NCCE TechTalk

Another Email Phishing Attack on NCSU Addresses

2009-11-05T09:48:00.000-05:00

Please share this message with everyone in your offices. Several of you have contacted our office about a phishing attack today. Here is the official post from the central campus IT group on this issue:

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) is investigating a phishing attack targeting campus email users. The message appeared to come from the email address 'ncsuweb@webmaster.com'

As a reminder, the password on your account should be known only to you. OIT will never ask you to send your password to us via email, therefore any email like the one you may have received today should be considered suspect and you should not reply to it.

An excerpt of the text of the message is below:

Dear NCSU Account User,

We have noticed an unauthorized attempt to change your North Carolina State University Account password from a foreign IP. This was going to result to your inability to access your account due to the password change.

We are about to terminate your account but If you know you are the authorized owner of this account, kindly reply by providing your original

Unity ID (*******) Password (*******)

so as to protect your ID and password from unauthorized access.

Failure to do this will violate North Carolina State University's email terms & conditions.

From North Carolina State University Admin and Web Support

© 2009, North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695

Information presented here is provided as a general information resource. Any mention of commercial products is for information only; it does not imply recommendation, endorsement nor support by Extension IT.

NCCE Newsletter Templates

2009-10-26T13:22:00.008-04:00

Here is a template to use for your newsletters that follow the NCCE style guide in MS Word 2003/2004 format. If you have any questions or need help, please contact your Information Management Agent.

Newsletters: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/admin/wiki/index.php/File:Newsletter.doc

These are on the NCCE Intranet and there only accessible to NCCE faculty and staff.

Thoughts on using the eXtension "Ask an Expert" widget

2009-10-15T14:15:00.002-04:00

By: John Dorner, Information Management Agent

Good news - the eXtension Ask an Expert widget now has the ability to follow up questions. If a question has been answered a followup answer can be sent. One way this is useful is if you find some relevant information soon after you've answered a question.

http://about.extension.org/2009/10/14/ask-an-expert-gets-question-follow-up/

While I'm writing about the Ask an Expert widget, I thought I'd share some ideas and observations.

Check your AaE preferences

If you have a widget on your site, please make sure there is at least one person assigned to automatically answer questions from the widget.

If you are willing to answer questions that come in from the AaE widgets or the eXtension web site, please indicate your areas of expertise. Keep in mind that "areas of expertise" is not the same as "area of responsibility". Lots of us are responsible for subject matter areas for which we are not "experts". As a question wranglers, when I'm looking to see who to assign a question, I have my doubts about people who indicate they are experts in 100 different fields. On the other end of the spectrum are the people with no areas of expertise. I realize that not all areas are represented, but try to find one or two that are real close to your area of expertise.

Assign the question to the right person

If you don't have the answer, and are assigned a question, re-assign it to the best person to answer the question.

Make sure the people who are auto-assigned questions from your widget are checking their mail and able to answer or reassign questions within a day. If not, then consider having just a few people who can/will auto-assigned questions.

Make informal agreements with the agents in the surrounding counties to take questions when the agent in your county is busy, out of the office or just have a vacant position. Keep in touch with them so you know when they are available and able to answer a question in a timely manner.

If you have someone in your office who leaves or retires it is important to have them taken out of the Ask The Expert system. Retirees are encouraged to answer questions if they wish but it is not obligatory. To be removed from the eXtension environment email eXtensionHelp@eXtension.org to let them know you are retiring or leaving and they will be happy to update your eXtension account.

Participate

Please try to respond to questions within 48 hours, research has shown that if the person does not receive a response with in 48 hours they will go else where for the information and will probably not use the tool again. If you have to go on leave remind someone in the office to check the questions, it is ok to respond back to a question with the request to call the office for more details or to tell them a specific person is out of the office.

Unless you are doing a great job of marketing the Ask an Expert widget, chances are you will not be overwhelmed with questions. Most will only take a minute or two to answer. Much less than if the person walked into your office and asked the question.

Keep in mind that marketing the widget and your website in general is not a one shot deal. It is a continuous process. Everyone knows Pepsi, but they spend lots of money on advertising every day. The same needs to apply to Extension and what we have to offer. The Ask an Expert is just one of the products we offer.

Soon, your participation will be measured and automatically included in your performance appraisal tool. This is just one indication of the level of importance that administration puts on participating in eXtension and the Ask an Expert is just one simple way to participate.

Questions?

If you have any questions or need help, please contact one of the Information Management Agents.

NCSU Elluminate Live upgraded

2009-10-12T16:07:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend (10/10/2009) NCSU DELTA upgraded the version of Elluminate Live! installed and used by NCSU. There are several improvements and bug fixes.

A new and more powerful Elluminate Live Manager (session scheduler)

A recover/reset your password button
A search box to find sessions easier (not working at this moment)
A new "create session" window that is reorganized
You can search for participants/moderators by name rather than just by unity ID
Invite guests from the create session window
The ability to delete your preloaded whiteboard file
Use of Elluminate Plan!

View a tutorial of the new ELM at http://delta.ncsu.edu/docs/learn/courses/teaching/elluminate/elluminate_session/

View a handout of the new ELM at http://delta.ncsu.edu/docs/learn/courses/teaching/elluminate/elluminate_live_meeting_creation.pdf

A new way to log in to an Elluminate session after clicking on the session URL

Moderators will click on "User Authentication -> Elluminate Live! Manager User" and enter your Elluminate username and password if prompted. Also, if prompted enter the meeting password.

Participants will click on "User Authentication -> Guest" then type in their email address and name. If there is a password for the meeting, they need to enter it here as well. Participants cannot user their Unity ID and password to join a session.

We recommend making your participants aware of the new login screen they will see.

The first time you join a session with the new version it will take a few minutes longer because the new software is being downloaded. When it starts, the first thing you'll notice are the new icons and the polling buttons (green check and red "X") have been moved off the toolbar to the participant box. But those seem to be the biggest changes I've noticed for the participant and moderator.

This upgrade also included changes to

provide a more robust web server to reduce the number of incidents of the main Elluminate page not working
provide a more robust and flexible database which will allow DELTA to more easily maintain the server and provide more detailed statistics to users on their meetings

NCSU Utility Bar For Your Blog

2009-10-02T13:33:00.005-04:00

By John Dorner

In the September 30, 2009 memo from Dean Wynne, he referenced the NCSU Brand Book at: www.ncsu.edu/brand and stated that "University Web pages are required to add a branding bar at the top." If you have a blog on Blogger you can add the utility bar (branding bar) at the top of your blog by following these steps:

Get the code for the bar

Go to: www.ncsu.edu/brand/utility-bar/iframe/config/ an complete the form indicating the site URL where the bar is to be placed, the color of the bar and whether or not you want it centered.

Copy the code generated to your clipboard ([Command]+C on Mac or [Ctrl]+C on Windows).

Edit the Blogger Template

Go to the Layout tab of the Settings for your blog and click "Edit HTML".

Download Full Template (as a precaution in case something doesn't work as planned) and save it on your computer.

Scroll down through the code for your template until you find the "" tag.

Paste ([Command]+V on Mac or [Ctrl]+V on Windows) the code for the utility bar a new line just below the "" tag.

Change any occurrences of the ampersand (&) character with "&" so it looks something like:

<body>

<link href='http://www.ncsu.edu/brand/utility-bar/iframe/css/utility_bar_iframe.css' media='screen' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<iframe frameborder='0' id='ncsu_branding_bar' name='ncsu_branding_bar' scrolling='no' src='http://www.ncsu.edu/brand/utility-bar/iframe/index.php?color=red&inurl=nccetechtalk.blogspot.com&center=yes'>
Your browser does not support inline frames or
is currently configured not to display inline frames.<br/>
Visit <a href='http://ncsu.edu/'>http://www.ncsu.edu</a>.
</iframe>

Click "Preview" to see your blog without saving the template. Once you are satisfied everything is presented the way you like it, click the "Save" button and you are done.

To reiterate what Dean Wynne, "NC State can't build a strong brand without the help of everyone communicating on behalf of the university. We need all CALS employees to become brand champions or NC State."

If you need help implementing the NCSU Utility Bar on any of your sites (other than on the county Extension web sites) feel free to contact me.

E-Mail Problems

2009-10-02T11:07:00.000-04:00

Recently, I've noticed several people with "over quota" problems, so I figured I'd post this reminder with some tips about managing your email. Some of these tips are specific to NCSU IMAP mail users, some are specific to Thunderbird users (the mail client that EIT supports) and some are appropriate to anyone.

Stop using email for all communications
Email is not always the best tool to use for communications. Consider moving some of what you are doing via email to a better tool. Some of these include:

Google Docs or Zoho for sharing and collaborating on documents, spreadsheets and presentations
Slideshare.net for sharing presentations
drop.io or dropbox.com for filesharing
Delicious.com for sharing websites that you find interesting
Feed readers (i.e. Google Reader and many others) for 'newsletters' if offered.
Instant Messaging for quick questions/answers/short discussions
Twitter, Facebook and blogs for keeping others informed about projects, your life, etc.
Flickr, Picasa, Snapfish, Facebook, etc. for sharing photos

I can think of very few good reasons to put an attachment in an email message.

Maximize your quota
First thing to do is to make sure you have all the quota you are entitled to.
From Thunderbird, go to Edit -> Folder Properties and click on the "Quota" tab. This will tell you how much of your quota you are using and how much quota you have available. If you have less than 200MB (200,000KB), then you will want to request more by going to: http://sysnews.ncsu.edu/. After you have logged in, the "User Info" section has your ITD Account Quotas listed. Click on "Quota Manager" to make any changes. If you are not using the AFS space or Novell space, you can max your email quota at 200MB for free. If you need more than that, you can purchase more by going to: https://sysnews.ncsu.edu/tools-bin/usmdb-purchase.

Empty Spam folder
You probably need to do this fairly regularly (every week or two). You can select all the messages in the Spam folder (click on the "+" sign to the left of Inbox in Thunderbird to see your folders) and delete them. An easier and often faster way to do this is to login to Webmail (http://webmail.ncsu.edu/) and click on "Purge" to the right of your Spam folder.

Have your trash emptied automatically
From the Tools -> Account Settings window select Server Settings and check the "Empty Trash on Exit" and the "Cleanup ('Expunge') Inbox on Exit" options. This makes Thunderbird work like an efficient cleaning service that empties your trash at the end of the day (or whenever you quit Thunderbird).

Delete or move the biggest messages
Rather than wasting your time deleting thousands of 4KB messages, you can free up the most space by moving/deleting just the few really large messages. To find which folder is using the most space, go to: IMAP space used by folders (https://sysnews.ncsu.edu/tools-bin/imap-usagequery). This page gives a report of how much each folder is using. Spend your time cleaning up the largest folder.

From within a folder (in Thunderbird) sort your messages by "Size" to get the largest messages together. Chances are real good that all of these messages have some large attachments.

Move messages to local folders
All messages in your unity mail Inbox and the folders that are sub-folders of your unity mail Inbox count towards your quota. Messages that are in your "Local Folders" do NOT count towards your quota. Move any folders/messages that you don't need access to from other computers or webmail to your Local Folders. The space for these is only limited by your computer's hard drive capacity.

References

Cleaning Up Your Mail When You Are Close To Quota

Changing Your ITD Account Quotas How to allocate more space to e-mail

IMAP Quota Check Find out how your e-mail quota is being allocated

For future reference, you can find these links on the NCCE Intranet -> IT Resources -> Email

Wireless Networking in the County Offices

2009-09-30T11:29:00.000-04:00

Many of our county offices have wireless networks installed and managed by NCCE EIT. A list of them is on the intranet at: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/admin/wiki/index.php/Counties_with_EIT_Wireless

Anyone with a unity ID can connect to these wireless networks.

To connect to the internet, make sure your wireless network is connected to the Extension network.

Open a browser and go to any web page. You should be redirected to a login screen prompting you for your Unity Login and Password. After logging in, you should be able to use the internet with no problems.

Note: your unity ID & password are not stored, so if you go to another web page that requires authentication, you will have to log in again. This is useful as you can use your login and password to get a guest online (you are responsible for their actions) without them being able to access sites that need authentication.

Problems for computers with Trend Micro Antivirus

For computers that have Trend Micro Antivirus installed, this automatic process does not work. Trend Micro Antivirus sees redirects from unsigned pages (like our wireless authentication) as a threat and does not allow it. The workaround for this issue at this time is to go to: http://192.168.1.1. this will take you to the login screen. After you log in, you will get a "page not found" error. That's okay. You are now authenticated and can browse the internet by using your Home button, bookmarks or typing a URL into the location panel.

Discussion for Ask an Expert Widget Users

2009-09-04T16:01:00.003-04:00

On September 29 at 2:00 p.m. ET, eXtension is offering a "30 Minute Session" Discussion and Q/A of the Ask eXtension Widget. The discussion will be led by Aaron Hundley, eXtension Software Engineer. Everyone is welcome to attend.

If you are currently participating in answering questions that come from any of the Ask eXtension Widgets, this will be a great discussion to be involved in. This session will focus on answering questions that you might have on the Ask eXtension Widget or the Ask an Expert system in general. We'll share tips and recommendations for using the Ask an Expert system and discuss surrounding topics.

This session will be held at the eXtension Web Conferencing Center at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn and your computer's speakers. Plan to join the session 5 minutes before the starting time.

Opening DocX files on a Mac

2009-09-01T10:19:00.002-04:00

I've gotten this same question three times in the last week, so I figured I'd post this again :) Please share it with everyone in your office using Microsoft Office 2004 on a Mac. If they haven't installed the xml file format converter yet, they will want to do this BEFORE they receive an important attachment that requires it.

From Opening Docx Files with Office 2004

If you use Office 2004 for Mac and need to open files saved in the new file formats used by Office 2007 for Windows or Office 2008 for Mac, you will need to install a free Office file converter application. The file extensions for these new file formats are .docx, .xlsx and .pptx.

The file converter works best when you have the most recent version of Office 2004 installed.

To make sure your version of Office 2004 is up to date:

Load one of the Office applications (Word, Excel or PowerPoint).
Choose Help --> Check for updates.
Install any updates that are listed.

Next, install the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac. As of June 10, 2009, the most recent version, 1.0.3, is available here

Note: In order to install the converter your Mac OS needs to be version 10.4.9 or higher. From the Apple menu click "About This Mac" to verify the OS version.

Instructions for downloading the file converter are available on the download page. If you would like assistance with installing the application, please phone the CES Help Desk at 919-513-7000 or email ces_help@ncsu.edu.

Publish your eXtension Profile

2009-08-28T11:43:00.003-04:00

A number of you are using social media applications such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook to interact with your clientele. Extension Information Technology has added a new feature to the NCCE Employee Database and Directory to provide a way for you to share selected information, including social network identities, on your NCCE Employee Directory listing and county staff pages.

An eXtension ID is required to use this feature because the information comes from your eXtension profile. The types of information you can enter into the profile include contact details, interests, and social network identities.

By default, your eXtension profile is viewable by anyone who has an eXtension ID. eXtension recently added a 'Public Profile Settings' option that enables you to make some or all of your eXtension profile information viewable by the general public.

If you would like to link to your public eXtension profile from your NCCE Employee Directory listing, you may now do so simply by adding your eXtension id to the NCCE Employee Database. If you are a county extension employee, doing this also adds the eXtension profile link to your listing on the Staff page of your NCCE county web site.

Step by step instructions are included below and within the NCCE Intranet . We also have several short Elluminate sessions scheduled on this topic. For a complete schedule of upcoming web-based training see: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/admin/wiki/index.php/Online_Training

-----

Instructions:

Step 1: Set up your eXension People Profile

1. Log in to http://people.extension.org.
2. Click on the 'Personal Profile' link to create or edit your profile

Step 2: Make your profile public, if desired

1. Click on the 'Public Profile Settings' link to choose the settings
you prefer to make public
2. View your public eXtension profile at
https://www.extension.org/people/username (Replace 'username' with your
eXtension id)

Step 3: Add your eXtension id to XEMP

1. Log into the NCCE Employee Database to edit your entry
2. Add your eXtension id. The eXtension ID field is at the bottom of the first section.
3. Submit the form to save your changes

Step 4: Check it out

1. Look yourself up in the NCCE Employee Directory
2. Click on the eXtension logo image on the right of your name to see your public eXtension profile

Note: The link on the county Staff page will display after the database updates overnight.

Spotlight on Technology - Web Conferencing with Seth Nagy

2009-08-21T12:33:00.001-04:00

Seth Nagy, Extension Agent - Agriculture in Caldwell County recently used Elluminate Live! to bring Matt Poore, Extension Specialist, to the county cattlemen's meeting. He shared his experience and what he learned from this with several people and agreed to let me share it here.

I had my first real public test with Elluminate Tuesday at the County Cattlemen's Meeting. Matt gave a great talk to our cattlemen from the comfort of his home (or maybe his office). The technology really worked great. Matt loaded his talk on to the whiteboard. I switched the whiteboard to presentation mode. This made the whiteboard full screen so it looked like a normal power point. Everything seemed great except I could not use the chat window to communicate with Matt. I did not want to leave the presentation mode, because Matt's presentation would have shrunk and typing in the chat window would have been distracting to the participants.

One solution would be to have a second laptop and log into the Elluminate session. This would allow me to chat/communicate with the presenter and still have the audience get the "full" experience. Downside to this solution, two laptops, two Internet connections (hub), etc.

After thinking about the problem, I came up with a second solution to the problem that requires only one computer. Change the video settings, make the second monitor an extended_desktop - rather than a clone (Windows XP Control Panel -> Display -> Advanced). This allows what is shown on the projector (aka second monitor) to be independent of the what is on the laptop screen. Then I started a second Elluminate session that I can keep on my laptop display. This allows me to communicate with the other Elluminate participants without distracting the audience.

On a Mac, to get the extended desktop go to System Preferences -> Displays -> Arrangement and uncheck Mirror Displays.

Some ways web conferencing can be used in Extension:

Bring speakers into a meeting - like Seth did. You can bring anyone into your meeting - all you need are some speakers, a projector and a microphone. Now you can bring speakers in from anywhere in the world! I'm sure Matt Poore appreciated being home immediately after he finished his presentation. And his travel budget appreciated not having another several hundred miles, meals and lodging spent. It also makes it so you can justify having a specialist attend a much smaller meeting. Every agent has their own niche specialty. Now other counties can tap on that expertise from across the state - or country.

Speak at other's meetings - You have expertise in at least one area. You can share that with others without having to travel. The more you share on a topic, the more you learn! There are lots of places in your "Performance Appraisal" that can be improved by becoming known as the expert in a particular area and sharing that knowledge.

Teaching classes - I've been using Elluminate Live to teach more than 100 classes since May of 2007 and have run into very few problems. I can do just about everything in a web conferencing session that I could do in a face-to-face meeting. The NC Master Gardeners have had several classes simultaneously in multiple counties conducted via Elluminate Live! All the locations could benefit by the questions asked from the other locations.

Enhanced conference calls - if all the participants can be at a computer, this is an excellent option - and FREE by using the Voice Over IP (VOIP) built into the web conferencing software. This is better than a conference call because participants can raise their hand, type questions, answers and comments in the chat window, answer questions using the polls, share documents from their computer, write on the whiteboard and much more.

Virtual office - when I'm in my office and 'available', I try to keep my virtual office open. See my home page for the link.

One-on-one conversations - again, no need for long distance phone charges and if the participants have a camera, they can see each other. Great for when you want to share what you see on your computer.

Computer help - this is a great way to help someone having computer problems. You can see their computer screen and even request control of it so you can type and move their mouse.

I think Seth summed it up well when he said "Now that I have used Elluminate, the possibilities are really exciting!"

If you have ideas or suggestions, please post a comment!

Going on vacation? Don't forget your Ask an Expert widget

2009-08-18T14:42:00.001-04:00

What's a reasonable time for responding to questions from the eXtension Ask an Expert widgets?

An "Ask an Expert" task force surveyed people who had used the widget and learned that answers received in 2 days or less were much more likely to play an important role in helping the questioner solve their problem.

The Faculty/Agent focus group stated that 48 hours seems to be a reasonable amount of time to answer a question. In most cases, it only takes a few minutes to answer a question. Less if you search and find the question has been asked and answered before.

See: Ask an Expert Task Force Findings and Decisions for more information.

I'd say the audience expects and deserves the same response time as any other question coming into your office - a day or two at the most. If it takes you more than a couple days to get an answer to a client, they've moved on and probably found another source. But, what's more important, they won't be back. Negative marketing is worse than no marketing and it takes much longer to recover from.

So, what can you do to make sure your audience gets a timely response when you are on vacation or just too busy to respond in a timely manner?

Here are some ideas I have... Please comment with any you might have!

Stop getting questions assigned to you until you return. From http://www.extension.org/aae/prefs/widget_preferences deselect any widgets you are auto-assigned to get.

If you are a AaE Wranger, uncheck the "Be a question Wranger" box at: http://www.extension.org/aae/prefs

If you have a widget on some of your pages, make sure someone else is prepared to answer the questions coming in through that widget. They can get to the questions from the "Incoming" page at: http://www.extension.org/aae/incoming and how to add a filter list from the Widget Preferences page.

Remove the AaE widget from your pages. For NCCE web sites, go to: the Administrative view for your web site and click on "Ask Widget" at the bottom of the left navigation bar. For blogs or other sites, comment out the code for the widget so you can add it back when you return. This can cause other problems if you've marketed the availability of the widget on your site.

What are your thoughts, suggestions or solutions?

Updating your eXtension Ask an Expert Profile

2009-08-13T13:38:00.000-04:00

If your county has added the eXtension "Ask an Expert" widget, then it would be good for all the staff to make sure they've updated both their Area of Expertise and Geographic Regions in their Ask an Expert profile.

By indicating your areas of expertise and your geographic regions, the question wranglers can route questions coming in from your county to the eXtension website to the appropriate person. Otherwise, questions from your local area might be sent to someone who may not the best person to answer them.

I started a factsheet about this at: http://collaborate.extension.org/wiki/Ask_an_Expert_User_Profile

If you have any questions or need help, please contact your area's Information Management Agent.

North Carolina Cooperative Extension has joined the Twitterverse!

2009-07-24T14:54:00.002-04:00

Wikipedia describes Twitter as "a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers."

Most Twitter users are individuals who exchange a mix of personal and work related information with their followers. However, many organizations are also using Twitter as new way to inform and listen to their audiences. North Carolina Cooperative Extension has begun using Twitter in this manner, with the user id, 'NCCE_news.'

We encourage fellow Twitter users to follow NCCE_news. We have added a follow link to the top of our public web site pages to help spread the word about NCCE's new Twitter presence.

If you use Twitter and follow NCCE_news, you may see some of your information being retweeted. We hope you will do the same. This is a powerful way we can use Twitter to expand our informational reach. Whether you use Twitter or not, if you have information you would like NCCE_news to share, please send updates to Dee Shore (dee_shore@ncsu.edu) in Communication Services.

If you would like to learn more about Twitter and why you might want to use it, Extension Information Technology and the Area Information Management Agents have several Elluminate Live! Twitter classes scheduled for extension faculty and staff in August. Visit the Online Training page in the NCCE Intranet for a complete listing of upcoming web-based offerings.

Upcoming Information Management Classes

2009-07-22T11:21:00.000-04:00

The following classes are being taught by IM agents throughout the state via Elluminate:

Give us an hour and we'll teach you something useful.

Please register via LMS.

July 28, 2009 - 2:00p-3:00p
Introduction to Skype - Instructor: John Dorner
-Get started using Skype for free telephone and conference calls as well as video, instant messaging and more.

August 11, 2009 - 2:00p - 3:00p
Introduction to Using Audacity for Recording Audio - Instructor: John Dorner
-Learn how to record an audio file for podcasts, narrated slide shows, radio programs and more using the free software Audacity.

August 19, 2009 - 2:00p - 4:00p
The Basics of Working With Images (Windows) - Instructor: John Dorner
-Learn the basics of working with images. What's the best size for sending via email, putting on a web page or printing? What's a pixel? We'll use some free software to do some basic image manipulation - Irfanview and Google's Picasa

August 26, 2009 - 2:00p-3:00p (offered twice)
What is Twitter and How Can I Use It? - Instructor: Kyleen Burgess
-People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple. Twitter asks one question "What are you doing?" Answers must be under 140 characters in length, making it a quick and easy way to get the word out and to keep people updated.

September 1, 2009 - 2:00p-3:00p
What is Twitter and How Can I Use It? - Instructor: Kyleen Burgess
-People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple. Twitter asks one question "What are you doing?" Answers must be under 140 characters in length, making it a quick and easy way to get the word out and to keep people updated.

September 2, 2009 - 2:00p - 3:00p (offered twice - different instructors)
How or Why Should I Use Facebook for Work? Instructor: John Dorner
-You've heard the hype, but still haven't taken the plunge? Come and learn how Facebook can help you as an Extension professional. Facebook is a social networking site with lots of advantages (and disadvantages) for the professional. Come learn how you can use it to improve communications with your clientele and your colleagues.

September 15, 2009 - 2:00p-3:00p
How or Why Should I Use Facebook for Work? Instructor: Kyleen Burgess
-You've heard the hype, but still haven't taken the plunge? Come and learn how Facebook can help you as an Extension professional. Facebook is a social networking site with lots of advantages (and disadvantages) for the professional. Come learn how you can use it to improve communications with your clientele and your colleagues.

Your IM Agents are working hard to offer a variety of classes to fit the ever changing needs of your programming efforts. Please feel free to contact me if you have suggestions for classes you'd like to see offered.

Thanks and we hope to "see" you soon.

Microsoft Office E-Learning

2009-07-20T08:48:00.002-04:00

As part of the Microsoft Office site license, NCSU faculty and staff are now eligible for FREE E-Learning from Microsoft for the various Office applications. Applications included in this training are Access, Excel, Groove, InfoPath, Office, Office SharePoint Server, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Visio and others.

The E-Learning is geared for both information workers and IT professionals. To get access to this free training, please visit the following Web site: http://www.ncsu.edu/software/agreements/elearning. Currently, the training is only available for Windows versions of the applications. You will also be required to conduct these classes in IE7 or higher.

NCCE News delivered via Twitter

2009-07-16T16:28:00.001-04:00

Who are you following on Twitter?

Now, you can get the latest news about what's going on in North Carolina Cooperative Extension by following ncce_news. If you aren't already using twitter to share your interests or what you are doing with your friends, why not start now. Twitter is a great way to build and maintain those relationships when you don't have time to call or write. Its also a great way to keep up with what's new and exciting in your field. Why not become a leader in your field of expertise by sharing what you know and are learning.

If you're interested in finding other Extension twitterers, look at the eXtension People social networking page at: https://people.extension.org/colleagues/socialnetwork/twitter. If you are twittering go ahead and add your account to your profile page so other Extension professionals can follow you. Another good way to find people you might like to follow is to use Twitter's "Find People" utility - if you use gMail, Yahoo! Mail or AOL.

There are lots of ways to use Twitter to enhance your educational programs. For example, Vince Verbeke, from Penn State , myself and a few other occasional contributors post an IT Tip Of The Day to twitter. In the last year and a half, we've only missed posting a tip on 3 business days.

50 Ideas on using Twitter for education
50 Ideas for using Twitter in business

If you think your audience is not using Twitter, you might be surprised... According to CNN, the fastest growing age segment of growth in Facebook is women over the age of 55. I would guess that the same could be said of Twitter.

The Ohio Farm Bureau created a publication "Discover your social web - An Ohio Farm Bureau Guide to Social Media" which has a good section on using Twitter. It also discusses using Facebook and YouTube. I'd say their audience demographics are very similar to Extension's.

Oh... by the way, you can follow me at: http://twitter.com/jdorner.

E-mail as a public record - When in doubt, keep your e-mail!

2009-07-16T14:12:00.002-04:00

From OIT News
Monthly news briefs, information and announcements
Office of Information Technology, NC State University
Issue 21, July 2009

The University E-mail Retention Regulation is currently under review, and the university is investigating technology solutions to meet its legal obligations to preserve e-mail. In the meantime, the Office of Information Technology would like to remind faculty and staff of the current e-mail retention policy.

Faculty and staff have the responsibility to preserve all e-mail and other electronically transmitted documents of a non-transient nature that is related to the public business of the university. This information is public record and belongs to the people of North Carolina.

Employees should conduct work-related business through university e-mail systems. This practice makes complying with records requests much easier and can help prevent your personal e-mail accounts from also being subjected to discovery or subpoena for university business e-mails.

OIT recommends that you do not use university e-mail accounts for personal purposes, although the university generally allows personal use of its e-mail systems for non-commercial, incidental use. As a state employee, your university e-mail account is not considered private because of business and legal demands of the university. E-mail in that account is subject to business information needs, legal discovery and public records requests, and as such, the university can access that e-mail. The university can also review, delete or retain the information in your e-mail account for work purposes after you leave the university.

In most cases, when you leave the university, you will lose access to your university e-mail account and any personal e-mail it may contain. This means you must create another account elsewhere and communicate that change to all your personal e-mail contacts that had been using your university e-mail address. Google, Hotmail and Yahoo offer free e-mail services with basically unlimited storage. You can satisfy your personal e-mail needs with any of these good alternatives on a long-term basis.

For more information about e-mail retention, visit the University E-mail Retention Regulation Web page.

Beware a newer, slicker phishing attack on NCSU email users

2009-07-13T10:59:00.002-04:00

NCSU email users were the target of a new slicker phishing attack on Thursday night, July 9th. The phishing emails went to about 800 users. Do not click on the link in this copy of the phishing email, which is being provided for educational purposes only.

This attack was different from others that OIT has been receiving. The emails arrived with subject of "Mandatory Security Update: July 2009."

The phishing emails were marked by PureMessage as spam. They didn't have a reply-to address. Instead, the message said to click on the link in the message to login and make sure your account was up-to-date.

The email was in html and appeared to be from: it_dept@ncsu.edu. The email was in HTML format and had a link to a copy of the webmail login screen. This phishing site was a very good copy of https://webmail.ncsu.edu. The clues that it was a fake were:

The URL of the link the reader was supposed to click on ( http://ncsu.edu.ec-uk.org/ ) to verify their account information didn't use https
The domain of that URL didn't end in ncsu.edu

In response to phishing sites that are copies of NCSU web pages, OIT will add a DNS block on the URL after it has been discovered. This will cause those on campus using the OIT DNS servers to get directed to a warning webpage if they browse to the phishing site.

We will also report the forgery to major search engines and antivirus companies so they can update the web reputation of the URL. Those using Officescan's web reputation service or the one available with the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox would then get a warning if they visited the phishing site. This is to warn users that are off-campus.

Take a look at the website above describing this incident. Feel free to use it to educate others on avoiding these phishing sites.

To see the original post go to: http://oit.ncsu.edu/news-releases/beware-newer-slicker-phishing-attack-ncsu-email-users

Are you active in your community?

2009-06-30T13:54:00.000-04:00

To be an effective Extension Agent you have to be active in your community. There are many different types of communities. But basically, they boil down to sharing a common location, a common interest or both. With all the social networking tools available today, it is much easier for communities to be created and maintained around a common interest. These tools can also be used to keep people who live and work near each other better connected as well.

One tool I have come across recently that I think has some use in extension programming is Ning.com. Ning has a lot of features similar to Facebook groups, like individual member pages, event calendars, photo and video sharing and discussions. But, it has some features that make it better suited to extension educational programs like forums, blogs and subgroups. If your audience (or you) is new to social media, this would be a great way to get started. It provides a safe place to learn and share without many distractions. It keeps the discussion focused on the topic.

How do I see agents using Ning in their programs? One example would be to continue the learning and teaching away from the face-to-face meeting. When I was a livestock agent I taught a several week long "Beef Cattle 101" course. We met for a couple hours once a week. But, from the end of one class to the beginning of the next class, most of the participants had no communications with the others. Using a tool like Ning would have given us all the ability to continue the discussion and expand it into other areas. The participants could ask questions, answer each other's questions and start to develop a community that would continue past the end of the class.

I could see this being useful for commodity or professional associations, parenting classes, 4-H clubs, master gardeners (if you aren't using the ncsugarden.com site), young farmers clubs, local community clubs, and lots more.

It is real easy to learn and setup. If you need any help, please call on me.

Some good examples of how Ning groups are being used and to let you see the potential are:
NCSU Web Developers
NCSU College of Education
Agricultural Communication
Firefighter Nation
JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Services)

Or search Ning.com by clicking on "Find Social Networks" for keywords of groups you'd be interested in. There are lots of currently existing and active Ning groups.

If you are interested in a brief overview of Ning and creating a Ning group, I'll be presenting a "30 minute session" on July 29 at 2:00 ET at: http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/learn. Sponsored by eXtension - see the Schedule of Professional Development Opportunities for more information.

Time is running out on Symantec at NCSU!

2009-06-05T13:24:00.001-04:00

For the last several months, you've been hearing about the change in the antivirus software that NCSU supports.

The NCSU Office of Information Technology (OIT) will be ending support for Symantec antivirus products on June 22. All NCSU-provided Symantec antivirus products should be uninstalled by that date.

Now is the time to update your remaining computers to Trend Micro OfficeScan for Windows, or Intego VirusBarrier for Mac OS X. After June 22, workstations will increasingly be at risk for virus infection, since their antivirus definitions will cease updating.

Because NCSU's license for Symantec products will expire prior to the end of the fiscal year, OIT will take the campus Symantec parent servers offline on June 22. Existing Symantec clients will begin complaining about virus definitions being out of date 30 days after the last time an antivirus client checks in with the parent server.

We encourage remaining NCSU Symantec users to upgrade to NCSU's new antivirus products: Trend Micro OfficeScan 8 for Windows, and Intego VirusBarrier X5 for Mac OS X.

Client downloads and further details are available on the NCSU Antivirus Resources website: http://www.ncsu.edu/antivirus

ACE/NETC presentations

2009-06-05T11:36:00.003-04:00

By: John Dorner

I'll be attending the ACE/NETC in Iowa this week. Good news! If you won't be able to attend, you can at least catch the keynote speakers and some of the sessions. They will be recorded, so you you can watch them whenever you want.

The broadcast schedule is at:
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/acenetc2009/sessions/broadcast.htm

One of the sessions I'll be co-presenting will be broadcast on Sunday at 1:30 PM - Creating Educational Podcast on a Shoestring Budget. I'm co-presenting this one with my good friend Pete Flores, Texas AgriLIFE Extension. We met at the 1998 NETC and have learned a lot from each other since then.

I'm really looking forward to visiting with a bunch of my colleagues from across the country. I communicate with many of them throughout the year, but this is the one time I get to visit with them face-to-face. This conference gives me lots of ideas and revitalizes me for another year. It's a highlight of my year.

News release for "Ask an Expert" widget

2009-06-02T15:08:00.002-04:00

Have you added the "Ask an Expert" widget to your county website? If so, you might want to use this news release template written by Adrian Gaskins, Extension Agent - Information Management to let your target audience know about this new feature.

This just gives your audience another way to contact you. The nice thing about them asking questions via this widget is that you can answer it in much less time than a phone call or face-to-face visit. For the client, the advantage is they can ask their question at any time of the day or night.

If you have any questions or don't have this widget on your county website yet, contact your Information Management Agent and schedule a date to get everyone in your office ready to take and answer questions.

Using Facebook in Extension

2009-06-02T14:36:00.000-04:00

By: John Dorner and Kyleen Burgess

Thanks to Rachel Monteverdi and Erin Bain, Warren County now has a Facebook page to market their programs.

Sign-up and be a Fan!

If your county or extension program has a Facebook page, add it to the comments of this article.

Last week, I wrote about Catawba County going social on my personal blog.

There are lots of other examples.

Polk County 4-H Club Group - where Helen Clark and several of the Polk County 4-H'ers communicate and promote 4-H activities.

West District 4-H - a great tool (currently underutilized) for communicating with 4-H'ers!

Eat Smart Move More North Carolina (cause page) - this is a cause page on Facebook, basically this site creates supporters for your cause and gives them a chance to make donations.

Eat Smart Move More North Carolina (fan page) - this page lets you know the current happenings for the Eat Smart Move More curriculum. It is newly developed and is in the process of being editied. It has good information and tells readers when new curriculum pieces will become available.

National Association of County Agriculture Agents - For NACAA discussions and announcements. Also, some of the kids that have attended the national annual meetings over the years started their own group - NACAA Sons & Daughters. I really liked the description of their group, " We see/saw each other for one week in the summer almost every year."

Cooperative Extension - a general group for Cooperative Extension - learn about classes and have discussions on topics like "What is research". Or just finding other people in Extension that are using Facebook.

Cooperative Extension Bloggers - not much activity on this one recently, but it could be a great resource and a way to reach other Extension bloggers. This are some good examples of program blogs ran by various folks around the state:

The Eastern 4-H Center "School Groups and Summer Happenings" Blog - a general day to day look into the life of program director at the Eastern 4-H Center, Chase Luker, in Columbia, NC. Chase talks about his life back home in Alabama, daily life living at the 4-H center and of course as the blog title suggests he fills you in on the School Groups and Summer Happenings at Bulls Bay.

Wake County 4-H CloverBlog - the Wake County 4-H program discusses various events and information to bring their blog readers up to date on program happenings. If you check the blog roll of to the right side of her page you can find Wake County 4-H club pages that are on-line as well as numerous other 4-H program blogs through out North Carolina.

Cooperative Extension Second Life - to discuss and learn more about using Second Life in Extension. Find out what eXtension is doing and participate in Second Life activities.

Extension Online IT Training - for finding online IT training for Extension professionals across the country. I've promoted several of my classes here as well as seem some classes offered from Texas on using MS Access and one that I will be attending is on using LinkedIn in Extension later this week from Wyoming.

Kyleen Burgess, Information Management Agent for the Northeast, talked about using Facebook in Extension at the NCCE Virtual IT Conference. If you missed it, you can hear what she had to say in the recording of her presentation.

Facebook can be used in a variety of ways to advertise your programs, display pictures, post notes or articles about your work, or even collect donations for your program. Facebook supports non-profit groups with this article that assist groups in setting up pages like the Warren County Cooperative Extension Group. When people visit your page on Facebook they have an option of becoming a fan your organization/group. Once someone becomes a fan the Facebook system advertises that to all the friends of that person, thus giving your group free advertising.

As always when working with your programs and by bringing them on-line it is important to teach Internet safety to your clientele and your staff members involved in editing these sites. Remember for every person in a photo you MUST have a photo release signed and in your possession. In NC Cooperative Extension it is a routine practice to receive photo releases from youth, however we must encourage you to receive photo releases on all clientele.

To learn more sign up today for a Facebook account today and become friends with John or Kyleen. We'll be happy to show you around.

Vacation Messages

2009-05-29T11:27:00.002-04:00

If you are leaving your email for an extended length of time, you might want to make use of the Vacation feature for your NCSU email.

The solution at: http://help.ncsu.edu/solutions/all/3101.php gives step by step instructions for how to turn it on.

This will make it so that when someone sends a message to you, they will get a response back telling them that you are on vacation (or whatever else you want to tell them). Some messages you might not want to use can be found at: "Some of the Best 'Out of Office' Automatic email Replies"

Other mail servers offer the same feature. In gMail, it is found by clicking on under the "General" tab.