Network & Systems

Including the 3 access points installed late last spring, a total of 9 access points have been installed in Baker Village. This provides full wireless network coverage to all 5 buildings of Baker Village and the Farm House.

We have added a wireless access point in the dressing room in the basement of the CFL. The dressing room will now be fully covered by our wireless network.

From June 26-29, 2009 I attended the ResNet Symposium conference that was held at St. Cloud State University this year. There were fewer participants in this year’s than in past years, but there were still plenty of informative sessions to attend and plenty of colleagues from other institutions to talk with.

The network switches in Ylvisaker have been upgraded. Network service in all wired ports in Ylvisaker are now capable of gigabit speeds.

Google has a short video about the methods they use to keep spam out of our Norse Mail inboxes. They also have a web page on the same topic.

One of the key methods they use to identify spam and track the quality of their spam filtering is reports from the GMail community at large. So, remember to do your part to help block spam. If a message that is spam ends up in your inbox click the “Report Spam” button.

Three additional wireless access points have been installed in the CFL. This improves coverage in several areas where it was previously weak. There is now strong coverage in the Campus Ministry and Campus Programming Offices, both the upstairs and downstairs hallways, classroom 205, and the balcony of the main auditorium.

Dave Huinker and I attended a Citrix Administration class at the headquarters of our vendor in the St. Paul, MN last week. The class was very interesting and provided us with some ideas for providing better service through Citrix and ways of making it more secure. Another important component of the trip was a meeting to discuss our forthcoming Citrix hardware and software upgrade. Our Linux / LDAP infrastructure creates many challenges when trying to setup a service based entirely on Microsoft technology.

Just over a week ago I announced that we had added wireless network coverage to Jenson-Noble. Since then we have added 2 additional access points that will improve coverage in a couple of areas. There is now strong coverage in the upstairs music office area, and in the large central hallway area. Signal strength has also improved somewhat in the Organ Room, Choir Room, Orchestra Room, and Sperati Band Room.

Google has announced the addition of support for .docx and .xlsx files in Google Docs. http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2009/06/file-formats-keep-on-coming-annou...

This week we’ve installed 8 wireless access points to provide wireless network coverage in Jenson. Coverage is currently strong in Classroom’s 123, 125, and 174, and the 124 Lab (Presser Lab). Coverage is also strong in faculty and staff offices.

We are currently working on adding some additional access points for upstairs and the main central hallway to improve signal strength in these areas.

Coverage is currently limited in the Recital Hall, Recital Hall Lobby, Organ Room, Choir Room, Orchestra Room, and Sperati Band Room.