Today is Thursday, July 11, 2019! Today’s Summer edition of The 3-2-1 offers some housekeeping chores to protect the security of your userid and files
On these pages each week during the school year, you'll find updates, answers to your questions, and opportunities to become more comfortable with the technology that you choose to use in your classroom. These special Summer editions offer some background information to help you gain a better understanding of the tech environment at school and offer recommendations for housekeeping chores that can keep your tech life on an even keel!
Check your security!
We provide staff userids through Google Apps for Education. As part of this service, Google offers a mechanism for periodically checking the security of your account. This basic maintenance activity is a process we each need to commit to performing once, maybe twice, a year to protect against hackers and malware that might infect our network or masquerade as you out there on the Internet.
The process is relatively simple . . . I just tried it and was both surprised with some of the things I needed to address (which suggests the service works just as it should, alerting us to things we’d never think of on our own!) and delighted with the simple, easy to use interface that directed me through the security checks!
Secure your Google accounts now! Just click below to get started!
Protect your email!
In addition to the Google Security Check, we’d like to offer a recommendation for optimizing your use of your school GMail account.
Please consider following Google’s recommendation that you NOT use third-party email clients to access your school email.
What’s a third-party client?
- Outlook
- Apple iOS Mail and MacOS mail
- Yahoo Mail
- AOL Mail
Well, how am I supposed to get to my email, then?
Google recommends that on laptops, desktops, and ChromeBooks, you access email through the Internet browser (Safari, Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, etc). Simply call the URL mail.google.com in the browser and google will offer you a sign-in page as necessary and take you direct to your inbox.
If, instead, you access your email on a mobile device (Apple iPhone or iPad, Android phone or tablet, or ChromeBook), you should opt to download the GMail app from your App Store and set up direct access to your school account.
What if I don’t bother following these recommendations?
Well, then . . . You’re probably a little stubborn. BUT, more importantly, you could be opening your account needlessly to higher risk from spamming, phishing, and malware attacks. In addition, we’ve had a couple of staff members experience annoying glitches in email provided through 3rd party clients that include garbled display of emails and frequent, inexplicable crashes.
Avoid the bother. Use mail.google.com in a browser window or the GMail app to access your school email!
What’s Ahead?
And now a word from Little Jane on what’s on the horizon . . .
This Fall, we are going to begin to require 2-step verification for all WiFi network users (i.e., staff and high-school students). We will institute the practice during the Work Week so that we can help anyone who stumbles, but you can be fully prepared by reading on . . .
What is 2-Step Verification?
Simply put, rather than simply providing a password to sign-in with your Google account, you will provide the password and then Google will send a code to your phone (via email or text) that you will enter as an additional confirmation that you’re you.
Why are you doing this to me? It sounds like a pain!
We are WAY behind the curve in requiring the security best practices for the protection of your accounts and our network. Now that we have invested considerable time and resources in the new WiFi network and phone system, we have an obligation to protect it. AND we are seeing a rise in the number of reports from YOU about hacked accounts. It’s a little bit of pain in exchange for preventing a WHOLE LOT OF PAIN if someone successfully hacks into your account or our network.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' —Eleanor Roosevelt
Be Fearless.
(And don't forget:)
Support@cdspartans.org: AND SEND A SCREENSHOT!!!!!! (Know that we will poke back and insist on a screenshot. It is the most efficient way to help us diagnose what's up.)
Tech Team Students are available for triage and diagnosis ONLY. Please do not tempt them to make changes to your device! They remain on provisional licenses only!
Please know that we know that Dan and Joe are two of the nicest guys in the world, but if you just resort to calling out randomly for help when you see them, you will likely be taking them from an already scheduled task to help a colleague. We promise to churn through support requests as quickly as possible, but please help us maintain a queue.
One last thing: How do I log on to WiFi?
- Know your userid and password. Hint: your password SHOULD be the same as your Google Mail/apps password. Your userid follows this convention: csd\cwessner (firstinitiallastname). (NB: Some Windows devices will insist you drop the csd\ part of that userid. Try that solution if your Windows device does not log on.)
- Choose “CSDSecure” from your list of available networks, and enter your userid and password as indicated above. (If your Windows device—Surface Pro and some Android people, I’m looking at you now—serves up a more complex dialogue box, you need to choose PEAP, “do not check certificate,” and MSCHAPv2 from the long list of additional settings.)
- Choose “trust” should a window regarding certificates pop up. This request will pop on up all Apple devices (MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones). It may or may not pop up on Windows devices.
- Wait for the device to connect to CSDSecure. You are done. On your next arrival to campus, the network will recognize your device. (565 residents, you will need to connect at 565 to establish that bridge.)
