Here are some recent questions we’ve been getting a lot of at the Help Desk this week:
Q: My computer is notifying me it is infected, and prompting me to download software to fix the problem. What should I do?
A: Don’t do anything. You’re likely being prompted to download and install malware, harmful software which may infect your computer. The Help Desk has seen a rash of these issues over the past week. In each case, a pop-up window appears informing you your computer is infected with adware, spyware, malware and/or a virus, and offers a link to run a “scan” on your computer. By clicking the link, you’re unknowingly giving permission to download malware and infect your computer.
This is also called “scareware,” software that scares you into downloading and infecting your computer, and unfortunately it’s becoming quite effective. We’ve posted about this type of infection before. If the above happens to you, exit your web browser. If you’re on a University-owned computer and it comes back the next time you restart your browser, call the Help Desk or your local area or college net admin.
Most importantly, be careful where you’re going on the web. All of the infections we’ve seen have been the result of people clicking links in personal email accounts, on Facebook, or browsing websites they really shouldn’t be accessing while at work.
Q: Why do I see two windows asking me for my username and password when trying to log in to Google Apps?
A: In Google Chrome, accessing the Google Apps login page displays a pop-up window for username and password (see below):
Ignore this window. It’s just a result of how Chrome interacts with the secure access login page we’ve implemented. Close the pop-up window, and log in normally.
Q: Why do I have to reset my password twice when I change my BroncoWeb password every 90 days? I can never log into my computer after changing my password.
A: Depending on how your computer is configured, you may have a local computer password. When you change your BroncoWeb password, your computer’s operating system has no way of knowing. So, you log in with your new password to access the network, but the computer is expecting the old password to log in to the computer itself. Thus, you have to reset the local computer password to match your new network password.
See info on our Password page on the Help Desk website to learn more.
Q: When are you going to support Windows 7 or Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard?
A: When we’re ready! We have a lot of work to do before Windows 7 will be available for University computers, and Snow Leopard still doesn’t have an enterprise antivirus client (plus, vendors like Adobe still need to work out some software kinks with Apple). There’s really no business purpose at this time for either Windows 7 or Snow Leopard. We’ll announce support for these new operating systems when we’re ready.
Every iPhone owner has a list of his or her favorite applications; Peter and I thought we’d share ours. As a special bonus, we’ve even included the preferred apps of our beloved techno-savvy Provost, Sona Andrews.
Shad
I’m a bit fickle when it comes to iPhone apps; if I don’t find myself using something more than once a week, I delete it. Thankfully, there are several I use regularly:
Awesome Note
Awesome Note is a terrific-looking and robust note-taking application to gather all your notes in one place. Shopping lists, Netflix movies to rent, website ideas, phone numbers and other notes can be created and organized. They’ll even sync with a personal Google Docs account. Awesome Note is like the built-in Notes application on steroids.
New York Times
Our nation’s paper of record is also the best newspaper app on the iPhone.
BBC Reader
The best global news app available, offering a perspective beyond our shores.
BeejiveIM
A terrific instant messaging application, though it’s best used with WiFi, as it often suffers from connection stability issues on 3G for an extended period of time.
ESPN ScoreCenter
Keep up to date on your Boise State Broncos, as well as any other football, baseball, basketball, hockey, or even cricket and rugby teams. Complete with live Gamecasts, in-game summaries, and more.
Trope
I’m a big fan of generative music and an even bigger fan of Brian Eno. Trope, along with its sister companion Bloom, are music/art apps by Eno and Peter Chilvers that will generate original compositions and allow you to perform the iPhone as an interactive instrument. Trope is the better performer of the two, allowing you determine note length.
Scrabble
The ability to play against your friends via Facebook or WiFi adds to the playability of this iteration of Scrabble.
FlightControl
A terrific apps that is just right for a quick, engrossing game waiting around 5 minutes for the tea to steep.
Google Earth
If you think it’s great on the desktop, wait until you see it on the iPhone. Works surprisingly fast with 3G.
Yelp
Hold your iPhone in front of you, activate the Monocle feature, and watch the camera app open and display nearby restaurants, banks, gas stations, drugstores and more in whatever direction you’re pointing the lens.
Google Apps via Safari
This isn’t an application you download and install on your iPhone. Instead, launch Safari and browse to Google Apps via http://apps.boisestate.edu/ to access your Boise State Gmail Labels, add Stars, view your Google Tasks, look at multiple calendars, read your Google Docs, chat with colleagues, and search your entire email account.
Peter
Google Mobile App
If I ever need to search for something, I use the Google Mobile App. It’s great if you are searching for a business and its phone number; you can dial the number from the search results.
Boxed In
Fun time waster if you like solving puzzles.
Wikipedia
For information at the tips of your fingers. Being a geek, information must be easily accessible at any time and Wikipedia comes to the rescue.
BigStopWatch
The iPhone has a timer with the native Clock app, but it only counts down (great for baking). I wanted a stopwatch. Great presentation and functionality.
Apple Remote
It’s great to be able to control your iTunes library playback on your computer from your iPhone. I use it all the time at home.
Shazam
If you suck at “name that tune” (like I do), this is the tool to have with you at all times. It listens to a chunk of music, then identifies it. It even works in an environment where there is a lot of noise (e.g., a restaurant).
Sona
SnapTell
I can take a picture of any book, and SnapTell will tell me the author, publisher, and give me purchase options.
Find My Car
When venturing out into a huge parking lot, this app helps me find my car. Simply activate Find My Car when you park your vehicle, and then have the app direct you to your car on your way back.
College Football Mobile
Complete NCAA football coverage. Similar to ESPN ScoreCenter (see above).
Ping Lite
iPhone to iPhone instant messaging.
UrbanSpoon
If you’re in a major city and looking for good eats, Urbanspoon will feed you info about local restaurants, menus, and reviews and recommendations from bloggers and critics.
Flashlight
Lights up your screen, giving you just enough illumination to fit the key in the door lock.
October is National Cyber Security Month. Make cyber security a priority; learn more at staysafeonline.org
The U.S. Treasury has requested we alert you to an ongoing issue of spam emails claiming to be from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) informing recipients their assets are part of a failed bank, and to click through to a website to validate banking insurance information by downloading a file. The website looks like this:
This downloaded file will then install dangerous software on a computer. This software may collect personal data which could be used to gain access to recipient’s bank accounts.
The “from:” address being used in this email is an actual valid FDIC email address; the spammers are “spoofing” the address to make it look legitimate. Protect yourself by not opening or responding to email messages asking for your personal, private information. Also, be sure to have robust, updated antivirus software installed on your computer.
For more info on this current FDIC email spam n’ scam, see the FDIC’s website.
Google has added a new multiple file export feature to Google Docs. You can now select one or more files from your Google Docs items list and export them in bulk to various formats.
Just highlight the desired files by clicking the checkbox to the left of each file name, then click More Actions > Export on the toolbar at top:
A window will appear asking you to specify the export file types for the files you wish to download (“export”) out of Google Docs:
If you want to simply export your documents as Microsoft Office files, click the Convert to MS Office formats link instead:
Your exported files will be zipped (compressed) and a folder containing your files will be downloaded; choose your download location, then open the folder containing your files.
Another recent change to Docs is unread items now appear in bold in Google Docs, helping you to see at a glance any shared files you haven’t yet opened.
For more information on using the new multiple file export feature in Google Docs, see Google’s website.
Windows 7 is being released today in several different versions. Should you run out and get it?
Definitely not if you have a University-owned computer. OIT is still months away from being able to support Windows 7, due mainly to our need to get Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) up and running for purposes of computer management, as well as intensive testing and preparation of resource materials.
If you have a personal computer and want to upgrade to Windows 7, you won’t have access to resources such as our University license for Symantec antivirus or a workable VPN client available for several more weeks.
Also, Windows 7 ships with Internet Explorer 8 installed. To use Internet Explorer 8 with Blackboard, you need to configure the browser to operate in “Compatibility Mode.” Instructions are available on Microsoft’s website, or you can call Blackboard support for assistance at 426-2583.
If you have questions about Windows 7, please contact the OIT Help Desk at 426-4357, or via email at helpdesk@boisestate.edu
When it comes to new software, a lot of people don’t like change. But, like a river, the tide of new software keeps flowing, flooding the shores from time to time. Here are some updates on new software we’ve been getting questions about at the Help Desk:
Microsoft Office: OIT has been offering installation and support for Microsoft Office 2007 for PC and Office 2008 for Mac for quite some time. Several departments and individuals have already upgraded to these latest versions of Microsoft’s venerable desktop productivity suite.
Other areas are completing testing on Office 2007 features that integrate with PeopleSoft Finance in hopes of upgrading their machines to Office 2007 soon.
Microsoft officially ended support for Office 2003 several months ago, and as such, OIT will be moving all supported computers to Office 2007 in early 2010 (just about the time the new Office 2010 suite is released).
However, many of you are currently holding on to Microsoft Office 2003 like a security blanket (you know who you are), primarily because of the graphic interface changes in Office 2007. Office 2007 really isn’t that hard to get used to; Microsoft has made available some helpful online tools to assist you in finding your way around Office 2007.
If you’d like to have Office 2007 installed on your computer, please contact the Help Desk or your local college or area netadmin. There is no charge for Office 2007 for University-owned computers, due to our Microsoft Site License.
Windows Vista: OIT is skipping support for Windows Vista, in favor of upgrading computers beginning in early 2010 from Windows XP to…
Windows 7: We’ve been testing Windows 7 for a while now within our office, and we like what we see. We have some new computer management software to get up and running first (plus some in-depth testing and development of information resources) before we’ll start installing Windows 7 on OIT-supported computers, but rest assured Windows 7 will be a priority for us in 2010.
Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Snow Leopard was released in late August, and we’re waiting on a compatible enterprise antivirus client from Symantec before we can provide support for OS X 10.6 on University-owned computers. Plus, there are still some odd glitches with Gmail in both Firefox and Safari (seemingly related to issues with Flash incorporation), as well as Adobe CS4 software, that should make you think twice about upgrading at this time.
Have questions about Office 2007, Microsoft Windows or OS X? Contact the Help Desk at 426-4357, or email us at helpdesk@boisestate.edu
October is National Cyber Security Month. Make cyber security a priority; learn more at staysafeonline.org
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has a great article by on their website featuring general guidelines for publishing information on the internet.
Guidelines include:
- View the internet as a novel, not a diary – Make sure you are comfortable with anyone seeing the information you put online. Expect that people you have never met will find your page; even if you are keeping an online journal or blog, write it with the expectation that it is available for public consumption.
- Be careful what you advertise – In the past, it was difficult to find information about people other than their phone numbers or address. Now, an increasing amount of personal information is available online, especially because people are creating personal web pages with information about themselves. When deciding how much information to reveal, realize that you are broadcasting it to the world.
- Realize that you can’t take it back – Once you publish something online, it is available to other people and to search engines. You can change or remove information after something has been published, but it is possible that someone has already seen the original version. Even if you try to remove the page(s) from the internet, someone may have saved a copy of the page or used excerpts in another source. Some search engines “cache” copies of web pages so that they open faster; these cached copies may be available after a web page has been deleted or altered.
Read the complete guidelines produced by US-CERT on their website.
We’ve been seeing a lot of calls to the Help Desk recently from people who have “lost” email messages in Gmail.
Turns out the messages have been deleted and are in the Trash. How did they get to the Trash? Not on their own.
Some people are double- or triple-clicking messages in Gmail to open them. You only need to click once on a message to open it; more than one click can easily cause you to click another button after the message opens.
Depending on the location of your mouse cursor, that means you could easily click the Delete, Archive, or Report Spam buttons when your message is opened. The mouse action happens so quickly that it appears as though your message “disappears.”
If you’re searching for an email message that might be in your Trash (or your Spam folder), type in:anywhere before your query in the search box at the top of Gmail. This will search your entire account for the message you’re looking for.
By default, Gmail will search everything but Trash and Spam for messages unless you tell it to look everywhere (or in:anywhere).
Read more about efficient searching in Gmail with Advanced Search Operators, and take a look at our video for “Working with Labels, Filters and Advanced Search Operators.”
Google has introduced a new Lab accessible via Gmail.
“Got the wrong Bob?” keeps track of email addresses you email most often. If you send an email to a group of people that usually includes, say, Bob Smith, but accidentally add Bob Roberts, the Lab will prompt you to make sure you didn’t mean to exclude Bob Smith.
Google has also changed the “Suggest more recipients” Lab name to “Don’t forget Bob.” This Lab is similar to “Got the wrong Bob?” in that it keeps track of groups of addresses you often send emails to, and if you leave someone off the group list, it’ll prompt you to make sure you aren’t leaving somebody out by mistake.
These Labs are accessible in Gmail via Settings > Labs.
As with any Lab, to try it out just click Enable to turn it on, then click Save Changes at either the top or bottom of the window.
For more on “What about Bob?” and “Don’t forget Bob,” see Google’s website.
Google has added a terrific (and oft-requested) new feature to Google Docs. You can now share folders.
As Google says: “Shared folders make it easy for a team of people to collaborate on projects that require multiple documents, spreadsheets or presentations. If you have a group of items you want to share, all that you have to do is put them into one folder and share it.”
You can also now upload multiple documents simultaneously.
Read more about sharing folders and uploading files in Google Docs on Google’s website.
