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ICC Meeting:

IFAS COMPUTER COORDINATORS (ICC)

NOTES FROM OCTOBER 9th 2015 REGULAR MEETING


A meeting of the ICC was held on Friday, October 9th, 2015 in the UF/IFAS Communications Building. The meeting was chaired and called to order by Jimmy Anuszewski at about 10:00 am.

PRESENT: At least 30 members participated.

Remote participants: Tom Barnash, Dan Christophy, Luis Coll, Angelo Daniels, Marion Douglas, Jorge Hernandez, Kevin Hill, DeWayne Hyatt, Wayne Hyde, John Wells, Chris Leopold, Adam Lishawa, John Macias, Donna McCraw, Ian McLean, Marvin Newman, Scott Owens, Angel Perez, Earl Sloan, Wei Cao, Raichel White, Al Ibanez, Guillermo Black and Justin Bauer from Jabra.

On-site participants:
Jimmy Anuszewski, Dennis Brown, Dan Cromer, Spencer Yong, Karen Porter, Winnie Lante, Tennille Herron, Phillip Lazenby, Joe Hayden, Wendy Williams.

STREAMING AUDIO: The audio will not be available from this meeting.

Recorded Video: Here.


NOTES:

Winnie Lante, Karen Porter and Dennis Brown should be commended for their food/drink accomodations.


Report from the chairman

Member news: Let's give a welcome to Adam Lishawa, who is starting in the ABE Department, Lisa Pennington, who is providing IT support for the Office of Conferences and Institutes and Philip Lazenby, who is providing IT Support for IFAS Facilities.

Recap since last meeting:

As per his usual procedure, Jimmy pointed folks to the notes of the last meeting, without going into any details.

Details about this meeting:

I've deleted a lot of the old anchors that were in the minutes due to lack of updates. I suggest searching the ICC site for information that you may be looking for.


Security: (previous discussion)

Macs that need antivirus per UF WiFi Security, Jimmy would recommend Avira. This software does not require any extra steps to activate, as ClamXav did.

Patching updates... (previous discussion)

Microsoft

September's Microsoft patches are listed in the link. Current risk assessments, along with Explorer updates, can be found here.

Adobe

Flash and Shockwave have updates here.

Java

Java updates were in August for Java 8U60.

Apple

There have been several Apple updates, including a new system update, OS 10.11. Microsoft also released an update for Office 2011 for Mac to deal with compatibility issues when OS 10.11 is installed. Office 2016 has had reported issues, though Jimmy reports he hasn't encountered a problem yet. Lync 2011 also has a new update.

SAS

SAS University Edition recently had an update. Please visit this link.

Other

Updates as available...


Videoconferencing and WAN discussion

Videoconferencing topics (previous discussion)

Acano released update R1.8 October 6th.

Wendy Williams wanted to discuss some other options besides Polycom for classroom's with remote viewing.

Updates as available...


End-user Scheduling (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

Lync updates (previous discussion)

I've had several people ask me about the new Skype Business and if it will be available for Macs. The official word from Microsoft is that it will not be available until sometime in 2016.

WAN (previous discussion)

Updates as available...


Wireless printers (previous discussion)

Any updates to this?

 


Policy


Content Management System (CMS) for UF: Entering preparation phase (previous discussion)

Jimmy has not heard of any new updates concerning Terminal 4 Version 8. Tennille informed the ICC that she will notify us as soon as V8 is announced. She also announced that a listserv that is avaiable for T4 information. Please subscribe to it (Ifas-t4-users-l) if you would like more information or have questions.

At a recent IFAS Department Chair meeting, the Chairs were told that Terminal 4 is not mandatory but websites do need to be kept up to date and made mobile. Jimmy notes that mobility and responsive sites are important to keep in line with the new SEO requirements of Google.

Updates as available.

Cloud Services (previous discussion)

Updates as available.

Backups/Server Drives

I was asked to add this to the agenda. Some Department and REC IT people are wondering if there's official policy in regards to backups and what some IT people are doing for it. From my understanding, that's why we have server drives, but I'll let the discussion start amongst everyone. During the discussion, it was addressed that the server drives should be used because they are backed up multiple times during the day and can be access through VDI at any time. It was also stated that external hard drives should not be relied on nor should they be purchased using department funds.

Admin rights became a separate topic during this discussion and there was a split amongst the participants about how Admin rights should be dispersed. One side stated that Admin rights should only be granted based upon the situation of the user. An exmample Jimmy gave was field computers that needed to have software installed or updated while away from the IT person or users that are in lab that need to install specific software at a moment's notice. All of this would be LOCAL Admin rights. Others stated that it was too much to try and update every computer at the same time (such as Java updates) or to install the same software on multiple computers. Consensus is do what works for each individual situation but rememeber that ultimately, it comes down to the IT person's responsibility if something should go wrong with that computer.

Updates as available.

UF Exchange updates (previous discussion)

Updates as available.

Notes from last month's SIAC meeting

Notes from past meetings are available here. Last update was from June.

Last month's IT Directors Meeting Notes

IBM Endpoint Management was discussed, ITSM, BigFix and Terminal 4 updates were discussed. You can now view the notes from each meeting at this link.

PrintSmart initiative (previous discussion)

Santos has created a step-by-step guide for the PrintSmart install. You can find it....on the WIKI! And he's added to it!
Please pay attention to the new models (8870 and 8880), do not move the printer while it is hot. They use an ink that is wax based and could cause problems when bumped or moved.

New 'Trouble-Ticket' Entry Page for CNS (previous discussion)

Update as needed...

KACE (previous discussion)

This has gone the way of the Dodo bird.

 


Projects


Services Documentation: Is a Wiki the way? (previous discussion)

Would be really nice if more people could contribute to this.

Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!

A wiki has been created at http://my.ifas.ufl.edu/wiki/icc/. Everyone in the ICC distribution group should be able to add/edit.

Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!

Operations


IFAS IT Updates (previous discussion)

Any updates on migration? As of right now, the equipment ordered for the EIO server merger has not arrived. We are still running on equipment without a warranty, so keep your fingers crossed that nothing happens during this transition period that has been elongated due to (un)foreseen problems.

New DHCP reservation site created (previous discussion)

Update as needed.

Creating guest GatorLink accounts: singly or in bulk (previous discussion)

Steve had left this on the agenda in case further discussion was deemed warranted. So Jimmy will leave it here.

Wayne's Power Tools (previous discussion)

Wayne has developed a new script that will provide new and tools that we will all welcome back. Jimmy will show a sample of it.

Public folder file deletion policies and procedures status (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

 


Other Topics


SAS depot updated

The SAS 9.4 installation depot (\\ad.ufl.edu\ifas\SOFTWARE\SAS\SAS9.4_32bit ) has been updated to permit installation on Windows 8.1 AND to allow installation on 32 bit Windows installs.

FAQs for new hires (should use http://my.ifas.ufl.edu/wiki/icc/)

Updates as available...

Adobe licensing (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

Misc.

GatorBox (leaving this here)
Research Computing has launched GatorBox, an enhanced storage option for research. GatorBox features a dropbox-like interface provided by ownCloud software. The new interface offers a convenient and familiar interface as well as desktop and mobile clients, with simple file sync and share functionality. Please contact Research Computing for more information about GatorBox: info@hpc.ufl.edu.

Peer2Peer

Peer 2 Peer is scheduled for November 20 at the Law School, from 8:30 to 12pm. Wendy Williams has speerheaded the UF IT Training Committee and is doing a good job.

 


That's All Folks!

The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 and the next meeting will take place November 13th (Friday the 13th). The Gator Football Team is 5-0 and headed to Mizzou. Here's to progress! Go Gators!