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OIT Technology Meeting - June 2006

Announcements

Gayle Stein, OIRT
The University has signed an agreement with Apple for iTunesU, an iTunes for Universities. It will be a place for Rutgers content, concerts, presentations, etc., that will be made available to the general public, plus a private area that can be broken up by class for professors to post podcasts of lectures, etc. When posting materials, one must keep copyright and FERPA issues in mind. There is a podcasting forum in Sakai where one can keep up on the latest developments. Details can also be found at http://podcasting.rutgers.edu.

Josh Hogle, MSSG
The transition to Trend Micro antivirus products is under way. The software is available on the University Software Portal. The documentation is mostly complete at this time. When downloading products for servers, make sure to also download the file "license.txt", which contains the needed license codes.

Susan Schwerdt, MSSG
The bibliography software package EndNote will be available from the University Software Portal by the end of June. Version 10 for Windows will be available first. Version 10 for Mac will be available in August.

Tom Grzelak, OIRT
The address change for ldap.rutgers.edu will take place tonight (6/7) The downtime should be negligible. RULink will be down for a few hours tonight while DNS changes propogate.

A Dell Technical Briefing will be held next Wednesday (6/14) at the Janice Levin Building on the Livingston Campus (changed from the Labor Education Center on Cook). Topics will include product lines and security, virtualization, and EMC storage. Additional information, including registration information can be found at the OIRT web site.

An IBM Technical Briefing will be held Tuesday, 6/27, at the Busch Campus Center. It will cover high performance and cluster computing. Additional information, including registration information can be found at the OIRT web site.

OIRT has a high performance computing cluster available for demonstrations and proof of concept testing. It will allow researchers to test different cluster options prior to purchasing their own hardware. Additional information is available at the OIRT web site.

Presentations

Scanning Tools
Mark Lorenc, IPS
IPS has made a web tool available that will allow users run a Nessus vulnerability scan of their computer. By using the SCANME tool, a user only has to enter their email address and the system will detect their IP, run the scan, and email them the results. The custom processes were written in PHP and Python.

Also in the works for implementation is a deployment of DShield, a "distributed intrusion detection system". IPS has started using the PLONE content management system for deploying their tools.

Implementing a CMS Solution
Tom Vosseler and Eddie Konczal, FAS Computing
A lot of the FAS departments were putting up websites, but there was no standard look, and there was a wide range in quality. They decided on using the Joomla content management system (CMS), whose developers had previously worked on the Mambo CMS. A design firm was hired to create the look and templates, providing a uniform look across the websites, though some customization is available. The newest version of Joomla supports LDAP authentication. The data is stored in a MySQL database. Though no HTML knowledge is required by the end users, a tutorial was provided for them, as was a sandbox site to give the users a chance to become familiar with the interface. There are two levels of access, "Editor" and "Administrator". The Editor only has access to create and edit content, but publishing must still be approved by the Administrator, who can also access other advanced features. Editing is very easy with the built-in WYSIWYG editor, but there is also an HTML editor available for advanced edits. Additional questions on the FAS implementation of Joomla may be directed to Eddie Konczal.

Break-out Session

Desktop Video Conferencing
Tom Grzelak and Bob Gerdes, OIRT
Tom Grzelak and Bob Gerdes led a break-out session on the many aspects of desktop videoconferencing. Different packages, physical setup, costs and more were discussed. A sample cost of a basic desktop videoconferencing setup were:

Camera (Logitech) ~$75
Headset/Microphone ~$15
Videoconferencing software ~$0-130
Total: ~$90-220

The Polycom PVX v8 was demonstrated as a particularly good package that is both functional and intuitive. It has several advantages:

Can throttle connection speeds based upon network capability from 56k Modems to 1.9 Mbps.
Has a phone book/directory for one click connections.
Uses both IP and e.164 numbers (Global Dialing Scheme).
Can share desktops, Powerpoint presentations, whiteboards, transfer files.
Can connect to other H.323 hardware and MCUs (multipoint control units) readily.

Any questions regarding getting started in desktop videoconferencing can be directed to oirt@rutgers.edu.