Information Technology Services

A while ago I mentioned the Google Apps Desktop program that adds links to gmail, calendar and docs to your desktop. These apps run a light version of Chrome for only that app (gmail, cal or docs). These also can be set as the default apps for handling mailto: links and default calendar.

You can download Google Apps Desktop from http://dl.google.com/tag/s/ap=nyu.edu/googlewebapps/en/googleappsstandalonesetuptagged.exe.

Once installed, you can click to launch them and enter your NetID@nyu.edu in the Gmail username field, leave the password blank and press ENTER. This will re-direct you to the NYU login page. As an option, you can modify (right-click, select Properties) the shortcut on the desktop so that its target is [ "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Apps\googleapps.exe" --mail.google.com --domain=nyu.edu ] (without the brackets, of course).

If you are placed in hold when calling an NYU telephone number, you may listen to Mozart. This is called MOH (music on hold), and one of the pieces is Serenade No. 10 in B-Flat Major, K. 361, "Gran Partita": VI. Tema con variazioni: Andante, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Are you an employee who wants to update a listing in the NYU public directory?  All you have to do is Ask ITS!

To change the following fields in a directory listing, submit a request thru the Ask ITS link in NYUHome and the IT Service Desk will update it for you:

1. Employee name
2. NYU work address
3. NYU phone number
4. NYU Department

If you want to update more than one listing, ITS may be able to set you up as a designated directory administrator for your department. To request this, submit a request thru Ask ITS link in NYUHome.

To update your title as listed in the directory, submit a request to your local HR contact and they will update your title in the HR system. Only HR can

To update your e-mail address as listed in the directory, you can update this yourself by clicking in the Preferences of NYUHome. Read how to set or change your NYU directory address.

For additional information, ITS has a knowledgebase document describing How to Change the Information in Your Directory Listing.

Did you know that you can speak a person’s name to connect to their NYU telephone? Simply dial x81212 from any campus phone and speak the name of the person with whom you wish to speak. From other locations dial +1-212-998-1212. You can also spell their last name by dialing the first three letters, and the Voice Activated Directory (VAD) will offer you people to whom you can connect.

A recent morning I visited http://email.nyu.edu/ on my iPhone's web browser and I could not login; the login.nyu.edu page displayed an error that informed me I had entered an "incorrect password" (OpenSSO). It never displayed any message about my password being expired. I tried logging into the NYU Start page at http://start.nyu.edu, and it displayed a similar error message about having entered an incorrect password. The NYU Start page also did not display any message about my password being expired. I successfully setup the native Mail app on iPhone to check my NYU email using the GA4E password and was able to read my email. (Although I knew my password had expired, I thought that this could give some clients the impression that their account was terminated, or that their account/password was compromised).

When I arrived at my office, I could not log in to my PC/Windows 7 with my existing password (Active Directory knew about the password expiration but simply displayed an error of 'incorrect password' kind). I was able to log in to my Mac as I had left my Mac on and logged in but with the screen locked. The Active Directory credentials were cached, but after connecting to the network they were refreshed and I was not allowed to make system changes (like installing new software to the /Applications folder, or unlocking the screen from screen lock). However I was able to check my email with Thunderbird, as this uses the Google Apps for Education password.

I did receive a first and second notification that my password would expire, but did not receive the third notification that is sent one day before the password is scrambled. It seems that the batch job that sends the third and final notification did not run the previous day. This means that all clients whose passwords were set to expire that day never received the third and final password expiration notification.

This is a problem because: Clients who did not know their password was expiring get no indication that this is the reason why they cannot log in to the services they are trying to use. Moreover, the fact that they can use some services and not others can cause unnecessary confusion.

This blog post deserves a re-publishing. You can view the original posting from 2009.

If you have Microsoft Word 2010, you can publish any Word document to your NYU Blog. Note that before publishing to your blog, you must have activated your NYU Blog. Read about how to activate your NYU Blog.  Below are step-by-step insctructions on how to configure Microsoft Word 2010 to publish to your NYU Blog:

1. Open Word 2010 and write your document, or open an existing document in Word 2010.
2. Click the File menu> Save & Send> Publish as Blog Post.
3. Click the button “Publish as Blog Post” and register a new blog (or click "Manage Accounts").
4. Select Blog Provider "Other" and click Next.

5. Select API "MetaWeblog" and fill in the following fields:

   1. Blog Post URL: http://blogs.nyu.edu/movabletype/mt-xmlrpc.cgi
   2. Username: YourNYUNetID
   3. Password: YourWebPublishingPassword (not your NYUHome password!!)
6. Click OK and "Yes" when prompted.
7. Choose a blog and click OK.
8. If successful, you should see a dialog box that reads, "Account registration successful." Dismiss that dialog and start blogging!
9. Publish when ready.

Internet Explorer 9 is a great browser. Overall it is very responsive, very well laid out, and very well designed modern browser. However, the world has not yet caught up with it (in some sense is it too advanced?), and some older plugins and some websites don’t yet work well in IE9.

To uninstall Internet Explorer 9, click on Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel (or run appwiz.cpl) and View Installed Updates. In the Microsoft Windows section, you will see listed “Windows Internet Explorer 9”.

See full details at Microsoft’s website at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/how-do-i-install-or-uninstall-internet-explorer-9

If you use Internet Explorer versions 9, the menu for options has been replaced by an icon of a gear. NYU Google Apps for Education often have the settings for each Google App under a gear icon, in the top right. This can cause confusion when supporting clients; a support representative can describe to a client “change this or that in the settings”, but to instruct someone step by step you may have to tell them to click on the ‘gear icon’. To illustrate this, here is a screen capture.

If you are a client that requires step by step instruction, which gear icon do you click? And how do you describe the difference between one icon and another?

Now that Internet Explorer 9 is available, I have downloaded it. Generally it has many improvements, about which I will write separately. However, the Brio Insight Plugin for Internet Explorer, required to run financial reports at NYU, does not work properly in IE9. It loads, but never displays the login screen or dashboard. There are no prompts and no error messages. It just does nothing.

Ok. I’m done with e-mail programs. Ever since they migrated my NYU e-mail to the e-mail powered by Google, I have stopped using e-mail programs that run on my computer, and have switched to using NYU e-mail thru the web browser full time. In this post I will write some of the top reasons why.

1. It is fast! Nothing is faster, period. Google servers can index it and search it faster than Outlook/Thunderbird/Apple Mail can even see it.

2. Search is king! Think about it, to find something on the web, you “google” it. Bring the same powerful idea over to e-mail, everywhere you go, thru a web browser.

3. No installation or configuration necessary. You don’t have to download or install anything, and you don’t have to enter settings into it every time you use e-mail on a new computer. Just open a browser, login, and start using e-mail.

4. No more corrupted PST files! No more time wasted because a file on your computer was corrupted, or your computer got a virus, or any of that nonsense. All you need is a web browser and an Internet connection, and your login credentials.

5. One password. Seriously. If you use an e-mail program such as Outlook or Thunderbird, you will have to set and keep two passwords: one NYU-Google password for incoming e-mail (doesn’t expire), and your NYU password for outgoing (expires annually). If you use NYU e-mail thru a web browser, you only use one password, the same one you use for NYUHome and a bunch of other systems at NYU. (Thanks, Single Sign-On!) If you are a helpdesk person, you know what a headache it is to support a client who wants to change their NYU password; imagine doubling that headache with two passwords!

6. Features! Labels, filters, conversations, contacts, keyboard shortcuts, calendar integration, labs, goggles, undo send, send & archive. All these features are only available if you use the NYU e-mail on the web. Some programs may have some of these features; for example, Outlook has a calendar. But it doesn’t work quite as well as the e-mail on the web. And the great thing is that Google introduces new features all the time, and these become available to all users at once. Hooray for software updates!

7. Support is easier. When everybody is using the same version of e-mail, suddenly you have hundreds or thousands of people who can assist you, not just the one helpdesk guy that knows how to work with and troubleshoot Eudora. (Remember that!?) Also, as a helpdesk person, you have less variation in the number of programs that people use. And, you will never have to help a client with a PST file again!

For now that’s all I can think of. If I can think of more, I will post them later.