Scoreboard

Feedback to CIT

Email address spoofing (7/2/08)

I just spoke with a Help Desk representative regarding an apparent email header spoof of my email address. I was informed there was nothing to be done but delete the messages for the next few days. This is not an acceptable solution. I do not have the time to maintain my quota in order to receive valid 'non-mail spoofed' messages. I understand there is a way to block this sort of attack. Why is tnis not used? Because of the fear of valid email bounce messages? I can count on my hand the number of times this has happened to me over the course of the last few years. It is not something to be feared. What is to be feared is the amount of time required to maintain my mail quota in order to receive valid messages. I work with various international folks and being inaccessible because of a preventable email spoof is not proper nor professional. Please do something about these attacks for myself and for the countless others of the UB community who are also enduring these needless and preventable email attacks!

Thank you for sharing your request. I've passed it along to the team that manages the mail service.

Due to the vagaries of how email is handled and processed, it's quite difficult to programmatically differentiate between spoofed message bounces and legitimate bounces. To err on the side of caution for all our customers, we do not automatically discard all bounces.

We recognize this is a difficult situation for those whose email address has been used in spoofed messages and regret the inconvenience.

If you are confident that all bounced messages can be discarded, you may want to set a filter on your account to discard them. Instructions for using the mail filter service are online.

The CIT Help Desk or your departmental IT support staff can help you if you need assistance setting up mail filters.

Fronczak 408 (7/3/08)

You should really just have someone working in Fronczak; so they can fix things when it happens instead of 40 min. later. My student money pays for this, and I feel as though it is wasted. I have to get to work; so I came in to print a lab out for a class..this should have been a 10 min. thing. However..it has been almost an hour! We either need better/more printers in the labs where there is no staff...or staff all of the labs. there is more than enough money from the students to do so.

Public computing sites, including Fronczak 408, and many other UB technology services are funded in part by only a portion of the Comprehensive Fee. We try our best to stretch those dollars as far as possible.

Unfortunately, there actually isn't enough money to staff all the sites all the time. Recent budget cuts, in fact, have forced serious cuts to public computing site staffing levels. We regret the inconvenience this presents and we hope you understand the difficulty of the situation.

Again, thank you for your feedback. Your input is invaluable to us in providing the best service we can with the resources available.

Faculty course websites (2/11/08)

i find it very annoying & more than inconvenient that we have UB learns, yet so many of my professors create "their own" websites to post assignments and homework to. instead of actually using it as it's supposed to be used, so that there is a centrally located place where i know i can go to get my assignments & announcements, etc; i have to try to remember ridiculous .html websites or constantly carry that info around w/me in order to access information. & half the time, it's still incorrect. i don't think teachers should be allowed to make their own websites without also posting the information on UB learns so there is some standardization. 3 of my 4 classes have access to UB learns, 2 have their own websites & all 4 do not use ub learns to post anything. 2 of 3 have already had issues with their own websites causing trouble for students trying to get assignments. this would help the teachers as well by giving the student no reason NOT to know where to get their assignments. basically, any websites for courses should be made IN CONJUNCTION with UB learns, not instead of it. already there have been mishaps in communication due to these random websites. already i have been a part of it. please discuss this with your department. thanks.

Thank you for sending us your concerns.

We provide UBlearns as a service to UB students and faculty. We do not compel faculty to use it for their instruction.

Faculty are free to use tools of their own choice to support their instruction. Unfortunately, this can lead to a burdensome plethora of websites and tools for students.

We encourage you to communicate your concerns directly to your professors. If they hear directly from you, they may be more likely to understand your situation and perhaps more likely to use UBlearns.

iprint refund (2/11/08)

I am a graduate student at the University at Buffalo. I am writing this email because on February 2, 2008, I had some problems with the printer. I printed several pieces of information totaling to $ 10.00 and my print-outs came out smudged and smeared with ink all over the page. I informed the computer lab technician and she attempted to redo my print jobs but they still came out the same way. The things I printed are very important because it is information I am using to apply to internships so I can't send them information that has smudges and smears all over the page. I asked the technicican if I could be compensated in some way because none of this is my fault and she told me to email you guys. I think that its very unfair that I used my iprint money to print these things and they came out in bad quality and there's no way to compensate me for a mistake that is the fault of the printer.

Your request has been forwarded to the print team. The situation you describe is exactly what adjustments are designed for. The print quality you describe is not our standard, however. We regret your inconvenience.

Flint Village virus (1/30/08)

Why haven't you fixed or even addressed the problem? What happens if it spreads to the rest of the campus?

CIT is working to prevent further infection by disconnecting infected computers from the network as we discover them. Students with affected computers are being directed to seek professional remediation.

This virus is very new and not yet documented by antivirus vendors. More information is available on our virus page.

UBmail features (1/30/08)

Please do not get rid of the old UB Webmail system just yet. There is still some bugs in this new one that just don't cut it. First there is the issue of not displaying the month and day of any new Email less than a week old. How stupid! I have no idea what the date was last Friday, the OLD mail could tell me but this "new and improved" system cannot. Something seems to be wrong with this picture. Secondly, after three times of questioning, we finally figured out that you cannot change the Inbox columns to sort the way you want in IE 7, only in Firefox. I prefer to have the Date column first (with the month and day showing for every Email, not just those over a week old), then the Sender then the Subject like the OLD system . I do not care for the Subject first then Sender, Date and Size. Who was the brainchild who thought this one up? Please DO NOTt get rid of the old UB Webmail until you figure out how to make it a little more user friendly.

Maybe you can get the powers that be to fix some of these annoyances.

Thank you for taking time to share your concerns and suggestions. They have been shared with the email team.

Unfortunately, the vendor who produced Webmail went out of business a few years ago, leaving us with an unsupported product. We have maintained the older Webmail product for quite a while in the absence of support but lack the resources to continue to do so indefinitely.

Significant research and effort, involving faculty, staff, and students, led to the selection of UBmail. Like Webmail, UBmail is a product we've purchased from a vendor. As you've observed, it is not a perfect fit for all users.

As much as we'd like to, we cannot mix and match features of the two programs: they come from wholly independent vendors. We are dependent on the vendor to incorporate our feature requests, such as those you've made, into their product.

Setup instructions for mail.app

I was trying to set up my buffalo.edu email address with my macbook.
Much to my dismay, setting up my UB email account for apple's mail.app program was quite difficult for both tiger and leopard as there was no step-by-step directions as there were for the many other mail programs that are listed on the CIT website.

Thank you for your suggestion. We are working on adding step-by-step instructions for mail.app.

Printing from my laptop

I was wondering if I can get something printed from my laptop in the library. The documents I need printed require a specific program to open which the library computers don't support.

We are working on a project that well let you print from your laptop or other computer to printers in the public computing sites. You can expect an announcement during the spring semester.

Email on my phone

I would like to know if it is possible to set up my UB email on my phone. I have Outlook on my phone and I can set up other email addresses but not the school's.

It certainly is possible! While we don't know the particulars of every mobile device/email client combination, the basic settings should remain the same. The CIT Help Desk can provide further assistance in configuring email for your phone.