ISS Newsletter - Student Edition

May 2013


Keep your Wireless connections working!

Janet, the University's external network infrastructure provider has requested we change the way we provide wireless networking (eduroam) at Lancaster. To ensure that your University Wi-Fi connection doesn't stop working, you need to update your eduroam login on all devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc).

Follow the instructions on how to change your eduroam login for most popular devices.


Adobe Acrobat Pro - Upgrade

Adobe Acrobat Pro (version X), is now available in all PC Labs, training spaces and on managed and supported PCs. This version of Adobe Acrobat allows you to create PDF files from within most popular Microsoft Office applications including Microsoft project and Visio.

Further hints and tips on how to make best use of Adobe Acrobat Pro are available on the Adobe website.


Live@edu upgrading to Office365

During the week commencing 22nd July 2013 the undergraduate email service, Live@edu, will be upgraded to Microsoft's "Office 365" service. Login will continue to be via webmail.lancs.ac.uk using WebLogin and your usual University account login details.

If you currently access email using your mobile device then after the upgrade you'll no longer require a separate password and will access your email via your University account details.

Full details of the changes, including those to Microsoft Skydrive, how they effect you and what you need to do can be found at www.lancs.ac.uk/iss/services/ugemail/.


FREE PowerPoint Student workshop

22 May, 2:30pm - 4:30pm, Training Suite 1

For further details or to book see the details on the ISS Training pages.


ISS PC Labs

Looking for a PC Lab to finish an assignment or do some exam prep? Did you know you can check for your nearest free PC using the PC Availability feature in iLancaster? You can check online from a web browser, or, if you have a smartphone, download iLancaster to your mobile.


Return, Recycle & Reuse Network Cables

If you no longer need your network cable, return it to your college Porters' Lodge and ISS will put it to good use elsewhere. Just ask your porter where the network cable box is!


Think before you Click

Social-engineering threats are rapidly growing, and people increasingly use shortened URLs in Twitter or Facebook posts so that it's difficult to see where the links are taking you.

All too often, we click on the link anyway because we trust the person who has posted them - but are you sure they really know where the links have come from? Some of the most popular posts can send you to a site that can not be trusted, so here are some tips on how to check out a link before you click on it:

  • For links that look legitimate, hover your cursor over the link and the true, full address should appear at the bottom of the browser window. If the full address is something like //X5932OwzBulgaria45634.cn or //paypal.gotcha.co.ru, then clicking on it is not a good idea.
  • If the link has been shortened to a "bitly" addresses, simply paste the URL into your browser, add a + after it (for example, //bitly.com/13LRaF4+ and press Enter. Adding the plus sign takes you to the bitly site first, where you'll see a page for the destination site where you can check out the full address of the link.
  • Similarly for "tinyurl" addresses, add "preview" before the address. For example, enter //preview.tinyurl.com/{xxxxx}, and the uncloaked address will appear at the tinyurl site.
  • For snipurl addresses, add "peek" before the shortened address. For example, //peek.http://snipurl.com/26nno88 takes you to the Snipurl site and displays the full URL, which is https://gap.lancs.ac.uk/policy-info-guide/5-policies-procedures/rules-of-the-university/Pages/default.aspx, the Rules of the University web page.