Never a Bad Time for Spring Cleaning!

Spring Break is here and it's never a bad time to do a little spring cleaning, especially when it comes to technology.  Here are a few items that you might consider:

-Clean up your email.  Sure, Microsoft and Google house our ESU email in the cloud now, but storage isn't unlimited and its good to be a good digital citizen.  Reminder that employee email has a 50 GB limit and Gmail for students doesn't have a specific limitation.

-Clean up your W: drive.  If you're the custodian of files for your shared folders on the W: drive remove any that are no longer needed.  The W: drive is hosted in our data center and it does have an ongoing cost to operate.

-Consider the new service Hornet Sites.  As part of our Hornet 365 service, any employee group/team/department/committee, etc. can have their own Hornet Site.  Part website, part file storage it's a secure space for you to customize as needed to share and collaborate on content with anyone with an ESU account.  Because Hornet Sites are hosted by Microsoft, moving files from W: drive to your own Hornet Site is more efficient--not only can you access your files from anywhere, including syncing to your PC, but you can also manage your own permissions.  Stay tuned for more about Hornet Sites in the near future.

-Clean your desk off.  Okay, that one is just for me.  In the era of paperless and digital transformation, my desk seems to collect a lot of printed material!

-Brian Osbourn, Director, IT Systems & Client Solutions

PC's are being Powered Up!

Sometimes, a minor upgrade can really give your PC a performance boost and extend its life by a year or more.  In IT, we're now providing the service of replacing older hard drives with new, speedy solid state drives (called SSD's), as well as upgrading to the latest Windows 10 version.  Users can expect to see around 30% greater performance when booting your PC and working with files in Windows 10.  The service is available to most University-owned computers purchased in the last 2-3 years.  There are two options available:  a 256 GB SSD for $120 or a 512 GB SSD for  $200.  There is no charge for Windows 10, however the service is not available if you want to keep Windows 7.  Additionally, extra memory may be added to your PC to give it an even greater boost at a very minor cost.  If you are interested, please contact the IT Help Desk to request a technician verify your computer is a suitable candidate and discuss which options will result in you seeing the most benefit.

IT is also advancing an initiative to "Power Up" public lab computers over the next few months.  We will be adding new SSD's to supported public lab computers at no cost to the lab owner.  We have completed the lobby of William Allen White library and will next be working on the LEC, 2nd floor WAW PC's, Richel Learning Space, and the Communications/Theatre Lab.

-Posted by Brian Osbourn, bosbourn@emporia.edu

Summer Maintenance

The spring semester may have a few weeks to go, but we wanted to share a few of the new things coming this summer!

Windows 10 in the Classroom
We will schedule our annual summer maintenance of the technology-enhanced classroom PC's with department contacts in May, however, there is one notable change you'll find once we've completed each room--the latest Microsoft operating system, Windows 10.  With three major updates to Windows 10 released, we're comfortable with moving our standard install to the latest operating system.  While there are general "look and feel" changes, Windows 10 mostly works like Windows 7.  Classroom computers will need to be logged in using the "smart" account as it will be configured to work with all classroom equipment.  Anyone who would like Windows 10 installed on their office computer, please contact the IT Help Desk.  There is no charge for the upgrade.

ClassFlow replaces ActiveInspire
The vendor that provides ActiveInspire, the software used on the large format interactive Promethean boards, is moving to a new solution called ClassFlow.  While this is new information to us, we believe all of the current Promethean boards will support ClassFlow and plan to install it during the summer maintenance cycle.  We are evaluating the rooms that have short throw projectors + white boards to verify compatibility.  Learning Technologies will be providing training and support on ClassFlow this fall.

SPSS v24
The latest version of SPSS, v24, was made available last fall.  Download it from TechSite or you may contact the IT Help Desk and we will assist you with installing it.  The previous version, v18 (or earlier), is no longer supported and will be discontinued on July 1st, 2017.  SPSS v24 will be installed in any labs, classrooms and SkyLabs that are currently using a previous version.  For users who need to use software off-campus, SPSS is available on all general use SkyLab servers.