CNS makes e-mail easy

Seth McKinney
Staff Writer

   Muskingum College campus is awash in development. Along with the construction of the Communication Arts building there have been upgrades to the campus network, including a new e-mail server and a new T1 Internet pipeline.

Cassandra Sheppard checks her e-mail at the library

   Assistant Director of Computer Network Services (CNS) Ryan Harvey said the overhaul was directed towards the network server. It has been upgraded from a VMS to a UNIX system, which is more versatile.

   The new features and improvements will allow CNS to direct the flow of bandwidth, as well as administer the network more efficiently. Most students will notice that the network is running smoother.

   “The main focus of the improvements will allow the students to check e-mail through a Web-based e-mail system similar to MSN’s Hotmail,” Harvey said.

   The move to Web-based e-mail is an attempt to move away from reliance on the Zip disk method of checking e-mail.

Harvey said the move should make life easier:

• Students can check their e-mail at anytime from anywhere

• Professors can rely on communication outside of class

• Students can use their Muskie address outside of Muskingum College

   The link to this new feature can be found near the bottom of the on-campus Muskingum College homepage. Although these upgrades are improving the Muskingum College network and e-mail system, there have been a few snags along the way.

   When the new UNIX-based network server was installed faculty and student Web pages were moved to the new system. It is highly sensitive to the case of the typed text, where the old system was not. If a Web page has mixed case in its file names, some of the links to other pages may be broken. For example, if a Web page file is typed “Index.html,” when it was moved to the new system it remained “Index.html.” But a link to this file on another page may be spelled “index.html,” rendering the link unusable because the file names do not match.

   Some professors are working long hours to fix this problem and bring everything into working order, but there are many faculty pages still out of service with at least one essential broken link. The Business, Anthropology/Sociology, Chemistry, Education and Psychology departments all have broken links to important or essential parts of the page.

   Joe Wilson, a professor in the Business Department, said, “I haven’t heard anything about the problems with the Web pages.”

   Other improvements to the campus network include a new option for protecting not only the school-owned computers from harmful electronic viruses, but also every student computer for a fee. John Miller of CNS said the Muskingum College (named Fates) downloads new virus protection whenever it is available. For $25, students may purchase and install Norton Anti-virus Corporate Edition from CNS. When Fates updates its virus protection, it will update the students’ protection as well.

   Miller said viruses are one of the main causes for Internet slowdown on campus. To prevent this, an anti-virus program is required as well good practices when it comes to downloading files from the Internet and especially e-mail.

   E-mail viruses are spread easily, but can be stopped by verifying every e-mail with attached files, Miller said. Other methods of protection include not sharing folders on MCNET, or making shared folders password-protected and read-only.

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