Computing & Information Services Highlights in This Issue... Some
Contents
1. Computing amp Information Services sje KIOSK E The Latest News about Information Library amp Computing Services for the Rensselaer Community W Some Important Advice from Rensselaer s Postmaster Recently many users have been directing questions regarding mail pop lock busy errors to the Help Desk staff as well as sending mail to Rensselaer s Postmaster In light of this prob lem we d like to explain why these errors occur and more importantly suggest some solutions When you receive a pop lock busy error when you attempt to read your mail it means that the mail machine hasn t finished process ing the last request you made to check for mail This error most often occurs when your mailbox contains a lot of incoming and outgoing messages you leave your mail on the server for Eudora and Netscape users and you poll for new mail often As a first step in helping solve this E Commission on Electronic Citizenship Geeks Feedback problem we recommend that if you re a Eudora or Netscape mail user with a lot of messages left in your mailbox you don t poll for mail any more often than once an hour Too frequent polling for large mail boxes is very labor intensive for the server and slows mail delivery even more You can eliminate most pop lock errors by taking the following steps 1 If you use Eudora or Netscape to get your mail change the program s Get Ne2. for each tenure track faculty and currently registered graduate students Each profile contains library authentication and document delivery information Four times a year the Libraries update these profiles updating information such as user phone numbers electronic mail ad dresses and authentication accounting information Other Rensselaer UnCover users can create their own inde pendent profiles To do this click on the UnCover link from the Research Databases section of the RensSearch homepage then select the SEARCH link from the UnCover Article Service page From the Welcome to Rensselaer UnCover page which appears select the CLICK HERE link click on the Create New Profile icon and then fill in the requested information in the fields of the on line form which appears on the screen For more information on working with UnCover profiles refer to the URL http www lib rpi edu dept library html PubSvcs express html Understanding Title Displays In brief article and journal title displays the message Held by Rensselaer Libraries indicates that the Rensselaer Libraries have at least one or more print volumes or some kind of electronic access to a particular title More complete holdings information appears as part of a detailed article display When you click MARK FOR ORDER the UnCover system will some times report that you cannot order an item because it is part of the libraries co
3. by directing electronic mail to consult rpi edu E CIQ Non Profit Org US Postage PAID Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Volume 21 Issue 5 of 6 E March 4 998
4. information provision by CAS and information access in libraries is recognized as a unique partner ship by the creation of the Signa ture Library program and Rensse laer is certainly proud to be part of that legacy E CIQ An Important Reminder to Faculty and Staff from TeleCom Any faculty and staff who need to order service from Bell Atlantic which will be billed to Rensselaer should contact the Telecommunications office at ext 8041 Thank you 6 E The Kiosk Off Campus Access to Library Web Services Expanded In the January 14 issue of The Kiosk the Libraries announced new Web server software which allows off campus Rensselaer users to access restricted library databases services through any Internet Service Provider ISP something which was not previ ously possible In response to frequent requests from off campus users that software from Apache now allows users to prove their Rensselaer affiliation authorizing them to remotely access licensed library resources and services The Apache Web server deter mines if users have initiated a Web session from within the rpi edu domain or from a machine outside that domain typically one off campus e g AOL MSN or other ISP Users on rpi edu machines either on campus or through the Xyplex PPP connection will be able to connect with library databases such as FirstSearch as usual using Apache The Apache software will ask ISP users who attempt to
5. the mes sage Please note that you should specify your first and last names as shown and not your RCS userid In addition leave the message s Subject field blank subscribe compnews firstname lastname We think PC users will find this listserv especially important and helpful as they might not other wise see RCS system bulletins Those who prefer to read the newsgroup by e mail will also appreciate this new listserv utility So keep up with the latest computing related news Sub scribe to COMPNEWS today E CIG Libraries Offer Access to New York Times Wall Street Journal The Rensselaer Libraries now provide daily on line access to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in full text plus three months of back issues via UMI s ProQuest Direct Users may browse specific issues or conduct subject searches on expanded holdings of either of these titles You may access both of these papers via the Electronic Journals link which appears as a boxed item on the left hand side of the main RensSearch page as well as at the top of a number of other Library related pages Whichever paper you select a JavaScript window will appear stating Use login password ipauto welcome if requested click OK In the dialog box which appears enter the login and the password in the appropriate fields and click Connect A list of available issues appears click on the link for the desired issue E CJC KIOSK
6. ABI INFORM indexes the contents of over 1 300 journals in accounting finance marketing management international business real estate and taxation Coverage is from 1971 forward with the full text of articles from over 600 journals and the full image of articles from almost 600 additional journals available from 1992 forward Ei Compendex Web Fri April 17 8 00am 9 00am Ei Compendex Web is the leading research database for engineering and indexes the contents of national and interna tional engineering journals as well as papers from engineering conference proceedings Summa ries are included for some items Coverage is from 1970 to the present E CIQ Remember to regularly check ACS What s New section in RPInfo for the latest news updates Spring Break Hours Spring Break begins on Friday March 6 after the last class on that day During Spring Break the CIS computer labs the Libraries and the Help Desk locations will follow special schedules Computer Lab Hours Date CII 3rd Floor CII 6208 JEC 3207 JEC 3210 Lally Sage Troy and Walker Labs March 6 Close 5 00pm Close 5 00pm March 7 8 9 00am 5 00pm Closed March 9 13 9 00am 10 00pm 9 00am 5 00pm Mar ch 14 15 9 00am 5 00pm Closed Please note that the VCC labs will maintain their 24 hour a day schedule during the entire break all dorm labs will be closed All labs will resume their normal hours on Monday March 16 Help Desk Servi
7. Consultant on February 17 in order to accept a position as Senior Software Engineer at MapInfo Tom who joined the Rensselaer staff in June of 1992 worked as an Graphics Application Programmer for both Engineering Computing Services and Core Engineering and then as an Engineering Applications Consultant for the former ITS and the current CIS During his time here Tom helped with the design and administration of RPInfo taught short courses helped incorporate the SGI workstations into RCS and managed the Visualization Lab as well as dealt with a full load of consulting on engineering applications In his spare time he earned his Master s degree in Computer Science here at Rensselaer and created and taught an ECSE course in Advanced Computer Graphics and Data Visualization Tom will certainly be missed but we wish him all the very best Daria Robbins has moved from her previous position of Telecom munications Assistant to work as a Customer Service Representative in the VCC Help Desk There she will help create and adjust RCS computing accounts resolve any registration problems as they relate to users RCS accounts and computing access complete ADSM file backup requests and provide additional professional staff presence in the Help Desk And last but certainly not least we re happy to announce that Judy Shea has been promoted from her previous position of Customer Service Accounts Representative to that o
8. Modem Numbers 276 7989 14 4K bps 271 3800 Up to 33 6K bps off campus only March 4 S998 E 7 Setting Up Eudora Mail Filters If you re a Eudora user did you know that you can use the package s various e mail manage ment functions to automatically filter your electronic mail For example you can automatically reply to mail transfer all of the messages from a certain user into a specified mailbox and even send unwanted mail messages directly to the trash Setting Up the Filters To get started first open the Filters window by pulling down the Tools menu and selecting Filters If you re using a Macintosh pull down the Special menu and select Filters A separate Filters window should appear on the screen any existing filters should appear in the field in the left side of this window You may then proceed with the steps below to create or modify your mail filters 1 To create a new filter left click on the New button in the lower left corner of the window If you wish to modify an existing filter select it from the list of filters The Kiosk E Computing Information Services Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy NY I2IBO 3590 2 Select the appropriate option in the Match field located in the top center of the window to define how you wish to use the filter For example selecting Incoming and or Outgoing will automatically filter the mail However if you select Manual
9. You may reprint articles in this newsletter without permission provided you give proper credit Editor Deb Wentorf Academic Computing Services wentod rpi edu Co Editors Laurie Davis Administrative Information Services John Dojka Libraries and Information Services Nancy Kutner Academic Computing Services Published by Computing amp Information Services Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy NY 12180 3590 The CIS staff has seen several changes over the past few months L 1S Personnel Update Tom Smith Rensselaer s Campus Wide Information System CWIS Librarian resigned effective January 16th to take the position of Project Manager at Delmar Publishing in Delmar During his year as RPInfo Coordi nator Tom made significant contributions to improve RPInfo and provided assistance to many campus web authors in designing and maintaining their web sites A search is currently underway for a replacement CWIS Librarian who is responsible for maintaining the structure standards and content of RPInfo Rensselaer s campus wide information system Steven Ellis Senior Clerk Specialist began working in the Libraries Public Services unit on February 9th In addition to assisting at the Circulation Desk Steve will be responsible for coordinating the preparation of library materials for class reserves and administering copyright clearance procedures Steve brings experience to the Rensse laer Librari
10. access FirstSearch selected electronic journals or other license restricted services to authenticate themselves with their RCS userIDs and passwords The authentication inquiry occurs via a dialog box within the user s browser Once Apache authenticates a user as a member of the Rensselaer community it will connect the user to the selected service Apache will require off campus users to authenticate themselves only once per browser session If you have any questions or comments about the Apache Web server please direct electronic mail to lib support rpi edu E CIS Tips on Using RensSearch Uncover The Libraries would like to offer the following tips for using RensSearch UnCover the new multidisciplinary database which indexes more than 17 000 journals This database supplements the Libraries journal collections with fast document delivery service and allows Rensselaer faculty and graduate students to order journal articles that are not part of the Library collections directly from UnCover Researchers can search for articles by author article keywords and journal titles Using Passwords To use the direct ordering feature faculty and graduate students must log in to UnCover via the RensSearch UnCover link using a special UnCover password and the last six digits of their ISO number available in users personal SIS records Working with Profiles The Libraries have created UnCover user profiles
11. ce Schedules Consulting services at both the VCC and CII Help Desk locations will close for Spring Break at 4 00pm on Friday March 6 For the remainder of the break consulting services will only be available in the VCC from 8 30am until 5 00pm Monday March 9 through Friday March 13 The VCC and CII consulting services will resume their respective normal schedules at 4 00pm on Sunday March 15 Library Hours The Libraries will also observe the following special hours during Spring Break March 6 7 30am 5 00pm 8 30am 5 00pm March 7 9 00am 5 00pm Closed March 8 Noon 8 00pm Closed March 9 12 7 30am 9 00pm 8 30am 5 00pm March 13 7 30am 5 00pm 8 30am 5 00pm March 14 9 00am 5 00pm Closed March 15 Closed Closed The Libraries will resume their respective normal schedules on Monday March 16 Classes also resume on Monday March 16 E CIQ 4 Havea great Spring Break AIS Announces Upcoming Short Courses Administrative Information Services will offer the one day courses shown in the tables below to Rensselaer faculty and staff in the training room room 5202 of the J Building All courses which will last from 9 00am to 5 00pm each day with an hour lunch break cost 69 00 per person Space is limited and is avail possible Introductory Classes Word Friday March 6 Excel Thursday March 26 Tuesday March 31 Access Friday March 13 Friday March 27 able on a first come first serve
12. d basis so if you re interested in taking any of these classes be sure to sign up for them as soon as If you sign up for a class and then decide that you cannot attend it you may cancel your registra tion up to one week prior to the class before noon that day After that time AIS will accept no cancellations and will bill you for holding a spot in the class whether or not you attend it If you would like additional information regarding the content of any of the courses or have questions about class registration please contact Lori Winslow by calling ext 6278 6279 or by directing electronic mail to winsll rpi edu E CIS Intermediate Level Classes Word Friday March 20 Thursday April 2 Excel Thursday April 9 Thursday April 23 Friday April 17 Thursday April 30 Access March 4 S998 E 5 Library Selected as CAS Signature Library Member CAS a division of the American Chemical Society celebrated its 90th anniversary in 1997 As part of the celebration a library that had maintained its subscription to full service Chemical Abstracts for all 90 years could be recognized as a CAS Signature Library Mem ber and we are pleased to announce that the Rensselaer Libraries were among those libraries recognized In addition to receiving a plaque that will be mounted in the Folsom Library Reference area the Libraries also received commemorative 1998 calendars with photo collages from many of the CAS S
13. e mail addresses as having the format user rpi edu E Specify mail rpi edu as the SMTP and or POP server when configuring mail software such as Eudora Thank you E CIS E ACS Creates COMPNEWS Listserv E AIS to Offer Training Sessions E CIS Spring Break Hours E and much more Articles also available in RPlInfo at Worldwide Web address ttp www rpi edu Computing Kiosk html E Volume 21 lcscue 50f 6 E March 4 O98 E Commission on Electronic Citizenship Seeks Feedback Last spring President Pipes charged a group of faculty staff and students with the task of reviewing the current guidelines for use of Rensselaer s network and computing facilities and updating those guidelines to reflect changes in the campus use of information technology Since that time the group has worked hard to draft a policy that reflects the campus changes in technology as well as the growing importance of electronic commu nications in our daily lives You can now find the draft of this revised policy in RPInfo at the URL http www rpi edu web comec NewDraft policy html But now that the Commission has completed this part of the task it s your turn to have a say Please take a few minutes to read the revised policy and consider how it might apply to the ways that you use e mail the web newsgroups and other computing and network applications If you find points that need clarification or situations that hav
14. e not been adequately covered or if you would like to suggest changes to the policy please send your comments to comec comments rpi edu Members of the commission have scheduled visits to the Faculty and Student Senates and the President s Cabinet and will be willing to arrange meetings with other interested groups to discuss the draft Co Chairs Deborah G Johnson Professor and Chair of Science and Technology Studies and Sharon Roy Director of Academic Com puting have announced that the Commission plans to have a final draft completed by mid March and have the new policy in place by the end of the semester E CJC 2 E The Kiosk New COMPNEWS Listserv Created If you use a networked PC or if you do not read Usenet news you now have an easy way to keep up with the latest computing related information by joining Academic Computing Services newly created COMPNEWS listserv As a member of this mailing list you will receive via e mail E RCS system bulletins notifying you of scheduled power and server outages and other timely information E Postings to the Usenet newsgroup RPIL COMPUTING NEWS which includes What s New items as well as notices for the most recent issues of The Kiosk the CIS newsletter Please note that because COMPNEWS is moderated users cannot post to it To subscribe send e mail to listserv vm its rpi edu including a single line having the following format in the body of
15. es from his former position as Loan Services Evening Supervisor at Schaffer Library of Health Sciences Albany Medical College AIS Staff Changes Administrative Information Services welcomes Application Developer Mike Stampalia who joined the staff on January 26 to help provide technical and implementation support for the Banner Student registration and records implementation Prior to coming to Rensselaer Mike worked as a Software Developer for IFS International in Troy and received his B S degree in Com puter Science and Applied Math ematics as well as his M S degree in Computer Science from SUNY Albany CIS Staff News Dennis Milkiewicz has also recently joined AIS as a PC LAN Support Analyst after leaving his former position of Communica tions Technician III with the Network Support Services group At the same time Steve Lindsay has left his former position as Computer Operator with NSS to take on Dennis responsibilities Kathy Saraceno is the third new member of the AIS family Having worked as a Keane consultant for AIS between 1994 and 1995 Kathy now permanently comes on board as the department s newest Application Developer Her job duties include production and new product support for the AIS team ACS Tom Moves On Daria Moves In and Judy Moves Up Academic Computing Services bade a reluctant farewell to Tom Citriniti who marked his last day as the department s Engineering Applications
16. f Assistant Manager of the VCC Help Desk Congratulations Judy CIC VCC Computer Store Help Desk Taking Shape In the August 20 1997 issue of The Kiosk we announced that the Campus Computer Store would soon move from its current location in the basement of the Voorhees Computing Center to the main floor of that building and that the VCC Help Desk would undergo a major reconstruction at the same time We are pleased to announce that the construction which began in January is progressing nicely with current plans pointing to both the store and the Help Desk moving into their new locations early next month CIS will hold a Grand Opening to break in these new facilities in style so please watch upcoming issues of The Poly the What s New section of Academic Computing Services homepage in RPInfo or any paper flyers which may circulate around campus for details E CIS March 4 S998 E 3 ical 2 2 permchk Available on RCS Version 2 2 of the ical X Win dows based calendar application and version 1 1 of the permchk file permission checking program are now both available on RCS ical 2 2 ical works by treating a calen dar as a set of items an item being either an appointment or a notice which the user wishes to remember The program also allows you create edit cut paste and copy items easily view many calendars at a time and share calendars between many users To start ical type the follo
17. ignature Libraries a copy of the calendar will be kept at the Folsom Library s Reference Desk A picture taken in the Folsom Library appears for the month of August Chemical Abstracts began in 1907 and in that first year 12 000 abstracts were mailed to members of the American Chemical Society In contrast Chemical Abstracts currently indexes and abstracts about 850 000 documents annually papers patent equivalents and books with over 17 million abstracts printed since 1907 To put it another way in 1907 the abstracts section took eight inches of library shelving for three hardbound volumes in 1996 it took almost nine feet for 26 hardbound volumes During the 90 years type size was decreased page size increased and output format redesigned all to save space Originated in 1965 the CAS Registry Number System sets the standard for substance identifica tion containing records for over 17 million unique substances and allows communication across languages and among government agencies institutions and re searchers For the latest sub stance total please refer to the URL http www cas org cgi bin regreport pl Ninety years is a big commit ment to one product and one method of information delivery Changes in technology will no doubt continue to affect Chemical Abstracts in the future as it has almost every area of library services and information delivery The legacy of ninety years
18. llections Sometimes the system will accept your order because holdings for a particular journal title are incomplete E Mailing Citations If you only want to e mail a copy of a citation to yourself but W ant to keep up with the latest computing related news Subscribe to the rpi computing news Usenet newsgroup or the COM PNEW S listserv do not want to request interlibrary loan service you must remove the little check mark displayed beside the Interlibrary Loan electronic mail address Conversely if you want to request interlibrary loan service for an article it is also a good idea to send a copy of the citation to yourself A Comments window appears at the bottom of this page for sending a message to Interli brary Loan Reviewing Marked Records Articles marked for ordering while searching are actually saved for seven days until you either order or delete them from your Marked For Order List It s a good habit always to review your list and to remove the checkmark that UnCover automatically places with every item you might want doing so prevents you from unintentionally ordering or deleting all of your marked records Getting More Information To obtain more information on using UnCover select the UnCover link from the Research Databases section of RensSearch the Libraries homepage in RPInfo or contact Irv Stephens by directing electronic mail to stephi rpi edu E C C Dial In
19. ml BI bireg html Current Contents Mon April 13 8 00am 9 00am The Rensselaer Libraries have released a web interface for the Current Contents database The new interface allows users to develop a search profile using a search template In addition to subject and author searches users can search by a journal title or the date an item was added to the database Search results are displayed so that users can easily capture results using a desktop word processor As with earlier versions of Current Contents users can also retrieve the table of contents for a specific journal Libraries Catalog Tue April 14 8 00am 9 00am The Rensselaer Libraries have released a new enhanced version of the Catalog resulting in a new look and increased functionality Search screens are easier to view and use and users can now mark items for export to a floppy disk or for e mailing in brief or full screen displays as well as in common bibliographic formats such as Pro Cite and End Note Electronic Journals from Academic Press Wed April 15 8 00am 9 00am The Electronic Journals data base offers an alternative to browsing the shelves in person by providing the full text for a number of research journals from Academic Press The Rensselaer Libraries subscribe to these titles and Rensselaer students faculty and staff can access the full text of these journals on line via RensSearch ABI INFORM Thu April 16 8 00am 9 00am
20. w Mail frequency to 60 minutes or more 2 Remove any unneces sary mail from the server For example users who read their mail via Netscape should make sure that they do not select the Save on Server option Not storing mail on the server will speed up users download reduce the load on the mail machine and keep a pop process from starting before an other finishes If you keep messages simply so you have a record of peoples e mail addresses you can make your downloading more efficient by creating a mail alias for each address you want to keep and then deleting the messages A slim chance exists that even after you take these precautions you may still receive pop lock busy errors but the system administrator removes such leftover errors daily For further informa tion on how to avoid receiving pop lock Highlights in This Issue E VCC Computer Store Help Desk Update E Off Campus Access to Library Web Services Expanded E CIS Staff News E Tips on Using RensGearch UnCover errors please stop by the VCC or CII Help Desk location or direct electronic mail to Rensselaer s Postmaster at postmaster rpi edu Remember if you can t read mail leave your phone number with either the Help Desk staff member or the Postmaster so someone can get back to you On a somewhat unrelated but equally important note the Postmaster would also like to remind users to E Give out their
21. wing command at a UNIX prompt ical amp permchk The permchk program goes through your RCS account compares your existing file permissions to the defaults set when your account was new and asks you about anything that differs from those defaults To run the program simply enter the following command at a UNIX prompt permchk The first time you run the program it will examine the current permissions in all of your directories and subdirectories and check them against the defaults to see if any have changed If it finds any which differ from what it expects it will report the unusual settings it found and prompt you if you d like to reset them to the default Please refer to the on line version of this article available via the Kiosk link from the Academic Computing Services homepage in RPInfo or the What s New section of the ACS homepage for much more com plete information on using ical 2 2 and permchk E CIC The Kiosk Library to Offer Training Sessions The Rensselaer Libraries instructional staff will offer the following one hour training sessions during the week of April 13th All of the sessions which are free of charge and open to all Rensselaer faculty students and staff will be held in the the PC lab on the second floor of the Folsom Library To register for one or more classes complete the on line registration form available at the following URL hitp www rpi edu dept library ht
22. you must manually invoke the mail filter by pulling down the Special menu and selecting Filter messages 3 Use the various Header criteria options and text fields to specify which header such as To From Subject etc should contain a certain text string 4 Define the action you wish to take on the messages meeting Subscriptions The Kiosk is available by subscription free of charge To subscribe and have the newsletter sent to your on or Off Campus address please send your name address and Rensselaer affiliation via electronic mail to kiosk subscribe rpi edu Rensselaer the specified criteria 5 When you finish setting up the filter close the Filter window Eudora will prompt you Save changes to Filters click Yes to do so When you invoke the mail filters Eudora matches each mail message against each filter in order from top to bottom If a mail message meets a filter s criteria Eudora performs the specified actions then matches the message against the next filter If at any point you select the Skip rest action on a message Eudora performs no more filtering on that message and moves on to the next mail message and repeats the process Getting More Information For more information on using Eudora mail filters please refer to the package s extensive built in help the User Manual which should have come with your version of Eudora or contact the ACS student consultants
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