OIT Newsletter

Starware Interfering With Access To Campus Services

OIT is seeing increased issues with a new “browser helper object” called Starware that is interfering with access to many services both from and to the Delta State network. The most frequent issue appears to be access to WebCT from both on and off campus. Other issues have occurred with Banner access and secure login access to other sites. If an individual has the “Starware” toolbar installed as part of their IE toolbars, they WILL NOT be able to access the WebCT site at all. In many instances you can quickly tell if this product is installed as a small gold star is placed on the user’s taskbar to let you know the product is running in the background. However, this is not always the case.

This is not a virus or Trojan. It is a direct adware marketing application. Upon execution, this application installs itself as a browser helper object (BHO) for internet explorer. It adds an internet explorer toolbar name “starware”.

To uninstall this application do the following. If you need assistance or do not have Windows XP, contact the OIT Help Desk @4444.

On the Windows XP taskbar:
Click Start > Control Panel.
In the Control Panel window, double-click Add or Remove Programs.

Click Starware 3.3.3.0. (may be a different version number)

Note: You may need to use the scroll bar to view the whole list.

Click Add/Remove, Change/Remove, or Remove (this varies with the operating system).

Follow the onscreen prompts.

For further information on this BHO can be found at the following websites: http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_135503.htm
http://www.symantec.com/security_
response/writeup.jsp?docid=2005-050313-4341-99

Modem Bank Dial-up Service Fails for Hill Apartments

The dial-up modem bank that serves married housing and cafeteria apartments experienced a complete hardware failure on Monday afternoon, January 22 nd . The unit has completely failed and as it is older technology cannot be replaced. Due to this failure, there is no University-provided Internet access available to these locations. At this time the only connectivity for married housing/cafeteria will either be a campus lab or wireless in the union. The University is currently examining alternatives for connectivity for these areas. For the time being, those individuals who were using dial-up modem access from these areas will have to use campus facilities. Updates will be provided as they become available.

Managing your OkraMail Mailbox

At the beginning of the semester, OIT noticed that numerous students had exceeded their 10MB email quota and mail was being returned to senders. In order to provide students with an opportunity to clean their mailboxes, OIT has temporarily increased the mail folder size from 10MB to 20MB. Over the next week please use this opportunity to purge unnecessary information from your mailbox. If you have not processed your mail to reduce the contents of your mailbox to under 10MB any email that is being attempted to deliver to you will return to the sender. It is your responsibility to manage your mailbox so that faculty and administrators can correspond with you. If you need help contact the OIT Help Desk @4444.

Technology Learning Center Workshops

OIT's Technology Learning Center (TLC) is offering WebCT and Instructional Technology Workshops. 90 minute workshops will be offered in the Faculty Training Lab, Ewing 230. To better meet the needs of DSU's faculty, we have added several new WebCT workshops covering the latest version of Blackboard's WebCT line, Campus Edition 6.1.

For registration details, Click Here.

35,000 Email viruses blocked A day in January

The DSU SPAM firewall (Barracuda) helps to prevent SPAM deliveries to the campus. During the month of January, the device prevented on average over 35,000 emails a day from being delivered to campus mailboxes!

MySpace Sues Spam King

MySpace has filed suit against the Spam King as they believe he phished their customer's accounts to bombard their customers with Spam. The Spam King, Scott Richter, has been in trouble over the years for his actions with both technology vendors like Microsoft and the New York Attorney General.

For the full story, Click Here

Issue No. 70 - January 26, 2007

Daylight Saving Time - The Year 2007 Problem

This March, Daylight Saving Time changes for the United States, starting the time change 4 weeks early. Congress changed DST in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Other countries such as Australia have followed suit. For most people, this will come as an early relief from winter doldrums, but for IT, the DST change is a major headache. After Year 2000, IT vendors were smart enough to start using 4-digit date codes, but DST changes are still hard-coded for the 1st Sunday of April and the last Sunday of October.

To accommodate the DST change, most IT systems must be patched. Otherwise, time stamps will be off, and some applications my fail to work. For instance, if you synchronize your Windows Smart phone with Microsoft Exchange, and you want your calendar reminders to work, plan on applying patches or fixes to Windows XP, Windows 2003, Exchange 2003 & Windows Mobile. Otherwise, you may be late for that all-important TPS meeting.

For the full story, Click Here

Loss of Data = No Project = Fail the course

Under no circumstances should you save your data on campus publicly accessible machines such as computer labs. The data on these machines can be removed via a number of methods and could potentially wind up in the wrong hands. Whenever a public machine, like a lab machine, is restarted, it will remove any data that has been saved on the machine. If you save your project, whether a Word document or an extensive Digital Photography collection on a campus computer, that data is not secure and will be removed from the machine upon restart. Believe it or not, there have been many instances of someone saving an entire semester's worth of work on a computer lab machine only to have someone steal that data and turn it in as their own. There is nothing OIT can do to help you in this circumstance. To protect yourself and your data, invest in a USB flash drive or external hard drive. Imation makes a great series of USB flash drives that have proven reliable over time. You can purchase these devices at the campus bookstore, Wal-Mart, Radio Shack.

Telecom Services - Long Distance & Caller ID

Caller ID can be added to your residence hall phone at a cost of only $6 per month!

Students can have a long distance authorization calling code for use from any campus telephone!

Project Updates

Kethley Renovation Project: Technology infrastructure installation will begin in February with the cabling components. Network and classroom infrastructure will soon follow.
WebCT 6.0/Banner Integration Project:
The new WebCT 6.0 system has been installed and is currently integrated with Banner. The School of Nursing has several courses being used for pilot testing this semester. The entire project team is working to have the new system fully functional for the summer semester.
Telecommunications Billing System: The MySoft software project is moving forward. Servers and software have been installed and OIT is working to finalize the deployment timeline. This new system will allow for a much-improved telecommunications billing system that will provide many new features to the campus.
Classroom Deployment:
Several new classroom deployments are being implemented on campus. New facilities include; Broom, Wright Art Gallery & Kethley as well as several distance learning systems are getting much needed upgrades.

Questions or comments ~ feel free to contact Glenn Trammel at 662-846-4840 or email at gtrammel@deltastate.edu