eNews Volume 108 - 11/20/2008

It is with a sense of sadness that we announce that Tom Weber, coordinator of the college enterprise network program, will be leaving Ag IT. Tom has accepted the position of IT Manager for the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State effective Monday, Dec 1.

Tom's 24 years of service to the College and our group cannot be measured. He will be missed. Those of you who remember DECmail, PENpages or Gopher; if you ever used VisiCalc on an Apple IIe, accessed a Gopher site with a 1200 baud modem or booted up a Mac Plus from a system floppy and then swapped in a data floppy to use an ImageWriter printer, then you may have been in the College at the start of computerization in 1984. Tom Weber was one of the early pioneers who helped establish Penn State as a national leader in the IT arena.

While we will certainly miss Tom's many contributions, we are proud that his expertise will contribute to the development of another college here at Penn State. Please join me in thanking Tom for his valued service to the college and wishing him well in his new role.

Neal T. Vines, Director

For those of you developing publications and other printed pieces, please remember that all University publications (except formal invitations) must carry a form of the Statement of Nondiscrimination (affirmative action statement). In general, the complete text of the statement should always be used.

To be sure that you are properly using the most up-to-date affirmative action and other required statements for college publications, please go to http://agcomm.cas.psu.edu/statements.html. Penn State’s Affirmative Action office also provides the University statements at http://www.psu.edu/dept/aaoffice/statements.htm.

Please contact me with questions or concerns regarding the use of these statements.

Amanda E. Kirsten, Managing Editor Communications and Marketing

Did you know that Dell has offered Chat Support with its technicians for nearly three years in the United States?

Recently I had an opportunity to use this service because the F key on my Latitude D830 began to stick. Since I use this key in my AG password, it was an annoyance to say the least. Rather than call the 800 number for Dell Support, I decided to use the Chat Support option.

Here are a couple ways to start chatting with a Dell tech representative.

1. Go to www.Dell.com/chatsupport.
   or
   From support.dell.com, under Contact Technical Support, click on the Chat Online with Technical Support link.
2. Enter the Service Tag of the Dell computer and click Submit.
3. A "Welcome to <Model> Chat Support" window will appear. You enter your Company Name, First and Last Name, and E-mail Address. Then click Continue.
4. You will be placed into a queue where you will wait for the next available representative. In the lower left of the window you will see what your number is in queue.
5. After a brief wait, you will begin to chat with the Dell tech.
   
   Note: As a sample, here is the start of my Chat Session Log. I did remove Peter's name and ID from the below log.

(LIBS_Peter ***): "Hi! Thank you for contacting Dell. My name is Peter, how may I help you today?"
Vince Verbeke: "I have a sticking key on my D830"
(LIBS_Peter ***): "Ok let me assist you with that."
(LIBS_Peter ***): "Can I have your full name and service tag please?"
Vince Verbeke: "Vincent Verbeke, 6CTM8F1"
(LIBS_Peter ***): "Thanks"
Vince Verbeke: "Express Service Code is 13836034333"
(LIBS_Peter ***): "Thanks"
(LIBS_Peter ***): "Just to be sure we are working with the correct system. Are you using a Latitude D830."
Vince Verbeke: "Yes"
(LIBS_Peter ***): "To give you an update, you still have an active warranty for next business day tech and computer care that will expire on December 10 2011. Also you have a life time warranty for chat and phone support."
Vince Verbeke: "Yup"
(LIBS_Peter ***): "by the way what key is sticking?"
Vince Verbeke: "F"
(LIBS_Peter ***): : "Is that all?"
Vince Verbeke: "Yes"
(LIBS_Peter ***): "Thank you."

My experience was very positive. They sent a technician to replace the keyboard the next day.

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

As reported by The Washington Post, on Tuesday November 11, 2008 a major spam network was shutdown. To read more about the takedown of McColo Corp., you can visit Spam Volumes Drop by Two-Thirds After Firm Goes Offline.

Unfortunately, experts expect that the volume of spam should return to "normal" levels in the near future. In the meantime, this snapshot of monthly spam volumes taken on 11/17/08 from SpamCop shows that spam levels remain down.

Update: 11/18/2008 eWeek article McColo Shutdown Strands Tons of Zombies also discusses this development.

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

I’m fortunate enough to have 2 monitors for my computer – my standard laptop monitor and an external flat monitor. I really like this setup since I usually have many applications open while I’m working on our training materials. It saves me from minimizing one application to type in the other application.

You can do this too but if you just hook up another monitor to your computer, you may not automatically get an extended desktop on the external monitor. You do have to complete a few steps:

1. Connect the external monitor to your computer.
2. Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose Properties.
3. Click the Settings tab.
4. Click on the #2 monitor to select it.
5. Click to put a checkmark in the box to Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor.
6. Click OK.

Now, there is ONE step you need to remember to do if you are going to use your laptop with a projection unit, you need to turn OFF the Extend your monitor. Those steps and a picture of the Settings tab can be found here – http://it.cas.psu.edu/1400.htm.

Jacki Weikert, Educational Technologist

We sometimes get calls on Support about "missing" Outlook columns from folders like the Inbox. Somehow column headings are missing such as From or Subject. For me, that is a crucial part of my Outlook that I need to get back and fast! It’s pretty easy to do if you know where to click.

1. Open Outlook and get to your Inbox or any other mailbox folder that needs to be corrected.
2. Right-click a column heading and from the pop-up menu select Field Chooser.
3. From the drop-down list at the top of the Field Chooser, click to select the All Mail fields.
4. Scroll and locate the field you are missing.
5. Drag that field to the mailbox heading and drop it where you want it to be.
6. Once you have added back your missing field, you can close the Field Chooser Box by clicking the red X at the top right corner.

For example, here is the default order of the Inbox (from left to right):

Header Status, Importance, Reminder, Flag Status Icon, Attachment, From, Subject, Received, Size, Categories.

Bonus Tip: Once you get your fields added, you may need to resize the columns to match your needs.

1. Hover your cursor on the line between the 2 column headers that you need to resize.
2. When it becomes a double-headed arrow, click hold and drag to the desired width. Release your mouse.
3. Sometimes as you resize, the columns to the right will resize as well so you may need to play to get them all adjusted correctly.

Jacki Weikert, Educational Technologist

As we approach the Holiday season (in Pennsylvania this includes hunting season as well), you might find this Outlook 2007's Help "Keep Everyone Informed about Time Away from the Office" article useful. This article explains how to use Outlook's all day event requests to make your co-workers aware of your schedule without messing up their calendars.

Before you begin to read the Outlook Help article, here are several key points about all day events.

1. An all day event is a 24-hour event lasting from midnight to midnight. In addition, any event that exceeds 24 hours is also considered an all day event.
2. When you create an all day event, the Show As option defaults to Free, rather than Busy.
3. All day events will not display on the To Do bar.
   
   Note: If you prefer that these appointments display on your To Do bar, you don't want to follow these steps. Instead, you would want to make multiple appointments, each shorter than 24 hours. The following text is from Outlook Help!

Outlook Help: Keep Everyone Informed about Time Away from the Office

You can easily mark time as "busy" or "out of office" in your Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Calendar. But how can you give those times, such as vacations, prominent visibility to your coworkers? And how can you tell at a glance when your coworkers are going to be out of the office?

This article explains how to use customized all-day meeting requests to keep everyone alerted without affecting the available free time on recipients' calendars.

Add your vacation time to coworkers' calendars
When you mark time as "out of office" on your calendar, your coworkers see it when they attempt to schedule a meeting with you. But wouldn't it be great if you could alert everyone at once in advance of your time away without affecting their free/busy status or cluttering their calendars? You can do this by setting your information to appear on their calendars as an all-day event, but unlike a normal all-day event, which usually is set to "busy," this all-day event is displayed as free time. Your coworkers' free/busy availability is not affected.

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Meeting Request.
2. In the Subject box, type a description.
3. In the Location box, type a description.
4. In the Start time and End time lists, select the start and end time for your time away from the office. For vacations, this usually involves full days. If this is the case, select the All day event check box.
   
   An all-day event is a 24-hour event lasting from midnight to midnight.
   
   Note: By default, Outlook uses the current time zone setting on your computer for scheduling.
   
   
5. In the Options group, for Show As, click Free in the drop-down list box. If you have already specified that this is an all day event, Save As is set automatically to Free.
   
   IMPORTANT: Make sure the Show As setting is set to Free. This allows the meeting request recipients to accept the meeting request and add your vacation time to their calendar, but not block out any time on their calendar. The recipient's calendar will still show free availability for scheduling during your vacation time.
   
   
6. Type any information that you want to share with the recipients.
7. Click To, and then in the Select Attendees and Resources dialog box, in the Search box, type the name of a person or resource that you want to invite to the meeting. If you are searching with the More columns option, click Go.
8. Select the name from the results list, click Required, and then click OK.
9. If you are alerting people to a series of recurring times that you will be away from the office, on the Meeting tab, in the Options group, click Recurrence, select the recurrence pattern, and then click OK.
   
   When you add a recurrence pattern to a meeting request, the Meeting tab changes to Recurring Meeting.
   
   
10. On the Meeting tab, in the Show group, click Appointment.
11. Click Send.

When you send this meeting request with Show As set to Free, the event appears at the top of each day in your coworkers' Outlook Calendars — a visual reminder that does not block out any work time.

Note: If you did not select All day event, the event shows within the time grid; it does not appear at the top of the day. It is still marked as free time, however.

You are not quite finished though, because most likely you do want this time to show up as Out of Office in your own calendar. To learn how, see the next section, Block out vacation time on your calendar.

Block out vacation time on your calendar
If you followed the steps in the previous section, the meeting request you sent was marked as free time to prevent blocking out time on other people's calendars. However, the time is also marked as free on your own calendar. You now need to create an additional appointment for yourself so that others can see that you are not available during the time you specify.

A common mistake is to open the meeting request item on your calendar and change the Show As setting from Free to Out of Office after you have sent the original request. You may think that this changes the event to appear as Busy on your calendar only. However, when you do this an update is sent to everyone you sent the meeting request to, changing Free to Out of Office and defeating the steps you took to avoid doing that. You must create a duplicate appointment on your calendar with the Show As setting set to Out of Office.

When people use the Outlook Calendar to schedule meetings and other events, they can see your availability unless you have changed the permissions for your Calendar to prevent this. Normally, appointments, meetings, and events have a Show As setting of Busy. You can also create items with a Show As setting of Out of Office. Items set to Out of Office are regarded as similar to items set to Busy — someone should not expect you to be available at that time. Visually, the two types differ — items set to Out of Office appear with a purple color, items set to Busy are identified by a blue color theme. This difference in appearance helps emphasize why you are not available. For example, you might be able to move a conflicting Busy item, but you're probably not able or willing to change an Out of Office item such as your vacation.

1. In Calendar, on the File menu, point to New, and then click Appointment.
2. In the Subject box, type your name, and then type vacation. You can also use the Subject box to specify any other type of time off.
3. In Start time, click the date when your vacation (or other time off) starts.
4. In End time, click the date when your vacation (or other time off) ends.
5. Select the All day event check box.
6. Change the Show As setting to Out of Office.
7. Click Save & Close.
   
   Note: You might consider deleting (from your calendar only) the initial meeting request that you sent to other people. Or you can leave it in your calendar so you can use it to easily send an update or a cancellation if your plans change.
   

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Disclaimer: Information presented here is provided as a general information resource. Any mention of commercial products is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement.

Rogue anti-spyware products claim to remove reported spyware and adware. In reality, they have no spyware detection and removal engines. Instead they attempt to bypass your actual antivirus software and install spyware to track your activity, save keystrokes and then generate targeted advertisements (pop ups, browser hijackers).

Malwarebytes offers a free program that will remove fake programs like Antivirus 2009 or Antivirus2009, or Antivirus 2009 Pro if they become installed on your computer.

Note: If your College Enterprise machine becomes infected with malware, please submit a Help Request Form. If the malware infection is serious, we would rather reimage the machine (backup the data, wipe the hard drive, and re-install Windows) to be sure that all vestiges of the malware are removed.

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (download and install the Free version)

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

"No man (or woman) is an island – and this statement can’t be any truer if you’re a designer or developer. Though paid/subscription services like Basecamp and Zimbra are great, individuals strapped for cash have a ton of alternatives that provide similar (if not better) features.

In this article, you’ll find 15 free tools to help you facilitate remote/web-based collaboration. Whether you need basic whiteboarding/brainstorming tools or fully-featured project management applications – you should be able to find a tool or two that’s worth checking out."

15 Free Tools for Web-based Collaboration

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Disclaimer: Information presented here is provided as a general information resource. Any mention of commercial products is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement.

PDFUNdo.net offers a free online PDF to Word converter. You follow the online steps to upload your PDF document and then click the link to download your Word document. I tested the process with a couple of PDFs and the converted files looked good.

http://pdfundo.net/convert/ (4-2-2009: Site may no longer exist)

When the conversion completes and you see the link to "Download" the new Word file, you need to click the "Click Here To Download Your Converted Document..." link to start the download process. Please note that this process will NOT convert Password or Copy protected PDFs.

I did not download their desktop program called PDF UNdo. This is free to try but costs $59.00 to purchase.

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Need to print one page, or only a portion, of a long web page?  Try printwhatyoulike.com, just enter the URL of the desired web page, then select only the portions you want to print.  Make any web page printer friendly, no more wasted paper.

Rich Emnett, Ohio State University Extension Regional Tech Support Team

Penn State's IS/IT undergrad program is listed in this October 2008 TechRepublic 10 Best List. To see their 34 page report as a PDF, click this link.

http://snurl.com/4zfx5

While it was nice to see Penn State listed, the report does say that the University Park campus is in an "Urban" setting though. They gave the same designation to Temple University as well.

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

"Jars used for these recipes are called Mason jars. They come in half-pint, pint, quart, and half-gallon sizes. Most canning recipes use measurements for the pint and quart sizes, but we have a few half-pint recipes as well."

http://www.wittyliving.com/recipes/giftjar_recipe_index.html

Deb Sinkus, IT Specialist

The article itself, 'Generation V' Defies Traditional Demographics, has a chart of the 4 Generation V segments.

"The online behavior, attitudes and interests of people from all walks of life are blending together online, cutting across generations and traditional demographics and giving rise to a new online group called “Generation Virtual” (Generation V), according to research by Gartner, which coined the term.

Unlike previous generations, Generation V is not defined by age, gender, social class or geography. Instead, it is based on achievement, accomplishments and an increasing preference for the use of digital media channels to discover information, build knowledge and share insights.

Marketers will ultimately need a separate marketing strategy to reach this generation, according to Gartner.

Within the Generation V community, Gartner defines four levels of engagement - creators, contributors, opportunists, and lurkers - related to the extent to which customers engage with other customers and the level of engagement that businesses and other organizations must have to enable them:

Findings about these Generation V segments:

• Up to 3% will be creators, providing original content. They can be advocates that promote products and services.
• Between 3% and 10% will be contributors who add to the conversation, but don’t initiate it. They can recommend products and services as customers move through a buying process, looking for purchasing advice.
• Between 10% and 20% will be opportunists, who can further contributions regarding purchasing decisions. Opportunists can add value to a conversation that’s taking place while walking through a considered purchase.
• Approximately 80% will be lurkers, essentially spectators, who reap the rewards of online community input but absorb only what is being communicated. They can still implicitly contribute and indirectly validate value from the rest of the community. All users start out as lurkers.

To address the different needs of these groups, Gartner recommends that marketing organizations segment and support all four engagement levels in the community with appropriate technology and establish goals with plans for determining return on investment (ROI).

"Companies should plan to segment all four levels in the community - each has significant business value," said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Differentiation exists between sectors and industries. Marketers with strong brands attract more creators. Certain industries, such as insurance, draw more lurkers."

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

"For years, books and articles and blogs on productivity have been showing us how to be more productive: crank out the tasks, multi-task, work faster, be organized.

In short, they’ve taught us to be a good part of a corporation that wants more out of us. But that’s old-school productivity, or Productivity 1.0.

Today let’s take a look at Productivity 2.0: a new set of rules have changed everything for the workers of the world. Don’t crank out tasks — learn to work with a deeper focus. Don’t plan and hold meetings and form committees — just launch the software or product or service and keep improving it. Don’t spend time organizing — you’ve got more important things to worry about.

A little while ago I talked about the New Rules of Working … and today we’ll look at how those new rules have changed the game for productivity. Now, these ideas aren’t actually new, but they’re being newly adopted by many, and will be adopted increasingly as workplaces change in the coming years.

Please note that, as always, your mileage may vary — these new rules of productivity won’t work for every single worker in every single office situation. Certain jobs have different requirements. But more and more, these trends are emerging and changing the way we look at productivity."

To read the Old school vs. Productivity 2.0 rules of work, see the article here: Productivity 2.0: How the New Rules of Work Are Changing the Game. To whet your appetite, here are their 8 new rules of productivity.

1. Don’t Crank - Work With Deeper Focus.
2. Minimize Out Meetings and Planning — Just Start.
3. Paperwork is out — automate with technology.
4. Don’t multi-task — multi-project and single-task.
5. Produce less, not more.
6. Forget about organization — use technology.
7. Out with hierarchies — in with freedom.
8. Work fewer hours, not more.

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Disclaimer: Information presented here is provided as a general information resource. Any mention of commercial products is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement.

You can design custom Muppets on FAO Schwartz's website. There are three body colors to choose from (Orange, Green and Blue). You can then move on to a dozen pairs of eyeballs (Black Horn-rimmed Glasses look good). You can choose from a dozen noses, thirteen hairstyles, and fourteen costumes (the Bowling Shirt rocks).

The Muppet Whatnot Workshop [Link no longer works]

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Disclaimer: Information presented here is provided as a general information resource. Any mention of commercial products is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement.

[Video] Remember All on Thanksgiving
This year, as you give thanks, remember all.
http://www.cpmsglife.org/tg/2006tdm1.html

State Flowers - Beautiful
Be sure to watch this to the end when all the state flowers come together as one.
See the State's Flowers

[Video] How A Dog Drinks Water
I knew this answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWlVbgCKjkk

National Geographic: Best Wild Animal Photos of 2008 Announced
Here are seven stunning and in several cases, extremely graphic photos of animal behavior.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/photogalleries/best-animal-wildlife-photos/index.html

Cake Wrecks
What you don't want on your cake!
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/08/what-we-have-here-is-failure-to.html

[Video] A Thieving Raccoon, a Dog and a Cat
Caught via an infrared camera, a raccoon invades a home.
http://www.flixxy.com/racoon-wars.htm

Tech Gifts
Cool technology gifts are here. Nudge Nudge Wink Wink Hint Hint.
http://snurl.com/5q48d

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist