Minimum Workstation and Software Site License Subcommittee Minutes

 

April 15, 2004
Meeting in AH-1120 at 10 a.m.
Diana Osborn, Chair

Patch Management Update
St. Bernard's UpdateEXPERT v6.2 software has been installed on the new servers. Access to the servers is waiting on network jacks being installed. Diana Osborn needs to know who is the contact for each department/area, as this person(s) will be invited to a 90 minute Web Training session next Tuesday.

Discussion ensued on the mechanics of the automated process and account usage. Diana relayed how machines can be grouped with differenct credentials for each group. Diana indicated that a pdf UpdateEXPERT v6.2 Deployment Guide is available on St. Bernard's web site for those interested.

Minimum Workstation Update
Cyndi Chie emailed the updated files to Carol Phillips just before this meeting. Carol stated she would try to have the pages revised by the end of the day. Cyndi announced there would be a new spec page just for computer labs, as these workstations need no writable drives. The group also modified the highend specs to be more specific for the types of software used. If there are questions, please send them to chie@mail.sdsu.edu for committee discussion.

McAfee Update
Celia Chavez described a recent problem she was having with McAfee. According to her, McAfee would detect a virus in an Email message and she deleted the message. When prompted "if you want to delete the message" answering "yes" deleted all incoming email coming in after the infected message that had not yet been checked. Discussion ensued as not everyone had experienced this scenario. Wayne Ridge said on both version 5 and 6 Eudora, he couldn't get to the messages because McAfee moves the messages to the Spool folder. Keith Burt said to close Eudora and restart it, so the messages can download again from the point they previously stopped. Celia said that she tried that and Eudora still did not pick up the deleted messages. Keith said the latest version for Eudora on the PC is 6.1 and will soon be on the TNS web site. Stephen Treger mentioned that if you hold the Shift key when you check mail, additional options will pop up to check mail.

It was stated that Housing has a PO in the works for McAfee Home Version. These licenses will be for the dorm users that they monitor. Keith Burt recommended that the MWSSLS committee strongly push management to buy more coverage for the rest of the student body, since we now have a Security Office requiring students to have something in the way of virus protection. Keith was appointed chair of an Ad-hoc committee to explore this recommendation.

Software Survey
David Oehl announced that the 2nd prototype of the Software Survey web site will be ready in May. He is doing this in php and distributed sample screens to those present. Cyndi noted that the questions for labs and F/S workstations will be identical the first go-round. It is hoped, from the information returned, that they will be able to make the lab portion simpler the next time. David will be incorporating new specs from Cyndi and the survey will list flavors of Windows and Linux Server software for quantities and versions.

Discussion ensued on who and how areas would report on their hardware and software. If one person does the applications and another does the computers for a department, they can only submit once for both. This will mean that those departments that split the reporting will need their staff to coordinate the info before reporting it. Cyndi noted that there will be a 250 character comment field available to those reporting.

Stephen Treger mentioned the possiblity of looking into software auditing tools. Some of these are available at no cost. Stephen was appointed chair of an Ad-hoc committee to explore this issue.

Mathematica
Diana Osborn stated that since she had received no further responses on Mathematica, she will move forward on the quantity she has.

Calendar Committee
Business Affairs has renewed the contract for Meeting Maker for another 3 years. The recommendation that campus training be done on the product has been submitted to Business Affairs. We are currently at version 7.03 on the server. Release 8 for Solaris is expected in July. Oudom Ky will update when the new version is received.

ASAP
Celia Chavez announced that SDSU has a new account manager for ASAP, Brad Hickey. His information is available on the UCO web page concerning Microsoft.

Virtual PC V6.1 is now included in Office Pro for the Mac and is licensed to SDSU.  This product is part of the Microsoft Campus Agreement. Celia has heard that it may have a problem on the G5 computers. It needs a 500MHz G3, as a minimum configured system. Celia also has a standalone version.

SPSS software checkout will soon be available from the TNS counter in Love Library. This will be an additional location, as Celia will continue to checkout the SPSS media.

Matlab
The Matlab license is up for renewal. There are 100 concurrent users covered by the license. If you believe there should be more users or libraries, please contact Diana with your numbers.

Open Office
The Ideas committee has passed a suggestion to the MWSSLS committee about the possiblity of switching from MS Office to Open Office. Open Office is open source. Star Office is SUN's version, is free for Education, and has been already registered once for the campus. There are Macintosh, Windows, Linux, and Solaris versions of both. Diana asked those present to start using and testing the products with attention paid to macros and their need to be rebuilt. However, the initial concensus was that labs would need to remain at MS Office version to remain competitive in business.

Adobe Library on PHP
Diana mentioned and those present agreed that a license on ROHAN for the Adobe Library on PHP may need to be pursued. This would allow the creation of PDF documents to occur on the fly in a ROHAN session.

Next MWSSLS meeting will be on May 20, 2004 at 10 a.m. in AH-1120.

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PLEASE NOTE: The statements found on the MWSSLS Home Page are for informational purposes only. While every effort is made to ensure that this information is up to date and accurate, official information can be found in the University publications.

Last modified on April 26, 2004
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