Staff Happenings

IT Services Golf Tournament

Fore

We have 39 golf enthusiasts committed to play in the IT Services Golf Tournament on Saturday, July 25, 2009 at NASA Moffett Field, Sunnyvale. There are four more flights or 16 spots to be filled on our list. Interested parties please call or send an email to Dave or Roland.

- Dave Delia and Roland Acoba
Communication Services

Comings and Goings

The following person has joined Information Technology Services. Welcome.

Tyrone Franklin (Kim Seidler)

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

Maureen Smith (Kim Seidler)

its in bits welcomes more 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, June 5

Workstation Backup and Recovery — Dan Stillmaker and Shirley Hodges, IT Services. One of the most important steps to protecting Stanford's data is to back up the data on desktops and laptops using a reliable, secure, cost-effective tool. Historically, it has been fairly easy to find backup alternatives for Windows computers. We now also have viable backup alternatives for Macintosh computers. Please join us as we compare and contrast the desktop backup alternatives for Stanford Macintosh and Windows computers. This will include the viewpoint of the end user, the backup administrator, as well as the cost comparisons.

Friday, June 19

Social Networking at Stanford — Mark Branom and Dave Ream, IT Services. Social Networking has grown increasingly popular over the past few years. Using Social Networking tools, you can increase your professional and personal contacts while improving communication and collaboration with other people who share similar beliefs, interests, and goals. In this Tech Briefing, learn about the various Social Networking tools available and how they can help you.

Tech Express

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

Thursday, June 18

Stanford Calendar — Ammy Hill, IT Services. On Independence Day weekend, the campus will move from Sundial to Stanford Calendar. This Tech Express will focus on the most commonly used features in the calendar and some special tips and tricks for optimizing your Stanford Email & Calendar experience. More information at emailcalendar.stanford.edu.

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:

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

Introduction to Drupal (choose one of two sessions) (ITS-3020) Mon, July 20, or Tues, July 28, 9:00–4:00, $395

XML Technologies (ITS-2531), Fri, July 24, 9:00–4:00, $325

NEW! Becoming a Unix/Linux User: The Beginning (ITS-2560), Wed, July 29, 9:00–4:00, $325

PHP Workshop (2 days) (ITS-2511), Aug 3-4, 9:00–4:00, $525

NEW! Javascript Advanced: AJAX (ITS-2561), Thurs, Aug 13, 9:00–4:00, $325

SQL Basics (ITS-2521), Thurs, Aug 20, 9:00–4:00, $325

TechPort: Online Technology Training for Stanford — techport.stanford.edu (ITS-0611), through Aug 31, $195

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff:

Excel 2007 for Finance Level 2 (ITS-1134), Mon, June 15, 9:00–4:00, $325

Excel 2007 Pivot Tables (ITS-1147), Tues, June 16, 9:00–4:00, $325

ReportMart1 (ITS-8401), Tues, June 16, 1:30–4:30, Free

Dreamweaver Level 2 (ITS-2611), Thurs, June 18, 9:00–4:00, $325

OrderIT Site Training (ITS-8301), Thurs, June 18, 1:00–4:30, Free

Access 2007 Lite: An Overview (ITS-1720), Thurs, June 18, 1:30–4:30, $195

Excel 2007: Tables, Functions, and Linking (Level 2) (ITS-1142), Fri, June 19, 9:00–4:00, $325

Upcoming Certificate Workshop:

Web Professional in the Stanford Environment (ITS-2606), Fri, June 26, 9:00–4:00, $325
More information at webcertificate.stanford.edu.

Free Email / Calendar Training:

Stanford Email (Webmail) (ITS-2110), Thurs, June 11, 1:30–4:30

Cool Tips and Tricks for Stanford Email and Calendar (ITS-2117), Wed, June 17, 2:00–3:00

Apple iCal (ITS-2114), Wed, Jun 17, 9:00–12:00

Apple Mail (ITS-2113), Wed, Jun 17, 1:30–4:30

Thunderbird Mail (ITS-2112), Thurs, June 18, 9:00–12:00

Moving from Sundial to Stanford Calendar (ITS-2116), Mon, June 15, 10:00–11:00

Moving from Sundial to Stanford Calendar (ITS-2116), Wed, June 17, 1:00–2:00

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

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

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

“Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte

News

A Note From Bill...

A couple of days ago, I got the email from Cheryl Einwalter of HR Solutions announcing the Stanford University Employee Opinion Survey for Business Affairs staff members. Well, actually, I got it but didn't know I had it. It wasn't until someone sent me an email saying that she had gotten the notification that I actually knew it was time for the survey to begin. Turns out that my AppleMail had filtered the email into my junk mailbox. So if you too are wondering where your notification about the new employee survey is, you just might want to check that junk mailbox.

Once I had rescued the notification from my rigorous filters, I opened it and noticed that they had significantly edited it down, stating that it could be done in less than ten minutes. Aha, I thought to myself, we'll see about that timing. I don't know about you, but for me, when things like this arrive, I like to get them done right away. Otherwise they just sit there in my inbox and haunt me.

So I opened the Employee Survey right up and it was quite a pleasant surprise. A third of the questions were gone, and the ones that remain seemed very apropos to Stanford. The definitions of workgroup and organization were stated clearly at the beginning, and so I jumped right in. I can tell you that the survey definitely took me less than ten minutes to complete. It felt good to get it done so quickly, and I actually had time to think about some nuances to both my answers and my comments.

I urge each of you to take the time to make your voice heard. These surveys are most valuable when everyone responds so that we know that we are hearing the opinions of the entire organization. Only when we hear from everyone can we put together plans to make this a better place to work for the entire organization.

Later this summer we will share the results of the survey and incorporate them into our workgroup roadmaps and our overall strategic plan. Just as we must focus on meeting the needs of our clients going forward, we also need to focus on the staff of our own organization and meeting their needs. I think that the survey presents a unique opportunity to do this because it allows us to give feedback freely and anonymously, just as with our Client Survey.

I look forward to hearing from all of you on this survey and to continue working on making IT Services, and Stanford University, an even better place to work.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Commencement Freeze

Commencement will take place June 14 this year. Once again, we need to ensure that our systems and services are functioning at peak performance to support all Commencement activities.

As is our practice, no changes to supporting hardware, systems, or services should be undertaken between May 30 and June 15.

Basically, what this means is that no IT production system or service should undergo any changes during this critical period. Students, faculty, and staff are relying on our services to be up and available. If you have anything that needs to be changed and you believe it will not affect student systems or Commencement, please be sure to use the Change Management process to ensure that the proposed change can be discussed in that forum.

- Nancy Ware
Planning & Communications

COmanage and Stanford

Last month, Digant Kasundra and I made several presentations at the Spring Internet2 Member Meeting regarding the new alpha version of COmanage. COmanage is a project funded by Internet2 and a National Science Foundation grant to create a more efficient platform for organizations to collaborate. The project's goal is to create an environment that enables bundling applications that can accept authentication and group information from services outside the application. Departments or research groups can then invite people and create whatever groups they need for their particular collaborative organization.

Imagine a research group with researchers from around the country all looking for a place to share documents, discuss results on a protected wiki space, and have mailing lists tied to the different working areas within the research group. Where should the data be housed? Would Stanford want to host the SUNet IDs for the researchers from MIT, Harvard, and Duke? How would the groups most useful to the organization of this research group be created? Where would that information be stored?

The Primary Investigator for the research group can download an instance of COmanage and have it installed at his or her institution, or even in the Amazon EC2 space, and from there can invite the other researchers and their graduate students into the space. Thanks to Shibboleth, the authentication relies on the information at home institutions, so researchers don't have to set up their own authentication space. Researchers can also create whatever groups are necessary: they will be stored in the group management tool, Grouper, and then be available to the applications packaged with COmanage.

If you'd like more information on COmanage, please check out Internet2.

- Heather Flanagan
Systems Administration, Computing Services

Please Switch to WebEx Audio-Conferencing

During the Work Anywhere Pilot, which lasts through 2009, we would like all IT Services staff who use audio-conferencing through LINK Conference Service or any other provider to try out WebEx audio-conferencing. During the pilot, audio-conferencing expense is funded by the Work Anywhere Program (so there's a great financial incentive!), but behind the scenes, the actual WebEx rates are more than half of what LINK Conference costs.

We've put together a Web page with the basics: how to generate your own personal audio-conferencing number to use whenever you need it, and how to print a handy reference card with all pertinent information for easy access.

You will need a WebEx account in order to set up audio-conferencing. The account is easy to set up. You can find instructions on the WebEx News page.

We'd like to see all IT Services audio-conferencing needs handled via WebEx early in June. Your feedback on how the service works and any issues you run into would be appreciated: helpsu.stanford.edu?pcat=webex.

- Chris Lundin
Client Support

Emergency Response Team

The IT Services ERTeam has been changing and growing. On May 22, our PANDA-trained IT Services ERTeam members were incorporated into the Stanford Community Emergency Response Team (SCERT), bringing the number of campus SCERT team members to 100 Stanford staff. Prior to our team's incorporation into SCERT we were under the auspices of the Palo Alto Neighborhood Disaster Assistance (PANDA) program, coordinated through the Palo Alto Fire Department.

The CERT/SCERT/PANDA program is designed to give staff members the knowledge and experience to be first responders in the case of a large-scale community emergency on campus or in their neighborhoods. The IT Services ERTeam provides disaster first response and has the capability to maintain a tent city for up to 400 staff for five days.

Congratulations to the following ERTeam members who are now PANDA-SCERTs: Debbi Barley, Robin Cohen, Shawn Corbari, Christopher Kittle, Robin McClish, Tom Prussing, Victoria Sarem, and Bill Bauriedel.

Congratulations to William Johnson, who recently completed SCERT training as well.

Ten more IT Services ERTeam members have signed up for the SCERT training in the coming months.

Please contact Tom Prussing if you would like to participate in this training, which will take place during working hours. The IT Services ERTeam conducts its own monthly training program open to all IT Services staff, whether or not you are a PANDA, CERT or SCERT. No emergency response training is required to attend these training forums.

Our next IT Services ERTeam Forum will be held on June 16 at 10:30 in Acacia 105 and on June 18 at 13:00 in Redwood G17. We will review the first Forum topics and move on to effective building evacuation, ARK operations, and survival action priorities in a major disaster. Our forums are 1.5 hours in length. The two identical training forums are offered each month so that we can provide the maximum opportunity for staff to attend.

If this interests you, select the ERTeam Forum that best fits your work schedule and contact Tom Prussing if you would like to join us. We hope to see you there.

- Tom Prussing
IT Services ERTeam Leader

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, June 17, 2009.