BioIT

Finally, a replacement for Notepad

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010, 10:04 am MT - posted by Ross Madden

For the past decade or so, I have been stuck using the default Notepad application that comes pre-installed on every Windows computer. For my purposes, the ‘Development Suite’ applications such as the MS ‘Visual’ tools and other development environments are too much – heavy and complicated. As I am usually working on a single file containing HTML, JAVA or PHP code, Notepad was a sufficient solution due to its lightweight and very simple interface – just type! However, longing for the days when I programmed with Emacs on a Unix system – led me to do a little research to find a similar tool that could highlight syntax and make the coding more human readable with, you know, colors and indentations and stuff. This is when I discovered Notepad++

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

This program is lightweight, and supports all the programming languages I care about. Check out the site above – there is even a little how to which lets you replace your current Notepad application completely! Once you use it for a bit, you will probably come back and set it up permanently. Enjoy!

Posted in Tips and Tricks, Windows | No Comments »

ipsCA SSL certificate errors in Firefox and Safari

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010, 9:47 am MT - posted by Ross Madden

SSL certificates are the little files installed on a web server that allow a computer to establish secure (SSL) connections for transmitting sensitive data over the Internet. Web sites that use ‘https’ must use these SSL certificates to create these secure connections from client to server. In late (very late) 2009 the SSL certificate provider ipsCA (http://certs.ipsca.org) announced that everyone using their certificates must reinstall new versions of these certificate files on their servers for all of their secure sites. ipsCA specifically is important to Educational institutions as they offer FREE certificates to .edu web sites (typical SSL certificates cost more than $100 each). The problem with their hasty decision to reinstall all of their certificates is that certain web browsers haven’t had time to react and are falsely displaying errors about bad SSL certificates. Firefox and Safari are the two big ones that are displaying errors. These browsers will eventually fix these issues, but have not announced any specific time line. So in the meantime we will have to live with these errors. Here is a link to the bug tracker for this issue in Firefox – https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=529286

The Department of Biology uses these ipsCA SSL certificates on 4 of our web sites. Basically any site that uses an https in front of its web address. Below are examples of the errors you can expect to see when using Firefox and Safari when viewing secure Biology web sites.

Firefox (Click ‘I Understand the Risks’ to continue on)

Safari (Click ‘Continue’ to proceed)

Posted in General BioIT, Security | No Comments »

Symantec Endpoint Protection Time Stamp Not Updating

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010, 3:34 pm MT - posted by Ross Madden

UPDATE (1/8/2010) – This problem appears to be fixed. Clients should now be receiving a correct date on their definition updates.

I received this message from ACNS and thought I should pass this around. Hopefully we will get correct dates soon.

I wanted to let you know that Symantec is aware of an issue where the SEP11 clients do not update the time stamp of the latest virus defs correctly, currently stuck at 12/31/09. The revision number of the virus definitions continues to change though and is currently at 114. They are working on a fix which should be released via LiveUpdate so we shouldn’t have to do anything on our end.

Here is the link explaining the issue. http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/docid/2010010308571348

Posted in General BioIT, Security | 1 Comment »

Computer Related TILT PDI Sessions – 2010

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009, 9:25 am MT - posted by Ross Madden

The Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT) has just announce that registration is now open for the 31st Annual Professional Development Institute. The Institute will run all day on January 6 and 7, and the morning of January 8, 2010. Below you will find a list of my suggested computer related sessions. These are by no means the only sessions available – there are DOZENS of great sessions ranging in topic and scope. You can view the entire program as well as the registration form here – http://tilt.colostate.edu/pdi

01/06/2010 10:00 am Sessions

-Photoshop Creative Techniques - Personal (vs. professional) enrichment for Photoshop lovers. Spend hands-on time in Photoshop with practice files provided for exploring creative techniques. Prerequisite: Photoshop basics or equivalent experience with digital imaging software.

-How Come My PowerPoint Slides Take So Long To Load? Properly Configuring PowerPoint files for display in RamCT or on a Website – Have you ever had a student say your PowerPoint file takes too long to load on their computer? Or the file opens in edit mode instead of as a slide show? And how do you get professional looking graphics into your presentation? Participants in this workshop will learn: • How to save and compress image files that retain quality but load quickly. • What file format to use to save your image files. • How to determine the optimum file size of a PowerPoint file to include on the web. • How to save a file so it will open properly in slide show mode for your students.

01/06/2010 11:00 am Sessions

-Securing your Personal Computer – We will examine an often over looked or misunderstood part of computing, the home based computer and network. We will review common home network configurations, what computer programs are updated automatically, antivirus programs, web browsers, and home entertainment devices.

01/06/2010 1:00 pm Sessions

-PowerPoint Posters – The ideal poster is designed to tell a story, provide a brief overview of your work, initiate discussion and stand alone when you’re not there to provide an explanation. This session will provide an overview on creating a poster using PowerPoint tools. You will learn design tips, poster setup, the best fonts to use, and how to work with images from a variety of sources. Examples will be shared for a variety of poster sizes and types.

-IT + IT = ET: A discussion on technology and education – This session will provide a conceptual and working definition of the terms Information Technology (IT) + Instructional Technology (IT) = and how they combine to create Educational Technology. Using this framework we will discuss technology from pedagogical perspectives from behaviorist to constructivist.

01/07/2010 2:00 pm Sessions

-No more VPN for wireless! – Wireless computer users on campus previously were required to use the Cisco VPN client to access the rest of the CSU network and the Internet. No more! Steve Lovaas of ACNS will describe the new, no-VPN method of protecting wireless laptop traffic; simply log on with your eID! Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops for hands-on practice and instruction (XP service-pack 3, Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX 10.4 or later, or a recent distribution of Linux).

01/08/2010 11:00 am Sessions

-Video Conferencing – Conduct a High-Definition videoconference with anyone in the world from our campus facilities! Come learn about this powerful technology, available at no charge to all faculty/staff!

-Recognizing Phishing Attacks - “Phishing” and other sorts of “social engineering” attacks rely on tricking you into replying to emails, clicking URLs, or calling phone numbers that then attempt to steal your personal information. Steve Lovaas from ACNS reviews the various tactics these attackers use against you, and shows you how to protect yourself from this sort of attack.

me My PowerPoint Slides Take So Long To Load? Properly Configuring PowerPoint files for display in RamCT or on a Website

Posted in General BioIT, Tips and Tricks | No Comments »

Solution for the Windows 64-bit VPN Problem

Thursday, November 19th, 2009, 9:43 am MT - posted by Ross Madden

It has been stated before and will be stated again, but here goes – Cisco will not be releasing a VPN client for Windows 64 bit computers. This leaves those running 64 bit windows in a bit of a bind when they need to access resources that are restricted to on-campus users. VPN allows those who are traveling and working from home to act like they are using a computer that is physically on campus, allowing their computer to access restricted resources. A few of these resources are Library journals, network drives, and Pangea (for the Department of Biology). The Pangea connection application will not work unless you are on campus, or using a VPN client from off campus.

Fortunately, there is now a solution! The Juniper Network SSL gateway that ACNS has set up has a (currently) unpublished feature called NetConnect. NetConnect will allow a full tunnel to be created through the SSL gateway. The way you access this unpublished feature is to append ‘netconnect’ after the SSL URL which creates the following:

https://secure.colostate.edu/netconnect

You will log in as usual with your CSU eID but will now notice a new section at the bottom of the page called ‘NetConnect’. You will also see a ‘Start’ button on the right side of this section. Clicking on this will create the secure tunnel onto campus, allowing you to run the Pangea connection application! Of course, the first time you run this option you will need to install the Juniper NetConnect client – this only takes a few minutes though.

Enjoy!

Posted in General BioIT, Tips and Tricks, Windows | No Comments »

New Computer? Old Computer? CCleaner!

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009, 3:53 pm MT - posted by Ross Madden

I am often asked these two questions.

I have a new computer, how can I remove all the CRAP that came preinstalled?

I have an older computer, how can I speed it up?

I will share with you a little IT secret, and that is CCleaner. In short, this program optimizes your system, by removed “crapware” that comes preinstalled on your new machine, cleaning up your Windows registry, as well as trashing temporary files that are not needed. Oh, and it is totally free! So, the next time you want to optimize an older computer, or polish up your brand new machine by wiping that crapware off – give CCleaner a try. The only drawback is for Mac users, since this is a Windows only computer. Luckily Macs don’t come with much crapware – so you shouldn’t be too disappointed.

http://www.ccleaner.com

Posted in General BioIT, Tips and Tricks, Windows | No Comments »

Quota limits now enforced on Pangea

Monday, November 16th, 2009, 11:41 am MT - posted by Ross Madden

As part of this weekends hardware upgrades, Pangea has also turned on the live tracking and enforcement of the previously mentioned quota limits. Please refer to the following FAq entry regarding the current default quota limits for the various group types that exist on Pangea.

http://rydberg.biology.colostate.edu/sites/bioit-faq/2009/08/24/what-is-my-quota-limit-on-pangea-and-how-do-i-check-it

If you reach your limit you will received something similar to “Disk Full” error from your operating system when you attempt to write to it. You can monitor the real time usage of your various group quotas using My Biology’s ‘Pangea Information’ tool.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and as always, Enjoy!

Posted in General BioIT | No Comments »

Pangea Upgrades 11/13/2009

Friday, November 13th, 2009, 4:52 pm MT - posted by Ross Madden

I will be conducting some Pangea hardware upgrades to the storage devices on Friday, November 13th starting at 7pm. Please be sure to have all Pangea documents closed at this time to avoid data loss.

I will be using this post to update you on the progress. We begin at 7:00pm tonight!

6:58pm – I am about the begin – it looks like everyone is off of Pangea (which is good). The first thing is to turn Samba off, and run a sync script to make a current copy of all data from the live Pangea to the Secondary (soon to be Primary) storage devices. This will take about 30 minutes to complete.

7:02pm – Synchronization has begun. The main upgrade tonight is that we will be connecting our storage device to the Pangea controller server via a technology called iSCSI. This should improve the server to storage and vice versa performance. We are also increasing the storage capacity.

7:30pm – Synchronization is complete. I will now commence the swap. Hopefully the next time I post it will be to let you know all is well!

7:42pm – The swap went great! All Pangea services have been restored. Please let me know as soon as possible if you notice anything strange. Thanks and have a great weekend!

Posted in General BioIT | No Comments »

Snow Leopard and SAMBA for Pangea

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009, 11:03 am MT - posted by Ross Madden

With the release of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) there have been reports of slowness, and hanging of the Finder when attempting to access SAMBA (SMB) network shares. SAMBA network shares are essentially the most popular type of network share in use today, and the primary method of sharing files between Macintosh computers and Windows computers.

Unfortunately for us, Pangea uses SAMBA to share its files. So, we have been experiencing these symptoms, primarily the hanging of Finder when attempting to browse through sub-directories within your Pangea space. For the past couple of months since Snow Leopard has been released, I have been patiently monitoring several forum threads for a solution as well as silently hoping that the releases of 10.6.1 and 10.6.2 would address and fix these issues automatically. This has not happened.

On the other side, these forum threads have provided a solution to this problem which I have implemented on the Pangea server. This solution was to remove a line in the Pangea SAMBA configuration file that prevented certain files from being created by Apple client computers (those of you connecting to Pangea with your Macintosh computers). This line is called the ‘veto file’ setting is now turned off and Macintosh computers will start freely placing these strange files onto the Pangea spaces they access. These files include .DS_Store, .AppleDesktop, .AppleDouble, and .Trashes to name just a few. These files will not be visible to Macintosh computers, but will start showing up in the file lists for Windows computers. The important thing is that this has solved the SAMBA access issues with Finder.

So, for the end users who glaze over with the above technical explanation – Snow Leopard can now access Pangea normally, but will be creating strange files and folders (.DS_Store, .AppleDesktop, .AppleDouble, .Trashes, etc.) which will only be viewable by Windows clients on default.

Thank you for your patience with this, and I will remain optimistic that at some point the future I can re-enable the ‘veto file’ line. Enjoy!

Posted in Apple, General BioIT, The Cloud | No Comments »

Chloroform Restart 11/6/2009 7:00 AM

Friday, November 6th, 2009, 8:16 am MT - posted by Ross Madden

I have restarting one of the Department of Biology’s Domain Controllers this morning at 7am on Friday, the 6th of November. This restart was necessary to apply a few security patches. Chloroform is one of two domain controllers within the Department. Fluoroform is the other domain controller and was not restarted during this maintenance. Domain controllers allow for the department to authenticate against the University’s Active Directory (eID). Chloroform also hosts the departmental workstation backup server. Please let me know if you have any trouble authenticating to Biology related resources with your CSU eID. Thank you for your cooperation!

Posted in General BioIT, Security, Windows | No Comments »

BioIT Tweets

01/06/2010 10:00 am Sessions

01/06/2010 11:00 am Sessions

01/06/2010 1:00 pm Sessions

01/07/2010 2:00 pm Sessions

01/08/2010 11:00 am Sessions