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Campus Network outage due to power spike	July 18, 2008 02:24PM
This morning at 11:40 ish a large portion of the campus network fell victim to a power spike. Although the network equipment in Russell Labs didn't seem to be directly affected, our connections - both within the building and to the outside world - are now part of the whole campus 'organism' which is the 21st Century Network. This is mostly a good thing but it does lead to some strange situations - like today - where some people in the building lost connection and others didn't. Anyway, as far as I know we were all back on line within minutes. Our servers were not effected since they are (nearly) all protected by UPS (battery backup power). If you are still having trouble connecting you are probably connecting through one of those little hub/switch boxes (that split one connection into many). Try unplugging this box and plug back in to reset the switch. If you are still having trouble contact one of your friendly IT people. Stuart For more information from DoIT web site: http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/news.php?id=1815 http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/outage.php?action=5&caseID=080718-0220
— Stuart Baker

BackScatter: SPAM "Delivery failure" messages filling your inbox?	May 12, 2008 02:31PM
Why am I getting bounced messages for email I didn't send? Spammers commonly forge the headers of messages they send, making it appear as though they originated elsewhere. Spammers harvest vast numbers of email addresses, or even guess common email addresses, and then put these addresses in the "To:" and the "From:" fields of the millions of email messages they send out. Some of the messages they send will end up bouncing, and when they do, they bounce to the forged address in the "From:" field, which may be yours -- more....
— Stuart Baker

Dell docking station questions:	May 08, 2008 09:38AM
1. We're thinking about getting a Latitude D630 with a Docking Solutions D/Port Advanced Port Replicator DPORT [310-7278]. This unit has both a DVI and a VGA connector. Has anyone tried using two monitors with this replicator in both clone and none cloned mode? 2. How about connecting a monitor to the port replicator and using the laptop screen as a second monitor. Answers: 1. I'm typing this email on monitor 1 that is driven from the D/Port. This monitor is vertical. Monitor 2 is horizontal. Haven't had any issues with either. 2. I have used that same solution many times on the dell. Using the docking station to set up two monitors and you can do them in both modes if the video card supports it. Since it is the video card in the laptop that drives the interface. I know non-cloned or spanned works I have not tried cloned in that mode. 3. Yes it does work with both modes with the NVIDIA Quadro 135 graphics upgrade. One caveat though is to have it reliably restore the monitor settings (clone or dual view) you need to shut the laptop down before you dock. 4. I have not used it with the D630, but I have used it with earlier D5xx and D6xx series and used both clone and dual screen modes, so I'm confident that it would work. I have definitely used it with the DVI connector and I think the VGA also. The challenges I encountered: a. Drivers for the various video cards vary in terms of whether you set dual monitor mode through the Windows part of the Display settings or through the video card specific driver interface. This can make it a pain to teach users how to get back to dual monitor mode after they have been undocked. b. Most often in dual screen mode the laptop will default to the primary monitor and the external will become the secondary. However, the more natural office config is to have the big external monitor as the main monitor in front of you and the place where new app's launch. Again, getting Windows and the video driver to agree on how to set the external as the primary so that the icons, task bar, and new windows appear there can be tricky and confusing for new dual screen users. Sometimes the driver will show the external as primary and Windows will show it as "1" (primary).
— Stuart Baker

Network News and Events	March 27, 2008 10:46AM
Last week (March 17, 2008): - Upgrade Russell Labs firewall. -----Problems with Netware client connections outside of building. - Switched PPath over to new file server (H: and I: drives). This week( March 24, 2008 ): - Phone screening of candidates for Network Support Tech. Next week: - Interviews for Network Support Tech posn. - Ento H: and I: drives switch over to new file server (PEN to PEN3) ---- PC users – no change. ----Mac users will login to ento.pen.wisc.edu (or 144.92.198.12). - “Re-worked” ento web site will go up end of next week. ----Structural changes only ----minor visible changes June 30: - Turn off POP access to department mail system.
— Stuart Baker

Illegal characters in file names will prevent backup of data

February 15, 2008 02:02PM

Please note that the following characters must not be used in the naming of files
to be stored on any of our file servers:

? [ ] / \ = + # < > ; : “ , | * and leading periods

Files with any of these characters in the name will NOT be backed up by
our backup system.

Files with any of these characters in the name will be lost when we migrate H: and I drives to new hardware (newer, faster, and larger servers and disk storage systems)

Just because it's an available key, doesn't mean you should use it in the
name of your document.

— Stuart

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