Academic Computing Newsletter - Summer 2000

Table of Contents

• First Year Students Targeted for Computer Initiative
• Penn State Turns up the Heat on Spam
• Course Link Web Site Update
• Students Design State-of-the Art IT Architecture
• Penn State's Directory Services and On-Line Phone Directories
• Penn State Class Uses Technology to Bridge Foreign Language, Culture
• Did You Know...
• Accessing Your E-mail While Away from Penn State
• Penn State Email Server Addresses
• Important Information to Have on Hand When Calling the CAC Help Desk
• Frequently Asked Questions About Operating Systems
• Automatic E-mail Reply Message Utility for Faculty and Staff
• Summer Renovation in CAC Unix Lab
• Handling Large Data Files on a PC, Some Techniques and Timings
• Peggy's Picks
• Assistive Technology: Towards Equal Access for All
• Assistive Technology Resources at Penn State
• Assistive Technology Contacts
• Learning Opportunities
• CAC Computer Labs at University Park - Summer Schedule
• About this Newsletter
• PDF Version

Academic programs for first year students are increasingly emphasizing computer skills - and this trend is expected to expand significantly in the next few years, according to Penn State faculty members.

Many instructors have begun adapting courses taken by first year students into learning environments that teach information technology skills. Faculty members are also relying on programs like the Student Computing Initiative (Penn State's recent recommendation that every full-time student have a personal computer) to get the word out to freshmen and potential students that computers are now an essential part of college life.

"Everyone assumes that students are natural computer users and are more advanced than the faculty," said R. Thomas Berner, professor of journalism and American studies, "but my experience suggests that while students know where the on/off switch is and can type a paper and send e-mail-they see the computer as little more than a glorified typewriter that can send messages."

Over the twenty-five years he spent teaching journalism courses at University Park, Berner came to believe that the ability to use electronic research tools such as Lexis/Nexis and the Library Information Access System (LIAS) could spell success or failure for many students. This spring his honors COMM 261 class made frequent use of digital research tools and interacted with one another electronically several times a week using a Web-based technology called CourseTalk. Berner plans to incorporate CourseTalk into three first year seminars he will teach next fall, by using the software to stimulate Web-based discussion of articles available on-line from the New York Times. At the end of the semester, he'll expect the first year students to know how to successfully retrieve and download research materials, have a good understanding of Word, Excel, FrontPage, and be able to create PowerPoint presentations.

Berner is not alone in his campaign to strengthen freshmen technology skills. This April, 213 faculty, staff, and students attended and/or gave presentations at Penn State's Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium (a number up 33 percent from last year). Many of these participants teach the First Year Seminar or freshmen courses throughout the University's twenty-four campuses.

"Faculty members are hungry for knowledge they can use to help their students utilize technology," said John Harwood, director of the Center for Academic Computing's Educational Technology Services. "There is a growing understanding that the immense spectrum of research and instructional opportunities available today can only be accessible to students if they know how to use computers."

"These are skills that will take young people through college-and life," added Helen Hartman, a First Year Seminar instructor and lecturer of Kinesiology at the Penn State Berks-Lehigh Valley College. Hartman, who uses the Appalachian Trail as a metaphor in her classes to teach students how to "embark on a process, work through it-then finish it," believes that students need to learn to benefit from interaction with one another and technology to effectively manage in today's world. "I ask my students, what does it take to journey a 2,160 mile path, packing everything you need on your back-and what kind of tools and skills will you need to begin a four year study program that will lead to a college degree you'll want to use the rest of your life?"

Following her on-line instructions, first year students in Hartman's seminar last fall and this spring worked in groups to collect and evaluate information about the Appalachian Trail by using the Internet and LIAS. They also collaborated to master the use of
e-mail, electronic references, Web-journals, and, in some cases, HTML in order to present final projects via the World Wide Web.

Higher-education trends echo the rising demand for technology-savvy students. At Penn State last year over 10,229 students, faculty, and staff enrolled in computer training classes; 97 percent of all students currently use Internet access accounts; and 86 percent of students own their own computers. "That figure should climb to 100 percent in the next couple of years," said Harwood, who also chairs the Student Computing Initiative Committee. "Penn State now provides free Internet access, free Microsoft software, and free computer training and consulting services in order to make acquiring and using a computer easy for incoming students." The University is additionally in the process of sending out information packets that provide advice on how to purchase a computer, receive financial aid, identify college system-requirements, and obtain repair services to newly admitted Penn State students, he added.

On a national scale, information technology spending by colleges and universities is expected to jump from $3.1 billion in 1998 to nearly $5 billion by 2003, in an effort to attract students and stay current in computer technology, predicts International Data Corporation in the recent report IT Spending Forecast for Higher Education Institutions, 1998-2003.

Upper-level classmen agree that incoming students are more likely to do well in college if they're technology-prepared. In a survey recently conducted by the Center for Academic Computing, over 75% of all students queried rated the significance of computers to academic work and post-graduate careers as either "very important" or "extremely important." In addition, Penn State recently doubled its server capacity in response to student demand for Web-based services such as on-line academic counseling, course information, and scheduling; and in the last six months, LIAS on the Web increased its databases and resources almost 25%, due to the high-volume of patron requests for on-line library materials.

Adds Katrina Gavriloff, a senior majoring in English who just recently landed an internship with America Online, "Students may sometimes feel they can avoid computers and other sources of information technology - but this choice can seriously impede their marketability, especially in a world that has a growing desire for a more technologically well-rounded English major."

For more information, please see the Student Computing Initiative Web site at: http://www.psu.edu/studentcomputing/

To help thwart the distribution of "spam" (electronic junk-mail), Penn State recently made several modifications to its main e-mail system. The changes will make it more difficult for cyber marketers to use the University's network to send junk-mail to unwilling recipients, but will not disturb the normal flow of Internet traffic for most Penn State students, faculty, and staff.

As e-mail users increasingly find their in-boxes flooded with unwanted and often offensive solicitations, spam has become a source of irritation for many today. It is also becoming a burden for Internet providers to manage, since the volume of mail can be extremely high (spammers will typically send 10,000 e-mails or more at a time). Yet, since the original design of the Internet was based on the concept of trust and the use of open relay (free exchange) systems, many Internet Service Providers have been reluctant to limit these electronic transmissions.

Moreover, Universities like Penn State, that provide large-scale Internet services, sometimes become unwilling partners in the distribution of junk-mail, because perpetrators use their high-power networks to carry messages to the locations they're targeting.

"Unethical bulk mailers, known as spammers, discovered that we have an efficient way of handling e-mail," said Russ Vaught, senior director of the Center for Academic Computing (CAC). "When these individuals send junk-mail through our system, it can result in institutions and businesses around the world receiving unwanted solicitations ­ sometimes on a massive scale." For this reason, according to Vaught, it became critical to find and block the holes in the Penn State network that the spammers were using.

He explained that previous to the Penn State changes, anti-spamming vigilante organizations, such as the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) and the Open Relay Behavior Modification System (ORBS), placed Penn State on their black lists because spam had inadvertently been transmitted by the University's network.

"Some of our faculty members were unable to send e-mail to Oxford University and the University of Ottawa because of the ORBS and MAPS blacklisting," Vaught added.

After the system modifications took place, the main Penn State e-mail servers were taken off the blacklists and electronic communications between Oxford, Ottawa, and Penn State resumed. (Note: individual university, college or departmental e-mail servers could, however, still experience communication difficulties, if their system administrators have not yet incorporated similar modifications).

With the war between anti-spamming vigilantes and cyber marketers escalating, government agencies are beginning to pay closer attention to the junk-mail problem. An on-line article by CNET last year reported that the Federal Trade Commission had been investigating spam-related issues and was proposing legislation that will penalize those who send unsolicited messages to e-mail account holders.

According to the report, the legislation's introduction comes on the heels of a recent Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE), survey that indicates consumer support for government regulation of spam. In the survey, 76 percent of the respondents said they believe the government should regulate spam "in some way." About the same proportion said fraudulent return addresses should be made illegal, and valid contact information should be required. About 67 percent said Internet Service Providers should be able to refuse to send or deliver spam.

In the meantime, many companies are now offering anti-spam solutions for individual computer users. Eudora Pro, Microsoft Outlook Express 5.0, and Netscape Communicator all have filters that can be used to deal with the spam problem.

Yet, despite the challenge the problems have created for Internet Service Providers, Penn State's main e-mail system continues to effectively process an average of two million e-mails per day, according to Steve Kellogg, the CAC's director of Advanced Information Technologies (AIT).

"The robust quality of our network is, unfortunately, what makes Penn State's e-mail system continue to be attractive to cyber marketers," he observed.

But Kellogg believes that the recent network changes should effectively address most of the current problem, even though the alterations won't be perceptible to those who use Penn State's Internet service via residence halls, computer labs, offices, and dial-up connections.

"It's important to note, however, Penn State users connecting from non-University resources such as AT&T's @Home, America Online, etc., will need to check their in-coming Penn State mail, in order to be authenticated, before they send out-going mail," he added.

"This is an ongoing problem," summarized Vaught. "As long as it is profitable and legal, junk-mail marketers are going to try to find holes in our system, and we will need to continue to work with system administrators to intensify Penn State's preventive efforts."

For more details about the recent e-mail system modifications please see: http://cac.psu.edu/news/alerts/email121699.html , or contact the CAC help desk at 863-2494 or 863-1035.

The Course Link Update Environment (CLUE) was developed during the Fall 1999 semester and is now in production. Visitors can easily find courses by course name or by instructor name. Faculty can use a form to request that their course web pages be linked via a central index and then presents students with web pages that list all CLUE-registered courses alphabetically by department and course number.

For further information please see http://www.psu.edu/courses/clue/ on the web.

This spring semester students in ARCH 132 collaborated with staff members from the Center for Academic Computing (CAC) to design and implement a variety of innovative artifacts to support information technology at Penn State. To cap-off the semester, the ARCH 132 students will demonstrate a number of the completed projects including: a mobile technology cart that incorporates wireless network technology and laptop computing to permit indoor/outdoor technology classroom experiences; express access kiosks for the HUB; technology lecterns and podiums for classrooms; a media kiosk for the Computer Building; and special furniture to support individual and collaborative computing in student computer labs. The hands-on design studio was developed by Professor James Kalsbeek to help students hone their client interaction and design skills as well as enhance their understanding of construction materials and fastening techniques. Information on this course and the Department of Architecture is available at: http://www.arch.psu.edu/.

Penn State's and other phone directories are available on-line through the World Wide Web and other Internet systems. Individuals who establish an affiliation with Penn State as a student or an employee are automatically entered into the directory database. This process normally occurs within one week of entry to Penn State. In addition to information commonly found in telephone books (names, phone numbers, and addresses), the directory also contains e-mail addresses and may contain the address of personal Web pages.

To look up your own or another person's entry, use Penn State's directory on the Web (http://www.psu.edu/ph/).

Official vs. Unofficial Information

You might notice that some people have little or no information in the directory, while others may have a substantial amount of information. Some people add more than others, and some, for personal reasons, request that all personal information be withheld. An employee's directory record might include fields such as name, alias, e-mail, campus, phone, address, department, and title. A student's directory record would most likely show the name, alias, e-mail, campus, curriculum, phone, and address. Additional optional fields are available for a fax number, extra phone number, and other personal information such as your birthday or high school. For descriptions of fields, see http://cac.psu.edu/ph on the web.

Official Information Fields

"Official information" fields contain information about you that is maintained by the University, such as your name, job title, or department. Fields that you cannot change yourself include your name, ID, campus, phone, address, department, and title. To see your information, look up your name in Penn State's directory (http://www.psu.edu/ph/) on the web.

Official information must be changed through Penn State's administrative offices:

• University employees must contact their Human Resources Representative (for a listing, see http://www.ohr.psu.edu/pages/chrr.htm).

  Human Resources Representatives should use the IBIS function UADR (see http://guru.psu.edu/askguru/f-sdir.html) to correct employee name and telephone information. The OAS Support Center at 814-863-2276 or oas-support@psu.edu can provide assistance if needed.

• Students can update address and phone information through the Comprehensive Academic Advising and Information System (CAAIS) Web site (https://elion.oas.psu.edu); an Access Account is required. Other changes to official student information must be made through the Registrar's Office (http://www.psu.edu/registrar).

If you prefer not to be listed in Penn State's directory, you must request removal of your information. See "Confidentiality Requests" section.

Unofficial Information Fields

Unofficial information fields contain information that you can add or modify yourself, such as your alias, e-mail address, additional phone numbers and addresses, your nickname, and even information such as your birthday, call sign, or pager.

To change your unofficial information, go to https://www.work.psu.edu on the web.

Confidentiality Requests

Some information about students and employees is considered directory information. Directory information may be publicly shared by the institution unless the individual takes formal action to restrict its release. If you prefer not to be listed in Penn State's directory, you must request removal of your information. Note that directory information may have been downloaded before removal.

• Employees: Contact your Human Resources Representative.

• Students: Go to the Registrar's Office, show your student ID, and request confidentiality. Requests are normally processed and made effective the day that they are received. Students should be aware that a request for confidentiality may have some undesirable side effects. For example, if a prospective employer were to contact the Registrar's Office to verify a student's status, the employer could not receive confirmation that the student was attending Penn State. Likewise, if a student were to apply for a credit card with a company that wanted to verify that the applicant was a Penn State student, the Registrar's Office again could not confirm the information. For additional information, see Policy AD11, University Policy on Confidentiality of Student Records and Confidentiality and Security of Student Records (http://guru.psu.edu/policies/AD11.html).

Limitations on Confidentiality Holds: A confidentiality hold pertains only to information that the University publishes about an individual. It does not apply to information individuals have published about themselves. For example, if an individual sends e-mail, posts an article on Usenet News, or puts information on a Web page, that information may be saved and redistributed by others.

Release of Personal Information by Individuals and Departments

Because Web pages are available to the world, individuals should not publish information on their Web pages that they do not want the world to see. Individuals who request confidentiality should also take the appropriate steps to remove personal information from their Web pages. This advice applies no matter what server is used.

• Personal Web Pages: The University does not monitor, screen, or edit the information presented on personal Web pages. When an individual applies successfully for personal Web space through the Center for Academic Computing (CAC), a basic Web page is provided that contains information from Penn State's directory. Thereafter the content of the Web space is the responsibility of the individual. (If a person requests confidentiality and then later applies successfully for a Web page through the CAC, a default page is provided, but it shows only the e-mail address of the applicant.) Owners of personal Web space are responsible for any release of personal information within their Web space.

• Course Web Pages: Faculty who use the Web to present course materials are responsible for any personal information they may choose to include.

• Departmental Web Pages: Colleges, departments, and other official units of the University might publish information about individuals related to their position, research, teaching, or contributions to the University. This information could be published and distributed as an official press release, on a Web site, electronic mailing list, printed publication, or other means. It is the responsibility of the individual to contact the administrative offices of the department with any concerns about the department's release of personal information.

Forwarding Your E-mail

When Penn State students, faculty, and staff are automatically entered into the university's electronic directory, they receive e-mail privileges which enable them to send and receive e-mail using their Access Account user ID and an e-mail address of the form user-ID@psu.edu. For example, if your user ID is xyz123, your public e-mail address would be xyz123@psu.edu. The e-mail is actually delivered to one of the CAC's mail servers where you can retrieve it by connecting to the server with a POP mail client like Eudora. If you have an account on another machine, or temporarily leave the university (go on sabbatical, for example), you may wish to have your e-mail forwarded from the CAC's mail server to another mail server. Your e-mail correspondents could continue using xyz123@psu.edu (in the example above) and would not have to learn a different e-mail address.

To change your mail forwarding address, go to https://www.work.psu.edu/ and choose "Edit your phone directory entry."

Lifetime E-mail Forwarding

A partnership between the Penn State Alumni Association and the Center for Academic Computing provides graduates with a new tool for staying in touch a free, permanent e-mail forwarding address. A class member now can give out a single e-mail address that will stay current for the grad's lifetime. For details, see the Alumni Association Web site at http://www.alumni.psu.edu/benefits/email on the web.

Department Directory Information Now On-Line

The Department directory information from the 1999/2000 Faculty - Staff Directory is now available at http://www.psu.edu/ur/directory/dept/ on the web. In addition, users can also download the PDF file versions of the department information from this same page.

To assist users, a web page was created for each letter of the alphabet with the information displayed in a table format within each page. Each page also includes instructions at the bottom stating who should be notified if changes are needed. The department directory information is also available under the "Directory Assistance" heading on the Penn State home page (http://www.psu.edu/).

On Friday mornings, students in French 111/112 meet in Sparks 9­a University Park technology classroom where they scan the blackboard for the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses marked next to their names, find a free computer, and then dial-up France. Computer-based real-time chatting with French amis is just one of the activities which makes this accelerated French class such a unique language learning experience.

The "talking live" project (see "Talking Live from Penn State to France", Academic Computing, summer 1999) is sponsored jointly by the Center for Academic Computing (CAC), the College of the Liberal Arts and the Center for Language Acquisition (CLA).

The project took shape in 1997 when Hélène Gresso, a teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate in the Penn State Department of French, contacted Jean-François Cerles, a professor at Lycée Paul Héroult, a school in St. Jean de Maurienne in the French Alps. The two instructors began their collaboration by organizing regular e-mail correspondence between their students. Two years later, after some fine-tuning and detailed planning, Gresso and Cerles have created a multi-faceted project, which makes culture come alive in the classroom. Gresso, in explaining why this project is important, underscored that it helps students to "recognize the importance of learning about new perspectives and about the world mediated by the language they are learning."

The Penn State students conference in real-time with their peers across the Atlantic weekly using Microsoft NetMeeting to augment their readings and in-class discussions with feedback from native speakers. The text-based NetMeeting conversations are enhanced by the use of Webcams and microphones, which add important visual and audio components to the experience. The students also exchange e-mail en français and en anglais weekly with their French keypals - penpals who write to each other with keyboards instead of ink. The e-mail exchanges encourage communication to strengthen the intercultural relationships between the French and Penn State students. And, approximately twice a semester, the classes publish Raison d'être, a Web magazine on the class home page http://beetle.la.psu.edu/fr111/raisonindex.htm .

The Results

Students clearly enjoy the vitality that classroom technology brings to their language learning experience "You gotta love the key pals," says Jon Snyder, a junior majoring in telecommunications. And live videoconferencing is "fun" in addition to adding "excitement to the class" Snyder confirms. Best of all, when students know that they are talking with real people, the focus of the class shifts from memorizing and grades, to communication. "We need to do stuff like that to help keep us focused on why we're learning a language," Snyder comments.

Teaching assistant Kate Douglass, another Ph.D. candidate in Penn State's Department of French, began managing two of six 111/112 weekly class meetings this past fall. The biggest difference between this and other classes can be observed in the students. As a direct result of their correspondence with French peers, "students are motivated to learn more about the French culture and are improving their linguistic skills at the same time by learning through intuitive questioning and self-teaching," elaborates Douglass.

Students, especially those who might not have ventured into the realm of technology otherwise, benefit also from the regular use of chat, e-mail and the Web. "Before I had taken the class" says Robin Chimile, a sophomore Finance major, "I had never been in a chat room or had information about myself on a Web page." The class changed that. In 111/112, " I was exposed to computer technology that I had never used before." Traci Littman, a sophomore majoring in Kinesiology, remarks "before class I had no idea what to do with the Web." After creating and maintaining a Web page as a part of class activities she looks at Web pages and tells herself, "I can do that."

What's Changed, and What's Ahead

With evolution in technology, updates in the class resources are frequent. Since last year, with CAC support, a new video camera has been installed in Sparks 9 and the version of Microsoft NetMeeting used for chatting has been upgraded. The improved quality of the video allows students to see a clearer image of their partner classmates. Video gives the students the chance to see the body language of their French peers which gives them the important experience of communication beyond words. Video also gives the students a chance to put names to faces, personalizing the learning process.

Gresso and Cerles plan to continue bridging the geographic and cultural gap between American and French students using technology, into the next academic year. They hope to do more in-class work with both live video and audio conferencing and to expand the scope of the class Web magazine, Raison d'être.

Chez Nous: Home sweet home on-line

Visit 111/112's home on-line. The Web site maintained by the Penn State students with links to the St. Jean de Maurienne pages is found at: http://beetle.la.psu.edu/fr111/.

Pictures for the article are available at:
http://beetle.la.psu.edu/lara/class_pics/FR112_TL.html

• That in 1999 Penn State's computer systems routinely handled over 2 million e-mails per day.

• An average of 85,000 dial-in connections took place each day.

• There were a total of 104,775 Internet access accounts University-wide.

• 1.9 million hours were logged by students in Penn State's computer labs.

• 48 percent (4,934) of all those who enrolled in computer instruction classes at Penn State were faculty members and teaching assistants.

• Student use of residence hall Internet services reached an all time high during the fall 1999 semester with over 11,400 active connections (8,710 UP connections and 2,701 Non-UP connections).

• In January 2000, 40,010 students, 1,856 faculty members, and 635 advisers used the Comprehensive Academic Advising and Information System (CAAIS) to perform over 350,000 transactions.

• LIAS on the Web provided student, faculty and staff with access to more than 200 databases and resources, forty of which were added in the last six months.

• Penn State has the largest deployment of PictureTel Videoconferencing Room Systems of any University in the world, with close to 50 Videoconferencing room system sites available for use by University personnel ­ one at each of Penn State's 24 campuses.

• More than 10,000 Admissions applications have been received via the Web.

• Libraries from Hong Kong and Turkey regularly search the Libraries' on-line catalog, the CAT, using the LIAS Z39.50 server, which permits different computer platforms and software to talk to each other.

• In a recent C&IS project which involved the rewiring of Old Main, 47 miles of new enhanced performance standard cable was installed and approximately 4 tons of old cable was removed from the building.

• In the last three months of 1999, New Self-Charge Workstations installed in the Libraries at University Park made it possible for patrons to check-out over 12,000 books ­ without waiting in line at a circulation desk.

• The COLD (Computer Output to Laser Disk) server currently maintains 9,324 different reports which helped reduce printing by more than 632,000 pages in the first six months of this fiscal year.

• 89% of all book renewals were performed electronically using LIAS on the Web, in the last six months of 1999.

You may need to access your e-mail while away from Penn State. Perhaps you want to stay in touch with your friends over the summer or you need to check in with your office while on a business trip. By using the following instructions, you can access your e-mail over the summer or any time you are away from Penn State.

Step 1. Before you leave

• Remove mail that you may have been storing on the server.

• Have you signed up for any automatic mailing lists? If you would rather not receive these while away, cancel your subscriptions or put a hold on them. If you leave your subscription services active and do not check your mail while away, you may have hundreds or even thousands of e-mail messages waiting for you when you return. This may cause problems with software. The "welcome" message you probably received when you signed up should contain instructions.

Step 2. Obtain an Internet connection

Before proceeding, please note that if you decide to use a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP), you should be aware of restrictions on sending mail. Individuals who use a third-party ISP such as AT&T @Home or America Online must check mail before attempting to send mail out through smtp.psu.edu. Mail that is sent without first successfully checking for new e-mail on the server will be rejected. This means that you must check your mail before sending e-mail every time you make a new dial-up connection via AOL, for example. For @HOME users, you will have to check before sending the first time you use @HOME in a given hour or so. If you check e-mail via @Home every 30 minutes, you will not be affected after the first time you check e-mail in a given session. If this proves to be a problem for you, a solution is to designate a different SMTP host in your mail settings. We recommend that you check with your ISP to obtain the correct settings for their SMTP server. Some ISPs may not permit you to send PSU addressed email via their SMTP server.

• Option 1: Dial into a nearby campus
  If you are within the local calling area of a Penn State campus you can connect through its dial-up lines. See http://cac.psu.edu/internet/dialup/ for a list of phone numbers. Once you connect, handle your mail as usual.

  If you are not within the local calling area of a Penn State campus, it may be useful to compare costs of the various "regional calling plans" offered by your local telephone company. There are a number of different plans, depending upon your calling patterns (frequency, time of day, length of call, etc.) Contact your local telephone service provider to obtain detailed information about calling prices, packages, and promotions.

• Option 2: Use a new account
  If you already have an account at your new location that you can use for e-mail (another university, business, or other Internet Service Provider), you can forward your e-mail to that account. To set this up, follow these steps:

  1. Go to https://www.work.psu.edu/

  2. Select "Change your forwarding address" on the Web.

  3. Enter your Access Account user ID and password.

  4. When your directory entry displays your current destination (for example, xyz123@email.psu.edu), change this to your new destination (for example, me123@aol.com.) Be sure to type it correctly!

  5. Submit the change by selecting the "Change" button.

  Once this is complete, all mail addressed to xyz123@psu.edu will go to your new address. If and when you return to Penn State, you will need to change this entry back to xyz123@email.psu.edu (where xyz123 is your Access Account user ID) so that you can again receive mail through your Access Account. Note that this will forward only e-mail sent to xyz123@psu.edu (where xyz123 is your Access Account user ID). Any mail sent to xyz123@email.psu.edu cannot be forwarded, but will remain on the server until you return (or your account is removed). Always tell people to send mail to you at xyz123@psu.edu (where xyz123 is your Access Account user ID).

  For more information about forwarding e-mail, including lifetime e-mail forwarding service for Penn State graduates, see http://cac.psu.edu/internet/email.html on the web.

• Option 3: Pay for an ISP, or get one for free!
  If neither of the above options is available to you, connect through a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are several companies that now offer free access to the web. Freelane.excite.com and bluelight.com are just two examples. These companies have local phone numbers in many markets but are not available everywhere, so make sure they have a local phone number before you sign up. The free ISPs make money by advertising, and some companies track your usage to better target their advertisements. If you are uncomfortable with this, there are still ISPs that don't track where you've been. These services are usually not free, but they often charge a flat rate for unlimited usage and provide a local telephone number. The fees for these services vary, but typically run approximately $20 per month. Before you sign up with an ISP, consider how much time you are going to spend on-line. If you're going to connect strictly to check your e-mail, long-distance charges for dialing into Penn State's modems may be more economical.

• Option 4: Apply for free Web-based e-mail
  Free Web-based e-mail is available from companies such as Yahoo and Hotmail (www.yahoo.com and www.hotmail.com respectively). Your e-mail and address books are saved on their servers and password protected. Since they are on the Web, these accounts can be accessed wherever you can access the Web (for example, home, a friend's house, community library, Internet cafe). Once you have your web account set up, you can forward your Penn State mail to this web account (see Option 2 above). One caveat: these sites are paid for by advertisements, so there are advertisements on their Web sites and they usually add a one-line advertisement to each e-mail you send using their service. Some sites also allow you to check POP mail. This would allow you to check your Penn State e-mail even if you have not forwarded it ahead of time. Not all web mail servers that offer this work with our e-mail server (Hotmail no longer works, for example) so you'll want to test this ahead of time.

Step 3. Set up your e-mail software

Once you have your Internet connection, you need to set up whatever software you're going to use to read your mail. If you don't have Eudora or a dedicated e-mail program available, you can use Netscape Communicator, which has built-in e-mail capabilities.

The following instructions pertain to using Penn State's servers for mail access. If you are using a different service, then ask your local network administrator or customer support representative for configuration instructions.

You need to configure the software with your Access Account information and Penn State's server information. (See box for Penn State e-mail server addresses.) Then you can simply tell your e-mail software to "check mail." If you use America Online (AOL) as your ISP, you'll need to either forward your mail from your Penn State account to your AOL account (see Step 2, option 2) or use Eudora, Netscape, or another POP Mail client to check your mail. AOL e-mail software is set up specifically for your AOL mailbox and it can't be set to read e-mail from elsewhere. After you make the connection to AOL, you can launch your e-mail program (Eudora, etc.) and use it normally.

Whichever option you choose should be set up and tested ahead of time, if possible. If you need assistance call the Help Desk at (814) 863-2494 or 863-1035 or send e-mail to helpdesk@psu.edu.

If you are continuing to check your mail on our servers (in other words, if you are not forwarding mail elsewhere), then you'll need to enter Penn State's mail server information. You won't need to enter all of the information below. Only enter what your particular mail program needs. Remember that you should replace "xyz123" with your Access Account user ID or alias.

E-mail address or Return address: xyz123@psu.edu

Username: xyz123

Popmail account: xyz123@email.psu.edu

Pop (incoming mail) server: email.psu.edu

SMTP (outgoing mail) server: smtp.psu.edu

PH server: ph.psu.edu

If it asks about POP3 or IMAP, choose POP3.

NOTE: If you are connecting from outside Penn State and you are using our SMTP server, you will have to check your mail before you will be allowed to send any messages. This is a new procedure intended to prevent people from outside the University community (e.g. spammers) from sending mail through our servers.

For more information and instructions, see http://cac.psu.edu/internet/email.html.

So . . . you think your computer is misbehaving: all of a sudden you cannot send (or receive) e-mail; you are not sure how to configure your dial-up connection; the images you have just uploaded to your web page are not visible; or you just have a general computer question.

All you have to do is contact the CAC Help Desks at either 863-1035 or 863-2494 and we will be happy to help you. Before you call, however, please read the following checklist and try to have on hand as much information as possible.

First of all, if possible, make sure that your computer is turned on and within reach of your phone when you call in so that we can easily check your computer's settings and suggest possible changes to solve your problem.

Secondly, please make sure you know the following data:

• What kind of computer you are using: is it a Macintosh or a Windows machine?

• What OS (Operating System, i.e. Windows 95, Windows NT, MacOS 8.0) and how much memory is installed on your computer?

• The name and possibly the version number of the software program that is malfunctioning (for instance, saying that you have trouble with your e-mail doesn't tell us much if you do not specify what e-mail software you are using).

• If you call about a dial-up problem, take the time to check what the speed of your modem is (i.e. 33.6 or 56k) and what phone number your modem is set to dial to.

• If an error message has appeared on your computer screen, make sure to write down the whole text and to tell us what you were doing when the error occurred; this will give us a clue about what the problem might be.

• Let us know if you have recently installed (or removed) any software on your machine, what software it was and whether your computer problem appeared only after the installation/removal.

• If you are connected to the Penn State backbone and you have problems with your connection you might also need to know the IP address of your machine.

Troubleshooting over the phone is not always easy, so remember - the more details you can provide, the better we will be able to help. Please try to provide the data mentioned above. Without that information we might not be able to determine what is wrong with your computer.

One last thing: we will ask you for your user ID. We need that information not only to check whether your account is active or not, but for statistical purposes.

Q. Where do I find information about my computer operating system?

A. Windows: right-click on the icon "My Computer" and select PROPERTIES from the menu that will appear. Under the "General" tab you will find the data you need.

Macintosh: pull down the Apple menu and select "About this computer".

Q. How do I know the name and version number of the software I am using?

A. If the program is open, go to "Help" in the menubar and look under "About (name of application)." Otherwise:

Windows: right-click on the application icon and choose Properties.

Macintosh: click once on the application icon and then select "Get Info" from the FILE menu.

Q. How do I find my IP address?

A. Windows: go to START, select Settings and then Control Panel; open Network. Click on TCP/IP and then go to Properties.

Macintosh: pull down the Apple menu, select Control Panels and open TCP/IP (in older Mac systems you would have to open MacTCP instead and then click on "More").

Penn State faculty and staff can now create customized automatic e-mail reply messages to e-mail messages that are received while on vacation, on sabbatical, or on leave from the University. This service, available via the CAC Secure Server at https://www.work.psu.edu/vacation/, was designed by Advanced Information Technologies (AIT) of the Center for Academic Computing.

The easy-to-use Web interface lets you specify automatic reply message start and end dates, create a personalized automatic reply message, and stop the automatic reply message. E-mail received during this time period can be downloaded and viewed as normal. The automatic reply message will still be sent to all messages received unless you choose to stop the current automatic response. Only one response will be sent to multiple e-mail messages sent by the same person and the automatic reply will not be sent to any listservs to which you belong nor will it be sent to any bulk e-mail messages.

For more information or to use this service, please go to https://www.work.psu.edu/vacation/. Questions regarding this service can be directed to root@cac.psu.edu. If you need assistance, contact the CAC Help Desk, 215 Computer Building, at helpdesk@psu.edu or at (814) 863-2494.

Beginning in June and continuing through the summer, the CAC UNIX Lab in 215 Osmond will undergo significant renovations. This lab will not be available during this time; however, Hammond Lab (rooms 316 and 317) will be open during the entire summer. We encourage you to use the Hammond Lab as an alternative. Renovations to 215 Osmond Lab include new furniture, a new LCD ceiling-mounted projector, a printer, and a new podium. In addition, the wall will be reopened and the room will be rearranged. Please note that once renovations are complete, 215 Osmond will become 216 Osmond. Check this page for additional updates. For additional information and updates, please periodically check the CAC UNIX Cluster Update Web page at http://cac.psu.edu/unix_group/unixcluster/cluster_update.html on the web.

Introduction

As we discontinue research use of the PSUVM mainframe, a few people have shared some of their conversion problems with us. One of these is moving and handling large data files.

To get an idea of what porting sizable files to a microcomputer implies, we did a short, quick experiment "handling" a large file of integer data. This "handling" and some timings are reported here. This shows that, at least for a few simple kinds of data manipulation, relatively large files can be handled on microcomputers rather efficiently. And it gives some ideas of what minimal "power" microcomputers need to have in order to process this kind of data. Part of that "power" is having reasonably defragmented disk(s); if the contrary is true, I/O time particularly for large files increases rather dramatically. We also show where to find out more or download various tools used here.

By the way, we do know that microcomputer versions of SAS®, MINITAB®, SPSS® will handle large and larger files similar to the one used here. We did not time these applications, but performance was quite good on the platform described below.

Platform used for timings

PC Dell Optiplex GX1p, 500MHz, 384MB Ram, 1GB swap file, 2.8GB IDE fixed disks.

Sample file used for these timings

The file is an ASCII file that is 145,648,282 (139MB) bytes big. Bill Verity uploaded this file, women94a.data, from the mainframe for a research project. The file's content is supposed to be integers, blanks, and minus (-) sign. It has 5083 lines, each of which is 28653 bytes wide.

Text editor used

KEDIT® is an excellent Windows 9x/NT text editor. See http://www.kedit.com/ VEDIT® is another editor choice for large files; see http://www.vedit.com/ .

Operations Timed: Input, edit, scan for validity, output, subset.

Input
Command: Kedit women94a.data (width 29000
Time: 32 seconds; second and subsequent Kedit's time: 5 seconds (cache)

Edit
Kedit Subcommands: add, delete, copy or modify, move lines; search for string.
Time: virtually instant.

Scan
Kedit subcommand to scan the file for valid character content: that is, show all non-integers: all reg /[~0-9 \-]
Time: 45 seconds

Output
Kedit subcommand: FILE/SAVE w.dat: .
Time: 32 seconds

Subset
Kedit (width 29000 then issue Kedit subcommand:
get Women 94a.data 101 100
to get records 101, 102, ... 200.
Time: 4 seconds

Use SAS for more sophisticated criteria for subsetting a large file. For example see: http://www.swmed.edu/home_pages/infotimes/articles/v.no6 /v6sastip.htm.

System copying and sorting

System COPY command:
COPY woman94a.data w.dat
Time: 33 seconds

The following sorts yield identical results:
System command:
SORT /+1 < women94a.data > wsort.dat
Time: 181 seconds
Command: Kedit women94a.data, SORT * A 1 1, FILE wsort.dat
Time: 65 seconds

Compare large files for content

Comparing two large files via Windows native (system) FC command versus a Fortran implementation, a 32-bit console command, COMPARE.EXE.

The two files will compare "same" or "identical" in this case. The shorter second compare time is because the system recognizes that there are no page faults once a copy of the file is in pagable memory.

System compare: FC w.dat women94a.data
Time: First FC: 513 seconds; second FC: 513 seconds

COMPARE w.dat women94a.data
Time: First Compare: 34 seconds; second Compare 5 seconds.

Compare utility may be found at:
http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/ger/fortran/hdk/compare.exe

Documentation is the file: http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/ger/fortran/hdk/compare.txt

COMPARE.EXE compares 256000 characters per compare; native Windows FC compares 1 cpc; this is one reason COMPARE was written and is made available to the public.

Note: To binary compare many pairs of files for "same" or "different" in two subdirectories and also optionally in two children subdirectories, use the program, CSDIFF.

Get the "Standalone" version from: http://www.ComponentSoftware.com/csdiff/. CSDIFF also can do an "intelligent" compare of two TEXT, HTML, or MS WORD files; it will display file differences in one of two easy to understand formats. CSDIFF is free for personal use.

Compressing/Uncompressing programs used

INFOZIP ZIP and UNZIP are free Zip compress/uncompress Win32 programs that work under all Windows platforms. They are also available for other platforms. Here we compress and uncompress a large sample data file. InfoZip zip includes cyclic redundancy check bytes in the zip file and a check against this with unzip.

INFOZIP ZIP/UNZIP for Windows 9x/NT/2000 are available on the Web: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/WIN32/zip22xN.zip and ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/WIN32/unz540xN.exe respectively.

zip -j women94a.zip
women94a.data
Time: 53 seconds; compressed the file to: 11,980,107 bytes, including 92 bytes of crc, a factor of 92%.

unzip women94a.zip
Time: 37 seconds.

PKWARE® PKZIP and PKUNZIP are commercial versions of Zip compression tools. Here we use the DOS 32-bit versions. Other versions, including versions that run via Windows Explore, are available at:
http://www.pkware.com.

PKZIP -a -! women94a.zip WOMEN9~1.DAT
Time: 38 seconds; compressed the file to: 11,590,145 bytes, a factor of 93%. This version of PKZIP/PKUNZIP recognizes only DOS 8.3 file ids. The -! option creates "authentication" check bytes, similar to the crc of ZIP/UNZIP above.

PKUNZIP women94a.zip
Time: 39 seconds.

For further information please see,
http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/ger/documents/handstat.html

About.com Geography: http://geography.about.com/education/geography/msub76.htm

Excite Maps - mapping, driving directions: http://maps.excite.com/view/?mapurl=/countries/united_states

Geographic Names Information System: http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/

GeoMapping, a Mapping Portal: http://www.geomapping.com/

MapQuest - Driving Directions, Travel Guide, etc.: http://www.mapquest.com/

Penn DOT Maps: http://www.dot.state.pa.us/bpr/bprinternet/carto/disclaimer-pdf.htm

Public Records Databases: http://www.pac-info.com/

State College and Centre Region Custom Maps: http://www.purplelizard.com/

Travel Library - with Round-the-World-FAQ: http://www.travel-library.com

US Census Bureau Acronyms and Abbreviations: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/main/allacro.pl

World Atlas by Country: http://www.graphicmaps.com/aatlas/world.htm

World Map Search: http://www.travel.com.hk/search/maps.htm

"Expanding access to higher education is a moral imperative and also a practical necessity. Democratic tenets of excellence, fairness, justice and equal opportunity demand full and equal access for all."--Graham B. Spanier, President, The Pennsylvania State University. Student Access Must Be Paramount, The Pennsylvania State University Op-Ed Program, www.psu.edu/ur/oped/access.html.

With the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, universities and businesses were mandated to provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Now, as a result, individuals are entering educational programs and pursuing careers that may not have been options for them in the past. "By providing reasonable accommodations to our students and employees, we are embracing their potential and capabilities rather than their disabilities," affirms Bill Welsh, Director of the Office for Disability Services at Penn State, University Park.

Since the establishment of the Office for Disability Services (ODS) over twenty years ago, Penn State has been working towards opening doors to the untraditional student and employee. With the growing importance of the role of information technology in education, breaking down the potential barriers to computer resources for users with disabilities is an important step in this direction. Penn State's efforts to bridge the gap between computing resources and students for whom the standard PC setup is inadequate, has been based on a cooperative effort between those students, the ODS, and the Assistive Technology (AT) Committee.

The AT Committee is chaired by Mary Ramsey, Manager of LAN Based Systems (LABS) Group, at the Center for Academic Computing (CAC). The CAC's role in the AT Committee is to purchase and maintain standard and assistive hardware and software for the CAC student labs and the Library Services for People with Disabilities office. The AT Committee's other members include staff from the ODS, the Department for Educational Equity, the College of Health and Human Development, Pattee Library, and the University Learning Resource Center. These members are familiar with the obstacles that students with disabilities may encounter and bring the student perspective to the process of making AT available at Penn State.

The aim of the AT Committee is to make the most commonly used AT applications and equipment available in the CAC labs on campus, and to purchase the more specialized equipment as needed. "This way," says Ms. Ramsey, "technology for which there is not an immediate need, does not sit idle in a lab to become obsolete before it is ever used."

Typically students who contact the ODS will meet with a disabilities counselor to assess and determine reasonable accommodations of their academic needs. If, after an ODS assessment interview, a student and disabilities counselor identify a useful AT tool not currently available in the CAC labs, the disabilities counselor may submit a request to the AT Committee to evaluate the possibility of purchasing the desired AT. Students who have not found the AT tools that they need in the CAC labs are encouraged to contact the ODS.

Sometimes the purchase of an expensive piece of equipment may not be practical for a Penn State location outside of University Park. At times like this, the designated Disability Contact Liaison (DCL) at the campus or college in question may apply to the ODS at University Park to request the loan of the AT. If the CAC has the software or hardware in stock, it will make a short or long-term loan of the AT to the campus for student use in computer labs. Staff or faculty members with temporary disabilities may also apply to the CAC to request a short-term loan of available equipment.

While most of the CAC labs offer standard tools like screen magnification, idea organizer software, raised tables, or large monitors, the Library Services for People with Disabilities office houses most of the more specialized AT tools purchased for student use. In addition to tools like a Braille dictionary and closed caption televisions for enlarging printed text, the office is also home to three assistive computer workstations. The workstations offer AT peripherals like scanner-readers, an alternative input device, and two Braille printers. Harold Woodruff is the full-time library staff member in the Library Services for People with Disabilities office. Mr. Woodruff works to help students using the lab become familiar with the workstation equipment and software. He assists students with research by pulling books from Pattee's shelves. He scans books into text files and edits the resulting files for errors that may be introduced during the scan. He then may print the text documents in Braille, or e-mail them to a student for use with a screen reader.

Specialized AT tools which are not located in the Library Services for People with Disabilities office include the Tactile Image Enhancer which is currently stored in the ODS. The Tactile Image Enhancer is used to turn a picture like a scientific diagram that has been copied onto heat-sensitive paper, into a raised image that a person can touch. The Thermo-Pen, available for use from the CAC, can also be used to produce raised images but the user draws with the heat emitting "pen" directly on the heat sensitive paper.

By putting assistive technology tools like scanner-readers, Braille printers, and the Tactile Image Enhancer in place, the AT Committee helps to make University learning resources accessible to students with disabilities. But ultimately, by putting AT in place, the AT committee helps to ensure that Penn State students with disabilities can fulfill their academic objectives and prepare for the future.

Bill Welsh, Director of ODS, observes that in addition to meeting a student's current needs, "utilizing AT in the academic setting may have a positive impact on a Penn State student's professional life when looking for gainful employment." He notes that a student who is familiar with assistive applications and hardware, "will be able to integrate that knowledge in an employment setting, as well. This allows an individual with a disability to become more independent than may have been previously possible without the use of AT."

A Panorama of AT at Penn State

Bill Welsh
Director, Office for Disability Services
Bill Welsh, who sits on the AT committee with ODS colleagues Marianne Karwacki and Denise Person, recognizes the potential AT offers to break down barriers to computing resources. "Assistive technology has played a major role in opening new doors for students," he says. AT is helping students with disabilities "to attain information much more quickly than in the past," Mr. Welsh notes. He views AT as an important factor in why more and more students with disabilities are entering higher levels of education.

Harold Woodruff
Coordinator, Library Services for People with Disabilities
Harold Woodruff tries, whenever possible, to help students achieve academic objectives using the resources he has available, "I ask people what they need and try to provide them with that." In addition to helping students become familiar with the CAC AT workstations, he is often challenged to provide creative solutions to help students when there is no AT fix. When a student with a mobility impairment needed to refer to the information in a ten page assignment while sitting in front of the computer, Mr. Woodruff hung the pages from the clothesline at a comfortable viewing height. In another instance, he helped a student work around her ink allergy by scanning materials only available in print and e-mailing them to her.

Michelle Hartman
Masters Program, Counselor Education
College of Education
Michelle began taking advantage of the assistive technology available in the Library Services for Users with Disabilities office within a short time of her arrival at University Park. Michelle has a mobility impairment that requires significant amounts of her time and energy to input data with a keyboard and mouse. While completing her coursework, Michelle came to the lab regularly to use speech recognition software with applications like MS Word, Eudora, and Netscape that she needed for her academic program. Speech recognition software recognizes voice commands allowing users with mobility limitations like Michelle to navigate applications and write or enter data with minimal use of a mouse or keyboard. Michelle was able to complete written work on schedule without the physical demands of entering data with a mouse and keyboard. These benefits, Michelle says, made the somewhat tedious, six-month training period it took for the system to correctly recognize her voice and for her to learn the necessary commands worth the effort.

Nick Petnick
Ph.D. Candidate, College of Education
Nick, who is blind, works mainly at his home but he has used assistive technology resources available at the Library Services for Users with Disabilities office extensively since beginning his Ph.D. course work. The AT application Nick uses most regularly is a screen reader which works in conjunction with the computer's sound card to read text which appears on screen aloud, including that on application menu bars. The screen reader functions with most applications Nick uses to complete his academic assignments.

Nick has turned his e-mail client, Eudora, into a valuable if not flawless, adaptive tool in combination with the screen reader. Since he receives a large portion of his research materials as scanned text in e-mail messages, Nick can categorize and store the electronic references using Eudora's mailbox options. When he wants to read or review the document, Nick can locate it in Eudora without having to listen to the screen reader read off complicated directory path names.

CAC Seminar Access

The CAC has long sought to support individuals with special needs at Penn State. Thus, support for users with disabilities who sign up for CAC training seminars follows the CAC's tradition of making computing resources accessible for the entire Penn State community. When the classroom environment cannot be made to accommodate an attendee's needs, other arrangements can be made. Earlier this year, the CAC worked to make seminar material available to a faculty member who uses voice recognition software not available on the computers in the CAC's instructional classrooms. Arrangements were made for an instructor to cover the material outside the CAC classroom lab on an appropriately equipped computer.

Students, faculty or staff with special needs who wish to attend CAC seminars or other CAC activities are encouraged to contact the CAC at (814) 853- 9522 or by e-mail, seminars@psu.edu.

Center for Academic Computing
Mary Ramsey
Computer Building
University Park, PA 16802
E-mail: mer@psu.edu
Phone: (814) 863-8764

Office for Disability Services
105 Boucke Building
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: (814) 863-1807 (voice or TTY)
Fax: (814) 863-3217

Library Services for People with Disabilities
C5 Pattee Library*
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: (814) 865-0284
* Temporary location during renovations at Pattee Library

Summer-Fest 2000

Dates: May, June, and July

Locations: CAC Labs, University Park

We know how busy you are during the fall and spring semesters ­ that's why the Center for Academic Computing (CAC) created Summer-Fest, a series of free computing seminars taught over the summer, when you are likely to have a more flexible schedule.

Summer-Fest seminars, which range from beginner to expert level, are either hands-on or discussion style sessions. Many seminars are scheduled so that you can attend introductory, intermediate and advanced sessions successively. Summer-Fest takes place during the weeks of May 15 - 19, June 19 - 23, and July 17 - 21.

Review seminar descriptions, times, and dates, and register by following the link to Browse/Register for Seminarsat the CAC's training page at http://cac.psu.edu/training/ on the web.

All in a Day Seminars

Dates: June and July

Locations: Penn Stater, Room O, and 117 Wagner Building

Join the Center for Academic Computing Training Group for one or more of our All in a Day seminars. This series, open exclusively to Penn State faculty and staff, offers you concentrated
instruction and opportunities to practice critical technology skills in these intensive six hour seminars.

• Web Pages in a Day: Web 101 - Web 401:
  Learn the basic and more advanced steps of building a Web page.

• Popular Features in Microsoft Word:
  Enhance your Microsoft Word skills.

• Photoshop in a Day:
  Learn to work with digital images using this powerful Adobe graphics application.

A CAC Access Account is required to register for the seminars; the cost of each is $50.

Review seminar descriptions, times, and dates, and register by following the link to Browse/Register for Seminars at the CAC's training page at http://cac.psu.edu/training/ on the web.

Penn State Web-Based Training

Dates: 24 hours, 7 days a week

Locations: At http://cac.psu.edu/training/ on the web

Whether you're at your desk at work or at home in your pajamas, Web-based training gives you access to hands-on, interactive tutorials any time and anywhere you can get on-line. Choose from among the fifty titles currently available in the Quick and In-depth categories. Hundreds of new titles will be added to the site soon!

You will require an Access Account to log onto the In-depth tutorials. To access both sets of tutorials, follow the link to Web-Based Training and On-line Learning Resources at the CAC's training site at http://cac.psu.edu/training/ on the web.

Obtaining an Access Account

If you do not already have a CAC Access Account, see http://cac.psu.edu/accounts/access.html for more information. If you have questions or need assistance, contact the CAC Accounts Office by phone at (814) 865-4772 or by e-mail (accounts@psu.edu).

Web 2000: A Conference for Penn State Web Developers to be held on June 20, 2000

Do you run a Web server, publish information, write programs, create graphics, design pages, or perhaps do it all, for a Penn State official Web site? At this one-day conference, you can participate in a variety of events designed to bring Penn State Web developers together to share and learn about innovative uses of the Web, applications for Web development, works in progress, security issues, and more. If you contribute to the Web as a manager, writer, editor, designer, programmer or server administrator for a University office, department, college or campus Web site, we invite you to attend. Registration is required, for further information please see http://cac.psu.edu/web2000.

Web 2000 will be held on June 20, 2000 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Penn Stater Conference Center, University Park, PA. It is sponsored by the Center for Academic Computing.

LIAS Offers New Search Capabilities

LIAS on the Web at http://www.lias.psu.edu/ is the entrance to all Penn State's on-line library services. It continues to expand with more databases and is now even more user friendly. LIAS is available to everyone anywhere, although because of licensing requirements, some on-line databases are available only to Penn State students, faculty and staff. New features to the Web page include a button that lets users request or recall a book from any Penn State Library and have it delivered to their library; a function that lets users narrow their search results by publication date, language, specific library and more; and a library link that takes users to the home page of their local library (and to other libraries within the Penn State Libraries). Also new is a Detailed Search page that lets users combine multiple searches in one request making it possible for difficult searches to be performed with ease.

The CAT Gets a Boost

For two decades, Libraries' staff manually added titles to The CAT (the Libraries' online catalog) one title at a time. After conversion of about 800,000 titles from the former card catalog, staff now add about 100,000 current titles yearly to reflect new purchases. The CAT presently contains more than two million titles. The CAT received an added boost in 1999 when cataloging for more than 32,000 titles was added without human intervention. A new service developed by Library Computing Services enables large batches of cataloging information to be purchased from external sources and loaded directly into The CAT, leaving existing staff free to handle day-to-day cataloging. Through this new service, materials that have been in the Libraries' collections ­ but are essentially undiscovered because they've never been cataloged ­ are now visible in The CAT.

FrontPage 2000 Guide Now Available

There is now a step-by-step, illustrated guide for using FrontPage 2000. This 24-page guide is written for new users of FrontPage and covers the basic features that are available for creating and editing a web page. Some of the major areas and topics that are discussed in this guide include:

• The Screen: FrontPage screen and tool bars

• Getting Started: Create and save a new page; set page color, default text color, and link colors

• Formatting Text: Bold and italicize text; change font, font size, text color, and paragraph alignment; apply paragraph styles; create bulleted paragraphs

• Links: Create a link to another web page, an
  e-mail link, and a bookmark (i.e. anchor)

• Images: Insert images, horizontal rules, and background images

• Tables: Create a table

• View HTML: View HTML tags in Normal Editor View or in HTML Editor View

• Preview Web Page: Preview web page within FrontPage or within browser

Carolyn Dudas, Multimedia and Computer Support Specialist at Penn State Erie, developed the guide. If you would like a copy of this guide, it is available as an Adobe PDF and may be downloaded from the following web site: http://www.pserie.psu.edu/compcntr/web.htm.

CAC Computer Labs at University Park - Summer Schedule

An Access Account is required to use lab equipment. Hours and equipment are subject to change. For the most current information and hours, see http://cac.psu.edu/labs on the web. A special account is required for use of Unix workstations; for information, see http://cac.psu.edu/unix_group on the web. Note that most labs are teaching labs and may be reserved for classes.

* Not a teaching lab.

This newsletter is published by The Pennsylvania State University, Center for Academic Computing (CAC), 214 Computer Building, University Park, PA 16802. The newsletter is also produced as a set of Web pages and Acrobat PDF files at http://cac.psu.edu/news/ on the World Wide Web. A printed version is mailed to full-time faculty and staff at all locations. A limited number of copies are available at CAC offices located in the Computer Building at University Park. To obtain copies by campus mail, contact Danette Yakymac at (814) 865-4757 or send e-mail to dxs8@psu.edu.

The Center for Academic Computing encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please call (814) 865-0800 in advance of your participation or visit.

This publication is available in alternative media upon request.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Please contact the editor, Margaret Smith, 214 Computer Building, University Park; (814) 865-4757; e-mail mes8@psu.edu.

CAC Directors:
Russell Vaught, Senior Director
Jim Kerlin, Senior Deputy Director
Steve Kellogg, Director, Advanced Information Technologies
John Harwood, Director, Education Technology Services
Kathy Mayberry, Director, User Services
Kevin Morooney, Director, Graduate Education and Research Services
Al Williams, Director, Distributed Systems Services

Editor: Margaret Smith

Publications Assistant: Danette Yakymac

Artists:
Denise Wagner, Graphic Designer
David Stong, Graphic Designer

Summer 2000