Rockhurst is taking a giant leap to reduce its environmental impact through earth-friendly computer labs. This fall, Rockhurst students will sit down in front of workstations that use 90 percent less energy than traditional PCs. This new Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, which uses thin client technology, is a valuable IT management solution and will provide significant cost savings for the university.

Computer Services is limiting the implementation to the labs, so faculty and staff computers will not be affected. Students should notice faster workstations in the same Windows experience in which they’re familiar.

Faculty and staff are invited to learn more at an open house 2 p.m., Wednesday, July 23, in Conway 402. Attendees will have the opportunity to try out the equipment and see a side-by-side comparison between a new thin client and a traditional workstation. For more information, see details about the technology and a news story.

I’d like to recognize the members of the university’s network team, Michael Stanclift, Michael Craig and Michael Marshall, for their dedication to finding innovative solutions to our campus computing challenges and their hard work on this project in particular.

This month the following applications will be automatically updated on Rockhurst computers.

• Mozilla Firefox 3.0
• Paint.NET 3.35

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 adds many new features but retains a similar user interface. It should be faster then previous versions of Firefox as well.

Our faculty/staff mail server is currently having issues, we are working as diligently as possible to correct them.

Updated: This server should be fully operational at this time.

We are aware of issues related to Outlook Web Access, email.rockhurst.edu, and are working to correct them at this time.

Updated: OWA should be back up at this time.

Starting summer 2008, RUCS will begin a project of moving the guts of the university's lab computing infrastructure off of the desktop and into the datacenter. What we call Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) will replace most of the existing Dell workstations (also known as "thick clients"), in our computer labs and computerized classrooms, with flexible and energy saving Wyse thin clients.

We already make extensive use of virtualization for our server infrastructure and doing so has led to more reliable network services for the campus. Expanding this technology to the desktop is the next logical step for us.

But with any new technology that we adopt at Rockhurst, the big question is...

WebCT is currently offline. We are working as diligently as possible to restore service and will update the campus as soon as it is available.

Update: As of 5PM, WebCT is fully operational again. Our WebCT Administrators believe they have solved the issues resulting from a corrupted database entry. We apologize for any inconvenience or disruption to classes caused by this downtime. If you have any further issues with WebCT please contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@rockhurst.edu or at (816) 501-4357.

Equipment failure in the THV residence network has caused downtime for the network in that area of campus. We are working to correct the issue but do not expect replacement parts to be available until at least Tuesday, June 3. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update: This issue has been resolved as of Thursday, June 5.

Physical Plant will again be shutting down all electricity to Sedgwick Hall for Friday, May 30th. This building only will be completely without power for one whole day. We will be using this time to connect the building with permanent power and remove the generator from service. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact the Physical Plant office at physicalplant@rockhurst.edu or
816-501-4566.

Computer Services will be performing network maintenance tomorrow morning from 5 am to 6 am. During this time all networking services such as www.rockhurst.edu, email, WebCT, Oracleweb, user shares, printing, Cisco Clean Access, and the internet connection will be unavailable. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the Computer Services Help Desk at x4357 or via email at helpdesk@rockhurst.edu.

This is a reminder that all use of the Rockhurst network is subject to the terms and conditions of the Rockhurst University Computer Usage Policy.

This is also a reminder that copyright infringement is in clear violation of the Rockhurst University Computer Usage Policy. Specifically, the Rockhurst computer network can only be used for legal purposes and may NOT be used in the "Violation of … any copyright or trademark law, including unauthorized copying of copyright-protected material."

RIAA Copyright Infringement Allegations

In the past month, Rockhurst has received notice from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other groups, that certain individuals within the Rockhurst University community have committed copyright infringement in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Rockhurst University is obligated to respond to any and all reports of such violations and has suspended network access for the accused individuals, per demand of the RIAA attorneys.

P2P File Sharing is NOT Anonymous

Each of the RIAA allegations Rockhurst has received has included very specific location and identification information about individual and the alleged copyright infringement. Each user should be aware that file trading is NOT anonymous and that any individual engaged in p2p activity can be identified and tracked down.

We have reason to suspect that there may be more Rockhurst students sharing files in violation of the Rockhurst University Computer Usage Policy. While the RIAA has not issued a subpoena (YET), if subpoenaed, Rockhurst will be required to hand over student names to the RIAA for them to reclaim statutory damages (which can reach $150k per act of willful infringement).

Use of P2P File Sharing Software is Forbidden

This is an official notice to all users to remove peer-to-peer file sharing software. Examples of forbidden software include, but are not limited to, LimeWire, Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh, and BitTorrent clients.

Any user found in violation of this policy may result in long term suspension or complete termination of such user's Rockhurst University network, e-mail, and Cisco Clean Access account in addition to any financial liability that you may personally incur from the RIAA or any other trade groups representing the owners of the copyrighted materials that you are sharing with others