Inside the college we do our best to support research and offer many customized services to assist you. Our support is augmented by UCR ITS with some campus-wide services. We understand it can be difficult to know where to go for information about a particular service and who is offering the best fit for you. Feel free to always contact us (systems@engr.ucr.edu) and we are happy to help find what you are looking for. BCOE Systems also serves on several ITS committees covering research, security and other services. If you have needs or suggestions for how to improve research services or other things, we are happy to advocate on behalf of these requests. Here is a link to the new campus research website. https://its.ucr.edu/research-computing
As always, please contact systems if you need any assistance.
Recently we have all found ourselves working in a much different environment, and are being bombarded with new apps and tools. The number of ways to communicate with others continues to grow at an increasing rate. Phone, text, email, slack, instant messaging just to name a few. I don’t know about you, but just keeping up with all of these is a incredible amount of work. No matter what way you choose to communicate it is important that you are sure the person you are trying to reach is also using that media, otherwise your message may not be heard.
As always, please contact systems if you need any assistance.
Please help us help you. If you experience a problem, it is very important you reach out to systems directly and describe your problem – i.e. folder location, computer name, which program it is. These details are not because we don’t believe you have a problem, instead they will help us troubleshoot how to help. When we receive second or third-hand information from a co-worker, perhaps you assume it is all the same issue, but most times each situation is different, and for the sake of efficiency on everyone’s part and to have a quick resolution, it is best if you can communicate with us directly. We are more than happy to help and do not want you to feel any problem is to small to ask about.
As always, please contact systems if you need any assistance.
While we all expect our computers, phone and other electronics to function perfectly all the time, they seem to know the exact moment to misbehave to cause us the most stress. Here at BCOE we do understand this and have done our best to create multiple ways to use each service. As an example, if outlook is not accepting your password, emailing systems for assistance could be challenging. You could call the systems office for assistance (x22638 or x22452 or the webmaster at x25289), we will receive your voice mail and we will return your call shortly. Or, you could try using outlook email through the web interface https://exchange.engr.ucr.edu. As a last resort, you could email us from your personal account, we promise not to sell your personal email address. :)
As always, please contact systems if you need any assistance.
Most of the time it is very fast, however the protocol was designed with up to a 2 day buffer to allow for unexpected problems with servers, queues, routers…etc. Today, it is reasonable to assume that most email is delivered in minutes, but be aware that is not always the case.
Email delay notices are sent out as courtesy so you know that your message has been delayed. This gives you the opportunity to use another form of contact if there is a time sensitive matter. By default mail servers are configured to wait four hours, but at BCOE we send out a delay message if the email has not been delivered in one hour, which is why they are a little more frequent in the college.
Yes, unless you receive a delivery failure notice which means the email was returned to you as undelivered. (Unfortunately, some mail clients have aggressive spam settings and the failure message could end up in your spam folder).
People sending mail to a large email list can cause the server to experience heavy loads and will throttle outgoing emails causing delays. Also, spam filters can cause delays when there is a heavy volume. The spam filters are necessary because they protect against malware and mail bots and keep our mail server from being blacklisted, which could result in all BCOE mail being rejected.
With a constant need to apply security patches and fixes some services can be interrupted causing delays. These interruptions can be anywhere along the email delivery chain and determining where an issue was encountered requires inspection of server logs which we most often don’t have access to.
As always, please contact systems if you need any assistance.
located on our intranet (https://intra.engr.ucr.edu/apps/webshare/login.php).
These are two additional ways to share large files. As always, please contact systems if you need any assistance.
Visit the engineering home page & click on the help flowchart for quick answers to these and other common questions:
Long, long ago in the beginning, computers did not come with mice. I know this may be a shock to some of you, but it is true. Over the years, many of us have grown very dependent on our computer mice to navigate and preform small tasks. In many cases you can navigate a computer with key strokes much faster than removing your fingers from the keyboard and reaching for a mouse. As an example if you are typing away and need to open a document, –e will open file explorer before you can even reach your mouse, much less move it. ctrl-c, and ctrl-v are common ones used for copy and paste. Below are two links for large lists of shortcuts to help you.
Instead of using your mouse to open the link below, try it with just your keyboard.
Mac:
www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/essential-mac-keyboard-shortcuts-key-combinations-3787173/
Accidently make changes and saved? Wish you could see the version you had an hour, week or even a month ago? While you may not be able to go back in time, the BCOE file server can. You can go to any BCOE drive letter (such as z) and type in file explorer z:\~snapshot to retrieve files from the past. Keep in mind you can’t change the past so you will need to make a copy of the desired file and paste it on your desktop.
If you have any questions or would like help please let us know. Systems
Ignore the auto populated name that the email says it is from, but check the actual “name@domain.com” email address. Bots often mask a fake email address and use a name from your contact list to make you think the email is really from your acquaintance. For example: “John Smith<buythis@fake.com>” instead of “John Smith <jsmith@engr.ucr.edu>.” If the email says it is from GoDaddy and the email address is from “_____@godaddy.com” than it is potentially real email and should be addressed. Spammers/bots cannot send from a domain they do not own, unless that company was hacked.
Spammers steal the Google logo all the time to make a fake email appear real. Don’t be fooled by an image.
DO NOT CLICK LINKS OR BUTTONS. First, view the link. On a Mac computer you can hover over a link to see what the link address is. You can also “right click” (control + click) on the link and choose to “Copy Link Address.” Paste this address into a word or text document to see if it looks fake. Things like http://gsudbhf.idh are spam and any link you don’t recognize you should avoid clicking on. If the link looks legitimate like https://godaddy.com/my-account — then it’s a real link.
If it seems too good to be true than it probably is. “I’m a king from a small country and I want to come to America to meet with your company.” OR “I want to send you a $5,000 payment right away. Please send me your bank account number.” An opportunity this large would never come via an email, and kings have assistants to email for them.
Many spammers try to get your attention by telling you there is an issue with your domain name (URL), or hosting provider (server). Immediately send these emails to your website developer, or simply log into your registrar (like GoDaddy) to view your most current domain settings and data.
Especially in today’s climate it is very important for continuity of work flow that we consider where our work product is and we ensure that is it safe from hardware failure, prying hackers and available to co-workers and supervisors in the event of an absence. Supervisors, have you considered what would happen if an employee left and all department approvals are in their email? This could very problematic, especially for central audit.
BCOE supports a central file server which is extremely flexible, can be accessed from anywhere, and solves all of the work continuity issues above. Access to the server while working at home does require using remote desktop or VPN and can be streamlined if you are having slow access. If you have questions on how you or your department can optimize this or other BCOE tools, please reach out to us for assistance.
Option 1. Remote Desktop Access: Best option for accessing and using files on the BCOE network!
After logging onto VPN, you can remote control to your office computer using the remote desktop connection app. Then you can work from your office computer without leaving the comfort of your home. The speed of accessing files will be the same as if you are in the office. Another major advantage is if your internet connection drops out, when you reconnect your work will not be lost on your office computer. Drawback is that this will only work if your office computer is on or not sleeping.
Option 2. VPN: Decent option for accessing and using files on the BCOE network
Log onto VPN and you can now see the BCOE servers on your local computer \\toaster.engr.ucr.edu You can access all your files using your home computer and internet service provider. Drawback is that it can be slowish, but certainly faster than driving into the office. One thing some people do is to copy the file to their desktop to work on then reupload it to the server after they are finished working. This is especially useful when you are working on medium or larger files on the server (word, excel docs, or powerpoint) and for some reason cannot use remote desktop.
Tired of cut and paste into email? Would it be nice if you could make a meeting directly from outlook? Turns out you can with just one click. Here is a link, to a how to, on making zoom meeting directly from outlook along with a few other productivity tips from zoom.
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005223126-Zoom-for-Outlook-add-in-web-and-desktop
If you have any questions or would like help installing the plugin, please let us know. Systems