Newsletter March 2009 Information Services

Information Services
Newsletter
March 2009
Special Collections acquisition
IT training courses
Surveys of staff and student opinion
Managing your email
Statistical software: SPSS and Amos
Thirty-five years: March
University of St Andrews: IT Services + Business Improvements + Library
Special Collections acquisition
The University of St Andrews Library has recently accepted the generous donation of the
extensive photographic archive of Hamish Macmillan Brown (b.1934). This substantial gift
follows an earlier donation of his black and white photographic prints, which were transferred
in to our care ten years ago. As a result, our collection is now privileged with the stewardship
of Hamish Brown’s entire photographic oeuvre.
Perhaps most widely known as a climber and travel writer and as an enthusiastic exponent of
outdoor education, Hamish Brown is also an accomplished poet, lecturer and photographer
with wide-ranging interests. This recent gift, comprising 75,000 colour photographs, complements our existing holdings of his earlier black-and-white material and reflects his interest
in the natural world. Notably, the collection boasts dramatic and inspiring images of several
of the world’s mountainous regions, including Scotland, the Andes, the Atlas and Anti-Atlas
ranges of Morocco, the Himalayas, Switzerland and Slovakian Tatras.
As an addition to our existing photographic collection, this vast resource of original photographs augments our holdings by providing intimate, artistic, and topographic views
documenting the changing physical and cultural landscape of Scotland, Morocco, and various
other mountainous regions of the world.
In 1997 Hamish Brown received a DLitt from the University of St Andrews in recognition of
his literary works. Other notable honours include the Fellowship of the Scottish Royal Geographic Society, and in 2001 Dr Brown was awarded an MBE for his services in encouraging
an appreciation of the outdoors by young people. For more information on Hamish Brown
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_Brown
Beinn Alligin from Liathach (Ross & Cromarty) ca.1980 (HMB-438)
Courtesy of University of St Andrews Library
March 2009
IT training courses
We are re-developing our IT training courses this semester and are increasingly using new
training materials from Watsonia. The following courses will be run over the Easter break:
• Introduction to Dreamweaver
Monday 6 April 2009: 2pm – 5pm: Butts Wynd PC classroom
• Microsoft Office 2003
Tuesday 7 April 2009: 10am – 4pm: Swallowgate IT training room
• Databases with Access
Wednesday 8 April 2009: 10am – 4pm: Swallowgate IT training room
• Introduction to cascading style sheets
Friday 10 April 2009: 2pm – 5pm: Butts Wynd PC classroom
Further details of these courses are available from the Training section of the Computer and
IT Support web site. To book a place on any of these sessions, please contact the IT Helpdesk
(email: helpdesk, telephone 3333).
Surveys of staff and student opinion
In late 2008 and early 2009, IT Services
conducted separate surveys of staff and
student opinion. These were online surveys
similar to paper-based surveys that had been
carried out in 2002 and 2005. A total of 315
responses were completed and returned by
staff (cf 290 in 2005) and 791 returned by
students (cf 422 in 2005).
There was one element of the staff survey
that was largely copied from similar
surveys carried out in 2002 and 2005. This
was contained in the second part of the
questionnaire that asked users to score, using
a scale of 1 (low) to 7 (high), the importance
and quality of a range of services and systems
we operate.
Overall results for the current and earlier
surveys are reproduced here; please note that
there were too few responses for category
35 (wireless provision) to present a result in
the ‘quality’ diagram in 2005. A complete
comparison cannot be made with the earlier
surveys since we’ve added some new
categories and removed others. The 2002
and 2005 survey results may be found in
Newsletter articles in April and May 2002 and
in November 2005 and January 2006.
There were six areas where the gap between
importance of a service and the quality of
service was greater than 1 and these will be
amongst the areas that we will be focusing
on. In just two of these were they deemed to
have worsened since 2005 and with respect to
one of these, email, whilst a quality score of
5.5 is not terrible, we have started a review of
the service as planned in the University’s ICT
Strategy 2008–2011.
We thank everyone who took the trouble to
complete these surveys. We should not place
too much emphasis on survey data that can
only scratch the surface of many areas; but the
results and all comments will be thoroughly
considered when drawing up our future
plans. An analysis of both surveys is being
carried out and results will be published in
due course.
‡
March 2009
March 2009
Fast data network infrastructure
Reliable data network infrastructure
Telephone service
Dial-in access
Videoconference facilities
Electronic mail
Web services
Secure networked file store
Maintenance and support of computers in staff offices
Support for students’ own networked computers
Provision of computers and software for research
Number of computers provided for teaching and learning
Reliability of computers provided for teaching and learning
Range of software support of teaching and learning
Number of computers provided on 24-hour access
Reliability of computers provided on 24-hour access
Availability of printers for use
Reliability of printers
Web access to the Data Warehouse
Non-web access to the Data Warehouse
General availability of administrative information through the network
Software provided for administrative and accounting purposes
Help and support for users of administrative systems
Printed documentation
On-line documentation
Prompt response to IT queries and problems
Accurate and helpful response to IT queries and problems
Responsiveness to the IT needs of your School/Unit
Advance advice on likely future developments in IT
Sale of computer consumables
Sale of computer software
Sale of computer hardware
IT training for staff
IT training for students
Wireless provision
AV provision
PC Clinic
VPN service
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
6.3
6.7
6.1
5.0
3.5
6.8
6.4
5.8
6.2
5.4
5.9
6.0
6.3
5.7
5.5
5.9
6.1
6.4
5.5
4.4
5.7
5.3
5.6
4.6
5.6
6.5
6.6
6.4
5.2
5.2
4.7
4.5
5.7
5.6
-
6.6
6.8
6.6
4.9
4.1
6.9
6.6
5.9
6.4
5.3
5.8
6.1
6.5
6.1
5.3
6.4
6.1
6.3
5.8
5.7
6.0
4.3
5.9
6.6
6.7
6.4
5.6
4.7
5.1
4.5
6.0
5.8
5.1
-
6.4
6.6
5.8
3.8
4.7
6.7
6.4
6.2
6.2
5.2
5.9
5.9
6.2
5.8
5.1
5.6
5.7
6.0
6.0
5.7
6.1
4.2
6.3
6.5
6.5
6.3
5.7
5.2
5.2
5.0
5.5
5.4
5.6
5.6
5.1
5.4
5.1
4.9
5.5
4.9
4.4
5.5
5.4
4.9
4.8
4.2
4.6
4.6
4.4
4.7
4.8
4.7
4.2
4.4
4.9
4.1
4.8
4.4
4.6
5.1
5.0
4.9
5.1
4.9
4.7
5.4
4.6
4.6
4.9
4.2
-
5.8
5.7
6.0
4.7
4.4
5.9
6.1
5.0
4.8
4.7
4.7
4.9
5.0
5.1
5.1
5.3
5.1
4.9
4.6
4.9
4.9
5.2
5.9
5.7
5.1
4.4
5.3
5.0
4.8
5.0
4.8
3.8
-
5.8
5.8
5.8
4.6
4.7
5.5
5.6
5.2
5.2
5.0
5.0
5.1
5.1
4.9
5.0
5.0
4.9
4.9
5.0
4.8
5.1
4.8
5.2
5.4
5.4
5.1
4.7
5.2
5.0
4.8
4.8
4.8
4.9
4.9
5.0
5.2
Importance
Quality
2002 2005 2008 2002 2005 2008
March 2009
Managing your email
Recent performance issues with the University’s email servers have highlighted a problem
which all of us need to be aware of. A small number of users are failing to manage their email
properly, but this impinges upon all of us because their large email inboxes cause the servers
to slow down considerably when processing and delivering email for all of us.
After being checked and processed by the University’s email systems, new messages for a user
are delivered to their inbox on one of the University’s mail stores (servers which deal with
delivering email). All of the emails in a user’s inbox on their mail store are contained within
a single file. The larger the inbox file, the longer it takes for the server to process tasks on that
inbox. If the user’s inbox is very large these processes take, in computer terms, a considerable
amount of time. Multiply this extra server activity by a hundred active users and the problem
becomes acute:
• Every time the email client on a user’s computer makes a request to their mail store to
check for new email the server must parse the entire contents of the inbox file before
delivering it to the user.
• When a new email message is received by the email system the recipient’s inbox file
must be rewritten to accommodate the new message.
• When a message is deleted from a user’s inbox the entire file must be rewritten to remove the deleted message.
At the end of February IT Services Systems staff identified a small but significant number of
users with mail store inboxes larger than 350MB. These users were informed and asked to
rectify the situation within twenty-four hours. Many people heeded this request but those
who didn’t had their inboxes moved into their home directories by IT Services staff. A couple
of accounts had inboxes in excess of 1GB, the largest being a record-breaking 1.6GB consisting
of 110,000 unread emails (99% spam) and just 2 read messages.
Supported clients and protocols for managing email
New email messages arrive in a user’s inbox on their mail store. Thereafter, what they do with
these messages is dependent on which method they use to check and store their email. The
University supports a number of email client programs and protocols. WebMail is provided
as a web-based email client available on any computer with an active Internet connection
and a web browser. Mozilla Thunderbird is the email program of choice for users connecting
to the University’s email system via our data network, or by Virtual Private Network (VPN)
connection over the Internet.
The two supported email protocols are Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) and Internet
Message Access Protocol version 4 (IMAP4). Older email clients, such Qualcomm’s Eudora,
only work properly using POP3. However, email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird and the
Macintosh Mail program can use either protocol to handle email. WebMail is an IMAP4-only
system.
POP3
and IMAP4 work in different ways. POP3, the older protocol, makes copies of the emails
in the user’s server inbox, saving them within a local inbox on the user’s computer. By default,
March 2009
the original email is then deleted from the mail store, although the email client can be configured to instruct the mail store to retain the messages indefinitely, or for a set period of time.
In contrast, IMAP4 leaves messages on the mail store, but allows the email client to connect
directly to the mail store in order to access the messages stored there. The University’s WebMail system is an example of an IMAP-based service, which allows you to access your email
from any computer connected to the Internet.
If you use POP3, when you are using your main computer you will always have access to your
saved emails because they are stored locally. You only need to connect to the University network to download new messages from your mail store inbox. However, if you do not have
access to your main computer, your saved emails will be inaccessible.
If you use IMAP4, you must be connected to the University network to access your server-side
mailboxes, either directly via the University network, or by using a VPN connection via the
Internet. You can also use WebMail from any computer connected to the Internet.
Using email folders
As well as having a personal inbox on a mail store, each user also has personal disk space on
another server, sometimes called their “home” server. Within each user’s personal disk space
there is an email directory where a user can create any number of email folders to store read
messages. It is important to be aware that these mail folders can exist, as knowing the location
of your email messages is important.
Email folders, also known as mailboxes, can be located locally or within a user’s personal disk
space on one of the home servers. These mailboxes can have names like ‘pending’, ‘sent-mail’,
‘deleted-items’, etc. Confusingly, client-side mailboxes can have the same names as their
server-side counterparts. With a few exceptions, the majority of users’ home directories now
reside within the Central File Store (CFS).
POP3
users access incoming messages from their client-side inbox. These can then be moved
to other local email folders. IMAP4 users access their incoming messages via their server-side
inbox. Read messages can be moved to other server-side email folders located within their
personal disk space, or to client-side email folders on their own computer.
‡
March 2009
When you move a message from your server-side inbox to another server-side email folder
you are moving it off the mail store into your home directory on another server. When you
move an email from your server-side inbox to a client-side email folder you are moving the
message off the mail store into an email folder on your own office or personal computer.
Ways to ensure that your email is managed properly
• Move emails out of your inbox on the mail store as soon as possible after arrival.
Create email folders to store important emails, either locally or in your home
directory.
• Delete unimportant or spurious emails after you have viewed them, or immediately
if they are obviously rubbish.
• When using an IMAP4 email client, deleting a message from your inbox only marks
it for deletion – it is not actually deleted. To do this you must expunge the contents.
To ensure that marked deleted messages are removed you must have your local
email client set to “Clean up (‘Expunge’) Inbox on Exit” when you close your local
email client.
• Consider setting up a spam filter to remove emails marked as {Spam?} before they
arrive in your inbox.
• When using IMAP4, set up filters in your local email client to move emails
automatically from the server-side inbox into other mailboxes.
• If you are using POP3 ensure that your email client is set to delete mail from the
server after a reasonable period and that messages are deleted from the server-side
inbox when deleted from the client-side inbox or trash folder.
• Do not check for new mail using more than one email client at the same time. POP3
creates a temporary ‘lock’ file when checking for mail and IMAP4 does something
similar. If another request to check for new mail is issued by an email client before
the previous one has been completed, the system will encounter the still-locked inbox
and the process will fail.
• Set your email client to check for new mail less frequently. Because of the way that
our email systems work, checking for new mail every minute is more likely to slow
down the reception of email rather than speed it up, and the problem of temporary
lock files (as above) is likely to occur. Configure your email client to check for new
mail no more frequently than every ten minutes.
Why inboxes on the mail stores can get large
There are a number of reasons why a user’s inbox on the mail store can get too large. Reasons
range from not understanding how the email systems work, to inefficient working practices
or simple lack of interest. There are also many cases of ‘abandoned’ accounts, where an individual or group no longer requires a specific account but hasn’t informed IT Services, so that
we are unaware that the account can be deleted.
Some people who use POP3 to access their University email account set their email client to
leave a copy of the original email on the server. This allows them to use an IMAP-based client
such as WebMail, or another POP3 email client, to check their email when they are not in their
office. However, if the local email clients have not been set up properly, this can lead to the
inbox on the mail store getting very large.
March 2009
If you access your email from more than one location it is important to set up one of the
computers as the “master” device. This machine should be set to manage your account,
deleting server-side inbox emails at set intervals or when deleted from the client-side inbox.
Some users assume that when they delete an email from a local inbox, wherever it is located,
it’s gone and forgotten. However, if the email client’s settings have not been set correctly the
original emails will not be deleted, and will accumulate in the server-side inbox.
Some users feel that they cannot perform their jobs properly unless they have access to every
email received in the last n months (or years) in the same place. This argument is not tenable
because, regardless of whether you use IMAP4 or POP3 as your email protocol, it is a simple
matter to create another email folder to store important read messages. These messages are
accessible with one extra click of a mouse.
A small number of users argue that they do not have the time to manage their email inbox.
The assumption is that storage space is infinite, and that having ten thousand emails in an
inbox won’t be a problem for them or anyone else. Ninety percent of the emails in the inbox
have been marked as {Spam?}, almost all are unread and unwanted, but none get deleted.
If you don’t want to read your spam, IT Services has provided a web page where you can set
up a filter to remove these messages before they reach your inbox.
One compelling reason to keep your inbox small is to minimise the effects of a virus-infected
email getting past our MailScanner systems into your local inbox. When F-Secure discovers
what it thinks is a virus it may offer to delete or quarantine the infected file. As far as FSecure is concerned your inbox is a single file. If you have set F-Secure to delete infected files
automatically the entire contents of your inbox will be deleted. If your inbox contains many
months of incoming messages, this will be a major disaster!
Some spam email figures to ponder
Dealing with spam messages is a major issue for our email systems. The following figures
relate to the week beginning 7 March 2009 and reflect external incoming emails only. They
do not take into account the flow of internal emails.
During the period mentioned above the University’s email systems processed 4.8 million
emails from external sources. Of these, 3.6 million messages, which were sent from blacklisted
organisations and other dubious sources, were immediately rejected by our systems. This
represents 78% of all external incoming email. The remaining 990,000 messages were accepted
for delivery, although we marked 732,000 of these as possible spam.
Conclusion
Dealing with email can be simple if you try to understand how the email systems work and
you take a little time to ensure that you use the service responsibly. Inaction or apathy doesn’t
just affect an individual; it can have consequences for all of us.
If you have any questions about your own email set-up, or need assistance with reconfiguring
or updating your email client, please contact the IT Helpdesk (email helpdesk).
March 2009
10
Statistical software: SPSS and Amos
SPSS
To help our users to move data from older
versions of SPSS to more current versions of
the software, we no longer charge for the
latest version of SPSS. SPSS 17.0 is now freely
available for download to University of St
Andrews staff and students.
We would remind users of our intention to
withdraw all but the latest version of SPSS as
of the beginning of the Academic Year 2009–
2010. (Please see the December 2008 issue of
the Newsletter for further details.)
Amos
In response to various requests from users we
have taken out a new site licence for Amos.
Amos is provided by SPSS and is structural
equation modelling software. Further details
are available on the SPSS web site at: http://
www.spss.com/AMOS.
As with SPSS, Amos can be downloaded from
the software section of the Computer and IT
Support web site.
Software downloads
Software provided via the Computer and IT
Support web site can only be downloaded
from the University of St Andrews network.
Where licensing conditions permit the installation of software on privately owned
computers, access to these downloads from
outwith the University network requires a
VPN connection. Please see the section on
‘Networks and systems’ on the Computer
and IT Support web site for details on how
to set up a VPN connection.
Thirty-five years: March
The Newsletter for March 1974 started with a
surprise for the users, detailing the outcome
of correspondence with the Computer Board
for Universities and Research Councils (the
current government funding source): we had
been asked by them if we were ‘interested’
in the acquisition of a second IBM 360/44
(second-hand from Cambridge University).
Although the Computer Committee and then
the Planning Committee had agreed to accept
this offer, it was then withdrawn because of
a reduction in the Computer Board budget
and an increase in the asking price. We
reverted to our plans to replace our 360/44
during 1977/78 (although that didn’t actually
happen until 1980). Other items from that
issue included announcement of a Remote
Job Entry terminal (based on an Interdata
70 computer) for offloading some of our
March 2009
increasing work-load to regional computer
centres such as Edinburgh.
Alternative graphical output was featured in
1986, when the March Newsletter announced
an add-on direct (film) camera system for
the Tektronix 4107 terminal, a better-quality
solution than the attached colour plotter.
By March 1987, we were “investigating
software for using the Apple LaserWriter,
attached to the Macintosh computer… as an
output device for a number of applications
running on the VAX systems”. Some idea of
the popularity of the new (and expensive)
LaserWriter may be gauged from the “new
booking arrangements” announced in the
same issue, and (in March 1988) the fitting of
a Copytex card system (similar to those used
for pre-paid photocopying). A new colour
11
printer (HP DeskJet 55C, in the John Honey
building), colour scanner ( HP IIC , in the
Gatty) and colour slide scanner (Microtek, in
the Bute Medical building) were all featured
in March 1993.
In March 1975, the idea of a Users’ Forum was
raised, initially as an informal method for
collecting user opinions: this was implemented
as a system of User Representatives, whose
meetings were reported in several March
Newsletters over subsequent years. March 1976
saw the second edition of the ‘Compendium
of Error Messages for RAX and MFT’ (the two
most generally used systems timetabled on
the 360/44): it was printed on A5 sheets, in
different colour-coded sections, to be sold at
75p. Alas, experience proved that users were
not all that keen to have such a hefty but
comprehensive collection, and the enormous
effort we expended in typing, collating and
binding by hand was very largely wasted. By
1994, some kinds of information were on-line:
we had a ‘message of the day’ (MOTD) system
at login on the Sun systems, but an article was
needed in March to explain the categories of
message that were allowable, as users had
been requesting all sorts of non-computer
service announcements for inclusion.
More significant on-line services were
announced in March 1995: the new NISS
(National Information Services and Systems)
Information Gateway, which was now using
web technology. However, BT’s Electronic
Yellow Pages service via NISS was withdrawn
at short notice, as it was to be no longer free
of charge.
The Newsletter for March 1980 reported on
the fact that computer users were freely
giving their sign-on codes and passwords to
friends “to try out the system” – some were
even “using other people’s resources with
or without the knowledge of the owners”.
Users were recommended to change their
passwords at frequent intervals.
A local oddity was aired in March 1977: the
paper output from the 360/44 line-printer
was the customary fan-folded continuous
stationery – but of non-standard size, 8
inches deep instead of the usual 11 inches.
This had been deliberately chosen so that
hefty wads of listings would sit handily on
our bookshelves; but it meant (amongst other
things) that users needed to take account
of the ‘non-standard’ number of lines to
be printed between consecutive folds on a
page, especially if they sent jobs to computer
systems elsewhere.
By March 1981, the replacement VAX systems
had been installed for several months, and
use of the old punched cards for submitting
jobs had dwindled almost to zero: as space
was needed for more terminals, the facility
was to be reduced to one card-punch and
a verifier, and the cabinets of stored cards
were to be removed (to users’ departments
as appropriate). In contrast, the same issue
made early mention of a ‘Cambridge Ring’
development for networking terminals,
peripherals and computers, so that “any
device may ‘talk’ to any other”. A long
and detailed article on ‘User Disk Files’
appeared in March 1985: this went through
all the various file types on the VAX systems
(indicated, as is now common, by filename
extensions) showing how much space they
used, and (optimistically) how soon they
might be deleted to make more space on our
two central disk drives – a mere 512MB each
drive.
The subject of privacy arose in March 1989,
with an article on the VAX/VMS ‘name’ facility
that allowed users to discover other loggedon users’ real names via their usernames
(as shown by current ‘process’ names).
This facility was now withdrawn, but we
preserved the converse facility, for finding
people’s usernames (for sending email).
March 1990 saw notification of the replacement
of the VAX systems with the Sun systems,
with an explanation of how user files would
be transferred across. In March 1991 was
announced withdrawal of the last VAX system
‡
March 2009
12
(SAVA) – and with it the ability to read 800bpi magnetic tapes. Another new development
then was the arrival of high-density (HD, 800KB) 3 ½” floppy disks, already being fitted to
Macintosh computers: this was the final standard format of such disks, indicated by the small
square hole opposite the write-protect tab. Coincidentally, there was also an article on use
of high-density 5 ¼” (1.2MB) disks on some PCs (but not in our classrooms). On the topic of
classrooms, March 1992 saw the move of what is now the Butts Wynd classroom from its
original location at the front of the Old Union building: we even had CD-writing facilities by
March 2005 and double-sided printing in March 2007. And if you wanted to run PC programs
on a Mac, then Virtual PC was recommended in March 2002.
Problems with dial-up modems were the subject of a short note in March 1990: the (single –line)
facility allowed connection speeds from 300 baud (V21) all the way up to 2400 baud (V22bis).
A different communications issue was briefly reported in March 1999: the transatlantic JANET
link had been broken somewhere between Iceland and the Faeroes – probably by a trawler.
And finally, in an earlier historical survey, the Newsletter for March 2005 featured a photograph
of an aid to computer air-conditioning, circa 1970 – ‘the poisoned fountain’…
This monthly Newsletter is also available on-line (with search facility) via the ‘Computer and IT Support’
web pages, and is edited by Peter Adamson (telephone 2762, email pga).
The deadline for contributions for the April 2009 issue is Monday 13 April.
Circulation list updates to IT Services Secretary at Butts Wynd (2770, [email protected])
Main addresses: IT Services + BI: St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL telephone: 01334 462770 fax: 462759
Library: St Andrews, Fife KY16 9TR telephone: 01334 462283 fax: 462282
The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland : No SC013532
March 2009