Tag Archives: ITS

Gartner Research Campus Access for Faculty, Staff, and Students

Are you interested in the most current and cutting edge information about technology? Are you researching or looking to invest in new technology and want industry-leading research to help you make the decision? Is your department looking to teach current IT-related topics? Do you need in-depth insights across all facets of technology – including communications, telecom, mobile, digital business, AI, Internet of Things (IoT), and cyber-security?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be interested in Middlebury’s access to the Gartner Campus Access Research service. Gartner is a leading information technology research and advisory company that provides easy-to-understand summaries of complex ideas and extensive, in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis for a variety of IT topics.

Middlebury’s subscription to Gartner includes access to both Gartner Magic Quadrants and Hype Cycles.

Magic Quadrants help you get educated quickly about a market’s participants, maturity, and direction. Magic Quadrants focus on the subtle differences between vendors in markets that are highly mature or newly emerging, and map vendor strengths against your specific need.
Hype Cycles are based on graphic representations of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications which help discern technology hype from what’s viable
Special Reports are time-sensitive research reports focused on critical issues in technology.
Regularly updated Complimentary Research selections of cutting-edge research from Gartner analysts
Webinars that can help you to build impactful, transformative strategies, based on real-life examples

Students can benefit by using Gartner to find research for assignments, learn where IT is headed and how it will shape our world, discover an area of interest, or even get ideas on careers. Gartner’s research enriches the educational experience by providing timely, objective real-world examples and content.

Faculty: Gartner Campus Access research enables professors to bring timely, objective real-world examples and content to the classroom, enriching the educational experience.

Staff can access information on how to improve infrastructure, validate technology decisions, analyze trends in the industry, and understand best practices.

Gartner’s Campus Access research is licensed for use and is accessible to Middlebury College faculty, staff, and students at no cost. To access Gartner, go to http://go.middlebury.edu/gartner. Access is through Single-Sign-On (SSO) so you will need to authenticate using your Middlebury username and password.

ITS Tech Services Overview Offered December 11 – for New (or not-so-new) Hires

Information Technology Services (ITS) offers a monthly workshop with recent hires in mind called “ITS & You: Technology Services Overview.” The next session will be held Wednesday, December 11 at 9:00 a.m. We’ll introduce services and resources provided by ITS to all Middlebury employees, including: online learning, file storage, self-service software installation, access to computing help, and more. The workshop format will be a presentation with questions entertained along the way, followed by an optional half hour for hands-on assistance with specific questions.

To sign up, please use our online form. Although geared toward new or recent hires, everyone is welcome to attend – you might surprise yourself with an “aha” moment or two.

Next month’s session will be held on Wednesday, January 15, 2020, at 1:30 pm. Our complete workshop schedule can be viewed at http://go/techworkshops/.

Macbook recalls

ITS wants to make all employees and students aware of two current serious Macbook recalls:

Recall #1:

Apple has issued a battery recall notice for “Mid-2015” model 15″ Macbook Pro laptops. The situation is a safety issue as according to Apple “the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk.”

Apple’s customer info page about the issue can be found at:
https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

Employees here at the college with college-issued Macbooks affected by this issue have been contacted via a WebHelpdesk ticket to arrange to have Apple repair their computer. Employees with personal computers and students are advised to use the above link to check their serial number and then follow the instructions on their website to arrange repair. Due to the nature of this repair, Apple is not allowing us to perform the repair in-house so your Macbook will need to be shipped to Apple for repair. Turn around will be 1 to 2 weeks and Apple advises users to shut down and stop using the computer until after it is repaired. If you store any files to the local hard drive, you will want to transition your data onto one of our cloud storage solutions, like OneDrive/Middfiles beforehand. With an off-site repair, data is not guaranteed to be intact, and our cloud storage options are backed up and accessible from just about anywhere.

Recall #2:

Another recall is for the SSD (hard drive) in some 13” non-touchbar Macbook Pro laptops. This problem can lead to data loss. To check your serial number, use this link:

https://support.apple.com/13-inch-macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-service

Affected employees here at the college have already had tickets created and been emailed via WebHelpdesk. Users are advised to ensure they are properly storing all their data on OneDrive/Middfiles in order to protect their data in the event their SSD fails prior to repair.

Goodbye Stewart Lane!

Stewart Lane is retiring on June 14th, after 25+ years of service!
Stewart has been the real embodiment of a Media Services and ITS staff. Courteous, expedient and willing to take on any task, from helping a faculty with their laptop in a classroom, to screening Hirschfield films on late nights, to running a video camera, to supervising our students, to redesigning a classroom and programming lighting systems. He’s been a real go-getter, with a can-do attitude! I can’t count the emails and other positive feedback that I’ve received for him from customers over the years.

Stewart would like to thank Norm Cushman and Bryan Merril for giving him a job and a chance to become part of Middlebury back in the 90s.

We will miss you dearly Stewart, especially your dedication to work, as well as your cheer and lightheartedness.

A tip of the hat to Stewart!

Some of the kind words of thanks that Stewart has received over the years:
…phenomenal! #epic…
Thank you for your swift and diligent support. This was an excellent service provided.

“…incredible effort you have put in to get ready for this year’s Fest. There are so many fabulous films that are screening at Dana…”
It’s been great working with you over the years…
Many thanks for the timely save yesterday–I’m glad you and Jen remained unflappable.
took a lot of pressure off of my shoulders.
terrific
We’re very fortunate here to get such personal attention from you and other Support staff!!
thank you for your help and patience
thank you again very much for going above and beyond the call of duty
heartfelt thanks to you
It’s a pleasure to work with such professional and capable colleague
thank you for saving me last week with that screening
Thank you SO much for being patient with the laptop and us, non-techies.

Issue RESOLVED – 503 errors when attempting to open links to websites sent via email

We are pleased to report that the Safe Links service issue is now resolved and we have re-enabled Safe Links. To recap, Safe Links provides extra protections for the Middlebury community from phishing attacks and other malicious email activity by providing time-of-click verification of web addresses (URLs) sent via email.

Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve matters. Again, we apologize for the disruption. Please contact the Help Desk if you have any outstanding issues or questions.

Kindly,

ITS Help Desk

Issue UPDATE – errors when attempting to open links to websites sent via email

Microsoft is making significant progress towards resolving the issue with the Safe Links service. In most all cases now, clicking on a link sent to you via email works on the first try. If it doesn’t work, you can typically try again, and the linked website will open.

We are sorry for this disruption in service and any inconvenience. Thank you once again for your patience. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information.

ISSUE – 503 errors when attempting to open links to websites sent via email

We are experiencing an issue with the Microsoft Safe Links service which means you may receive a “503” error if you attempt to click on a link someone outside the organization sent to you via email.

We are working closely with Microsoft to resolve this issue as swiftly as possible. Microsoft has confirmed that this is an issue with their service impacting customers globally. We do not currently have an estimated resolution time.

We have temporarily disabled Safe Links for new, incoming email messages. We will re-enable the Safe Links service after Microsoft has solved the problem.

We will provide an update as soon as we know more. We apologize for this disruption. Thank you for your patience.