ACS Summer News

By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online Editor

In case you have been away for the summer or otherwise engaged, please be aware of the following items:

"Important Academic Mainframe News" -- It appears that funding will be available next year to continue operation of the VM/CMS system. You may recall that IBM discontinued its Higher Education Software Consortium program under which we were licensing the VM/CMS software. IBM finally announced a replacement program and it appears that the new discount for licensing the software will be sufficient to allow us to continue use of that operating system and most of its associated software. Work continues, however, on identifying a replacement Administrative data systems processing platform. Since it is unlikely that the new platform will be an IBM Mainframe. It is likely that Mainframe services will be discontinued sometime within the next 2-3 years. Please contact Dr. Philip Baczewski (baczewski@unt.edu), Associate Director of Academic Computing, if you have any questions in this regard.

"Secure Communications to be Required for ACS UNIX Hosts" -- As of September 1, 2001, access via telnet and ftp to the ACS UNIX hosts sol, jove, and terra will no longer be possible. After September 1, you must use an SSH-compatible client for access. See the article for more information on this topic.

"BulkMail gets an Update" -- As of Thursday, June 7, BulkMail has been changed to use the same authentication server as is used by EagleMail and Web publishing. Included in this change is an option to set a password if no password exists. Faculty/Staff who have activated UNT Internet Services will use that ID and password for logging into BulkMail. Faculty/Staff who have not activate UNT Internet Services can enter their EUID in the login page and will be routed to a set of pages where they can set a password which will work with bulk mail. Consult the article for further information on this topic.

"Simeon Support to be Phased Out" -- Over the next year, starting September 1, 2001, support for the Simeon E-mail client will be gradually withdrawn. Those who wish to can continue to use Simeon as long as it will run on their computers, however, after September 1, Simeon will no longer be made available for download. Questions or comments about Simeon can be directed to Dr. Philip Baczewski (baczewski@unt.edu), Associate Director of Academic Computing.

Join EDUCAUSE and your colleagues from the Southwest for EduTex, the second annual EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference for IT professionals in higher education. Technologists, managers, and executives from all higher education institutions in the Southwest -- small and large, public and private -- are invited to attend this conference.

EduTex will be held February 20-22, 2002 at the Hyatt Regency Austin on Town Lake, Austin, Texas. This year's theme is "IT -- Through HE** or High Water." The conference will feature practical, "how-to" sessions, a management and leadership focus, and region-specific issues organized around the following four tracks:

Technology and Applications/Infrastructure
Management Skills and Leadership
Support
E-Learning

In addition, corporate and higher education participants will present information on new developments in technology and software.

Follow the links at the EduTex Website for more information about this exciting event.

If you would like to give a presentation at EduTex, the deadline for proposals is October 1, 2001. See http://www.educause.edu/conference/edutex/2002/cfp/guidelines.asp for more information.