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ICC Meeting:

DRAFT STAGE - These notes will be updated during the meeting and completed after the meeting ends. Please feel free to send me corrections and updates.

IFAS COMPUTER COORDINATORS
(ICC)

NOTES FROM February 13th 2015 REGULAR MEETING


A meeting of the ICC was held on Friday, February 13th, 2015 in the UF/IFAS Communications Building. The meeting was chaired and called to order by Jimmy Anuszewski at about 10:01 am. We are going to try and keep this meeting short due to some departments and groups that have a Christmas lunch planned for today. (I'm envious).

PRESENT: At least 11 members participated.

Remote participants: Francis Ferguson, Angelo Daniels, Tom Barnash, Wayne Hyde, John Wells, Joel Parlin, Kevin Hill, Angel Perez, John Macias, Kamin Miller, David Bauldtree, Scott Owens, Dan Cromer, Wei Cao.

On-site participants:
Jimmy Anuszewski, Steve Lasley, Dennis Brown, Karen Porter, Winnie Lante, Santos Soler, Tennille Herron, Raechel White, James Canter.

STREAMING AUDIO: Might be available here.

Recorded Video: Here. (You can record a video conference at any time by dialing 7864327@video.ufl.edu) Something to note: The videos seemed to cut off at 14 minutes and 50 seconds then a new video would start. Abraham Turrell is currently looking into this.


NOTES:

Agendas are back on for now!

Dennis Brown should be commended for his food/drink accomodations. Thank you, Dennis.


Report from the chairman

Member news: Welcome James Canter to the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, Angel Perez to the IFAS Help Desk and Naoya Nishimura to the Entomology Lab in Vero Beach.

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:

Over the past month, there seems to have been a influx of virus and malware attacks. Disguised as emails with content ranging from a "PDF Fax" to "Auto Policy Payment" updates, the zip file contained with the emails contain a script file that installs trojans which transmits personal information. As Wayne Hyde noted in an email to the ICC List, the easiest way to get rid of the virus(es) is to re-image your computer, as opposed to spending days trying to get rid of the viruses. An example of the viruses location is as follows:

Threat Names: Artemis!62DFFA0BA825
File Path: C:\Windows\dhqyynDNgswIImt.exe, C:\Windows\qNwvxqGjgvSkJJu.exe, C:\Users\balerdi\AppData\Local\Temp\EXE1.exe

McAffee may catch some of the files, but some of the .exe files, such as adoberead.exe, were not caught.

Patching updates... (previous discussion)

Microsoft

The January and February Microsoft patches included numerous bulletins of varying importance, covering several unique CVEs in the usual suspects. Current risk assessments can be found here.

Dan Cromer encountered a problem with update 3021952 and Windows 8.1 where Cisco Anyconnect became inoperable. Steve Lasley sent a link from Cisco that has a temporary fix or here.

UF IT Security has blocked the recently released Outlook for mobile app from being used. Their reason, which was sent in an email to anyone detected to have used the app, was explained as follows:

"Outlook for IOS and Android does not meet UF Privacy and Security requirements. Specifically:
The application stores UF authentication credentials in an external cloud service.
The external cloud service may store UF email for up to 30 days.
This service has not been vetted or approved for the storage of PHI (Protected Health Information) or other UF restricted data.
The application may not be compatible with the UF Mobile Device Policy."

Native mail apps for Androids and iPhones are still ok to use.

Adobe

There were some Adobe Acrobat updates here.

Java

Several different Java updates were made available, including Java 8v31 and Java 7v75/76.
Java 7 will see end of life support in April of 2015.

Apple

There have been several Apple updates, including iTunes 12.1 (Windows and Mac), Mac OS X Maverick (2015-001) and Yosemite 10.10.2 and iOS 8.1.3.

SAS

Thanks to Steve Lasley for sending me a link to the new SAS that is available for University Students and Employees. You will need to create an account to access it, but once you do, you will be given a link to download the image that you can use with VMWare Fusion. The download is a little over 1.5GB but allows you to run a virtual machine with SAS on it.

An idea that might be well worth the encouragement is to have this version of SAS on a Faculty/Staff VDI. What say you, Wayne??

Other

Updates as available...


Videoconferencing and WAN discussion

Videoconferencing topics (previous discussion)

We are all waiting on the official announcement regarding Acano, BlueJeans, etc. What's the word?

Abraham Turell has been made aware of a log-in problem with TMS Scheduler on the UF Video site when using a Mac browser. The incorrect link that is on the video.ufl.edu site is https://tms.video.ufl.edu/tmsagent/tmsportal/?locale=en_US#1 when it should be http://tms.video.ufl.edu/tms.

Steve made a note that there has been a lot of problems with the content server and recordings. Bugs such as drops, connection problems, TMS issues, etc. Dennis added that they've been having errors with the bridge, also. Moving the HD bridge was a nice work around but the smart scheduler has no option for that move.

Updates as available...


Endpoint security concerns (previous discussion)

As noted in several emails, McAffee and PGP are both nearing end of license terms. UFEM (including Trend Micro for AV Protection) has been labeled as the replacement, including replacing SCCM, but with a lack of imaging, I don't forsee that happening. I'll leave Dan Cromer, DeWayne Hyatt and Wayne Hyde to discuss the possibilities.

End-user Scheduling (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

Lync updates (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

WAN (previous discussion)


Wireless printers (previous discussion)

Does anyone know of any updates to the wireless printer issue? It's been over 5 months since we've heard any updates. Dennis will forward what he found out from CNS that offers a partial solution.

 


Policy


Cloud Services (previous discussion)

While I was looking for information regarding the end of life for Gator Mail, I came across a UF Exchange Website that looks defunct. Just thought I'd share it :)

Gator Webmail is set for termination on March of 2015. Please make sure your students are aware of this. Wendy Williams will speak more on this during her IT Directors Meeting Notes.

UF Exchange updates (previous discussion)

Notes from last month's SIAC meeting

Notes from past meetings are available here.

Last month's IT Directors Meeting Notes

January's IT Director's Meeting notes brought to you courtsey of Wendy Williams. (a link to UF E-Tools can be found here.) There's also a nice link that Wendy provided to me, that has a lot of links to valuable information for a lot of the everyday things that we encounter.

Wendy has an outline of the notes that she will discuss here.

PrintSmart initiative (previous discussion)

Let me give you my personal experience with this....sit back.

Santos has created a step-by-step guide for the PrintSmart install. You can find it....on the WIKI!

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

ICS has prepared variations of the IFAS Template for use with Terminal 4, with the problem still consisting of T4 not being able to work with SSL (Secured Sockets Layer). As of right now, there is no time estimate on when this will be rectified.

A webinar was presented by Terminal 4 on the new version 8 being released. That webinar and the participation limited follow up Q&A session can be viewed or listened to at the following links: V8 presentation and Q&A session (audio only).

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

New information about the ITSM Ticket system can be found on our....WIKI!

Updates as available...

KACE (previous discussion)

January's KACE report is available here.

 


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)

Chris Leopold will address updates. Wayne Hyde, if he hasn't already, will discuss the next steps with virus protection and DeWayne Hyatt will discuss the future of SCCM, UFEM and imaging.

Wayne Hyde provided instructions on how to search the DHCP Logs to relate a UFIRT Incident to a computer name. You can find the instructions here.

New DHCP reservation site created (previous discussion)

You are reminded that Santos Soler has created a new DHCP reservation site which you may use to request reservations.

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)

Updates as available...

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.

Macintosh Group Seminar? (from last meeting)

There was discussion in the meeting about having some type of Mac guidance. Jimmy agreed and said he wouldn't mind having group meetings where Mac use can be discussed and things such as Active Directory, Office, Network Binding, mapping drives and other things can be discussed and taught. He also noted that UF does officially support Macs and the help desk provides support, as well as an official Apple repair shop in the Reitz Union. He offered his help if people want to email him questions. He urged people to NOT discourage users from buying Macs if they are needed. Also, Macs are in the surplus area and can be used for learning purposes.

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: Coming Soon!

Peer2Peer can be viewed at this link.

 


That's All Folks!

The meeting was adjourned at 11:40 and the next meeting will take place March 13th (yes, once again Friday the 13th!!). For those paying attention, UF Baseball opens the season tonight, Gator Softball opens their home schedule tonight, Gator Lacrosse plays Saturday and Gator Golf hosts a local invitational! Go Gators!

Don't forget to mark your calendars...March 14th is Steve's Retirement Party. Many thanks to Winnie for taking care of this and providing a venue :)

 

 

Friday the 13th