eNews Volume 90 - 3/13/2008

It's nice to know that staff have been using the Resources page from the College website. If you've never seen it, the Resources page has College and University Statements, PSU/CAS images, Extension/Outreach Related Images, and various Templates.

How do we know? This page used to be hosted on the old "ICT" site. Since this unit was separated into the Communications & Marketing unit and the Information Technologies unit, Support has fielded several calls about how to find this much needed page.

The Resources page is now part of the Communications & Marketing site. To find the page, go to http://agcomm.cas.psu.edu/; look for the QUICK LINKS column on the right. Then click the Web and Print Resources link.

When you're on the Communications & Marketing site, be sure to browse around for other information and services as well!

Deb Sinkus, IT Specialist

Adams county staff had ongoing problems with Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 after it was installed. Presentations had text display problems, the cursor would appear offset from the actual point where text was inserted, and text would be misaligned and/or cut off during slide shows.

They discovered that the issue was linked to computers that were using their Toshiba copier/printer as the default printer. As they found here, "These are common symptoms resulting from bad/corrupt/incompatible printer drivers or no installed printer drivers. In nearly all cases, the quickest route to eliminating the problem is changing the default driver to one that is Microsoft certified for the Windows version."

If you experience issues like this with PowerPoint 2007, keep this tip in mind. Hopefully you can download and install an updated driver for your printer to fix the issue completely.

If you need a workaround, here is what Adams county suggests. Before opening PowerPoint, change the default printer to the generic Microsoft Office Document Image Writer printer. You should be able to work with and/or present PowerPoint programs without issue. After you're done, you can switch back to your regular printer.

Thanks to Christy Hemler from Adams county for sharing this tip.

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

CAS IT is offering a wide variety of trainings over the next few months. For the complete list of topics & dates & times along with a description about these trainings, please visit our website - http://it.cas.psu.edu/TechTraining.htm and click on Scheduled Training.

To register or see more information, click on the topic, enter your information, and click Submit.

Please remember to register so we can plan accordingly!

We need 6 staff registered to hold the training, so please register today!

PowerPoint 07 Basics (a 3 session class)
3/11 & 3/18 & 3/24

Outlook 07 Information Management
3/20
4/16
5/14

Excel 07 Basics (a 2 session class)
3/12 & 3/19
4/2 & 4/9
5/8 & 5/15

Outlook 07 Meeting Management
3/20

Online Survey Tool - Hands-on Workshop (a 2 Session class)
3/19 & 4/2
5/21 & 6/4
11/19 & 12/3

Create a Podcast - face-to-face
4/1 - Bedford County
4/17 - Bradford County
4/23 - Cumberland County

Also available are the eXtension's professional development opportunities which are open to all Cooperative Extension faculty, staff and employees. No preregistration. For detailed information go to:
http://about.extension.org/wiki/Schedule_of_Professional_Development_Opportunities

Don't see a topic listed that you are interested in? Please remember that we have various Self-Paced learning opportunities and On Demand Training available too. Check out our main Technologies and Training Page - http://it.cas.psu.edu/TechTraining.htm

If you have a suggestion for training, please let us know.

Jacki Weikert, Ron Matason, Peg Shuffstall, and Sherry Crum
The Educational Technologist Team

Do you have a webpage image that you would like to add to your PowerPoint presentation or maybe you want to include a picture of a specific software application into your report in Word? There is a Print Screen button on your keyboard that makes this job really easy.

Once you get the image "copied" you can paste it into Word, PowerPoint, or even Paint and then manipulate it to fit your needs. If you need to save this image for later use, you can use Paint or SnagIt to save the file as a jpeg. Otherwise you can just use it once and save your Word document or PowerPoint presentation normally.

This How To will give you all the steps - http://it.cas.psu.edu/667.htm

Jacki Weikert, Educational Technologist

Conditional formatting refers to the ability to format a cell based on its value. Conditional formatting makes it easy to highlight certain values so that they stand out visually. For example, you may set up conditional formatting so that if a formula returns a negative value, the cell background displays green.

To start out, define your data as a Table. Steps 1 - 2 assume that the entire worksheet is to be formatted as a table.

1. Click in the first cell.
2. In the Styles group, click on Format as Table.
3. Select a table type. If the data has a header row, leave "My Table has headers" checked.
4. Click OK.
5. Click the Home tab.
6. Highlight the column of data to have Conditional Formatting.
7. In the Styles group, click on Conditional Formatting.
8. You can choose from any number of default choices.
   
   Note: Excel 2007 provides a number of new data visualizations: data bars, color scales, and icon sets. You can also use the Manage Rules choice to review all the rules you have. But the various default choices should be a great start.
   
   Note: In the past, a cell could have at most three conditions applied. With Excel 2007, you can format a cell based on an unlimited number of conditions.
   

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

This article is a Q&A about Twitter with David Parry, who is an assistant professor of Emerging Media at the University of Texas at Dallas. "Twitter is a software tool that allows users to continually post (or "tweet") very short text messages to the Web from computers or mobile phones. These quick public messages simply describe what a user is currently doing."

Please read the entire article to get the full impact. Here are some pull-out insights from the interview.

Parry: I'll say two things about Twitter in academia. One, its uses in academia parallel its uses in the business world. It's a networking, water-cooler-talk kind of environment, where you don't see people every day, but you feel connected because you get updates on what they are doing in their life every day. Also, it's a mixture of the insightful plus the mundane. So students will send me "I am looking for rain boots" or "I am going to meet someone at a coffee shop to buy something that I just bought on craigslist" along with the insightful, where they'll say something like, "Oh, I saw this news article on TV that relates to what we talked about in class." But is has to be both of those things for Twitter to really work.

Parry: I would say that of all the things I did [during the fall when I introduced Twitter]--including blogs, Wikipedia ... a whole range of new technologies--it was by far the class favorite. It was most often mentioned on course evaluations, and it's also the one that stuck the most. Out of a class of 20, there are five who heavily use Twitter and five who occasionally use Twitter. So we're talking 50 percent who still use it.... So in that sense, it was well received by students. Also, one of the things I was trying to teach in that class was [that] it's not about the nodes in the network; it's about the connections you can form between information. So a single blog post doesn't do you any good; it's the blog post connected to another blog post that creates the network.

Parry: "Newmediajim" is one of the people I tell students to follow first in Twitter. He's a cameraman for NBC. He often gets to work wherever President Bush is traveling; right now he's in Africa. He's a marquee example of how mixing the mundane with the relevant gives people more insight into what's really going on. I have a much clearer picture, from following him, of what it means to be on Air Force One and create a shot and camera pools and all this other journalistic stuff.... You get a sense of him as a whole person.

From Linda L Briggs, "Micro Blogging with Twitter,"
Campus Technology, 3/5/2008
http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=59315

Robin Brekke from Iowa State shared this article via a tweet.

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

From the author, "I’ve put together a list of what I consider to be the top 10, based on podcasts that are informative, concise, and not boring. Of course, I’m also biased toward stuff that has relevance for IT and business technology, and not just consumer tech and gadgets. I’ve also limited this list to audio-only podcasts." Here's his list. If you visit the Sanity check: The 10 best technology podcasts page, you'll see a brief description along with links to each podcast.

1. Buzz Out Loud
2. TWiT
3. Tech5
4. Wall Street Journal Tech News Briefing
5. BusinessWeek - Technology & You
6. The Microsoft IT Manager Podcast
7. MarketWatch’s Take on Tech
8. The Real Deal
9. Security Now!
10. TechnologyIQ

He then followed with a list of the 10 best Web video shows on technology and the IT industry. Again, visit the Sanity check: The 10 best video shows on technology page for details.

1. The GigaOm Show
2. CIO Vision Series
3. Cranky Geeks
4. At the Whiteboard
5. Top 5
6. Inside Silicon Valley
7. Loaded
8. Tech Talk
9. Systm
10. IT Idiots

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Google's new 411 service is free, fast and easy to use. You don't need a computer, an Internet connection, or even the keypad on your phone or mobile device. GOOG-411 is voice-activated, so you can access it from any phone (mobile or land line), in any location, at any time. For free.

Dial (1-800) GOOG-411. Say where. Say what you're looking for. GOOG-411 will connect you with the business you choose.

If you are calling from a mobile device, GOOG-411 can even send you a text message with more details and a map. Simply say "Text message" or "Map it."

Video: http://www.google.com/goog411/index.html

FAQ: http://mobile.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12594

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

The following Time Management lecture was given by Randy Pausch, who has pancreatic cancer, at the University of Virginia in November 2007.

Randy Pausch (http://www.randypausch.com/) is a virtual reality pioneer, human-computer interaction researcher, co-founder of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/), and creator of the Alice (http://www.alice.org/) software project.

The Powerpoint slides for this lecture can be found at www.cs.virginia.edu/robins/TM_slides.html and high-resolution downloadable versions of this and other lectures by Randy can be found at www.cs.virginia.edu/robins/Randy.

Video: "Time Management" by Randy Pausch

Randy's talk starts at 7:45. The entire video is 90 minutes. Here's an action item from his last slide. You might want to keep this in mind if you watch the video.

Make a note in your day-timer to revisit this talk in 30 days.   Ask "What have I changed?"

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

This article is from a Feb. 13, 2008 posting on CSOonline.com.au. The author makes a great point about how malware writers adapt their software constantly. Anti-virus and anti-malware companies are not involved in an "arms race" as much as in an "evolutionary process of adaptation" with the bad guys really rings true. Just as hospitals create strains of "antibiotic-resistant super bugs" we are seeing malware that avoid even the best detection software. In the end, it's up to the humans behind the mouse to practice safe computing. The Staysafe.org site has a number of articles on how to stay safe online.

"Looking at how malware has evolved over time, you can see many of the same effects we see in nature. The key evolutionary concept that we see is the continuous adaptation of malware to its environment. It's not an "arms race" as much as it is a predator-prey relationship between malware and antimalware. Similarly in P2P darknets, there is a predator-prey relationship between P2P and the forces of censorship or copyright police.

If you think of the universe of computers as the environment in which malware exists, you can see how changes in that environment cause adaptations in the malware. Both the environment and the malware itself are directed by intelligent actors (hackers and security researchers) rather than random mutation, but the evolutionary progress is quite evident. As defenses have become more sophisticated, malware has adapted. As malware becomes more stealthy, defenses have adapted.

In this back-and forth we have to consider how the actions of security researchers create evolutionary pressures and environmental niches for new malware. A few weeks back we examined the issue of security monocultures. If all defenses are identical, then they are also predictable. As a result they are easier to bypass. Just like an army of clones, our operating systems are all susceptible to the exact same attacks (for the most part). But while the targets are very similar, the attacks are extremely varied. Malware mutations (variants) are multiplying at incredible rates and are currently estimated to be between 300,000 and 500,000, depending on the antimalware vendor you ask. So lots of different "nasties" but only a few different variations of immunity. No wonder so many systems get compromised every year."

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

According to this article, just a few Botnets are responsible for 85 percent of Spam. The #1 Botnet is Srizbi, which distributes 39 percent of Spam. #2 is the Rustock Botnet. The Mega-D Botnet comes in third. The article explains that Mega-D is "well known for concentrating on so-called male enhancement products." So, now we know who to blame!

Link: The botnets behind our spam

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

If you use Twitter, these links can help get you more tweets. The author has started a list "traditional media organizations using Twitter."

http://red66.com/2008/02/a-list-of-news-organizations-using-twitter

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Do you trust Caller ID on your phone? After reading these two articles, I don't think you will. People can spin technology any which way.

SpoofCard Becomes "Untraceable": SpoofCard and "Caller ID Spoofing" explained
http://www.identitytheftsecrets.com/spoofcard-becomes-untraceable-spoofcard-caller-id-spoofing.html
January 19, 2008

Confessions of a Caller-ID spoofer
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24934
February 12, 2008

You can also try a Google search on SpoofCard for much more info. If you need numbers to use, try the White House or a U.S. Senator (just kidding).

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist

Do TSA staff need to receive constant training on new technology? You bet. As such, I take issue with the phrase 'technically ignorant' used in the first sentence below. When the TSA agent saw something out of the ordinary, they checked into it. In my opinion, this was a good thing.

"The MacBook Air's thin design is causing some confusion for the technically ignorant, according to one blogger who says that the ultra-portable caused him to miss his flight. When going through the TSA airport security checkpoint, blogger Michael Nygard was held up as security staff gathered around his MacBook Air, trying to make sense of the slender laptop. One of the less technically knowledgeable staff points out the lack of standard features as cause for alarm."

"I'm standing, watching my laptop on the table, listening to security clucking just behind me," Nygard recalls of the situation. "'There's no drive," one says. 'And no ports on the back. It has a couple of lines where the drive should be,' she continues."

Nygard was made to wait until a younger agent came over to the gathering to inform his comrades of their error, that it is indeed a laptop and not a "device". After making three attempts to describe the concept of a flash-based hard drive, security lets Nygard through the checkpoint, only to go back to the service center to rebook, as his flight had since left."

Link: From March 10 article on Macnn, http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/03/10/macbook.air.confusing/

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.

Pigs replace Pesticide in Battle against Beetles
IPM (Integrated Pest Management) doing the job in an organic apple orchard. Our ancestors, who only had 'natural' prevention methods, must look at us as teenagers. As we relearn their techniques, we are growing up. The adage "the older I get, the smarter my parents get." is used for a good reason. It's true. The farmer's quote in the last paragraph is priceless.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23479970

U.S. Airlines Switching to E-Tickets Only on June 1
Travelers will need to print e-tickets at home or at airports.
E-Tickets Only Starting June 1

Fly Lufthansa to Europe
Can you land in the correct city? I scored 25,658 out of 30,000.
http://www.lufthansa-usa.com/useugame2007/html/play.html

Top 10 Amazing Chemistry Videos
Fiery explosions, beautiful reactions, and hilarious music videos are great reasons to be excited about chemistry.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/top-10-amazing.html

The Legend and History of the Song 'Danny Boy'
As we approach March 17th, Danny Boy is a pretty depressing song.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3826136 and YouTube video http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jgma--0WYU

[Video] Muppets - Barnyard Boogie
If you watched the Danny Boy video and are sad, this might help.
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZI8xgMiVyY&feature=related

Free Shipping
FreeShippingOn works with over 500 stores, collects their free shipping coupon codes, and lists them on the site for the world to see.
FreeShippingOn

[Video] Writing Left Handed
I understand the "hook" hand style now.
http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/writing.html

Vince Verbeke, IT Specialist