Farewell, Rosemary

Rosemary Wildeman, Director of Technical Services, will be leaving on August 12th to pursue her new career as a guidance counselor at John Adams High School. Rosemary, who received a Master of Science in Education degree this June, will be leaving OCT and Queens College after six years of dedicated service. Although we are sorry to see her go, we are pleased that Rosemary will be fulfilling her dream.

To send her off in style, we will be having a farewell luncheon for Rosemary on Monday, August 9th in the Student Union Bistro from 12 to 2pm. The cost of the luncheon, which includes a gift, is $18.00. To RSVP, please contact Judi D'Amico by email or at extension 3009. Let's wish Rosemary the best; boy, these high school students don't know what they're in for!

System Indicators
We are pleased to announce two new areas on the OCT home page. They are the "System Status" and "System Alert" boxes. These areas will inform you of any problems affecting the college's servers and network. If you can't access a page on the QC Web site, get into your email account, or something else does not seem right, go to http://www.qc.cuny.edu/OCT. The happy or frowning computer face will let you know what services are up or down at the moment and the system alert will give you some information about the problem if it is available.

New, Improved Calendar

We are also pleased to announce that the college calendar program now features a monthly grid calendar format in addition to the daily and weekly view. You can also view a particular area or department's calendar as well as seeing all events at once on a master calendar grid. If your department or office is interested in maintaining your own calendar, please contact us at webmaster@qc.edu for more information.

Internet Outage

The Internet outage that occurred over the weekend of June 19th and the following Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon was due to a faculty member's compromised computer launching a denial of service attack. It is essential that all computers be kept up-to-date with patches from the operating system's vendor and anti-virus software, available through OCT. For assistance, please contact the Help Desk at help@qc.edu or extension 4444.

Be Aware of Spyware

The term "Spyware" refers to technology that can gather information about a person without their knowledge. It is especially prevalent on the Internet where it can appear as an innocuous advertising pop-up window. Once clicked, it can monitor your computer’s activities or steal and destroy your data.
Below are some examples of Spyware programs:

Adware
Adware software displays pop-up advertisements whenever the program is running. Although seemingly harmless, it could install components onto your computer that track your personal information.

Trojan Horses
These are malicious programs that appear harmless or as desirable applications. One type is a program that appears and claims it will rid your computer of viruses; instead, it inserts viruses onto your computer. Trojan horses are designed to cause loss of computer data or destroy your system. Some allow unrestricted access to your computer whenever you are online.

System Monitors
These are applications designed to monitor your computer activity. These programs can capture what you do on your computer and record your keystrokes. Some system monitoring tools are sent in email attachments.

Spyware protection software will scan your computer for evidence of these programs, and report any findings. You then have the option to quarantine and remove the program.
Ad-aware is a free download that can protect your system. You can get more information by going to http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Other commercial applications include Webroot Spy Sweeper, Ad-aware Plus, Spyware Blocker, Spyware Eliminator, and Symantec's New Norton AntiVirus 2004. These products are all available on the Internet.