Information Services

As the semester draws to a close, it’s more than likely that your email inbox is piling up with more information and emails than you can handle. However, not more than ever is the time when email maintenance is needed. An important thing to remember about DePauw’s email network is that the more email in the system, the slower the system will run. Being proactive with managing your inbox can help negate the slowness you may experience with Novell. Here are a few easy ways to keep your inbox under control.

Keep your Inbox clear. Your email will work faster if the Inbox has fewer messages in it. To maintain your inbox, it’s a good idea to set aside time in the day to deal with your email messages. If a message can be dealt with in a few minutes, do it and get it out of your inbox. You can also use other folders to organize messages. Keeping your email inbox clear will make it easier for you to find messages and you will likely be less overwhelmed about the amount of pending email that needs attention.

Empty the trash and sent items folders regularly. It’s not enough to just delete your emails because all items in your trash still take up the 50 MB of space that students receive. The system removes items older than 15 days old from trash automatically, but you can empty it more often if you have a lot of email that you delete. Sent items are easy to overlook, but they also take up space and are not as necessary to hold onto.

Unsubscribe to list services that you don’t use. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time to offer up your email address to get that extra discount at Barnes and Noble, but it’s likely that you probably don’t need to get weekly reminders anymore. It’s likely that everyone has subscribed to something at one point or another, but at some point, the messages have stopped being read and are now just deleted automatically. Take the time to read the message and follow the directions to unsubscribe from the list service. Cutting out these messages will drastically decrease the amount of weekly email you have coming through your inbox.

Use a different email service. Obviously your Tigermail account is necessary to function as a DePauw student, but it’s also a good idea to create an off-site email account (GMAIL, YAHOO, HOTMAIL, etc.) for personal or non-DePauw email. This will simplify your DePauw email box and help you separate your personal messages from your professional work messages.

Archive old messages. While there will be email that you will want to store, it’s likely that you do not need to keep this email in your inbox. You can help keep your inbox under the quota limit by archiving older messages.  To leran how to archive mail messages, follow the instructions here.

Contributed by Courtney Hime ‘09

One of the most convenient features of Mozilla Firefox is the search tool bar – located in the upper right hand corner – that enables you to instantly access to a number of other search engines. For most people, Google is the default search engine, but there are several others, like Wikipedia or Amazon, that are nice to have available from one simple location. Most of the default options granted to Firefox users are mainstream search engines, but often, DePauw students need to access several research resources to complete their course work at DePauw. To help student reduce their time search for search engines DePauw’s librarians have worked to help DePauw students access to several commonly used databases that could prove to be helpful during their time at DePauw.

To add these search engines,

1. Go to the DePauw Libraries main page (http://depauw.edu/library/)

2. Select “Subject Guides” under the “Research Help” section.

3. Under the “Featured Guides” section, select the “Firefox Search Engines” guide. This page will list all of the available search engines that can be added to Firefox.

4. Select the search engine you want to add. You will be taken to another page.

5. Click the link of the search engine. A dialogue box will appear asking if you want to add the engine. You can also check to start using the search engine immediately.

6. Click Add. You can check the toolbar to make sure that engine was added correctly.

The library has made several search engines available, from Facebook to the Banner Graphic’s archives. Though there are several, there are five search engines that students will be sure to want to add.

1. DePauw’s library catalog – Get full access to the library’s catalog of books, videos, maps, CD’s, DVD’s, government documents, and physical (paper, microfiche, and microfilm) newspapers, magazines and journals.

2. Academic Search Premier – This search engine is an article database that covers all disciplines, most content from 1980s to today, some from 1920s on. The database contains mostly academic journal articles, with some newspaper and magazine articles.

3. JSTOR – Instead of having to navigate through the library’s home page and find the database, students can simply start using it from their home page. When adding this search engine, be sure to add the version that was created by Chris Monaghan.

4. Oxford Reference Online – Instantly search over 100 online dictionaries, encyclopedias and quote books from the Oxford University Press.

5. Google Books – Access Google Books’ database of over seven million books. Though the database doesn’t offer full access to all of their books, there are over one million books that are fully available online. When adding this search engine, select the version created by the Mycroft Project.

There are several Web sites that have add-ins available – indicated by a teal shaded arrow over the search toolbar.

You can click the down arrow and you will find an option enabling you to add the additional search engine add-in.

You can add the ‘DePauw Student and Faculty Directories’ in this way. Just go to http://www.depauw.edu/directories/ and add the search engine by clicking

Contributed by Courtney Hime with help from Network Administrator Chad Wilson

If you’ve ever logged into Novell, either from your own laptop or a University computer, you’ve noticed that the computer acquires several additional drives after logging in. What you might not know is just how each of those drives works and how they can be utilized to make your life logged into the DePauw network a little bit easier.

To view the additional drives, open My Computer. Students will see at least five additional drives: F:, Y:, Z:, P: and I:.Some people may see more than these five drives because certain departments or areas with which you might be associated may grant you security access to additional drives.

Three of these five basic drives appear because of the way the DePauw Network is set up. For example, the F: drive contains all of the utilities needed to log in and use Novell on your PC. Both the Y and Z drives are search drives.

The remaining two drives are the two that will be used most often by DePauw students and faculty the P: and I: drives.

The P: drive, or personal drive, is intended for personal use. Students can save anything on the P: drive from their computers and it is accessible from any other University computer – as long as you are logged into Novell. The P: drive functions as an additional storage facility for students. The P: drive also enables students with the ability to create and launch their own personal Web sites. For more information about setting up and maintaining a personal Web site, students can visit the Help Desk Web site (www.depauw.edu/it/helpdesk — look for the link to Personal Web Sites).

The I: drive, or instructional drive, is intended to be used by faculty members to help share information with students. Faculty members can request I: drive access for an entire course. If you are enrolled in a course that utilizes the I: drive, opening the drive will display any relevant course information that your professor has put on the network. The I: drive can also be used as a way to turn in homework or share information for group projects. Unlike the P: drive, the I: drive does not have any space limitations.

Even though the network drives have no impact on the usability of your computer, it’s important to maintain your network drives – especially with the fixed space allotted for the P: drive. These drives are not accessible by the average student, but the I: drive can be accessed by the faculty member that set up the course – so make sure anything you save on the drive is acceptable by University standards.

Contributed by David Diedriech, Technical Training Coordinator

You may be aware that Microsoft released Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows last fall. Office 2007 includes significant changes from previous versions, most noticeably a dramatically different user interface. Office 2007 will be the campus standard on Windows computers by Fall 2009.Office 2007 for Windows is already installed on the Dell laptops that First-Year students purchased, and we are now beginning the process to rollout the upgrade to rest of faculty members, staff and students across campus.

Before you upgrade:
We strongly encourage administrative departments to consider upgrading all of their systems at the same time to ensure compatibility and consistency within the department. Administrative department directors should review their office procedures and annual schedule of activities to determine the best time for your office to upgrade.

Faculty members and academic departments should consult with their academic support assistants and colleagues with whom you routinely share files before upgrading to ensure that you know how to exchange and open documents in case not everyone decides to update at the same time.

To help you make decisions about when to upgrade, we will be offering brief overviews of Office 2007 throughout the rest of the semester. Workshops are scheduled for the following times:
Tuesday, April 8, 4:00 p.m.
Tuesday, April 15, 4:00 p.m.
Thursday, April 24, 10:00 a.m.
All workshops are scheduled for the computer lab in the lower level of Roy O. West library.

To upgrade:
To have Office 2007 installed on your office computer/laptop, contact the Help Desk to schedule an appointment for a technician to visit your office to perform the installation. Alternatively, if you use a laptop, you can also schedule an appointment to bring it to the Help Desk and have the upgrade installed there. (This process normally takes at least 15 minutes).

This software is also available for all faculty and staff members who use Office as part of their regular DePauw duties to install on their personal home computers. If you wish to obtain a personal installation CD, please visit the Help Desk on the UB lower level and sign a release form.

For more details on Office 2007 please refer to our Office 2007 resources at:
http://www.depauw.edu/it/helpdesk/office2007.

As always, please contact the Help Desk with questions or concerns.