Using Computers at Highlands

ITS is Information Technology Services, which is responsible for the acquisition, maintenance, and security of computers, software, telephones, and the network on campus.

Donnelly Library Ground Floor

505-454-3496

Yes, bring your computer (just the tower, not the keyboard, monitor, or mouse) to ITS and the technicians will check the computer to make sure it is up to date and install anti-virus (if you do not have any).

Yes, the entire campus has wireless access. The SSID is NMHUPublic.

All computers on campus require a username and password to login. The username and password provides you access to University computers, Email, E-COURSES, Self-Service Banner (SSB), and remote library resources.

You must never use another person's username and you must never share your username and password with any one else. You are responsible for what happens under your username and if there is any violation of the university computer usage policy, you will be responsible.

The university student email account is used for official communications from the university. You are responsible for checking your email and managing your email account. You should check it regularly to make sure you do not miss any important messages.

Student email accounts are hosted by Live @ EDU (Microsoft) with capacity for 10GB of space. This provides an email account for life. It is a full featured email with support for a calendar and contacts. It also includes support for online office programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) and storage of files and photos. You can forward your emails and interface with a mobile device. Click here to access Student Email.

There are two ways to lookup up email addresses. One is using the student email system, create a new email, and click on the "To:" button and it lets you search for students or staff.

Or you can Email Faculty and Staff from the Highlands' web page by searching in the Employee Directory. You can send email directly from the campus directory.

E-COURSES is a course learning system. It is a way for your instructors to provide you with information or interact with you in a class. Some classes extensively use E-COURSES and some use it very little. Check with your instructors to learn how E-COURSES might be used in their classes. Learn how to login and check to see if there is information or assignments that affect you.

Banner is the university's administrative software system where information about your classes, grades, and accounts is stored. Self-Service Banner is a way for students, faculty, and staff to access their information in Banner. You can check your class schedules, view your account balance, see your grades, view an unofficial transcript, see your financial aid, make online payments, respond to a survey, evaluate your classes, and as an upper classman add and drop classes. If you are an employee you can view information about your employement online too. Rather than going to the appropriate office and having them look it up in Banner for you, you can do from wherever you have internet access, any time of the day and any day.

All university computers in labs have the Office 2010 Suite and access to the internet. Some computers in certain labs have special software as required by the departments.

There are a several options available.

Overview: Each computer you use has a My Documents folder on it that is accessible only to you on that computer. When you move to another computer you have My Documents but it is on that other computer. Although we do not normally delete files from computers during the semester, it could happen, so you can not expect that the files you saved in My Documents will be there.

One suggestion is to work in My Documents, save your files, close the program you are using and then copy your files from My Documents to your USB drive. When you start working again, copy your files from the USB drive to My Documents, make changes, and then copy then back to the USB drive in a new folder (name the folders with the date). This way you have a backup copy of your files on that computer plus your USB drive. IMPORTANT: Be sure to tell windows you are going to remove the flash drive so files do not get corrupted. See later answer about this topic.

Another option is to use SkyDrive to store copies of your files. SkyDrive is a part of your live@edu account. You can access it though your student email account.

You might also consider emailing yourself a copy of the files which you can then access from any other computer on the internet.

You are responsible for your files and documents. We can offer suggestions but you have to protect them and back them up. We will not be able to recover lost files for you.

With computers and any storage device, like a hard drive, the question is not if it "will" fail but "when"? Computers, hard drives, and USB drives will all fail, sooner if they are abused. So you do not want to work for days or weeks on a project only to lose it at the last minute because you only have one copy of your file or the device you stored it on got lost, stolen, or just failed.

You MUST make regular backups. A backup is a copy of your files, preferably in different location. Do not keep all your copies in the same place. You can use a USB drive, CD, DVD, online, or another computer as a possible backup of your documents. If you have a large email account you can backup by sending a copy to yourself. If you lose a file or want to go back to an earlier version, find your backup and start using it. If you lost your latest version of the file, you will have to redo some work but not everything. The more often you make a backup, the less information you will lose if the current version is lost or failed.

Do not delete old backups until you are sure your current version is good and you have made a new backup of it. (That means do not immediately replace the last backup with a new one. Keep a few versions of your files and only replace the oldest one.)

CD's might be one of the most reliable long term methods to back up projects. Consider backing up all your files for the semester and keeping them on a CD/DVD.

Recovery of lost files is very difficult and often impossible or very expensive so you must take steps to protect your data by backing it up and being careful with the media. This means do not drop it, scratch your CD/DVD, leave in a hot car, wash your USB drive or lose it.

We strongly discourage the use of floppy disks. They tend to have a limited life span and a very small capacity. You will probably find that many new computers no longer support floppy drives.

One of the best methods of backing up or moving files is to use online storage. The university student email provides SkyDrive which allows you to access files from any online computer.

You need to decide if you want to block popups or not. But you will find that several programs through the university will not work if you do not allow popups and cookies from *.nmhu.edu. We think you should use just one popup blocker if you use one (and turn the rest off), then be sure to allow popup from sites that require them.

We try to provide all new freshman with our "Save Me" document entitled "Computer Use Tips for Students from ITService @ NMHU". This document tells you how to logon to any university computer with a username of HELP (no password) or go to the ITS Self-Help pages at http://its.nmhu.edu/help to lookup your username or change your password.

You can get a copy of our "Save Me" document in the online documents section of the Highlands page site in ITS section searching for helpdesk.

The "Save Me" document also has useful information about how to select a new password.

Student passwords must be:

1. at least 8 characters long
   1. contain at least one upper case letter (A-Z)
   2. contain at least one lower case letter (a-z)
   3. conatain at least one number (0-9)
   4. you can use non-alphabetic characters in place of or in addition to one of the groups above (for example, !, $, #, %)
2. Your password may not contain your name or username.
3. You cannot immediately reuse a password.
4. You cannot change your password more than once a day.

If your password is entered incorrectly too many times , the system locks you out to prevent anyone from trying to guess passwords. It generally unlocks in about 15 minutes and you can try again or you can call the helpdesk at 454-3496 to get it unlocked.

Are you using your temporary password which is your birth date? Email, SSB and E-COURSES do not support the temporary password. You must go to the ITS Self-Help page and enter a password and then you will be able to login to SSB and E-COURSES. The library resources have the same requirement, they do not support the temporary password.

We can provide you with a free copy of our Anti-Virus program. When you bring your computer by for use in campus housing, you are offered the Anti-Virus program.

If you need a copy of the Anti-Virus program, search for Microsoft Security Essentials and install it.

Microsoft and other companies provide discounted software to students. You should check with the company to see if you can obtain free or discounted software as a stucent. On the Technical Help page for students we have links to software available from Microsoft that is discounted for students.

No, normally leave the computers on for the next person unless instructed differently. It is very important to always log out before you leave a computer. Do not leave until you see the "Login Screen" back up. Remember that anything done on that computer in violation of the computer usage policy in your name is your responsibility.

There are computer labs in almost every building. Some of those labs are reserved for the students in those departments and might have special software needed for them.

Large public labs include the Purple Pub in the Student Center and computers in the Library. Both areas tend to have extended hours and you should check their schedules.

At the Highlands website www.nmhu.edu, you will find information about departments and majors, the academic calendar, news stories, the campus calendar, faculty and staff directory, and information about athletics. The university class schedule actually shows how many spaces are still available in a class. It is probably the most up to date listing of classes you can find. Also in the online documents section you can find forms, handbooks, and policy and procedure manuals.

When using a USB drive in a computer you need to tell the computer you are done with the drive before you remove it. In the right hand side of the task bar you should see an icon like: (XP) or (Windows 7). Click on the icon and it will list the USB drives in your computer, click on the one you want to remove, it will close it down if it can or issue a warning and then tell you it is ok to remove the drive. If the USB drive has a light, it will probably also go out when it is safe to remove if you clicked on the icon.

If you remove the drive before it finishes or without telling the computer you want to remove it, increases the possibility that you might lose data or corrupt a file.

Student Email keeps a copy of all the mail you have sent in the "Sent Items" folder. You should find a copy of any emails you have sent in that folder. Find and forward a copy of the missing email.

Email space is not unlimited. You need to clean up old emails. When you delete an email it does not immediately get deleted but goes into your "Deleted Items" folder. You must empty your deleted items folder to permanently delete items from your mail box. Right click on the "Deleted Items" folder name and select "Empty Deleted Items".

Always be sure to check your Inbox, Sent Items, and Deleted Items folders to make sure you are not keeping any unnecessary emails.

Yes, your student email account is a standard email account capable of communicating with anyone else with email. Your email address is your username followed by "@live.nmhu.edu". Example: username@live.nmnu.edu

Yes, go to Self-Service Banner and in the Personal Information section, change your mailing address. When you try to change your permanent address a change request is submitted to the Registrar's Office. You are unable to change some of the other addresses online. Please contact the Registrar's office if other addresses are incorrect.

Yes, a couple of applications used by Highlands require that you allow cookies for them to work. We recommend that you allow cookies for NMHU.EDU.

No, we discourage saving your password on public computers. If by mistake you forget to log off a public computer and someone else tries to use your account, they will be able to access all everything you have access to. You are responsible for what happens in your name so by not saving passwords, you are adding another level of protection.

We encourage you to protect your personal computer, laptop, or mobile device by using a password or other security mechanism.

No. You are responsible for what happens in your account and you must never share your account or password with anyone else. If you think someone has learned your password, change it as soon as possible. If another person has a reason to be using university computers, they will have their own username and password.

Do not upgrade without checking with Highlands, especially if you are taking E-COURSES classes. E-COURSES and Elluminate (used in some E-COURSES classes) is very sensitive to the version of Java so check before you upgrade.

Yes, student emails are scanned to check for viruses. However, you must always exercise caution when you receive emails. Do not execute programs found in emails you receive unless you have confirmed the authenticity with the person who sent it and you know them. Sometimes emails come from someone other than the person they appear to come from. Always exercise caution.

If you get an unsolicted email that asks for personal information or passwords or takes you to a site that does, be cautious because that could be a phishing email. Phishing emails appear to come from a legitimate site but in reality point to an entirely different site. They are trying to collect personal information or passwords or steal your identity. You should just delete the email or if it is a company you have a relationship with, go directly to the site (not using the link) to follow up on the issue.

The university will not request your password in an email.

Yes we have a spam filter on the student email that eliminates spam. If you are getting a significant amount of spam contact the ITS helpdesk and ITS will look into the problem. You must protect yourself from spam by not acknowledging it to the sending and verifying tha5t they have a good address and being very careful who you give your email address to. Do not publish your email address where programs can harvest emails and then start sending you spam.

Highlands does not send email advertising products nor does it send spam. We do send emails about what is happening on campus. If it does not apply to you, please delete. Remember that someday you might want to share information about something and you will appreciate the resource.

If your email contains a very large message, it might take a while to download before you can view it. As a result, your email appears to "hang". If you turn off the reading pane ("Show/Hide Reading Pane") you can view the size of a message before you view it. If it is very large (over 1MB) and your connection is slow you might want to skip it until you have a faster connection.

We recommend that you change your settings so you can view the size of the messages in your Inbox. To do that, click on the pull down at the right of the folder name on the blue bar that says "Outlook Web Access". Change it to Messages. Now you can see the file sizes. You might find it easier to view messages and have the full details if you change your reading pane so show the message below (bottom) rather than to the right of the list of messages in the folder.

If your connection is slow, turn off the reading pane so that messages are not downloaded for review until you double click to read them.

If you need to use the ITS Self-Help pages to reset your password or perform some other task, we need to verify who you are. So we use the security question from Banner. You create the question and provide the answer. All the computer does is ask you the question and then match your response to what you entered when you set it up. (Case is not important but spacing and punctuation is.) The answer should be simple and something you know but others are not likely to know. Remember not to share it with anyone.

Good questions could include:

• What is your mother maiden name?
• What is your favorite color?
• What is father's middle name?
• What is your first pet's name?

Generally Office 2007 and Office 2010 default document types should be compatible. An exception is that Access 2010 may have some features that are missing in Access 2007.

There are two solutions to this problem:

One solution in Office 2010 is to save your files in a format compatiple with the version of office or other program that you have with the "Save As" file option and choosing the appropriate file type.

The second option is to go to the Microsoft site and download and install on your computer the free converter that allows older versions of Office to read Office 2007/2010 documents. Please read the details and download at Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

SkyDrive is part of Live @ EDU which is used for Student email. for more details.

You can upload and download files between SkyDrive and the computer you are on. Also with your own personal computer, not a public computer, you could set up an automatic sycn so that a folder in SkyDrive automatically syncs with a folder on your computer.

SkyDrive also provide access to Office 2010 programs online.

Click here to go to SkyDrive or get more information.