ITS has received reports from several students regarding intermittent wireless connectivity and poor reception within the Olin and Lasdon Hall buildings. As a result, we have accelerated our project to improve wireless services in these areas. Additional wireless access points will be installed in and around the dorms rooms between February and May of 2014. More access points will increase the coverage and speed of the wireless network in Olin and Lasdon Halls.

ITS has tested all major WCMC services with Apple's new operating system, OS X Mavericks. Based on our findings, there seem to be no compatibility issues with the majority of services ITS provides, such as email and calendar (Microsoft Outlook) services, and other applications, such as Epic, VDI, and Weill Business Gateway.

Although ITS supports Apple Mail and iCal, we highly recommend using Microsoft Outlook or Webmail

This week, ITS released its FY2012-2013 Annual Report to the Weill Cornell community. A PDF copy is available for download.

In this report, you will find ITS' progress from the past fiscal year, our goals for the next year, upcoming projects, and key statistics on our operations. Additionally, we have included appendices with copies of all the ITS newsletters distributed last fiscal year, and POIS' annual report since our departments work so closely together.

The ITS Service Desk will operate with a holiday schedule during the week of Thanksgiving. Our hours of operation will be as follows:

Wednesday, November 27

Phone support:
7 a.m. - 5 p.m.

SMARTDesk in the Wood Library:
9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Thursday, November 28 - Saturday, November 30

Phone support and walk-in service at the SMARTDesk will be unavailable.

Monday, December 2

ITS is monitoring a new "ransomware" known as Cryptoblocker that has infected computers at the Cornell Ithaca campus. Currently, this malware seems to be targeting Microsoft Windows systems. There have been no reports of infections on Weill Cornell computers, but our IT security team continues to track this malware to ensure it does not affect WCMC users.

On Wednesday, October 23, there was an interruption of core IT services. Given the extraordinary circumstances and duration of the problem, we would like to follow up with a brief description of the event and our response.

What happened?

li {padding-top:9px;
padding-bottom:9px;}

Apple released its new operating system OS X 10.9, also known as Mavericks, on Tuesday, October 22. ITS will be
supporting this new operating system, which comes pre-installed on systems purchased after October 22.

ITS has finished testing several WCMC services with Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS 7. Based on our findings, there seem to be no compatibility issues with the majority of mobile services ITS provides, such as email and calendar services, MobileIron, and other applications.

The only exception is iTunes U. We have discovered an issue that prevents students from being able to properly view lecture videos, and are working with Apple to resolve this. Once this issue has been addressed, we will inform WCMC students.

ITS recommends using WCMC email, department network shared drives, and the Transfer service to store College data, including confidential data. Storing information on these systems helps decrease the chance for data loss and data breach. External storage devices, such as USB flash drives and external hard drives, can be easily lost or stolen, which has regulatory and financial implications for you and the College.

Starting September 21, the SMARTDesk will be open on Saturdays to accommodate more users needing assistance from our ITS technicians. The SMARTDesk's new Saturday hours will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Weekday hours will remain the same (see below for more details).

While you can come to the SMARTDesk with virtually any IT-related issue, the most common reasons to visit are: