Staff Happenings

Comings and Goings

There are no staff changes to report in this issue of its in bits.

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

Tech Briefings

Tech Briefings

Fridays
2:00–3:30 p.m.
Turing Auditorium

Friday, March 6

NetDB Power Searching—Drew Saunders, IT Services, presents this session for people with NetDB access who want to learn more about some of the searching tools available to them. NetDB log searches let you see the whole history of a NetDB entry: who made it, when, and all modifications. The command line tool ipm lets you search our logs of router arp tables; this is especially handy in finding IP thieves or the history of a laptop that roams from one network to another. DHCP log searches give detailed information on the successes or failures of a computer's usage of Stanford's DHCP service. NetDB access is required to use some of these tools, and NetDB familiarity is suggested for anyone attending this briefing.

Friday, March 13

Research Using LabVIEW—Hani Rajabi, National Instruments Field Engineer, will be showing how LabVIEW can help simplify your design projects for virtually all of your technical computing needs. Learn how to create complete LabVIEW applications from scratch in minutes with interactive Express VIs and I/O assistants, while also integrating your m-file scripts, created using The MathWorks, Inc. MATLAB® development environment, with LabVIEW MathScript. A live demonstration utilizing the latest LabVIEW features will be shown. You can obtain the latest versions of the LabVIEW development environment, modules, and toolkits as well as nearly all NI software via the Stanford's Software Licensing Group. Visit LabVIEW to get started today.

Tech Express

Once a month
12:00–1:00 p.m.
Turing Auditorium

Thursday, March 19

Stanford Email and Calendar—Ammy Hill, IT Services. In 2008, IT Services started providing Stanford computer users with a new and enhanced email and calendar service that allows users to more seamlessly use these applications together. Pieces of Stanford's current email and calendar infrastructures have been replaced with a new "collaboration suite." This Tech Express will focus on demonstrating the new system and answering your questions about the product, the project, and how it will affect your work at Stanford. More information can be found at the project web site.

Check the Tech Briefings home page for future sessions and to subscribe to the mailing list. Also see the Tech Express home page for information on upcoming presentations.

Technology Training Courses

IT Professional Development:

Javascript (ITS-2541), Thurs, Mar 19, 9:00–4:00, $325

XML Introduction (ITS-2531), Mon, Mar 23, 9:00–4:00, $325

The full listing of Current Courses is available on the Tech Training web site.

Tech Training classes coming spring quarter (April—June):

NEW! Introduction to Drupal (choose one of four sessions) (ITS-3020) April 21, April 27, May 5, or May 19, 9:00–4:00, $395

NEW! Perl Programming Plus Workshop (2 days) (ITS-2522), June 22-23, 9:00–4:00, $525

SQL Basics (ITS-2521), May 7, 9:00–4:00, $325

PHP Workshop (2 days) (ITS-2511), May 26-27, 9:00–4:00, $525

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff:

Adobe Acrobat & PDFs: Creating Forms and Automating Tasks (Beyond the Basics) (ITS-1403), Wed, Mar 11, 1:30–4:30, $195

Excel 2007: What? You Don't Know Excel Yet? (Level 1) (ITS-1141), Wed, Mar 11, 9:00–4:00, $325

Visio 2007 Level 1 (Professional) (ITS-1480), Thurs, Mar 12, 9:00–4:00, $325

*Web: Securing Computers, Documents and Web Sites (ITS-2505), Thurs, Mar 12, 1:30–4:30, $195

Photoshop Level 1 (ITS-1462), Fri, Mar 13, 9:00–4:00, $325

Word 2003 Tips & Time Savers Lecture (ITS-0926), Tues, Mar 17, 1:30–4:30, $125

Excel 2007 for Engineers and Scientists (ITS-1144), Tues, Mar 17, 9:00–4:00, $325

TechPort Open Lab (ITS-0601), Thurs, Mar 19, 9:00–12:00, Free

ReportMart 1 Introduction (ITS-8401), Thurs, Mar 19, 1:30–4:30, Free

Excel 2007: Become a Power User (Level 3) (ITS-1143), Fri, Mar 20, 9:00–4:00, $325

* Class is part of the curriculum to help prepare for:
Certification Workshop:
Web Professional in the Stanford Environment, Tues, Mar 31, 9:00–4:00, $325
More information at webcertificate.stanford.edu.

Free Email / Calendar Training:

Apple Mail (ITS-2113), Mon, Mar 9, 1:30–4:30

Stanford Email (Webmail) (ITS-2110), Tues, Mar 10, 9:00–12:00

Sundial: Tips and Tricks (ITS-2301), Wed, Mar 11, 9:00–12:00

Introduction to the New Stanford Email and Calendar (ITS-2115), Wed, Mar 11, 1:30–3:00

Outlook 2007 Mail (ITS-2111), Wed, Mar 18, 9:00–12:00

Sign up at http://axess.stanford.edu.

Classes with low enrollment may be cancelled one week in advance. More information on courses, registration, and training is available at the Technology Training Services site.

- Nancy Baumann
Technology Training Services

IT Employment Opportunities

There were no new job postings for IT Services this week.

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 all open IT positions at Stanford.

Quote of the Week

“Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”

- Albert Einstein

News

A Note From Bill...

First, thanks to all who attended last week's Town Hall. It was an energetic gathering, and we learned a lot listening to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital's new CIO Ed Kopetsky and Dr. Chris Longhurst tell us about the important challenges facing LPCH. For those of you who may have missed this, you can go back and view and listen to the WebEx broadcast.

It was inspiring to hear stories of planned automation in areas across the medical spectrum—from intensive care to prescription distribution—and to understand the important role IT will have in improving these processes. Ed spoke passionately about the tension between providing open information to save lives and maintaining patient privacy. Such goals are not easily balanced. Using his metrics, Chris made quite clear the difference automation can make in saving children’s lives, particularly by getting information quickly into the hands of medical staff.

I found their talks quite motivating, and those of us in IT Services should look forward to partnering more closely with LPCH in the future. To do that, we need to understand the special challenges in dealing with hospital environments: there is no margin for error. Over the last 20 years, IT Services has served both the University and the hospitals, and has leveraged our communication services to their advantage. We now face the challenge of finding ways to deliver a new generation of IT services to these great institutions.

As discussed at Town Hall, if we are to succeed in positioning IT in Higher Ed as a key competitive advantage for our faculty, students, and staff, we must listen closely to our clients and understand precisely the nature of their challenges. Alan Kay, one of the storied innovators in personal computing, has said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." This is a radical statement. It challenges us to think in a different way—not so much challenging us to invent a new technology, but rather to develop the processes, the services, and the tools of IT more creatively and more quickly to help our clients make Stanford University and Hospitals preeminent in the world.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Tap into your next Cisco WebEx Meeting with Your iPhone

Recently, our two campus WebEx sites (stanford.webex.com) and the new Work Anywhere Pilot site (stanfordconference.webex.com) were upgraded to accommodate the new Cisco WebEx iPhone application. This upgrade enables WebEx Meeting Center users with WebEx Audio to start or join WebEx meetings via their iPhone.

iPhone users starting or joining WebEx meetings can listen, talk, view presentations, and chat with other participants. This works fine with 2G and 3G iPhones, although 2G iPhone users need to listen to the audio over the cellular network and data content is viewed over a WiFi connection.

For more information and a short video demonstration, visit www.webex.com/iphone. WebEx has also created some FAQs in support of this new functionality:

WebEx Support for Meeting Center on the iPhone
WebEx FAQs: Cisco WebEx Meeting Center on the iPhone

The iPhone application can be downloaded through the Apple App Store (from the iTunes site or the App Store icon on the user's iPhone). iPhone users who have downloaded the application can tap on the new iPhone link to easily join the meeting from their iPhones.

The Technical Analyst Group is beginning its testing of this new functionality, but we know we have many adventurous iPhone users in IT Services! Feel free to give it a try and provide us with your feedback. Feedback can be sent via a HelpSU request.

- Chris Lundin, Lori Wisneski, and Sunny Sopapunta
Client Support

Planned Space Changes Due to Forsythe Phase II Expansion

The University's budget situation has slowed the construction of the proposed Research Computing facility at SLAC, while at the same time it has also speeded up client plans to move equipment into the Forsythe Data Center.

The increased demand for raised-floor space in Forsythe Hall has caused us to put together some plans to relocate staff and renovate some space in Forsythe Hall to address a number of issues.

In the current plan, now being priced out, the IT Operations Center staff upstairs near Conference Room 246 will relocate to downstairs in the vacant Room 145 (where the Service Consultants were located). In addition, the Help Desk Tier 1 staff will be relocated from Acacia to that same space, allowing for a tighter integration between the 24/7 ITOC staff and the 8–5 MF Help Desk staff. Our long-range goal is to enable a 24/7 Help Desk operation. This relocation will also give the ITOC staff room to expand their operation and will get the Help Desk staff on uninterruptible power. (During the power outage last August, the Help Desk was idled for four hours and unable to help customers.)

In a related move, the Order Processing staff in Room 165 will be relocated to Acacia (in the former Help Desk space). This will allow closer interactions between the Service Desk staff, who handle ordering and billing questions, and the Order Processing staff, who process such orders. For the foreseeable future, cell phone and card services will remain in their current location.

Bob Moya and staff are preparing to expand the first floor raised-floor space into Room 165 (and the adjacent hallway), allowing for the future possibility that even Room 180 will need to give way to machine room space.

- Chris Lundin
Client Support

IT Services Unified Messaging Pilot

Our production voicemail system has been in place since 1986 and serves over 17,000 faculty, staff, and students. The system has reached end of life; vendor support will end in 2011. The Unified Messaging Project will replace the current system with a product from Movius that offers some exciting new features. You can:

  • listen to your voicemail via phone, from a web portal, or in your email client
  • receive a fax as a .tiff file
  • have the system try to reach you at multiple numbers before forwarding a call to voicemail

Many of you will be happy to hear that the new system also offers additional storage and that messages will no longer expire.

IT Services will once again pioneer a new system before we introduce it to the rest of campus. On March 12, all IT Services staff will move to the new Movius message system. We’ll get an early opportunity to try out the new features and report on what works and what doesn't.

You can get a head start by setting up your voice mailbox. Your name and personal greeting will not be carried over from the old system to the new, so recording these before the cutover will prevent callers from getting an automated system message when they reach your voicemail. You'll also have to change your password and, if you get voicemail notification via pager, set up pager outcalling.

Step-by-step instructions and a quick reference guide [PDF] for the telephone user interface are available on our new voicemail help page. Please note that this site is still under development. Basic "getting started" information is already available, and we'll be adding more content in the coming days.

As with all IT Services system tests, feedback from our staff is key to better understanding the system prior to rolling it out to the rest of campus. If you encounter any problems, please submit a HelpSU request so that your problem can be handled before it affects someone else.

- Ammy Hill
Campus Readiness

February Town Hall

The recording of Thursday's IT Services Town Hall meeting is now available on the WebEx service site. (The slides from Thursday's presentation will be available by noon Friday on the Staff Meetings page.)

The guest speakers were Ed Kopetsky, the Chief Information Officer for Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and Dr. Chris Longhurst, Medical Director, Clinical Informatics. In addition, Bill discussed IT Services directions, and we welcomed new staff, recognized accomplishments, and answered questions.

- Nancy Ware
Strategic Planning

Give WebEx Meeting Center A Try: Free!

Through November 2009, all faculty and staff have access to WebEx Meeting Center software as part of a Work Anywhere Pilot.

The new site is at stanfordconference.webex.com. We encourage you to give it a try. We've loaded in approximately 15,000 faculty and staff SUNet IDs. We did not attempt to integrate WebAuth for this pilot, but plan to do so depending on the ultimate outcome. If you'd like to give it a try, submit a HelpSU request and we'll give you your password.

Stanford's System Governance Group, as part of the Work Anywhere Toolkit project funding, has enabled this pilot for faculty and staff to use the Cisco WebEx Meeting Center software to conduct online meetings and collaboration sessions. The purpose of the pilot is to assess the suitability of this software to increase campus efficiency by enabling virtual meetings, desktop video-conferencing, and integrated web- and audio-conferencing, thereby reducing campus travel time and expense and supporting those who work in alternate work locations (Stanford@Menlo Park, Stanford@Porter Drive, work at home, etc.).

The pilot will allow us to gauge demand for these online tools and assess what issues faculty and staff have with working online in this manner. This capability is present in most companies these days, and the Work Anywhere Program feels that now is the time to assess the benefits of making these tools easily available to our campus community.

See also the related article on WebEx in the February 4 edition of its in bits.

- Nancy Ware
Strategic Planning

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.

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 subscription list itsinbits-subscribers@lists.stanford.edu People outside of IT Services can self-subscribe via mailman.

The next its in bits will be published on Wednesday, March 18, 2009.