ACO Meeting Minutes May 12, 2016

Minutes of the Arts Computing Department meeting held on May 12, 2016

Present:  D. Keenan, S. Hartung, K. McGowan, H. Balagtas, N. Bromley, J. Schildroth, L. Tomalty, T. Marshall-Taylor

Co-ops:    J. Hillo, D. Kingsley, I. Zinck

Regrets:  J. Simpson, S. Speers, S. Paterson, C. Wallace

  • Dawn
    • Marina Ivanova is the Arts ambassador for the Green Office program. The program will include documenting energy efficiency, handling recycling and e-waste, and implementing best practices.
    • Scheduled network changes on May 11th resulted in outages for a number of people, on different systems, and for varying lengths of time. ACO and IST staff are using the incident as a learning opportunity for disaster preparedness and process improvements.
  • Sherry
    • The majority of responses from faculty involved in the 2016 rollover have been received. Computers will be ordered shortly. A process meeting will be held on May 19th for those involved in the rollover.
    • There was a discussion on how to handle surplus so that paperwork accurately reflects what is in the bin(s) for Central Store pick up. The co-ops will clear a shelf as a designated surplus area so that technical staff can drop off items to be surplussed. Attach “to be surplussed” stickies to the item and inform the co-ops of these items so they can be processed correctly.
  • David
    • Cleaning up surplus room in preparation for rollover machines and handling of surplus.
    • Learning PHP to work on updating Helpdesk+ to provide desirable features.
  • Ian
    • Cleaning out PAS 1098A and completed inventory of stored items. Some items can be donated to the Computer Museum.
    • Working with David on surplus in PAS 1084.
  • Janine
    • This term:
      • Will be reorganizing and updating SharePoint site to clean up unused items.
      • Creating documentation for Evaluate.
      • Planning ACO Lunch Session to be held in August.
      • Working with Lisa to move the ACO site to responsive design.
      • Will be working on Fall 2016 newsletter and on-going news items.
      • Planning on revamping ACO bulletin boards.
  • Keith
    • VLAN 428 (151 subnet) was dropped from PAS trunks, which caused problems working on systems that belong in ECH. Trunking has been restored.
    • The new server for St. Paul’s has been moved to the machine room. Migration of existing virtual machines will be scheduled with St. Paul’s staff.
    • Working on machine room power management to identify power source utilization, and remove an unused UPS and systems no longer in use.
    • Changed ImageMagik configuration on web servers to reduce our exposure to a security issue until the software is updated.
    • Working on Sessional and Grad Lab system renewal to identify old desktop and lab machines which will be replaced from our spare inventory.
    • Network cleanup done resulting from the May 11th incident.
    • Discussed the removal of email forwarding for user addresses on Artsservices.
    • Encountered multiple issues with Isadora software for Drama, including driver issue and installation name length.
  • Herbert
    • Reinstalled CrashPlan on Tao Chen (ECON) laptop. Discovered backup was only 60% complete.
    • MacBook Air for Joel Blit (ECON) was sent back to Apple for battery replacement. It has now been returned. Office 2016 patch appears to have fixed a file saving problem.
    • Added email alerts to ticket owner for Helpdesk+ when someone comments on a ticket.
    • Working on CALMS. Using some ideas from Computer Science Equipment & Inventory system. Using Sarah’s report from last term to inform database schema.
  • Nevil
    • HH 280 lab is up and running, with the exception of no power to one workstation. Capital IQ licensing and Thomson Reuters licensing remain incomplete.
    • There was an issue with Audacity in the Language Labs where it could not find install files. This has been fixed on workstations that were reported to have the problem. Doing further investigation to determine if any broken installations remain.
    • Created a report for printer troubleshooting and device/queue cleanup http://nxsartsws.uwaterloo.ca/Reports/Printer_errors.html to run every 15 minutes to show printer errors. Will capture log time and when it was last successful in order to determine when an error occurred.  
    • Cleanc helper applications will be maintained by IST as common apps. Event logs will be rolled weekly instead of nightly.
    • LAPS in offices having issues with administrator account permissions. Hope to have a robust solution ready to implement for administrator privilege access for the faculty rollover.
    • Problem with Deep Freeze in the Research Data Centre. Permissions for each folder and will be scripted. Will arrange for removal of surplus.
    • A vulnerability in 7Zip requires an update to version 6.0. Nevil is notifying IST staff responsible for this common application.
  • Jameson
    • Helped to secure computers in HH 280 with cable locks.
    • Worked on the installation of the four additional workstations in HH 280. One station is missing power. The contractor will fix this deficiency.
    • Re-wrote the Event Log monitoring script to monitor System, Application and Security logs, skipping log entries that are effectively noise.
    • Worked on creating several new users accounts for the Games Institute.
    • SharePoint site administrator on Games Institute is unable to see the current calendar. Escalated to Stephen Markan to help in troubleshooting.
  • Lisa
    • Met with 2 SAF staff to show them how to use UW portal and address questions.
    • Work on Ontario Women’s History Network website is being completed this week so it can go live. Staff responsible for the site have not completed WCMS training so Lisa is making changes on their behalf.
    • Working on updates to ACO website content. Please send requests for changes to Janine or Lisa.
    • Planning move of ACO website to responsive design.
    • Google Analytics have been set up for ACO website. Need a Gmail account to access results. Herbert and Lisa currently have access.
  • Todd
    • SPAN 102 lab time changed to accommodate change in TA.
    • Antidote 8 has been reinstalled in ML 110. Expecting to receive version 9 soon.
    • Installed Audacity in ML 113 with help from Nevil.
    • Headsets in ML 113 are experiencing more wear and tear than usual during evening labs.
    • TA for SI 101R has completed orientation. A problem with her alarm code activation during the first week of classes has been resolved.