Subject: IR Digest - November 12, 1999 Issue
From: Sue Cady (sac0@Lehigh.EDU)
Date: Fri Nov 12 1999 - 16:05:30 EST
IRDIGEST - November 12, 1999 - Lehigh University Information Resources CONTENTS --Fax Service Discontinued --Sci-Finder Scholar New Version --Preview of New IR Web Page --The Countdown to Y2K. Are you ready? --CourseInfo Server Update --Office 2000 LAN Installation Scheduled for Summer 2000 --Netscape Tips --Library Thanksgiving Hours --Computing Center Thanksgiving Hours Subscription, archive and contact information are at the bottom of this digest. FAX SERVICE DISCONTINUED DECEMBER 1st by Susan Cady Since the early 1990s, a fax service subscription plan has been offered to the Lehigh community through the use of email (for receipt) and the network server (for sending faxes). All Department heads and all individual subscribers to this fax service were notified in early September that it will be discontinued as of December 1, 1999. The cost of making the existing service Y2K compliant and the number of alternatives in use now, or widely available, were the reasons for this action. In addition, with the installation of a new telephone switch next summer, students will have analog telephone lines in their residences that will allow them to use fax machines there if they so desire. Users who prefer an email based fax service similar to the Lehigh one are encouraged to use a commercial alternative, eFax.com, that is simple and relatively low-cost. In fact, eFax.com offers free in-coming fax service to anyone who signs up. Several IR staff members subscribe to this service and find that it is easy to implement and works very well. The specifics of this service are described at http://www.efax.com. Users with questions about the status of their current Lehigh fax service may contact telephone services at x85002. NEW VERSION OF SciFinder Scholar by Sharon Siegler SciFinder Scholar is a user-friendly client interface to Chemical Abstracts (1967 to date). Not only does it encourage "natural language" searches, it also includes reaction queries and a structure drawing package for chasing those elusive, what-if compounds. Searches can be restricted by date, language, format (article, patent, etc.), and author. Best of all, links to full text/image articles are included for ACS and other publishers' journals, depending on subscription agreements. Version 3.0 has just arrived and can be downloaded from http://www.lehigh.edu/~incast/scifinder/ or WinInstalled at public sites. PREVIEW NEW IR WEB PAGE by Joe Lucia Over the past several months, an IR staff task force has developed a new design for the Information Resources Web site. The major goal of this design effort is to simplify access to IR services and resources for the Lehigh community. To meet this goal, we ve reduced the number of clicks necessary to get to frequently-used pages, we ve added better navigation links, and we ve attempted to clarify (and apply consistently) the terminology that described IR services and resources. A beta version of the re-designed site can now be viewed at: http://www.lehigh.edu/ir/ir.html. THE COUNTDOWN TO Y2K. ARE YOU READY? by Gale Fritsche Preparation for the year 2000 can be made easy simply by following these two guidelines: check existing hardware and software for Y2K compliance and plan for potential problems. Departmental computer hardware should already be checked for Y2K compliance if connected to the University LAN. Each department (chairperson) received a list of computer hardware in his/her department that failed the Y2K tests and the recommendations on what should be done between April 1999 and June 1999. It is the responsibility of each department to replace, upgrade or dispose of non-compliant computer hardware. Please call your departmental computing consultant if you have any questions regarding whether or not your computer is Y2K compliant. The year 2000 is less than two months away and departments should be in the process of planning for potential Y2K problems. The first step in planning for Y2K is to assure that a current backup of data is made prior to January 1, 2000. There are several methods that may be used to do this. The most common backup method at Lehigh is to copy files to the Home server (H: drive). Although this is the most common backup method, a user may want to keep in mind that the H drive is limited to 50 megabytes. If a user has more than 50 megabytes of data he/she may need to use a backup device such as a Zip drive or Tape backup drive. The second step in planning for Y2K is to obtain information that will help users better understand Y2K. The more informed a user is, the better prepared he/she will be to deal with problems if they occur. Departments may schedule a Y2K information session by contacting their Information Resources computer consultant. COURSEINFO SERVER UPDATE by Robin Deily Blackboard's CourseInfo, a software package that provides tools for faculty members to easily place course-related documents and information on the Web, has already "outgrown" the capacity of it's server. Although the package was only introduced this semester, faculty members have already created and are using over 180 courses. Due to the unprecedented use of this software, the server is scheduled to be upgraded for the spring semester. Current plans are to move the system to an IBM RS/6000, Model F40, with dual 233 Mhz processors and 1 GB memory. We expect that this will greatly increase response time and overall system performance. OFFICE 2000 LAN INSTALLATION SCHEDULED FOR SUMMER 2000 by Doris Oravec Microsoft's latest release of Office, Office 2000 Professional, will be available on IR LANs in Summer 2000, after Summer Session I has concluded. Office 2000 Professional includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. Faculty and staff who want to begin using Office 2000 before next summer are encouraged to contact their Computing Consultant. Additionally, the Office 2000 installation CDs are available for borrowing from Doris Oravec in the Software Library, room 185 Fairchild-Martindale Building. NETSCAPE TIPS by Jake Ruttle The help desk gets many questions about using Netscape. Here are a few tips: 1) Printing selected information from a Web document (2 methods) Go to File menu > Print Preview, review the document, and note the pages that contain the desired information. Click the print button at the top of the print preview window. In the print range section of the print menu, type in the page numbers separated by a comma, or page ranges separated by a hyphen (e.g., 1,4,7,9-12). The second method is to Cut & Paste the desired text into a word processor. Select the text you wish to print. To select text, hold down the left mouse button and drag across the desired text. Right click on the highlighted text and choose Copy (you can also choose Copy from the Edit menu, or press Control-C). Open a word processing program such as WordPad. Paste the text you copied into a new document by selecting Paste from the Edit menu, or pressing Control-V. Save the document if desired, then print as usual. 2) Organizing and Personalizing Bookmarks To change the order of your bookmarks, add dividers, or edit their titles, choose Edit Bookmarks from the Bookmarks menu. To change the order of the bookmarks, click and drag the bookmark to the position you would like. Add dividers by choosing New Separator in the File menu. Sometimes Web pages have titles that are inconveniently large or non-descriptive. To edit the titles of your Bookmarks, Right-click on the bookmark and go to Bookmark Properties. In the Bookmark Properties window you can change the name of the bookmark, and the URL that it links to. 3) Customizing Messenger Netscape messenger is a good email program, but somewhat visually cluttered by default. First, you can change the size of all the window panes by moving your cursor over the pane separator bars, then clicking and dragging. Next, go to Preferences in the Edit menu. Under Mail & Newsgroups, select Window Settings. On the right, choose the layout for the window panes that you prefer. In almost all cases the right-hand selection is best. Click ok. In the upper right hand window pane you can select which columns are visible. To display more column headings click the little black left arrow above the scroll bar. Move the columns that you'd like to be displayed by clicking and dragging on the column heading towards the left. Move unwanted columns to the right. Now click the small black right arrow to make the unwanted columns disappear. For most users an optimal set of columns includes Subject, Sender, Date, and Size. LIBRARY THANKSGIVING HOURS For Both Linderman and Fairchild-Martindale Wednesday 11/24 8 am - 10 PM Thursday 11/25 CLOSED Friday 11/26 8 am - 5 PM Saturday 11/27 Noon - 5 PM Sunday 11/28 Noon - 2 AM (Linderman till Midnight) COMPUTING CENTER THANKSGIVING HOURS Wednesday 11/24 8 am - 9 PM Thursday 11/25 CLOSED Friday 11/26 9 am - 5 PM Saturday 11/27 9 am - 5 PM Sunday 11/28 Noon 10 PM Send your comments or suggestions for future topics by replying directly to the list. ******************************************************* TO SUBSCRIBE TO IRDIGEST: Send email to: listproc@lehigh.edu Type in the body of the message: subscribe irdigest <your name>. Call the IR Help Desk (84357) if you have any difficulty in subscribing. IRDIGEST archives are located at: http://www.lehigh.edu/lists/archives/irdigest
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