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02/20/2008 - 02/20/2008 - E-Mail Server Restarted
The e-mail server was restarted this morning for a Microsoft Security Maintenance Update. It should be back online before 8:00 a.m. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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12/07/2007 - MAIL SERVER RESTARTED FRIDAY 12/7
The mail server was restarted at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, December 7. If you are experiencing problems getting into e-mail at this time, the server will be back online within 15-20 minutes.

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03/08/2007 - Daylight Savings Time Updates
Daylight Savings Time (DST) begins March 11 -- that's right, Sunday. This change was legislated in 2005. Most of our computers at FMHI are set to adjust to Daylight Savings Time on the first Sunday in April and end the last Sunday in October. In order to adjust to this change, a patch must be installed on your computer for the adjustment. Also, a utility must be run against your Outlook (Exchange mailbox). In the next few days, your department IT associate or someone from IT will be coming by to install the patch and utility. You do not have to be in your office for this installation, but we must have access to restart your computer. We recommend that you print out any calendar items between March 11 and April 1. Because the normal DST would have begun April 1, these are the most important dates. Windows XP Laptop users, off campus and home computers: You should be able to download and install the patch and utility. Link download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=66F1420C-DF2D-400B-A8A9-EF9061A9A3CA&displaylang=en Utility download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e343a233-b9c8-4652-9dd8-ae0f1af62568&DisplayLang=en Public Folder Calendars: The Outlook Update Utility will NOT automatically update calendars located in public folders. They must be updated individually by selecting the calendar through the utility. If you would like IT to update your public folder calendars, just send me the path and I will make sure the calendar is updated.

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12/04/2006 - Do Not Install Windows Vista or Internet Explorer
Below is the statement from USF IT regarding Windows Vista and Internet Explorer version 7. FMHI will not be installing these upgrades on systems until they have been cleared by USF IT. =================================== USF Information Technologies Statement on Windows VISTA and Internet Explorer 7.0 Updated: December 2, 2006 General Recommendation USF Information Technologies currently does NOT recommend upgrading to the new Windows VISTA operating system or Internet Explorer version 7.0 at this time. Our recommendation is based upon extensive review of both products and their interoperability with USF business systems. Presently the new operating system and browser are NOT certified to operate with our McAfee Anti-Virus suite, GEMS and FAST /PeopleSoft applications. Both Windows VISTA and Internet Explorer offer exciting and productive new features and we look forward to the university being able to take advantage of them in the near future. USF Information Technologies will continue to monitor certification efforts with our vendors and update this recommendation statement as appropriate. Future Purchase/Upgrade Recommendation Existing Machines While Windows VISTA will offer many new and exciting features, USF Information Technologies expects to recommend against upgrading existing PCs to the new operating system until at least Service Pack 1 is released. The new operating system requires a fairly high powered PC and our testing has shown the average USF PC cannot operate under it efficiently. New PC Purchases It is expected that the major PC manufacturers will begin selling PCs with Windows VISTA pre-installed beginning in Quarter 1 of 2007. USF Information Technologies is comfortable with new PC purchases (which are designed specifically to operate under the new platform) running Windows VISTA as long as our major business application vendors certify their interoperability. Be sure to check back with the IT web site for updated information. Our recommendations are rapidly changing as vendor information becomes available. (Link)

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09/14/2006 - PASSWORD AGING POLICY IN EFFECT 9/14/06
The FMHI Password Aging Policy has been instituted as of Thursday, September 14. You are now required to change your password every 6 months. If you are having trouble logging in to Outlook Web Access, or connecting with shares, please call the Help Desk at 974-1905.

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08/29/2006 - COLOSSUS Shared Files Back Online!
The Shared files on the COLOSSUS server are now restored. If you did not log off your computer last night, please log off or restart your computer. The files were restored from the 8/20/2006 full backup and the 8/25 or 8/26 differential update backup tapes. Please let us know if you have questions or problems with the restored files. Call the Help Desk at 974-1905 to report issues. We appreciate your patience during this restore. Thank you.

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08/28/2006 - Status of COLOSSUS server
Shared files are now being restored to the COLOSSUS server. We anticipate that this will take all of the working day, into this evening. We are restoring the full backup from August 20 and must restore the differential updates from Friday, August 25, to get everything up-to-date. If you begin to see your shared files during the day, and they seem older than you expect, please understand that they will not be fully updated until the differential restore is completed. We anticipate all files to be completed restored by Tuesday morning. We will keep you informed today as to the progress of the file restore. Thank you.

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08/28/2006 - Colossus Hardware failure all Shared files unavail
This weekend we had a catastrophic hardware failure on Colossus. Dell has been here several times since 5 pm last evening, and are due back early this morning. Until Dell is able to diagnose the actual problem, we are unable to give an ETA on when the files will be available. The following systems are affected: Shared Files (S: Drive) Filemaker Pro Home Directories (H: Drive) All Files on COLOSSUS server. We expect Home directories to be back by mid morning, and we will keep you updated on the status of the shared files. IT has has been here since problem was discovered and will be on site 24/7 until a solution is found. All files on our servers are backed up daily, and we expect little or no permanent loss of data. We appreciate you patience Dennis Guillette Information Security Coordinator

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06/30/2006 - Account Agreement and Network Resources Terminatio
The FMHI IT User Account Agreement and Network Resources Termination forms have been updated on our web forms page (Click on Forms Download). As well as updating the printable forms, we have added fill-in PDF forms for each of them. The fill-in versions can be completed online, printed, signed and sent to IT. Also available is an instruction document for the completion of the Account Agreement form. If you have any questions, please call the IT Help Desk at 974-1905. (Link)

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05/18/2006 - Exchange Server Update
The updates to the e-mail server security and system have extended past the 7:30 estimated time. The server should be online by 8:00. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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04/18/2006 - USF Roadrunner connection offline Saturday morning
Saturday (4/22/2006) morning at 1AM there will be a 10 minute outage for USF's access to Roadrunner's network while we preform maintenance on the peering point between our networks. During this time Roadrunner subscribers will be unable to reach USF's network.

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04/06/2006 - Mail Server Restart at Noon Thursday (XMAIL)
The e-mail server, XMAIL, will be restarted at noon today (Thursday, April 6) for maintenance and connectivity purposes. It should be offline 10-15 minutes.

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03/31/2006 - FMHI Status Line
The Status Line is where you can now call to find out the status of issues that affect FMHI Group. Use this line to check:

Outages
Network problems or maintenance
Internet interruptions
Virus Threats
Just to name a few…

This Status Line does not take the place of our Help Desk Support. It is merely a tool for information updates. Just call 4-7781 or check the web at itweb.fmhi.usf.edu

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08/30/2005 - MIRAGE E-MAIL SERVER OFFLINE!
The MIRAGE e-mail server was taken offline on Monday, August 29, 2005. All users are now using the new XMAIL server. Please click on the XMAIL link to use Outlook Web Access. If you have any questions, please call the IT Help Desk at 974-1905.

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07/16/2005 - Brief Power Outage Resolved
An electrical equipment failure in the IT server room caused a number of servers to go off line for approximately 4 hours on Saturday. This resulted in outages to our mail, web, print and log on services. Service was restored at approximately 2:30PM.

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07/15/2005 - Urgent Requests, Associate Support
During our current project deployment period many of our resources are concentrating on improving and supporting the transitions. Please be sure to specifically indicate if a PC service request is urgent, and consider contacting an associate in your area for first tier support when possible. We thank you for your patience in reaching you!

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05/02/2005 - E-Mail Services Back Up
E-mail services have been successfully restored. Please restart your Outlook client if you experience any difficulties re-connecting.

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05/02/2005 - Restoration of E-mail Services
Problems with our e-mail server persist this morning and are resulting in intermittent availability. We are currently working with Microsoft to resolve the issues. Our approximate ETA for restoration of services is 12 noon. We deeply apologize for this inconvienience.

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05/02/2005 - E-mail Services Have Been Restored
E-mail services were successfully restored at 8:14. Thank you for your patience!

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05/02/2005 - E-Mail Server is Down
FMHI Exchange e-mail services are currently experiencing technical difficulties. We are working on this problem and will advise. Thank you for your patience.

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12/15/2004 - Data Encryption Center Open, Bring Unencrypted Lap
If you currently work with an FMHI owned or supported laptop, it must be encyrpted immediately. Please bring any unencrypted laptop to the Data Encryption Center in MHC2513. See the link for more information. If you have any questions, please e-mail Dennis Guillette (Link)

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12/01/2004 - Security Policies in Effect Today
FMHI's Information Security Policy goes into effect today! The policies and their supporting procedures can be read by clicking the link. Free USB thumb drives are being issued to those faculty members, A&P and USPS individuals who show up at the FMHI IT help desk and can sign that they have reviewed the procedures. Only one per person, and we thank you for all your support during this process! (Link)

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11/24/2004 - FMHI IT Web Server Down Last Evening
The FMHI IT Web Server went down at approximately 5:45 PM last evening, and remained down until approximately 7:00 AM this morning due to room circuit issues. The issue has been resolved and currently all operations are normal. Customers would have experienced an inability to reach the FMHI website or web based Outlook e-mail.

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11/01/2004 - E-mail Services Restored
E-mail services have been restored. If you continue to experience issues please try restarting your Outlook client or rebooting. If problems persist, please call 4-1905. Thank you for your patience.

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11/01/2004 - E-mail Currently Down
E-mail is currently down. An administrator is working on the problem and services should be restored momentarily. We apologize for the inconvenience!

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10/27/2004 - Academic Computing's Free Training
Want to learn the basics of such popular applications like Word, Excel, and others? Believe it or not there are free classes available to most USF affiliates courtesy of USF Academic Computing. If you've never noticed it before, check out the training section of their website. (Link)

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10/18/2004 - E-mails early this morning....
A minor issue following this morning's server room configuration may mean that messages sent between approximately 5:00 AM and 7:30 AM this morning will be incorrectly time stamped. One result of this is that, internally, messages will be received by most Outlook inboxes as appearing at the bottom of time-sorted (which is the default) messages lists.

If you are concerned that you may have received messages from an internal colleague during this period, simply filter for unread messages to expose any.

Call 4-1905 if you need assistance.

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10/18/2004 - Network Resources Restored
FMHI network resources have been restored following reconfiguration of the data center's server facility. Please phone in any discovered problems or issues to the help desk at 4-1905.

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10/15/2004 - Reminder: No FMHI Network Through Weekend
This is a reminder that no FMHI network resources will be available this weekend beginning at 6:00 PM this evening.

• FMHI subscribers to the USF Dialup Internet service will not be able to connect

• Network drives, including home directories and local MY DOCUMENT folders mapped to them will be inaccessible

• Network printing services within the Institute will not be available

• E-mail via Outlook or the web interface will not be available

Please defer or make contingency arrangements for critical work through the period.

The FMHI IT voice mail will be updated with regular status reports. Please check in as interested by calling (813) 974-1905.

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10/12/2004 - USF Internet Dialup Unavailable Through Server Con
Due to the server reconfiguration to take place beginning Friday October 15 through Sunday October 17 USF dialup internet services will be unavailable to FMHI subscribers of that service.

During this period of unavailability, FMHI subscribers will be unable to connect to the internet through the USF Dialup service. FMHI IT apologizes for this inconvenience and will be working quickly to restore that service.

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10/11/2004 - FMHI Server Room Re-configuration
Beginning Friday October 15th at 6PM the FMHI server room will be undergoing a major reconfiguration. This will require a complete power down of all of FMHI’s network server equipment. This includes email, file and print servers, web servers, databases, etc. In effect, we will be "off the air".

Work will begin at 6PM on Friday the 15th when all systems will be powered down and continue through the weekend. We anticipate all systems to be back on line by 6PM Sunday the 17th.

This notice will be resent several times leading up to the outage as a reminder.

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09/15/2004 - Is something 'phishy' going on?
It's a real threat so be careful! Phishing is an effort to systematically obtain confidential credentials and financial information from you through deceptively inviting e-mail or instant messages that appear to come from companies or people you trust. (Link)

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09/07/2004 - What's happening to floppy disk drives?
Floppy disk drives are becoming a thing of the past! In fact, sometimes a PC ordered today require one to go out of their way to specify one on the order form. (Link)

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08/30/2004 - Windows XP Service Pack 2
Windows XP Service Pack 2 has been released. Most FMHI IT customers will be unaffected by this release in the short term since the service pack only addresses Windows XP units (of which there is currently a working minority), and restrictions on each PC will prevent accidental download and install. FMHI IT is evaluating the service pack internally and plans to work with IT associates to ultimately deploy and endorse the service pack at the appropriate time. (Link)

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08/14/2004 - PCs Bagged for Hurricane Charley
In preparation for Hurricane Charley, most PCs and PC monitors were bagged (covered) by FMHI IT personnel Thursday. First floor PCs were elevated to chairs and desks in the event of flooding. Please be cautious in moving chairs with PCs on them as many PCs are still tethered to the computers themselves. Detached components (such as mice and keyboards) need only be reattached for proper operation. Please consult with your local support associate or FMHI IT for assistance if required.

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08/02/2004 - Laptop Encryption Update
We announced in the IT Associates meeting on 7/23/04 that laptop encryption is available immediately from FMHI IT. New equipment and attrition replacements should go through the normal process; all laptops will be encrypted as per FMHI Security Policies. All others should be prioritized as 1) Critical 2) Can wait) and 3) Nice to have. We will be working the "Critical" list on a space available basis until they are exhausted and then on to the "Can Waits".

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07/30/2004 - Are you an FMHI IT Customer?
Are you an FMHI IT customer? If so, help us pre-populate our new Customer Database. The database will go into service in just a few weeks and, among other things, will allow you to enter service requests more seamlessly than you ever imagined. The information pertains to who you are, which PC you work on, and where you work. (Link)

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07/28/2004 - Associate's Meeting
The regular FMHI IT Associate's meeting will be held Thursday at 2:00 PM in MHC-1503. Issues covered will be Windows XP Service Pack 2, Safeboot Encryption, and an introduction to Rick Jones, our new IT director.

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07/22/2004 - Policies and Protocols Posted
Our new website is coming along great! Today our "Policies and Protocols" section has been activated. Click on the link in the left sidebar to read information regarding key areas of operational policy and protocol. (Link)

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07/16/2004 - FMHI IT Website Redesigned
The FMHI IT Website has entered the active phase of a complete redesign. All the critical functions associated with the old site are operational. Content related to policies and other information will be restored gradually but quickly.