Survey

Have you had the opportunity to do any skills development training since September 1?

Yes
No

Results from last issue's survey question: "Would you prefer a workgroup holiday event to the organization-wide event?"

There were 28 responses. 11 replied "Yes," 17 replied "No."

Staff Profile

Tony Silveira

 

Tony Silveira works in the Desktop Systems Group. He joined Stanford in September, 1999.


  Self-Portrait


How would you describe your current job responsibilities?

I do desktop application design and development mostly. Some research is involved, first draft documentation, training, and level 3 help desk work. Some of our products are PC-Leland, MacLeland, Security Self-Help, Host Self-Reg Health Check tool, Desktop Configuration Management tool, and various installer wrappers.

Which aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

Actually building something from beginning to end has always been appealing to me. Being able to look at something tangible and say "I helped make that" is very satisfying.

What did you do before you came to Stanford?

When I look back on my career it seems pretty random except for the job that I had immediately before joining Stanford. I worked at PG&E where I was a member of a team that developed and maintained a home-grown desktop management system.

The system was created before there were any 3rd party DM products, and has been in operation for years providing automated desktop backups, application version control, software distribution, virus control, definition updates and reporting, and inventory collection to around 20,000 desktops.

Before that I have worked as a gardener, worked at three radio stations, one television station, trained to be a fireman but could not handle the boredom of sitting around the fire station waiting idly for hours, worked in the fields picking strawberries, worked in the cauliflower sheds (the most physically demanding job I ever had), inspected attic insulation, tested agricultural pumps, performed commercial energy audits, supervised meter readers, supervised customer service phone reps and cashiers, managed the budget for a PG&E division, acted as a California Public Utility Commission complaint liaison (a useless job that I recommended eliminating), did server administration, and desktop computer support. Man, looking at that list makes me feel 100 years old…

What do you like to do when you're not at work?

Putting that BFA that I got from the San Francisco Art Institute to work by drawing and painting.

What is your favorite movie, book, song?

Movie would have to be either Basquiat, Land of the Gypsies, or Duck Soup.
Books are Huckleberry Finn, or Crime and Punishment; for fun anything by P.G. Wodehouse or James Herriot.
Song? Well, that’s pretty tough. Lately, it’s been anything by Mark Linkous.

Staff Happenings

Comings and Goings

I am sad to share that Tony Navarrete has resigned as the CRC Director within Client Support. Tony will be returning to ITM Software where his new role will be Director of Best Practices. ITM Software is a startup that builds software designed to help CIOs run IT more effectively.

I want to thank Tony for working diligently on implementing the new processes and creating the management team to move CRC forward. His client focus and dedication helped build the new foundation.

Wishing him all the best in his new endeavors.

- Jan Cicero
Client Support

Please extend a warm welcome to Will Alfonso, who joined CRC as a consultant on Monday, Jan. 9. Will is joining the Humanities Field Support Team.

Will comes to us courtesy of Online Technical Services, and his latest gig has been at Peterson Holding/Teksystems in San Leandro, where he was their PC/LAN Administrator. He has worked with Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Berlex Biosciences, Genentech, and Apple Computer in recent years. His forte is desktop support for Windows and Macs, server experience, as well as software applications too numerous to list.

Will's office, er, cubicle, will be in the Bambi Trailer, cube #9, when he's not at the H&S Dean's Office in Bldg. 1.

- Karen Zack
Client Support; Computer Resource Consulting

The following people recently joined Information Technology Services. Welcome!

  • Veronica Houck (Cholanda Chenhansa, Shared Services; Operations)
  • Scott Wildy (John Freshwaters, Shared Services; Operations)
  • Jeremy Blanchard (Rocco Petrunti, Shared Services; Operations)
  • Joel Lidtke (Steve Tingley, Shared Services; Operations)
  • Sam Steinhardt (Bill Clebsch, Finance and Administration)

The following people have left Information Technology Services. Please contact their manager if you need to follow up on any open items.

  • Jasper Yue (John Freshwaters, Shared Services; Operations)
  • Lee Vang (Karen Zack, Client Support; Operations)

its in bits welcomes more detailed employee news submissions from all staff. Please submit to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu

Tech Briefings

Insights From an Excel Expert

Microsoft Excel is arguably the Swiss Army Knife of personal computing applications, with uses as far flung as databases, floor planning, and gaming. Come hear the insights of an undisputed Excel expert.

Shane Devenshire is one of only 40 Microsoft-designated MVPs in Excel in the world. He has authored and co-authored dozens of books and articles on Excel. Shane has been consulting and teaching in Excel for over 20 years, and consistently delights customers and classes with his extensive knowledge. If it can be done in Excel, Shane will know how to do it. If you are a frequent Excel user, don’t miss this presentation!

Turing Auditorium
Friday, January 27
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

For the complete schedule, a map to Turing Auditorium, times, and a list of topics, visit the Tech Briefings site.

Technology Training Courses

Seats are still available for the following IT Services Technology Training classes the week of February 6:

  • Project Levels 1 and 2 (ITS-2002), Monday, February 6 and Tuesday, February 7, 9:00 - 4:00, $500
  • Web Design Level 1: The Basics (ITS-2501), Tuesday, February 7, 1:00 - 4:30, $150
  • Introduction to Eudora (ITS-2101), Wednesday, February 8, 9:00 - 12:00, $150
  • IT Services Site Training (ITS-8301), Thursday, February 9, 8:30 - 12:00, no fee
  • InDesign Levels 3 and 4 (ITS 1452), Thursday, February 9 and Friday, February 10, 9:00 - 4:00, $500
  • Access Level 2 (ITS-1712), Friday, February 10, 9:00 - 4:00, $275

If you are interested in signing up for one of these courses, please register by Monday, January 30. Classes with low enrollments may be cancelled one week in advance.

More information on courses, registration, and training is available at the Technology Training Services site.

- Phyllis Olrich
Client Support; Technology Training Services

IT Employment Opportunities

There was one addition to the IT Services job requisition postings for this edition.

Req.#9575 - Budget and Accounting Manager IT Services - Continuing position - Range 3P5 - Sam Steinhardt, Manager
The Budget/Accounting Manager is responsible for expenditure management, business modeling, and budgeting for Information Technology Services (ITS). The position designs and analyses business models and also plans, directs and controls the financial activities of three service centers, multiple projects, and operating budget activities.

To view the complete listings or to apply for a position, visit the StanfordJobs web site at: jobs.stanford.edu.

There are other open Information Technology positions at Stanford. To see what other opportunities exist on campus, link to the full list of open positions from: itss.stanford.edu/staff/itssjobs.html

Quote of the Week

"A person's health can be judged by which is taken two at a time—pills or stairs."
- Joan Welsh

News

Service Awards

Thursday afternoon, January 19, IT Services celebrated the contribution of staff with 10, 15, 20, 25 and 35 years of service (as of 12/31/05). There was plenty of laughter hearing all the stories and recalling the memories. It was remarkable to hear of the accomplishments and contributions made over the years (and in some cases, decades). Be sure to congratulate the following staff on their Stanford anniversaries!

10 Years of Service: Mark Bierly, Jeff Bornstein, Art Bye, Xueshan Feng, Mike Horansky, Jay Kohn, Jean Lucker, Dan Miller, Jai Suengsumpathan, Sunia Yang, Prescilla Young.

15 Years of Service: Silvio Castillo, Valerie Cruz, Jim Hsu, Edith Gabrysch-Marsiske, Drew Saunders, Connie Wade, Janice Weese.

20 Years of Service: Cholada Chenhansa, Joe Kern, Chris Lundin.

25 Years of Service: Susan Arsenault, John Baltierra, Sally Davis, Frances Locke, Lori Wisneski.

35 Years of Service: Dick Guertin

- Nancy Ware
Planning and Communication

Technology Strategies Updated

Where is IT Services going? Since we're not packing up and moving to Redwood City quite yet, we're updating our technology strategy documents so that we know where we're headed in areas such as authentication, email, web services, and more.  

These are short, practical documents; each lays out the near and far-term visions for one specific service area in five or six pages, including projects and research. The following have recently been updated to reflect the latest technology directions:

Authentication
Authorization
Directory
Email
Identity Management
WWW Services
 Windows Infrastructure
For a complete list of the current strategy documents, and for the links to the documents themselves, see the IT Services Technology Strategy web page.

Thanks to the authors and reviewers of these documents.

If you have any questions, you can contact the authors listed on the site. If you have questions about the technology strategy effort and future directions, please contact any member of the Technology Strategy team: Russ Allbery, Scotty Logan, Nan McKenna, Lynn McRae, Christine Moe, Minh Nguyen, Lea Roberts, Bruce Vincent, and Ross Wilper.

- Nan McKenna
Client Support; Process and Account Management

Web Restructure Project

On January 20, the Documentation Group, with assistance from other IT Services teams, completed the first major milestone in the Web Restructure Project (see the 12/7/2005 its in bits article.

A new Web site for IT Services (http://it-services.stanford.edu) was launched and ITSS internal web sites and other materials were migrated to /dept/its/ AFS directory space. This phase of the project involved reformatting—and, in some cases, updating—dozens of Web sites about our products and services in order to present a more coherent and distinguishable presence on the Stanford Web.

Like the HelpSU reformat and IT Self-Help site launch that came before, the new IT Services pages adopt the look of Stanford's main Web pages. New with this site, however, is a top navigation bar that makes it easier to browse across IT Services' available offerings.

The old ITSS home page was changed to provide summary information about AS, IT Services, and last year's reorganization. This transitional page will be taken down sometime during 2007.

Along with the launch of the new client-facing site, an internal resources page was created at http://its-internal.stanford.edu to replace the "Info for Staff" page. This new gateway is simpler and more complete than the previous resources page in providing links to the news, tools, documents, and internal workgroup sites we all use on a regular basis.

Many Stanford people made it possible to achieve last Friday's milestone. The IT Services Documentation Group put in many long, extra hours converting hundreds of web pages and coordinating complex directory migrations:

Cynthia Endriga, Nuriya Janss, Christopher Kittle, Linda Pilkin, Dave Ream, Tom Wiggins, Marco Wise, and Brian Young.

The following staff members, some inside and some outside IT Services, played other noteworthy roles in this phase of the project:

Russ Allbery, Mark Branom, Jason Cowart, Xueshan Feng, Quanah Gibson-Mount. Kevin Hall, Mike Horansky, John Klemm, Jim Knox, Meei-You Lee, Brad Lauster, Yue Lu, Andrew May, Darren Patterson, Jon Pilat, Tricia Richter, Scott Stocker, Tim Torgenrud, Gheorghe Vasiliu, Jennifer Vine, Ross Wilper, and Hua Zheng.

The remainder of Phase 1 involves the migration of remaining materials from /dept/itss/ into /dept/its/ AFS space over the next few months.

Phase 2 involves further work on the Web site to incorporate database automation, integration with supporting business systems where possible, easy updating for maintainers, and the ability to publish service and product information in multiple formats for various purposes. (For more information, see the its in bits article mentioned above.)

- Dave Ream
Client Support; Documentation, Design, and Delivery

Winter Speaking of Computers

The winter issue of Speaking of Computers is online today. This e-newsletter highlights the latest news in computing and technology activities and services on campus. In the winter issue you'll find articles covering such topics as how to improve your computer's security with BigFix, a new Software at Stanford web portal, the debut of Stanford on iTunes, recent Essential Stanford Software upgrades, and new electronic resources

Note that there are links at the top of the newsletter's homepage and at the top of each section's homepage to make browsing and printing entire sections easier. You can also browse the table of contents and read the articles of your choice online, or you can print "printer-friendly" copies of individual articles.

Speaking of Computers is published at the beginning of Fall, Winter, and Spring Quarters by SULAIR Publications.

- Eleanor Brown
SULAIR

Next IT Services Staff Meeting

The next IT Services Staff Meeting will take place on Tuesday, February 7, 2006. It is scheduled 10:30-Noon in Oak Lounge (Tresidder Union). You should already see it on your calendar. There will be plenty of time for questions. We'll cover updates, and announce Quarterly Exceptional recipients. A detailed agenda will follow, so watch your mail for more information. If you have any requests for updates or topics, please contact Nancy Ware.

- Nancy Ware
Planning and Communication

About its in bits

A regular summary of IT business, news about personnel, and pointers to other information of interest to IT Services staff. Coordinated, compiled, and published by the Communication Strategy and Standards Team. its in bits is published on the first and third Wednesday of the month. The January schedule varied due to Winter Closure. The normal schedule will resume next month.

Submissions are due by Noon on the Friday before the scheduled issue, to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu for consideration. its in bits is distributed via email to its-all-staff@lists.stanford.edu and the new subscription list itsinbits-subscribers@lists.stanford.edu. People outside of IT Services can self-subscribe via majordomo.

The next its in bits will be published on Wednesday, February 1, 2006