Information Technology News Archive

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John Mangrich

Most Spam is Blocked

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In 2008, UCI email readers were spared almost one billion spam messages which were blocked by the NACS spam-mitigation system prior to delivery.  This represents more than 21,000 messages for each faculty, staff, and student at UCI last year.

Of the messages accepted for delivery, 12 million were labeled as potentially spam so that people could quarantine them and inspect them at their convenience.  Here is a summary of the spam and mail delivery statistics for 2008:

Total Messages Blocked: 869,295,065
Total Messages Accepted: 97,484,167
Total Messages Accepted marked as spam: 11,786,134

The chart shows the number of spam messagess blocked each day in 2008 (in red) and the number of messages accepted for delivery (in blue.)  You can find more information on spam and spam filtering on line.

Webfiles – Collaborative File Sharing

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Webfiles is a NACS service which offers a collaborative filesharing environment. Available to UCI faculty, staff and graduate students, Webfiles provides 1 gigabyte of space in which to place any type of electronic data — documents, spreadsheets, data files, binary media files, etc. These files can easily be shared, with read-only or read-write privileges, with other campus Webfiles users. The Webfiles system also offers “tickets,” which can facilitate sharing or collaborative editing with your colleagues outside of UCI.

file sharing

file sharing

Among other features of this service, you can specify tickets which limit access time or number of uses, you can log all accesses to particular files, and Webfiles can maintain multiple versions of files being modified.

Webfiles is a good alternative to the use of email attachments, especially for those projects which involve large files, or require repeated revisions among several collaborators.

Webfiles training is offered quarterly.  You can find out when the next session is scheduled at the NACS Training website .

Network-Based Conferencing

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Network-based Conferencing, also called videoconferencing or videoteleconferencing, facilitates collaboration with colleagues who may be far from your location. This technology also presents an opportunity to reduce travel costs when conducting University research and business.

Conferencing tools may include the sharing of audio, video, computer desktops, electronic whiteboards and other electronic media. Your collaboration may range from a small group of people using desktop tools to larger groups in specially-equipped rooms with advanced audiovisual equipment.

There is no single piece of hardware or software which serves all videoconferencing needs. If you are working with a smaller group, you might use desktop software such as Skype or iChat with inexpensive cameras and microphones. Larger groups with more demanding sharing needs may opt for a commercial service such as WebEx or GoToMeeting. These services require accounts to be set up with usage fees. You or your department may also have more advanced equipment set up in a special room, or use one of the scheduled campus teleconferencing facilities such as those operated by the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center .

NACS provides some general information on this technology, including resources distributed around campus.   We’ve also collected specific comments on desktop hardware and software options .  UCOP Strategic Sourcing is developing RFPs for different types of conferencing as a cost-saving alternative to face-to-face meetings.  (An RFP – Request for Proposal – is a method for choosing from which vendor to purchase products or services.)  Technologies being examined include telephone conferencing with sharing of the computer screen of the conference leader, as well as videoconferencing.

We suggest you begin exploring this technology before an actual business need arises, so that you are familiar with it and have been able to confirm the quality of your audio and video. Please contact NACS if we can be of any assistance in this area.

Higher Performance Email Service

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Email

Email

During the last academic year, NACS made a number of enhancements to the central campus email service.

The most important changes were implemented to improve performance and responsiveness of the email system, including the Webmail interface.

One of those changes was the format in which email was stored (the “mix mailbox format” from the University of Washington) which allows much faster response with large inboxes.  The email servers are connected to disk storage in a new way, improving access speeds.  We’ve also installed new versions of the email server software (the program that supports POP and IMAP), which includes features that improve server performance.

Other enhancements include:

Disk quotas have been expanded to 1Gb for faculty and 500Mb for staff, and larger quotas are on the horizon.

The maximum size of an email message has been expanded from 20 million to 30 million bytes.  Practically, this means you can send larger attachments in a message.  However, large attachments affect email server performance, and may not be acceptable at the destination server.  Therefore, it is prudent to be aware of your attachment size, and you should consider alternatives for file sharing such as sending a link to your document.

In addition to these visible changes, NACS maintains email performance in other ways, such as applying security patches, and refining the rules that identify spam.