Reminder of Certain Usage Guidelines

Those of you who might come across this blog, are actually living in Michigan and use our public access computers, are no doubt aware of our usage guidelines and FAQ.

IADL AUP

IADL Tech FAQ

I also suggest that you read Merit Network's AUP Merit AUP as it applies here too.

The reason that I'm bringing this up again is that a patron had downloaded Limewire and tried to install it on one of our computers.

This isn't allowed.

There are two important reasons for this: first, we don't support P2P file sharing because of the legality involved, and second, the software might not actually be Limewire but a piece of malware.

There are other reasons, it's another program that has to be maintained (thus requiring more time in regard to patching), it opens the door to malware getting on and thus threatening security, and it hogs bandwidth.

While I would love to make our systems as flexible as possible, I have to respectfully draw the line here.

Now does this mean I'm against P2P? No. I've used bittorrent and Limewire to download things like Ubuntu and OpenOffice.org, and both are perfectly stable pieces of software. But, for a public setting, it just doesn't work because of the time limits and bandwidth requirements.

Public WiFi Scheduled Downtime

On Sunday, March 15, the primary server, which hosts WifiDog and our content filter, will be down for maintenance and upgrades from Noon until 6 P.M. EST. During that time, public wireless access will be down, and all systems that utilize content filtering and caching will not have Internet access.

The updates to the server will improve security and stability. The upgrade will include a clean installation of Ubuntu Server 64-bit.

Updates, Time Management

Happy New Year.

The latest round of security patches include the latest version of FireFox, and an open source PDF printer. Users can now convert anything that can be printed into a PDF file. Robert J. Parks Library, East Tawas Library, and Plainfield Public Library, have been updated. The remaining branches will be completed by Friday of this coming week.

We are tentatively deploying Envisionware PCReservation (Time Management) at Robert J. Parks Library first. At this time, the clients and management console have already been installed but are not in active use. Our plan is to get all the staff at a branch together after hours for a 2-hour training session, and then go live with the Technology Coordinator on-site for two days to fine-tune and solve any problems that may occur. Later, we'll deploy LPTOne--the Print Management solution.

While the software itself is easy to install, our staff range widely in age and technical know-how. We can't just spring this on them, and they need to be ready.

Time and Print Management Is Coming

Thanks to the Valley Library Consortium, we have finally settled on a product for time and print management. Envisionware's PC Reservation (Time management) and LPTOne (Print management) will be deployed at the following four locations:

AuGres Community Library
Robert J. Parks Library in Oscoda
Mary Johnston Memorial Library in Standish
Whittemore Library

The software training will take place in mid-November. The first deployment will take place in Oscoda as soon as possible; meaning that it will be no later than January of 2009 and no sooner than December 2008. The Technology Coordinator will be on-site for each deployment and be on-hand for two days afterward to observe and work out any issues.

The biggest advantage these products have will be reduced paper waste; which is especially noticeable at Robert J. Parks Library. We will be adding coin operated print stations where space and cost allows so that patrons will be able to pay for their own print jobs and avoid printing unnecessary pages.

Reminder About Office Format Compatibility

As of October, 2008, all public and staff computers now have OpenOffice.org 3.0.

This means that you have the choice of opening, editing, and saving common Microsoft Office 2007 formats in either OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Office 2007.

Both Office Suites support exporting documents to Adobe Acrobat PDF. You also have the option of exporting or converting documents in either Office Suite into any number of other formats. In Office 2007, in addition to PDF you can also export to XPS, and open and edit ODF (the open format used by open-source office suites).

For documents created on another computer with Microsoft Works 6-9, only Microsoft Office 2007 can open and edit these documents; however, you can convert them to a different format.

For opening and using Works Documents, it is recommended that the following procedure is followed (due to Works apparently not adding the file extension to a Works file when it is saved).

1. If the file is on a CD, copy it to the desktop first; otherwise, continue to Step 2.

2. Open the Microsoft Office application that corresponds to the type of document you want to open (Excel for spreadsheets, Powerpoint for presentations, and Word for word processing).

3. Click on the Office symbol (gold colored circle on the upper left-hand corner) and select "Open."

4. Make sure "Files of type" is set to "All Files"

5. Navigate to where your document is, select it, and click "Open." The file should then open.

Software Updates and Upgrades

The next three months are going to be rife with software updates and upgrades.

*Starting in a week, all Windows PCs will be upgraded to AVG 8.0 from 7.5.

*In August, all Windows computers will get Office 2007 Professional with ODF compatibility for open formats that are used by OpenOffice.org.

*Firefox will be upgraded to version 3.0.

*The usual round of security patches and updates

All our staff will be switching over to Mozilla Thunderbird from Outlook and Outlook Express, and MailShell anti-spam will be phased out. Thunderbird is just as easy to use, more secure, and easy to migrate from one platform to another as needed.

To improve the ability to keep anti-virus definitions up-to-date, the scheduling for our computers will be changed to allow updates to be installed in the mornings before business hours. It will be an automated process where our PCs will boot up on their own, update and scan, then shut themselves down.

We will finally have a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate for in-house evaluation and testing, as well as a troubleshooting aid for users that have Vista. Though we will not upgrade our existing PCs to Vista, it's important to have some familiarity.

WifiDog Valdation - Hotmail Users

Apparently, there's some kind of delivery problem with Hotmail accounts. Fortunately, there is a simple work-around that anyone can perform within the 20-minute validation period.

After creating a WifiDog account, you will have twenty minutes of Internet time to retrieve the validation e-mail. For Hotmail users, to receive your validation e-mail, you will need to add the address validation@ioscoarenaclibrary.org as a safe sender. Here's how.

Note: Leave the WifiDog login page alone and open a new web browser window.

*With you logged into your Hotmail account, click on "Options.
*Under the heading "Junk E-Mail" click on "Safe and blocked senders"
*Click on "Safe senders," enter the e-mail address validation@ioscoarenaclibrary.org, then click on *the "Add to list>>" button. The address should then appear in the list.

Go back to the login page, click on the link marked "Resend Validation E-Mail"
Wait a couple of minutes and the validation e-mail should show up in your account's inbox.

Status of Validation E-Mails

The Reverse DNS entry for our authentication server was added and came online Saturday morning. To further ensure that our e-mails are not flagged as spam, we've been added to AOL's Whitelist (though messages are being accepted) and will be effective within a day.

This means users who sign for for a WifiDog account and use an AOL address will receive a validation e-mail and validate their account.

Hotmail users are still not going to get our validation e-mails. I'm going to contact their Postmaster and see if they can add us to their Whitelist too.

Update:

Hotmail users will now be able to receive our validation e-mails.