schedule of these plans; we will inform the community if we must deviate from this plan: Monday 3/9/09 -- Xiotech (our main storage area) update and upgrade. We shouldn't experience down time, however, save early and often and plan to have *no* file access between the hours of 6am and 10am. IT suggests placing any files you will need Monday morning on your local machine or a USB memory stick on Friday afternoon. Please take a moment and plan ahead.
Tuesday 3/10/09 -- GroupWise Web Access (Webmail) will be down briefly between 9 and 10am to apply *another* security patch. While we do not expect a prolonged outage, please do not expect to have off campus access to email during that hour.
Wednesday 3/11/09 -- Between 6 AM and 8 AM on Wednesday morning there will be a several network outages as we make security updates and upgrades to our Firewall. Please save often and do not expect network access reliably during this time.
Also on Wednesday the Library computer lab will be closed for maintenance. The Chase computer lab will be available during this time.
Thank you for your patience and support, The VLS IT Team
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