Want some tunes? Our guide to some digital music!

 

Sometimes there is just a need for some tunes to get you through the day.  If you think about it, almost everywhere you go there is music.  Dr’s waiting rooms, stores, elevators, so why not get something to get you through your day.

It used to be you had to have a radio, a separate device to plug in and tune into a local radio station, or put in a CD, or for some folks a cassette tape.  For our students information on what cassette tapes are can be found here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette

But, with the internet there are several options we would like to talk about.  There are music services that are free or come with some cost and it all depends on your personal taste as to what you get.   Hopefully, with summer soon arriving, again hopefully, our first recommendation is brought to you by country music start Kenny Chesney.  Kenny’s No Shoes Radio is a free streaming music service that can be listened to at http://www.noshoesradio.com/

Kenny plays a mix of everything, you get his country standards, reggae, singer/songwriter, hip/hop, alternative, 80′s, 90′s, literally everything.  He puts it all together with an Island type of flair, so if you are itching for summer, carribbean tunes, this station is the place.  It is awesome and it is free!

If you haven’t tried Pandora, you should.  Pandora is a great service that you can get free (if you don’t mind the occasional ad) or pay monthly or yearly for an upgraded service (no ads, better sound quality).  Pandora creates stations based on your input.  If you want to hear the Dave Matthews Band, create a station based on the artist and you get a mix of music similar to Dave Matthews as well as the band itself.  You can create playlists based on songs, artists, genre, pretty much anything.  Pandora stores all your stations and then you can shuffle through all the stations to hit everything as one station.  You can also share what you are listening to via social media and post in real time to your facebook and twitter accounts.

Very much like Pandora, there is Spotify, which works pretty much the same way.  With Spotify you can share and add friends to your playlists.  The more people you know on spotify the more fun you can have with the servive.  I recommend starting out with the free services and if you decide you like one better than the other it may be worth the investment to get the additional sound quality.  The free spotify sound quality is better than Pandora, though I think the paid Pandora is fantastic.  Again, it is all personal choice.  http://www.spotify.com

Grooveshark falls into the same category as Pandora and Sportify.  A free streaming service where you can create your own playlists, upload your own music and share all of it with friends or anyone in the world.  This creates a method to hear music you may not have originally thought you would like, or hear music that other people listen to.  I would recommend grooveshark if you are wanting to check out some different music than you normally listen to.  Have some fun with it and see where it takes you.  http://www.grooveshark.com.

If you have iTunes downloaded to your machine, they actually have a really good radio feature, that pulls many radio station streams from around the country and world.  Regionally you can listen to 1043 TheFan out of Denver for sports talk, but you can also listen to several stations based on genre.  These stations are mostly actual radio stations that stream their content for free.  iTunes just consolidates them to one place.  It’s free though and you can get some good listening from it.  If you like the randomness of radio, it is a good place to go and listen through your computer.  You can download iTunes at: http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Anyway, just a quick list of some options for free music streaming to get you through the day.  Take a look at some of these links and let us know which you prefer or if there are others you would like our readers to check out.  We will post some comments of sites that you all like at well!

Brett Williams, Help Desk Manager From Laramie, WY

UWIT in partnership with UW Games Club to host a cyber block-party blowout

This spring’s Local Area Network ( or LAN ) party is co-sponsored by UWIT and The UW Gaming Club. The event is 15 hours of all-night, all-in gaming. All sorts of games will be played. 1^st Person Shooters, RTS, PVP, TVT await participants in this gamers paradise. The lab will be transformed from a standard university computer lab, to a gamers utopia. Network cables will spew from every internet orifice, LED screens will chart progress and oh boy, pizza galore will be on hand for all gamers!

In addition to building community among the gaming population, this event provides a much needed break from stressful finals week prep and spring-blizzard related cabin-fever.

Games, pizza, people… what’s missing??? PRIZES! Swag galore ( see below ).

Already the Facebook page has received 200 RSVP’s which illuminates the allure of Spring ’13 LAN night. In the words of one LAN competitor and ResNet employee, “if you build it, nerds will come.”

Sarah Burrows

UW M.A. Communication Graduate Student

LAN Party at the ITC Friday April 19th

 

 

Join us for the 3^rd annual LAN Party starting at 6 pm this Friday April 19^th!  IT and the PC Gamers Club are hosting 12 hours of gaming tournaments, including Counter-Strike, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and others.  Prizes will be awarded for tournament winners and raffle winners, so make sure to fill out a raffle ticket at the front door.  22 UW Student Lab computers will have the games installed and be available to play or you can bring your own computer to play, but come early as space is limited.  Hope to see you here!

UW Alert — What is UW’s Emergency Response System?

This week there will be a test message texted to all UW alert users on campus.  Usually when we see these sent out we are flooded with calls to the Help Desk on what is it?  Why am I getting?  Why didn’t I get? Heck, get me off it.

We thought it was worth a few minutes to write up some answers to those questions and hopefully explain the necessity for the service.  Like anything, first off, you do not HAVE to subscribe to the service, however, if a situation arose subscribing could be very beneficial, even life saving.

First off, the University of Wyoming only plans to send notifications via the UW Alert System for events that impact the majority of the campus, such as school closure or emergencies.  At least once a semester the University will send a test notification to verify the functionality of the system.  So, this week is that test message.  But there is other important information here.  In Laramie, where the weather can quite often be horrible, if classes were cancelled one day due to a storm (as, I know!) wouldn’t you rather get a text telling you so, as opposed to bundling up and getting to the classroom building only to find it empty?  Of course, if there was an emergency situation, obviously you would want to know what is happening and if there were any instruction on what to do, right?

There are some things that you need to know.  If you sign up for the service you do have to pay for the text you receive.  Just like if you sign up for ESPN alerts, when you receive text messages it is help by your phone provider contract as far as any cost.

You can also put multiple phone numbers on the alert system.  By going to www.getrave.com/login/uwyo and logging in you can add up to 3 additional phone numbers to the system.

The system is there to give the University of Wyoming a means to quickly generate information to its campus community at any time.  It is rarely used, other than the tests once a semester or in case of an emergency.  That said the service will keep you informed in the event of an emergency situation or an unexpected closure of the University.

When a test message gets sent, we receive a fair amount of negative feedback, which is fine, you can always opt out of the system, but the benefit will be seen if and when there is a situation at UW that requires this information be sent out.

If you want more information on the UW Alert System please check out this FAQ page provided by UWIT!

http://www.uwyo.edu/askit/displaydoc.asp?askitdocid=1762&parentid=1

Brett Williams, Help Desk Manager From Laramie, WY

What Are We Up To?

As 2013 is now in full swing, we thought we would give our thoughts on some things we have been dealing with in IT and its relationship to the University of Wyoming.  Like all technology, it moves pretty fast and sometimes even passes some of us by!  That said, let’s take a look at what is happening.

First off, during winter break, we migrated 10,000 student and employee non-benefitted accounts to cloud email storage through Microsoft, known as Office 365.  Before the move, all the mail was stored on servers here in the IT building, now the mail is stored at a Microsoft location somewhere in the US, but not here in Laramie.  This allows UWIT to not have as much overhead with keeping the mail system functional.  The migration went very well and we were able to move the accounts pretty quickly with a lot less problems than even we expected.  Students now have 25GB of storage, which when you compare to the 500MB they used to have, seems absolutely endless!  A lot of us here at the Help Desk are pretty jealous of all that space, but I will keep using my personal folders to store my mail to stay under my 500MB quota.  If anyone else needs help staying under, check our How To, here…  http://www.uwyo.edu/askit/displaydoc.asp?id=226

Zach Morris rocking a 2G Cell Phone at Bay Side High

Along the same lines, if you are having problems getting your UW email on your mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc) please check here http://www.uwyo.edu/infotech/services/email/365.asp.  If you still have problems after looking at the site, call the Help Desk or stop by the UWIT Service Center in the Information Technology Center.  http://www.facebook.com/pages/UW-Information-Technology-Center/202723316418686?fref=ts

At the help desk, our Dispatch service is off to a great start.  If we feel we can resolve your issue by coming right to your office, we will!  When you call the help desk, we will try our hardest to resolve your issue over the phone, but if we can come out to resolve it we will, right away!  This helps us and the customer save some time, as we get your problem resolved as quickly as possible!  Since we started dispatching our help desk staff onsite, we have been able to resolve the issue 95% of the time.  If we cannot resolve it, we have detailed information to pass along to our Desktop Support Unit when they come take a look at your system.  So far the service has been very well received!

SPOILER ALERT!  Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP!  As sad as this is for everyone ( what a great OS, right?), it is time.  Because Microsoft will no longer be updating the OS, those machines will need to be removed from the University network for security reasons.  That said, if you are still using XP, please call the Help Desk and we can start working on a plan to get you up to date!

If you have watched TV in the last few months you have probably seen a commercial for Windows 8.  Microsoft is really pushing their new operating system and we have been testing it out quite a bit here in IT.  We do not officially support the product yet, but as students you can get it through our WyoWare site(http://www.uwyo.edu/askit/displaydoc.asp?id=941  ), and faculty/staff can purchase it at a discounted rate through our work at home program(http://www.uwyo.edu/askit/displaydoc.asp?id=558 ).  I am not sure I would tell you to make the jump, just yet, but if you are on Windows XP, go ahead!  We can always take you back to Windows 7 if you don’t like it.

As always our support staff is here to help, if you have any problems or questions, do not hesitate to contact the UWIT Help Desk or stop by the ITC and work with the great staff at the Service Center.  Here’s hoping that 2013 is another banner year for UW and for Technology in our world!

Brett Williams, Help Desk Manager From Laramie, WY

Back That Work Up!

 

One of the most frustrating things that can happen to a student is losing a 10 page paper you have worked on due to not saving it properly. ResNet sees this often and unfortunately, if you have not taken the right steps to save your work there is not much you can do but start over. This happens often when students to not properly protect or eject their USB drive. If something like this happens feel free to visit ResNet located in room 160 at the Information Technology Center. If you want to take matters into your own hands here are a few helpful tips to properly saving your work!

 

Properly eject your USB Drive.

Many times users just pull the USB drive out of their computer and this can harm it. If you don’t, you risk corrupting your USB which in turn will deny access to your files or a user can lose them.

The proper way to remove a jump drive (or external hard drive) from your PC is to go through the Windows taskbar and eject the device before removing it physically. If you simply unplug it, you risk corrupting files that are still open.

To be safe, go to the Windows 7 taskbar, find the removable drive icon, click it and on the menu that pop us click > Eject Mobile Disk for the drive you wish to remove. (Sieber, 2011).

 

 

 

 

 

To eject a USB drive from a Mac follow these instructions:

Select the device you want to remove, such as a flash drive, by clicking on it once.

Drag the device to the Trash, which will become an Eject icon as you drag.

At that point it is safe to turn off and remove the device from your computer. You can also eject a device by selecting it on the desktop and using the keyboard shortcut Command + E, or you can open up a Finder window and then click on the eject icon next to the device’s name. (Tech-Ease Mac, 2011)

 

Not ejecting your USB drive properly is common but losing your work due to this mistake is easily preventable and it can save you a trip to ResNet! There are a few other tips you can follow to ensure you do not lose your work if your computer crashes.

• Always e-mail yourself the file you are working on.
• Save the file to your desktop.
• Set up a DropBox account.

If you have not used DropBox stay tuned…a blog will follow shortly! J

IT Front Desk

Kathleen Warner

Students! Your Email is moving to the Cloud! What you NEED to know!

UWIT has been notifying students that their email at UW is about to change.  For a long time now, all students, staff and faculty have been on Microsoft Exchange.  Their email stored on server’s here in the Information Technology Center.  With this move to Office 365, students email will now move to the Cloud and their mail will be stored on Microsoft’s servers somewhere off campus.

For Quick Info use this:

What Does This Mean for Students:

This should be good news in the long run for our students.  First off, on the UW exchange servers, students were limited to 500MB of email storage.  When they are moved to the Cloud they will increase their storage to 25GB.  Holy Cow!

With the migration there does come a few changes that students need to be aware of.  For instance, in WyoWeb, when you click the email button it will not automatically log you in anymore.  You will need to enter, your username and password to access the Outlook Web Access mail client from WyoWeb.  And, for those of you who don’t know, you can always access your email at https://outlook.com/owa/uwyo.edu if you do not want to login to WyoWeb.

Another change of importance is you will need to login with your email address instead of just your username.  So if you go to https://outlook.com/owa/uwyo.edu  and click the login button, you will need to type your email address as the username (johndoe@uwyo.edu) and your normal password.

Don’t forget to include @uwyo.edu in your UserID

Log into your 365 email using your full UW email address, for example: cowboyjoe@uwyo.edu

Probably the biggest impact to students is the configuration of their mobile devices, like their iPhones, iPods, iPads, Android devices, etc.  There will need to be some configuration changes to the mail apps on those devices to get to the new Cloud email.  Luckily UWIT has some online documentation to help you:

For iOS:    http://www.uwyo.edu/askit/displaydoc.asp?id=1344

For Android:  http://www.uwyo.edu/askit/displaydoc.asp?id=1343

When Does This Happen?

The migration of accounts will begin on Friday, December 14^th.  It will take some time to migrate all the accounts, so you will not necessarily automatically be on the cloud come December 14^th.  UWIT will attempt to email users a couple of days before they are migrated to give them a 48 hour window of time as to when their mailbox will be migrated.  The easiest way to tell if your mailbox has been migrated is to log into your mailbox using Outlook Web Access at https://uwmail.uwyo.edu. Choose the UW Exchange email button.  If your mailbox has been migrated to Office 365 then you will receive a notification that will redirect you to the Office 365 login page.

Is Your Email “BROKEN” after migration:

If your email is “broken” after migration, UWIT has created an Office 365 at UW self help site that has all the configuration information you need.  Please reference this web page if you are having problems after migration.

http://www.uwyo.edu/infotech/services/email/365.asp

If you have concerns about the security of your email on the cloud, please reference this page from Microsoft that explains how they go about things.  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/trust-center.aspx

Still having problems?  

Information Technology will be staffing the IT Help Desk over the Christmas break to provide support. The IT Help Desk can be reached at 307-766-HELP (4357) Option 1 or by emailing userhelp@uwyo.edu. The Help Desk staffing hours can be found at: www.uwyo.edu/infotech/services/helpdesk/.

Brett Williams, Help Desk Manager From Laramie, WY