News

IT Update

Sep 1, 2015

Posted in: Uncategorized

By Gareth Griffiths

CommunityNet

We are working with SaskTel and the Ministry of Advanced Education to provide Enterprise-grade high speed connections to our main campuses. Agreements have been signed for Saskatoon, Regina and Prince Albert, with negotiations continuing in La Loche.

These connections are currently using a 50Mb/s synchronous (same speed uploading and downloading) connection. As a point of comparison, SaskTel Basic High Speed is up to 5Mb/s download and 128kb/s upload.

Major works have already been undertaken to bring fibre optic connections into the buildings. The connection is operational in Saskatoon and Regina, with Prince Albert scheduled for August.

SaskTel Select Wi-Fi

We have partnered with SaskTel to install their Select Wi-Fi system in our premises. The system enables any SaskTel mobile device to connect automatically to Wi-Fi in various locations across the province. More information can be found here: http://www.sasktel.com/wps/wcm/connect/content/home/wireless/wi-fi/

HO/1003 Network Link

We have completed work on the network link between the two buildings in Saskatoon. Both buildings now operate as if they are one continuous network, meaning data can easily be shared between them. The IT Department (especially Gordon and Brody) has been working tirelessly to merge the computers onto one domain. Their efforts are greatly appreciated.

Home Directories

If you are on one of our networked locations, don’t forget you usually have access to a home directory on the fileservers to save data. This location is usually marked as drive H: and is added through the login script each morning. Data saved to this location is automatically backed up, and is on a server that has mirrored disks to combat disk failure.

Also bear in mind that a substantial amount of files on the desktop will affect the startup performance of a computer, and these are better off located on the home directory, with a shortcut to the location on the desktop. Please contact IT for more info on this.

IT Support System

As part of the work to decommission Windows Server 2003, we migrated the Track-IT system to a new server. At the same time, the upgrades from v9.0 to v11.4 were performed. This introduced some new features. More on this will follow next month.

In July 2015, 34 new Work Orders were received into Track-IT. Of these, 31 are now closed (91% completion rate). Overall, we closed 41 Work Orders in the month. Please email support@gdins.org or call IT for any new requests. 

Website

The website saw 4,127 Pageviews (3,485 Unique Pageviews) in July 2015. Highlights include: 25% of visitors to the home page clicked on What We Offer, 17% used the search function, and 17% each scrolled through the News and Events items, with 9% going to the Contact Us page.

Social Media Summary

Reasonably quiet time on Social Media due to the holidays. Below are stats from our Social Media channels in July.

Facebook: Total number of people liking the page grew by 42 to 952. Total Engagements (number of links clicked, likes or comments) in July was 663. Total reach of posts (number of people that saw a post in their feed) was 6,768 with 16,223 impressions (number of times a GDI page appeared in others’ news feeds). The most popular post was the DTI Security Officer program ad, reaching 3,450 people and 147 likes, comments, and shares

Twitter: 27 tweets earned 8,712 impressions. There were 17 new followers in the month, 40 mentions and 933 profile visits. The top tweet was https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKIgHvJUMAIGXH3.jpg:large (Apprentice at the New Mosaic Stadium), earning 1,203 impressions. Top mention was the same tweet, with 139 mentions. We currently have 459 followers.

Scholarships

The Scholarship application process has reopened for the October 1 deadline. Only online applications through the Institute website are accepted. Some things to consider in the application process:

– Please ensure all files are less than 5MB in size
– Valid file types are jpg, pdf, png, gif, doc, docx, txt, rtf, odf. Any other file type will cause an error
– Data entered into an application may be saved on the local machine as a cookie in the browser during the process. This is why you can scroll back and forward during the process. This data is usually not deleted during the application process until it is submitted. Thus, it is possible to leave the application and return to it later (however, please bear in mind this is not guaranteed to be saved as it is dependent on your local settings)
– Any problems, please contact the scholarship (scholarships@gdi.gdins.org) or support addresses and we will attempt to resolve them

Windows 10

Microsoft launched their new Operating System, Windows 10, in July. It reintroduces a Start Menu, and looks more like the version everyone is used to.

Some of you may have noticed a popup on your computer about upgrading to Windows 10. This came as part of the normal updates to Windows 7, and offers a free upgrade. This link is valid, and not spam or malicious software. However, as an organization we are not ready for Windows 10. Please do not install this upgrade on your computers at this point. There is a way to remove the popup from the computers. Please contact IT for assistance with this.

Initial looks at Windows 10 are promising. We have formed an evaluation group to ensure that all our applications will work with this new version, and to make sure that IT is in a position to support this. Further details to follow in the coming months

Closing Thought

On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the Escape key

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