http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr Tom Holub's thoughts on computing in Letters and Science at UC Berkeley Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:18:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en One of our departments noticed today that their web site's links to University Relations's online giving site were broken.  Turns out they were using the old egiving.berkeley.edu URLs, which have been deprecated for over a year now, and which UREL disabled in September of this year.  The preferred form is ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/11/13/changes-to-egiving-urls/ IST has asked me to join a new group they're forming called the Services Advisory Council, which will act as something of a public utilities commission overseeing IST's service offerings.  This is a function that has been requested for a long time, dating back at least the Commission on Computing ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/10/23/ist-services-advisory-council/ Many campus units are considering removing wired telephones as a cost-cutting measure.  Wired phones have certainly become less important as most of our communications move to email and cell phones, and the budget situation in most departments is severe enough that everyone is looking to save money where ever they ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/08/24/internet-telephony/ Most of you have probably heard that Nancy Schimmelman, developer of the Our Unit system used by many L&S departments for faculty searches and graduate admissions (among other uses), was a victim of budget cuts in her department.  Because Nancy handled all of the programming and most of the support ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/08/19/future-of-our-unit/ We're now three weeks into LSCR's reorganization, and things continue to move along.  It seems like most people have gotten used to using their new email addresses for support, and the feedback I've gotten from customers has been positive.  Internally, we're still figuring out some of the coverage and escalation ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/07/24/lscr-reorg-and-retreat/ I've been working for several years now on a new strategic plan for computing in L&S, and I'm pleased to announce that the first major change related to that plan is due to take effect July 1. We got a ton of input from our current customers and others within L&S, ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/06/18/lscr-reorganization-begins-july-1/ Web site security got some press last month when it was revealed that hackers had broken into a system at the Tang Center and stolen thousands of Social Security numbers.  The mechanism for that break-in was a "SQL injection attack"; without getting too geeky, SQL injection is an all-too-common vulnerability, ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/06/10/web-site-security/ We received $100K this year in Campus Technology Council funding for a pilot program to investigate Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).  VDI is both a new technology, and something of a throwback; the idea is that you can install what is essentially a dumb terminal at the desktop, do all your ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/05/12/virtual-desktop-infrastructure-vdi/ I wrote the following in response to an email I received from a department chair; I thought it would be of general interest.  The subject is Google Books, and UCOP's endorsement of a settlement agreement for the class-action lawsuit against them.  (Google is being sued for violating copyrights by scanning ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/04/28/google-books/ We've received numerous reports from our customers about an apparent increase in spam in recent weeks.  Indeed, looking at spam statistics shows that spam activity has risen significantly in the past couple of months; see the charts at MessageLabs, which are complete through March.  I'm guessing that April will be ... http://blogs.ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/2009/04/27/spam-spam-spam-spam/