Other IT services, tools, tips and discussions

Info on services in which ChemIT may not add value directly, but many of which we are knowledgeable about and we'd be happy to share our knowledge and otherwise consult with you.

Contact ChemIT for a consultation to characterize your backup needs and receive our recommendations to cost-effectively meet those needs.

Backups and file storage options for research groups — ChemIT sharing their recommendations and best-practices for backups and group file storage. May be of particular value to research groups.
Personal backups — Protect your data, even if not on institutional systems or services.
- Backup cloud services like Google and DropBox.com — Hacked accounts make cloud services vulnerable. Back them up if they contain sufficient value to you. Also, encryption options
- Backup ideas for personal computers — Sharing backup info ChemIT staff have come across which may help others backing up their personal computers.

CCB photocopiers

Purchased and maintained by Eastern, through Vonnie.

Changing Email Contact Information

ChemIT (formerly known as CRCF) has a new email address, ChemIT@cornell.edu.

Connecting to eduroam (RedRover)

Using RedRover / RedRover-Secure / Eduroam

Cornell account review, OBIEE Dashboard

Oliver uses this link to review transactions on his group's account (A583143).

Cornell Two-Step Login (Duo two factor authentication)

April 20th 2017, five sections of Workday will require employees to use Cornell's Two-Step Login. Enable this service before you need it!

Creating or mounting an ISO (virtual CD-ROM or DVD)

Software distributed on CD or DVD sometimes requires it to be on the media to install or otherwise work. You can distribute the content virtually as an *.iso file, and then mount that file so the OS thinks it's an actual CD or DVD.

CU course develops software for production solutions

Course offers teams to develop real software applications for clients (you?!) who intend to place them into production. Not prototypes or academic research.

CU Search

Electronic Lab Notebooks

Digital Lab Notebooks, pilot program — CIT's and the Library's desire to pilot Digital Lab Notebooks for courses (and research labs).
Dotmatics Studies Notebook "One-Click" (ELN) in Lin Group and Cornell Library, 3 year — Lin Group was using Dotmatics's Studies Notebook <http://www.dotmatics.com/products/studies-notebook/ http://www.dotmatics.com/products/studies-notebook/>. 3/15/2018: Vendor stopping support so group looking for alternatives again.
OneNote as a platform for ELN — Other places have succeeded in using Microsoft's OneNote to meet this need. The Lin group is exploring this option, as of 3/15/2018.

Email and Calendaring

Includes information related to Cornell-specific email and calendar tools. Tips, issues, etc.

Calendaring — Includes information related to Cornell-specific calendar tools. Tips, issues, etc.
- Calendar — Links to resources to learn how to more effectively use calendars, including Cornell's Exchange calendar service.
- Calendar conventions use by Chemistry IT staff — Noting time off in effective ways.
- Calendar harmony tips — Outlook Calendar sometimes behaves in unwelcome, surprising ways. Learn to recognize them, and learn the work-arounds possible for for many aggravations. It's not you; it's the software.
Email — Includes information related to Cornell-specific email and calendar tools. Tips, issues, etc.
- Cornell's email forwarding service, LDAP — Look up where email goes when you send an email to someone's Cornell email address. Change or add where you forward your Cornell-based email. Mail routing.
- CU's Gmail (CMail) service, direct send — Send an email directly to Cmail, bypassing O365 (and likely also Cornell's main email infrastructure): <NetID@g.cornell.edu>
- Email Message Size Limits — CU's Exchange (Office 365, Outlook) system limits the size of email messages, including their attachments, to 25 MB. CU's e-lists limit full message size to 1MB.
- Improving Cornell's central SPAM filter — Cornell's central email delivery service uses filters from Sophos to block or rate spam. The filters get better with real-world samples submitted by us. Here's a link to the page explaining how to do so.
- On Macs, Microsoft Outlook is often better than Apple Mail — ChemIT notes on specific situations where we have noticed Outlook outperforming Mail.
- Outlook message's folder — In Windows, Alt-Enter to pull up legacy info box showing message's folder (location).
Outlook info related to both email and calendar functions — Please also see info on Outlook within the Email and Calendar sections.
- Outlook message limits per folder and calendar entries limits — Performance degrades in almost all mail clients when there are many, many emails in one folder. Here are MS Outlook's limitations.
- Storage limits with Outlook — 50GB total storage.
Shared mailboxes and calendars, mostly for staff — Exchange Group Accounts (EGA's) can help two or more people share management of incoming mail, and provide a non-person, functional email address. And for shared calendared resources.
- Sharing Room Calendars — Chemistry IT assists the Chemistry department in properly configuring and authorizing access to room calendars. This page contains relevant notes.
- Viewing different mailboxes within Outlook, Windows — Staff and others using EGAs will want ready access to those email mailboxes within their Outlook client to both read messages and "send as" those mailbox EGA address. There are two ways to do that.

FileMakerPro programming resources

Leads on FileMakerPro programmers.

Firefox ESR, Windows

In Windows, why not transition to 64-bit Firefox ESR "now", especially for new installs? For example, in Cornell's CM Windows 10 OSDs.

Fonts, Apple

Know what fonts you use which are not default fonts of your OS. You'll need to re-install them when you get a new computer or get a new OS!

Google services, including Chromebooks

Many CCB folks use Google products. Here's some of what ChemIT knows of some of those services, as an FYI.

Hard disk recovery options

Many places offer free analysis, and you only pay after they characterize what they can recover.

Java software challenges

Java software can make web sites more usable or appealing. Unfortunately having Java installed is also an increased security risk. Challenges and tactics discussed here.

LDAP look-up tips and tricks

IT Support Providers can use Quest (CU's Active Directory tool) to query CU's LDAP for email forwarding and date/ time someone's password was change (by them, or scrambled by IT Security).

Directory look-up tips from CIT — Other useful attributes: cornelleduactivateddt and cornelledumailroutingtime

Lyris (Cornell email list service software)

Mac utilities to check file sizes

Tools to help you understand which files are taking up the most space on your hard disk. Useful to inform back-up and sync'ing strategies and evaluating options.

Manager Tools resources, including podcasts

Good resources for any employee, manager or not.

MS Office licensing reset to KVM

Sometime Cornell's licensing for MS Office doesn't "take". Here are ways to fix that problem.

MS Word training resources

NMR Scheduler, manage by NMR

Contact NMR at <nmr@cornell.edu mailto:nmr@cornell.edu> for any problems with the NMR Scheduler.

DRAFT- Clarifying that NMR staff manage and support the NMR Scheduler server — Prevent delays be directing support requests to NMR, not Chemistry IT or CIT. Thank you!
- NMR Scheduler's background story, as Chemistry IT understands it. — From the perspective of Chemistry IT, here is NMR Scheduler's background story, along with contextual and technical information.

Passwords

Strategies related to managing complex password, and other password-related issues.

Password managers — Password managers help you manage your logins. They can store all your user names and passwords, along with login information and other notes. You only need to remember the single master password, instead of the many logins that you use.

PCard receipt forwarding to Vonnie

Cornell changed the process for PCard receipts Jan. 2016. Automatically have emails forwarded. Instructions below.

Personal computer purchase information

Find likely cheaper ways to buy a Mac, Dell, or other computer than just walking into an Apple Store, BestBuy, etc.

Personal computer support: Your options

Please share with us what support options work (or didn't work) for you so we can tell others. Thank you!

Phishing emails at Cornell

Do you need to report email phishing? Find out if Cornell already knows about it, and thus no need to report it.

Phone-related resources and tips

Phones should be simple, but features can make them complicated. Use these pages to access the basics, and help to identify features you would value.

AUDIX tips and resources — Many of us use this messaging service (voice mail) instead of an answering machine.
Caller ID to off-campus phones — Campus phones default to not providing CallerID info for off-campus calls. This can lead to phone calls not being picked up because they are not trusted.
CU's My Extension Everywhere service — When My Extension Everywhere is activated, calls to your campus phone number will ring simultaneously on any designated 10 digit phone number. <http://www.it.cornell.edu/services/myext/ http://www.it.cornell.edu/services/myext/>. Formerly named Extension to Cellular (EC500).
Example email to faculty on phone options — Email excerpt from us to a faculty member interested in call-forwarding-like services, from his Cornell phone number.
Harold Scheraga's office phone forwarding — Documentation of Harold Scheraga's office phone forwarding set-up.
VoIP phone tips and resources — Most office phones in Baker Lab and ST Olin are Voice-over-IP (VoIP) phones. These use a special network and will not work over normal phone lines.
- Returning a broken VoIP phone to CIT — Email template for returning phone to "NCS".

Private or local cloud and sync ideas

Protein Lab locks

The Chemistry Department decommissioned the old, programmable locks to the Protein Lab May 2018. Retained specialized hardware until locks actually leave the premises, "just in case".

Remove Windows file share security warning

Untrusted warning messages when using trusted file shares are annoying. Here's how to get rid of the warnings.

Security breaches and related data

Investing in IT security can be hard to prioritize unless you know what you are helping to avoid.

Send Gmail as if from your Cornell email account

Set up your Gmail so that you can send a message from that account and have the Reply-to be your actual Cornell email address.

Sharing documents and text

SSH tips and tricks

Learn tips and tricks realted to SSH on this page. Including how to prevent network drops during idle SSH connections.

Directory mounting — Example: You want to mount a directory on your CCB cluster. You can do so using existing ssh access, via sshfs.
- Real-world sshfs mount example, from CCB researcher
Prevent idle SSH network drops — Firewalls will often drop idle ssh connections. You (on your client) and/or your server administrator (on your server), can take steps to ensure connections stay alive and thus are not dropped.

Storage thoughts

Survey tools

TeamViewer

People have reported successfully using TeamViewer to access their non-Cornell (personally purchased) computer from off-campus when their computer was on eduroam (Cornell wireless service).

Time cards

https://hr.cornell.edu/workday https://hr.cornell.edu/workday

URL used by Facilities

https://biotech.alc.emcs.cornell.edu/ https://biotech.alc.emcs.cornell.edu/

Using CU's VPN

Using Cornell's Cisco AnyConnect Virtual Private Network (VPN) software. Useful to connect, from RedRover, to group servers and NMR's server. Bonus: Also enables you to print to your group's printers from off campus!

VPN options when CU's VPN is not the right tool — Folks visiting China (for example) can benefit from using a VPN service to allow otherwise prohibited access to Internet resources. Cornell VPN is not the right tool for this,, but there are many other commercial VPN services available to meet this need.
VPN use in specific countries, including China

Vertere chemical tracking system

Vertere is the tracking system necessary for safety, paid for by EH&S and supported by Vertere.

Video and Phone Conferencing tools and tips

Phone conferencing options — Free and fee-based options for phone conferencing.
Video conferencing tools and tips — CU is licensed for the Enterprise version of Zoom. Easy to use and extra features. Other options can also be listed, as FYI.
- EMC2 Tandberg to Zoom — Instructions to connect the Tandberg C20 video conferencing system in EMC2 to Cornell Zoom.

Space shortcuts

Child pages