Coming Back to Oxford – Trinity Term 2012

We hope you had a relaxing Easter Vacation and are ready for the race towards Summer!

Below is a list of things to check before Trinity Term starts in earnest.

1) ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE – Is it up-to-date? When did you last run a full system scan?

2) SECURITY PATCHES – Keep installing your computer’s operating system and security patches.  Microsoft Windows Update and Apple’s Software Updates.

3) SAVE OVER £100 IN FINES – Uninstall any Peer to Peer and File Sharing software that may have crept on to your computer over the Easter vacation.

4) BACKUPS – Weekly and Nightly backups are dead. Continuous online backup is the way to go – look at Mozy or Carbonite. The IT Office recommends CrashPlan. Also you can use online services like Dropbox[1] as a online backup and share your data with friends (and multiple devices). Come and talk to us in the IT Office if you want help or advice.

5) RECOVERY and RE-INSTALL DVDs – if you get a trojan or key-logger virus you WILL need to reinstall your computer. Make sure you have these DVDs.

6) ETHERNET CABLES – Don’t forget to bring your cable.

7) SUNGLASSES AND LOTION – Hopefully the weather will improve during Trinity term – so get some protection from the Sun. But please keep the lotion away from your computer!

8) STUDENT IT OPEN HOUR – begins again on Monday 23rd April from 2.15pm to 3.15pm.

9) FOLLOW US ON TWITTER – http://twitter.com/ITQueensOxford

10) IT OFFICE WEBSITE HAS MOVEDhttp://it.queens.ox.ac.uk

BONUS MATERIAL FOR APPLE MAC USERS – Do you have a Flashback Trojan infection?

You may have read recently in the media that some 600,000 Apple Macs are infected worldwide with the Flashback trojan. Will ALL Apple Mac users please run Software Updates… to make sure that you have the latest Apple security patches.

ALSO – You can check whether you have a Flashback infection by running Flashback Checker :

https://github.com/jils/FlashbackChecker/wiki

If you *do* have Flashback then the Anti-Virus company F-Secure has a free Flashback Removal Tool available from :

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002346.html

OUCS has already informed us that one Queen’s Undergraduate has Flashback – let’s see if we can keep it to just the one infection please!

So with all that said – I hope you all have a great Trinity Term 2012!

[1] Get 2GB free online storage with Dropbox – http://db.tt/Zg0mJxY