Information Technology News
June 5 , 2008
Track-It! Software for OFF-CAMPUS users only. Download.
FW Faculty Web Pages & Accounts
Personal web accounts that may be linked from the “Faculty” page on the new Department of Fisheries & Wildlife Web page are now available. Although we are able to link to personal pages stored in other locations (e.g. MSU AFS Space), these accounts provide another alternative for faculty members to provide information about themselves, their research, and their students/labs, especially those who may not already have a web account. more.
Software Renewals
2007 - 2008
The SAS Renewal Instructions for 2007-2008 can be accessed here.
This document assumes that:
- You have requested for a renewal license.
- Have a valid FWHOME Username and Password.
- Have a working LAN connection from which to perform this renewal. This process will take anywhere from 3-5 minutes.
The SPSS Renewal Instructions for 2007-2008 can be accessed here.
This document assumes that:
- You have requested for a renewal license.
- Have a valid FWHOME Username and Password.
- Have a working LAN connection from which to perform this renewal. This process will take anywhere from 3-5 minutes.
Computer Equipment Order System & Directions
This document will help users fully understand the new order system and directions on how to place your technology orders. Users having problems logging into the Order Forms should contact FW IT immediately. more
Password Changes for Faculty, Staff and Students
All Faculty, Staff and Students will be required to change their passwords for this school year. more
New Email for Tech Support
Please send emails to fwhelp@msu.edu for any questions or comments.
Sharing on Your L:\, M:\ and R:\ Drives
The Fisheries and Wildlife Tech Support staff would like you to know about your file sharing options. Remember there are many reasons to embrace network file sharing. Sharing is to economize on the number of file copies. It simplifies the management process of file copies. Finally it allows labs to benefit from disaster recovery options at both the department level (L:\) sharing and the lab level (R:\) sharing.
Every FWHOME user has potential access to at least two network drives. The R:\ drive and the L:\ drive located under My Computer in Windows. Faculty members also have an additional M:\ drive for their use. In addition, within each L:\ drive is potentially a folder that all lab teammates can access to share and develop web sites.
Below is a brief explanation of the different share locations.
M:\ - My drive
- This is a smaller drive located on the FWHOME server.
- Used to provide enterprise space that is secured to each faculty. Mail is a good dataset to backup to your M:\ drive.
- Provides area to copy important locally stored files (on your computer).
- Each night all files are backed up to the archive.
- M:\ drive is located off site. Should any accident occur in your office(fire, flood, smoke, surge) these files will be safe.
L:\ - Lab Drive
- This is a file server drive located on the FWHOME server.
- Used to share files between lab users including those in other buildings.
- Each night all files are backed up to the archive.
- L:\ drive is located off site. Should any accident occur in the lab(fire, flood, smoke, surge) these files will be safe.
R:\ - Research Drive
- This is a drive located on a server in each lab, administered by the lab.
- Large storage capacity for research work.
- Remember that you're R: drive is setup on a machine within your lab. They can be as large as the lab has budget and equipment to provide.
- Hosting machine allows direct connections of external drives for further copying ease.
Web Folder
- Located on the L:\ drive.
- Used as a working folder for lab website development.
- Multiple users can access and update with FWHOME credentials.
- Websites can be previewed from anywhere on the department network.
- Web sites are published from this common location to the web server.
Issues to Consider:
Do you know how to use your shared folders?
They are easy to use. Find them under “My Computer” as a normal drive letter.
Does your lab have an R:\ drive? With enough space? How much is enough?
An R:\ drive can be created with one of your old machines and a newly purchased hard drive (internal) that can range from 160 Gbytes to 400 Gbytes. Enough space is the amount needed to provide a full copy of all of your students' critical projects and data. The duration of these backups is also an important factor to determine how long to keep copies and potentially archive copies.
Does your lab use the L:\ drive?
All labs have an L:\ drive, as provided by the department. Your lab can use up to 15 Gbytes of space on the L:\ drive. The department's server disk space can be increased through a cost-sharing process that is being initiated right now. This would allow for larger enterprise space while if increase the value of the R:\ drive is still as a locally accessible mass storage device.
Have your lab teammates been using the L:\ drive?
Your lab teammates may be attaching documents to each other when they could be simply placing these on the server. Consider this as a first and next best use of the L:\ drive. Again, if more space is desired on the L:\ drive, the department cost-sharing model will be the time to add additional space.
Has your website been edited on the L:\ drive as of yet?
If your lab's website has not been placed on your L:\ drive, please contact tech support to have this done. In addition, we will need to purchase a Dreamweaver license for your lab.
ConnectCheck
If you are new on campus and you have brought your own computer, please do not hook up your computer to the FW Network until you meet some simple benchmarks. These benchmarks are:
If any of these steps confuse you then you must contact FW IT to remedy all of them before hooking up. Any machine that is hooked up to the MSU Network which is infected with viruses will incur further costs to you, the department and the university at large.
Copyright © 2008 | Department of Fisheries and Wildlife | Michigan State Univeristy.
FW Information Technology, 220 Natural Resources, East Lansing MI 48824