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Microsoft Campus AgreementThe new Microsoft Campus Agreement will be signed at the end of April. This agreement allows participating divisions and departments to install select Microsoft products such as Office and Windows upgrades on all of their University-owned computers, including those in student labs. A memo detailing the terms of the agreement has been sent to deans, directors, and department heads. Departments and divisions who wish to participate in this year’s agreement must send their departmental transfer authorization (DTA) to Sherry Harvey, Box 870346, by April 19. There are no automatic renewals, and no areas can be added or removed until the next renewal period in April 2003. For further information, please see the local Microsoft Campus Agreement Web site, helpdesk.ua.edu/software/microsoft. Home Use ChangesThe terms of the new agreement include a home use option for Microsoft Office only. Previous years’ agreements included additional software that now must be uninstalled. Home use Office installations must be used only by University employees for University business, and they must be uninstalled when employees leave the University or if the University or the department ends its participation in the agreement. Departments and divisions must keep accurate records of home use installations. Secure Your Telnet ConnectionIf you telnet into bama.ua.edu or other remote systems, you should use secure shell (SSH) instead. When you use telnet, all information -- including your user name and password -- passes between your computer and the other machine in plain text. Secure shell, on the other hand, encrypts all information before sending it. This makes it more difficult for someone with a "sniffer" on the network to detect your username and password. There are two versions of secure shell, SSH1 and SSH2. The remote system may support one or both of these versions; bama supports both. SSH2 is the newer, more secure version, so you should use it if possible. In order to connect via secure shell, you need to make sure that you have an SSH client on your personal computer. Clients are available for campus download at computercenter.ua.edu/software. Users of Windows 95 and later have the option of a Teraterm plugin for SSH1 or SSH Secure Shell for SSH2. The SSH Secure Shell client has the added benefit of secure file transfer, although it is not recommended for Web publishing. Macintosh users that have not started using OS X can download MacSSH (SSH2 only). Mac OS X has built-in secure shell support; simply use the ssh command from the terminal application (found in the Utilities folder under Applications). Some systems already require that you use secure shell instead of telnet if you want to connect to them. We may institute the same policy for bama.ua.edu in the future, so you should go ahead and start using secure shell now. Software Licenses AvailableOne of the services offered by the Office of Information Technology is the management of various software-licensing programs. One of these is the Microsoft Campus Agreement (see above). Others include:
All software license charges must be paid by DTA. We cannot accept personal payments. For additional information about any of these programs, contact Sherry Harvey at 348-2435 or sharvey@seebeck.ua.edu. Recent Software ReleasesFree downloads from software library (computercenter.ua.edu/software):
Software licensing programs:
Supercomputing ServicesAll faculty, staff, and students have free access to the resources of the Alabama Supercomputer Authority (ASA). This includes the use of the ASA’s Cray SV1 for research as well as support from computational specialists. Applications for accounts on the Cray are available at the HelpDesk in A-203 Gordon Palmer. For more information about ASA’s offerings, see its Web site at www.asc.edu. If you need assistance using the Cray, contact the ASA’s Helpdesk at (800) 338-8320. |
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