Google Apps is ending support for some older Microsoft software that it still widely used and may affect NCCUMC users.  Described below are the two potential issues and their resolutions.

In an effort to avoid anyone being inconvenienced by Google’s upcoming end of support for MS Office 2003-97 formats .xls for Excel spreadsheets, .doc for Word documents, and .ppt for PowerPoint presentations in their Google Apps product Oct. 1, I recommend downloading and installing the free compatibility pack for versions of Office older than 2007.  The compatibility pack will allow these older versions of Office to work with the new .xlsx, .docx, and .pptx formats.

Google has a policy of only supporting the latest and next to latest versions of the major web browsers.  This will impact NCCUMC Google Apps users using Internet Explorer (IE) on the Windows XP operating system in Nov.   Google will end support for IE 8 after the introduction of IE 10 on Nov. 15, this will be an issue because IE 8 is the latest version available for Windows XP.  My recommendation for this issue is to install Google Chrome which updates itself automatically or Mozilla Firefox.

You may have noticed reports in the news recently about some mystery software from a company called Carrier IQ loaded on your smart phone. The reports initially said that this software was a rootkit and was recording all of your personal information to be shared with your cell phone provider. It turns out however, that the issue isn’t quite as bad as we first thought:

The most serious charge against Carrier IQ, a venture capital-funded startup in Mountain View, Calif., that makes diagnostic software for carriers, has been that it records keystrokes and transmits them to carriers. … There’s zero evidence that Carrier IQ captured, recorded, or transmitted any keystrokes.

After several security researchers were able to deconstruct the software they discovered that it doesn’t really transmit the data anywhere. Carrier IQ does manufacture software that studies what you do on your mobile phones. This data helps the cell service providers optimize their networks. It helps make your phone service better. This is a commonly used tool that is in use on the Blackberry, Android and iOS platforms. This data is gathered on your phone and then sent to the provider in the event of a support issue:

The information is used to summarize how the device is working so carriers can improve their networks, he said. It also helps them when they’re forced to field calls from outraged customers wondering why their handset keeps crashing or runs out of battery life in a few hours.

The problem lies in the local storage of your usage history. Your cell phone provider already knows what you are doing on your phone. Your Facebook news, e-mails and Twitter posts are passing across their data networks, all of which are being logged. This software however, is logging this information locally and waiting on a prompt to upload it to the cell phone provider. What happens if your phone is stolen? All of your personal data is potentially in the hands of whoever has physical possession of your phone. However you look at it, your phone is probably better off without this software.

Listed below are a collection of links that should help with detecting whether or not your phone is running this software as well as how to disable or remove it. Even if this software is benign, it still looks like a rootkit, so it’s a good idea to get rid of it.

iPhone

Apple stopped supporting this software in iOS version 5. Older versions should be updated soon to remove it as well. For now you can follow these directions: http://mashable.com/2011/12/02/iphone-diagnostic-data/.

Blackberry

Research In Motion denies use of Carrier IQ software on all of their phones.

Android

Go to the Android Market and download the Voodoo Carrier IQ Detector app to detect if you are running this software.

Google released a statement yesterday indicating the end of support for the Gmail mobile application on the Blackberry platform. From the article:

Beginning November 22, 2011, we will end support for the Gmail App for Blackberry(installed native app). Over this past year, we’ve focused efforts on building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser and will continue investing in this area.

Users may continue to use the app, if installed, however it will not be supported by Google, or available for download starting November 22. BlackBerry users can continue to access Gmail through the mobile web app at http://www.gmail.com in their BlackBerry web browser.

If you want to run the Gmail mobile app on your Blackberry phone you should download it now. After November 22nd it will no longer be available. Once the support window expires there is no longer any guarantee that it will continue to work long term. There could be a day in which the Gmail service is tweaked and the mobile app stops working completely.

If you are checking e-mail on your Blackberry you should consider switching to the mobile web application sooner rather than later. It’s always better to plan for the conversion now than to be forced to do it later when the app eventually breaks. If your Blackberry has to be wiped because of a support issue after November 22nd you will have to immediately start using the mobile web application.

You may have been experiencing disconnection issues today while browsing any of our hosted websites. AT&T (our internet service provider) is aware of this issue and is working to resolve it. As part of the testing process they will need to take down our internet connection. We have scheduled a maintenance window for Thursday, October 20th beginning at 3 AM for this purpose. This window should last no longer than 90 minutes. The Google Apps system will not be affected during this time. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

The local church domain server which hosts the Ramus system is currently experiencing technical difficulties. The IT Office is working to correct the issue. Please continue checking this page for updates.

Update – 8:10 PM: We are continuing to work towards a resolution on this issue. At this point the estimated restoration of service should be tomorrow evening. We regret the lengthy delay and are working to restore this service as quickly as possible. Please continue checking this page for updates on this issue.

Update – Saturday, 10/1 0 12:46 PM: The Ramus system and all of our self hosted WordPress blogs have been restored to full functionality. If you are running a static html website we should have FTP access restored by Monday. For now you can view your websites online only.

Please note: The Ramus hosting server has been upgraded to a new version of the server’s operating system. With any major upgrade there are bound to be implementation issues. If you run into a problem with your website please be sure to let us know.

We appreciate your patience while we worked to restore service to the Ramus system.

We are experiencing an issue with listserv, the computer that runs the conference email lists.  You may get the following error message when trying to administrate a list:

Bug in Mailman version 2.1.9

We’re sorry, we hit a bug!

Please inform the webmaster for this site of this problem. Printing of traceback and other system information has been explicitly inhibited, but the webmaster can find this information in the Mailman error logs.

This issue has been resolved at 2:15pm 8/23.

The Information Technology Office has been working on a firewall outage in our main server room. We have put a temporary firewall in place and are waiting for replacement hardware. The following services are now accessible from outside of the United Methodist Building:

• The main Conference website (http://nccumc.org)
• The Conference Google Apps e-mail system (excluding the list server).
• The Online Data Collection System (OLDCS) – https://nccumc.org/forms

We will post updates on this issue here as the situation evolves.

Update – August 8th, 2011 – 1:19 PM - The IT Office has completed repairs on the network firewall. All systems are functioning properly now. All local church websites should be available within the hour. Please let us know if you continue to have trouble accessing any of our systems.

The Information Technology Office will be performing critical systems maintenance on Saturday May 7th, 2011 starting at 9:00 AM. We anticipate the overall maintenance window to last for several hours but will be restoring individual services as they are available. The main Conference website, Ramus web hosting system and the Online Data Collection System will be offline for about 2-2.5 hours. The remaining internal systems will be back online after service has been restored to our various websites. If you encounter any errors while trying to access Conference systems during this maintenance window please wait to report them to the IT Office after the window has passed. You can find updates on the status of this maintenance by browsing to the Conference IT Office website at http://nccumc.org/it and the Conference Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/nccumc. We appreciate your patience while we work to perform this important maintenance.

Update – May 7th @ 8:28 PM: The main Conference website and Online Data Collection System are back online. Unforeseen issues forced a longer outage than originally planned. We regret any inconvenience. Please report any issues to the IT Office directly.

The Information Technology Office will be shutting down the old clergymail e-mail server on Monday March 28th, 2011.  All Clergy e-mail accounts have been migrated to the new system and the old server is no longer accepting messages.  Please note the following:

Late yesterday afternoon the main Conference e-mail gateway suffered a fatal hardware error.  This server was critical to routing e-mail to and from the remaining clergy e-mail accounts on the old server.  As such, we were forced to accelerate our migration plans.  As of this writing all of the clergy e-mail accounts have been successfully migrated to the new Google Apps system.  If you receive a bounce error for a clergy e-mail account AFTER 2:30 PM EST please feel free to let us know via the contact page.

All of the remaining clergy on the old server received an e-mail this afternoon with migration instructions and their user name and password.  Please follow these directions to activate your mailbox on the new server.  If you were forwarding your clergy e-mail account previously then you will need to set up the forward again.  The instructions for this process are listed in the before referenced e-mail.  If you have any questions or concerns regarding the migration (or need help transferring e-mail and contacts from the old server) please feel free to contact the IT Office directly.