Harvard-MIT Data Center

1. Open a web browser and navigate to https://myfiles.hmdc.harvard.edu/vo/servlet/portal?render=on.
   The login window for the Change HMDC Password function is displayed.
2. Enter the following:
   • In the Username field type your CGIS account username.
   • In the Password field type your current CGIS account password.
3. Click the Login button to log in to the Change Password function. (You can click Reset to clear the values you typed in this window and start again.)
   The Change HMDC Password window is displayed.
4. Enter the following:
   • In the Old password field type your current CGIS account password.
   • In the New password field type a new CGIS account password.
   • In the Retype password field type the same new CGIS account password.
5. Click the Submit button to change your network account password.
   If you did not type your current password correctly or did not enter a new password that meets the minimum requirements specified on this window, an error message is displayed and you must enter new values on this window.

We provide network space for personal and shared file storage to all affiliates. To access your network space, you must have a CGIS account. If you do not have an account yet, contact us. If you already have an account, but are unable to remember the password, please contact us to request a password reset.

When logging in to our computers, your shared file space usually appears automatically by running a script (a small computer program) when you log in on your computer. The script creates two additional drives on your computer, usually the G: drive and the N: drive. The G: drive is space to be shared by your department, while the N: drive is for your personal files, and can be seen only by you.

Your files also are accessible from off-campus locations. For more information, see Accessing Remotely, [[link:kb-481, and Accessing Remotely Using VPN.

We provide virus protection software and services, as well as virus removal assistance in cases of infection. There are many avenues that viruses and other malicious software (malware) can use to infect your computer. No computer attached to a network is ever completely secure, but there are steps you can take to make your computer's security much stronger. Some of things you can do are:

• Use good antivirus software
• Update your operating system software regularly
• Practice safe computing

Using Good Antivirus Software

One of the most important steps you can take is to install, and update regularly, good antivirus software. We recommend and support McAfee Antivirus, which is provided to affiliates free of charges through FAS IT. For instructions on installing McAfee Antivirus, please refer to the McAfee Download and Installation Instructions page.

Running Your Operating System Software Updates

Running the updates for your operating system is one of the most important preventative measures you can take to protect against virus infection. To do this in Windows:

1. Launch Internet Explorer.
2. On the Tools menu, select Windows Update.
3. Follow the prompts to run your Windows updates.

On the Mac, click the Apple Menu and select Software Update. The Software Update application walks you through the rest of the process.

Practicing Safe Computing

One form of attack that is growing rapidly is the use of social engineering to infect your computer, or to gather sensitive information from you. These attacks can take the form of fake websites that prompt you to input sensitive data, or even emails from people posing as your IT support that ask for your password. To avoid being taken advantage of by these attacks, be sure not to give personal information to any websites with which you are unfamiliar. Also never give out your password, under any circumstances. We will never send you email asking for your password. If you receive such an email, it is not legitimate.

We install, troubleshoot, maintain, and recycle printers for all affiliates. We support many brands and models of printers and are happy to assist with your printing needs.

Finding the solution to common printing troubles is often just a matter of knowing the correct steps to install or configure your printers. Please refer to the following how-to articles for help with every-day printing problems:

• Installing a Network Printer
• Installing a Local Printer
• Printing From Home
• Configuring Duplexing
• Checking Your Print Balance
• Troubleshooting Network Printing

If you have any printers or printing trouble that you cannot resolve, please contact us.

We offer limited support for foreign language operating systems and applications.  We provide full support for the configuration and managment of foreign language settings within the English version of Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OS X operating systems. In essence, we can help configure your English based operating system to read and write in foreign languages.

If we set up your system for you, we'll make sure to include languages such as Japenese, Chinese (Simplified and Mandarin), German, French, and Spanish (International and Tradional Sort) keyboard and input.  To use any of these settings, either click the local selector in the System Tray (the lower-right corner of the screen)  or click the Start button, select the Settings menu, and choose the Control Panel's menu Regional Settings option.

Information about specific keyboard layouts can be found at the following URL:
       http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964651.aspx

We provide assitance with only the English language versions of our supported software.

A desktop email client is software that runs on your desktop or laptop computer. Examples of desktop client applications are Thunderbird and Outlook. We provide installation assistance and day-to-day user support for desktop email clients. Our preferred desktop email client is Thunderbird.

While our preferred email application for personal computers (Thunderbird) provides the best experience, you can access your email securely by using webmail if you are traveling or using an untrusted computer. Webmail is a great resource for staff or faculty who frequently are out of the office and do not have access to their personal computers.

We provide webmail though the interface available at the following URL:
    https://webmail.hmdc.harvard.edu

Our webmail contains full address book functionality, including support for email aliases (nicknames), account management utilities such as mail forwarding, auto-replies and signatures, as well as email archiving.

SPAM is unsolicited email, sent in bulk to many people indiscriminately, usually for commercial or fraudulent purposes. Our system identifies and tags SPAM automatically for your convenience; You need do nothing to activate this feature. You can set up additional SPAM filters through Thunderbird’s junk mail filters or through webmail’s SPAM filters.

Email viruses (and other malicious attachments) are attached executable files that can damage your system when you or your email application try to open the attachment. Our virus protection blocks known viruses, and modifies any other suspicious attachments so they do not execute automatically. Any incoming message that is found to contain a virus is refused with a virus warning. Intended recipients do not receive any notification of this event.

Note: All incoming messages are scanned for viruses and SPAM properties.

HMDC SPAM Filtering

Our upgraded SPAM identification uses a number of different techniques to attempt to determine if a message is SPAM. These methods include analysis of the email headers for obvious spammer tricks, analyzing the content of the mail for text that is known to be SPAM, consulting automated internet-wide databases of spammers, and keeping a whitelist database of email addresses from which you receive frequently (and thus regarded as less likely to send you SPAM).

SPAM identification is inherently probabilistic. Every message is scored, using dozens of rules, to determine if it is SPAM. So, it is possible for a legitimate message to be mistakenly filed as SPAM, or for a SPAM message to pass through as legitimate mail, especially when a new form of SPAM first appears. Our experience is that the error rate is very low. In addition, the system is dynamic, databases of known SPAM messages and senders are updated continually, and the system learns about your email habits over time, so accuracy of the system becomes higher with use.

SPAM filtering is usually quite accurate, but be aware that if a message is identified or filtered as SPAM, the sender does not receive any notice to this effect. Because of this, if you opted for filtering, we recommend that for the first month of use, you give your SPAM box a quick check weekly for mail falsely identified as SPAM.

HMDC deals with SPAM in two ways:

• SPAM Identification - This feature is always on, and can not be turned off by the user. The server analyzes every message. Then it tags the subject line of the SPAM messages with "*****SPAM*****" so that you can easily identify, delete, and filter SPAM messages by hand.
• SPAM Filtering - This feature is not on by default, but the user can enable this manually in webmail. SPAM filtering automatically moves SPAM messages into your SPAM folder. The contents of the SPAM folder are deleted automatically on a weekly basis.

For instructions on setting up an additional, personal SPAM filter in webmail, refer to Managing SPAM.

For instructions on using additional, personal junk mail settings in Thunderbird, refer to Managing Junk Mail.

Your email account is allocated a fixed amount of space for email storage. This is your email quota. Messages in your Trash and SPAM folders count toward your quota, so be sure to empty these folders if you need to reclaim space in your email account.

If your mailbox is almost full, consider deleting some messages. If you use an email application that saves emails on the mail server, such as Mozilla Thunderbird configured to use IMAP protocol, you also can move (drag and drop) email messages or folders from your Inbox on the server to Local Folders on your computer, which reduces your disk space usage on the server.

You can check how much of your email quota you are using from either Mozilla Thunderbird or webmail. See Desktop Email or Webmail for detailed information.

Our Email Account Administration interface enables group managers to create and edit email accounts within their group. As a manager, you can access only specific domains. For example, only gov.hmdc.harvard.edu email addresses can be managed by a manager with GOV domain access. Group managers sometimes can view accounts in other groups, but they cannot manage them.

To access the Email Account Administration interface, go to the following URL:
    https://admin.hmdc.harvard.edu/

Access to this interface must be granted by our staff. If you are unsure whether you have an appropriate account, please contact us.

Logging In to the Management Interface

To log in:

1. In a web browser, go to https://admin.hmdc.harvard.edu.

   The Email Account Administration Login web page is displayed.

   

   

2. Enter your assigned username and password, and then click Login.

   The Manage Existing Accounts web page (the Search Accounts tab) is displayed. Only the departments assigned to you are listed in the Browse Groups field.

   Note: Your browser might prompt you to remember the password for your login account. It is never a good practice to enable this function if you log in from any machine other than your own.

   

   

Logging Out of the Management Interface

To log out of the Email Account Administration interface, click the Logout tab at the top of the interface.

The Email Account Administration Login web page is displayed, containing the message You have logged out. This message indicates that you are no longer in the Email Account Administration function.

One of the most important parts of keeping good backups is figuring out what you should back up. Although this is something that varies from person to person,  important files most often include office documents, favorites or bookmarks, pictures, and email. Use the guides below, and refer to Archiving, Exporting, & Importing or Backing Up and Restoring, and Backing Up Browser Settings for instructions on backing up these files.

PC File Locations

In Windows, most of your important files are located in your profile folder. Use the following steps to locate these files:

1. Click the Start menu in the lower left, and then select My Computer.
   The My Computer window opens, which lists all of your available drives.
2. Double-click your system drive (the drive that contains your windows installation). This is usually the C: drive.
3. Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
4. In the Documents and Settings folder, double-click the folder with the same name as your username.
   This is your profile folder.
5. In your profile folder, you see a Desktop folder and a My Documents folder. These are the most common locations for your office documents and picture files.
   Copy both of these to your backup location.

Mac File Locations

In Mac OS X, most of your important files are located in your home directory. Use the foloowing steps to locate these files:

1. Double-click your system drive, usually in the upper-right hand corner of your desktop.
   A finder window opens.
2. Click the Home icon at the top to open your home directory.
3. In your home directory, you see Documents, Desktop and Pictures folders. Copy these to your backup locations. It also is useful to copy other folders in the home directory, such as Music, Movies or Library. If you are unsure of what files to back up, Apple recommends backing up your entire home directory.

To restore files that were backed up to an external hard drive, CD, or DVD, copy the files from the back up location to your system drive, usually the C: drive.

To restore files that were backed up to network drives from CGIS or RCE accounts, contact us for assistance. Please see Back Up Policies for more information.

An important backup procedure that often is overlooked, is backing up your Internet Explorer favorites or Firefox bookmarks. Use the procedures below to back up this data.

Backing up Your Internet Explorer Favorites

Your Internet Explorer favorites are contained in your profile folder with most of your other important data. To back these up:

1. Click the Start menu in the lower left, and then select My Computer.
   The My Computer window opens.
2. The My Computer window lists your available drives. Double-click your system drive (the drive that contains your windows installation).
   This is usually the C: drive.
3. Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
4. In the Documents and Settings folder, double-click the folder with the same name as your username.
   This is your profile folder.
5. In your profile folder you see a folder called Favorites. Copy this to your backup location.

Backing up Your Firefox Bookmarks

Your Firefox bookmarks can be backed up by exporting a bookmark file from within Firefox. Use the following instructions to back up your bookmarks:

1. Launch Firefox.
2. Click the Bookmarks menu at top, and then select Organize Bookmarks.
   The Library (or Bookmarks Manager, in version 2) window appears.
3. Click the Import and Backup button, and then select Backup.
4. Save the backup file in your backup location.

Use these procedures to restore backed up browser data.

Restoring Your Internet Explorer Favorites

To restore your Internet Explorer favorites:

1. Click the Start menu in the lower left, and then select My Computer.
   The My Computer window opens, and lists all of your available drives.
2. Double-click your system drive (the drive that contains your windows installation). This is usually the C: drive.
3. Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
4. Double-click the folder with the same name as your username. This is your profile folder.
5. Copy your backed up Favorites folder to your profile folder.
   You are prompted whether you want to replace the existing Favorites folder. Click the Yes to all button.

Restoring Your Firefox Bookmarks

To restore your Firefox bookmarks:

1. Launch Firefox.
2. Click the Bookmarks menu, and then select Organize Bookmarks.
   The Library (or Bookmark Manager, in version 2) window appears.
3. Click the Import and Backup button, click Restore, and then click Choose File.
4. Navigate to your Firefox backup file, which should have the suffix .json. Then, double-click the backup file.
   Your Firefox bookmarks are restored.

We are proud to support a variety of hardware, including desktop computers, laptops, printers, scanners, and a variety of phone devices, such as Treos, Blackberrys, and iPhones.

If you experience computing problems that you suspect are hardware related, please contact us. A support technician can assist you with hardware troubleshooting, in-warranty support requests, or hardware replacement purchasing if needed.

We are happy to assist affiliates with all steps of the hardware purchasing and ordering process. Types of hardware that we support include (but are not limited to) printers, desktop and laptop computers, handheld devices, and printers.

If you would like assistance with purchasing hardware of any type, please contact us.

We assist our affiliates with office software purchases and support based on our staff's expertise.

This section describes the software and operating systems that we support, and gives general information about how to purchas software through us.

We assist our affiliates with office software purchases by recommending tools based on our staff's expertise and on the standards of FAS and Harvard University.

We assist departments and research centers at CGIS in ordering software at a discount through Harvard's Site Licensing and Govconnection websites. Most popular desktop applications can be ordered through a Harvard University billing code at a discount.

If you would like to order software, receive a quote, or have any questions about software recommendations, please contact us.

Note: Departments, centers, and individuals are required to track their respective software licenses.