We've just heard from FreewireTV that they will be doing some electrical work on one of the power feeds to their data centre on Saturday morning, between 10:30am and 12:30.

There should be no interruption to the ResNet TV service during this period, but we thought we should give you all a heads up incase something goes wrong.

One of the Universities central database servers will be unavailable on Saturday 27th Oct for some essential systems maintenance.  This will mean that the following ResNet services will be unavailable:

• My ResNet - http://www.resnet.bris.ac.uk/myresnet
• The in-room registration service
• Automatic network status monitoring (The traffic lights on the ResNet website)

All existing ResNet connections should continue to work uninterrupted and most customers won't notice anything.

There are a number of other University services which will also be unavailable during the maintenance period.  For more details, please see the IS News website: http://www.bris.ac.uk/is/news/2007/maint27oct.html

This is the first in an occasional series of newsletters sent to ResNet subscribers. Please read on for useful tips about ResNet and other IT services at Bristol, including free TV channels on your computer.

My ResNet - look after your ResNet connection

With My ResNet you can move your subscription to another room, connect a different computer, track your usage, turn on the Freewire TV service, and check how long your subscription lasts.

Go to My ResNet http://www.resnet.bristol.ac.uk/myresnet/ to try it.

Freewire - Free digital TV to your room

Freewire provides digital TV over ResNet to your computer. Included are all the BBC channels, Channel 4, E4, Film4 and many more. It is free of charge, but you do need a TV licence to use it. For more information see

TV on ResNet http://www.resnet.bristol.ac.uk/tv/

NB: If you receive a message 'channel off air' on all channels, make sure you have turned on the TV signal to your room using My ResNet http://www.resnet.bristol.ac.uk/myresnet/

My Bristol - the University portal

New this year is the University student portal. You can access webmail, tutor announcements, your Blackboard courses, StudentInfo, your library account, registration details, Students' Union info and more.

See My Bristol http://www.bristol.ac.uk/portal

Change your initial password

All new students are given an initial password as part of registration. If you haven’t already done so, you need to change your password to something only you know. If you don’t change your password your account will be locked. You can change your password before or after your account is locked - but it’s a good idea to do so beforehand.

Go to Change UOB domain password https://wwws.cse.bris.ac.uk/cgi-bin/uob-passwd.pl

Best wishes,

The ResNet team.

At about 3am earlier today ResNet stopped working in 11 rooms at Woodland Court. Affected are all rooms in Flat 18, all rooms in Flat 18, and room 17E.

Our switch providing the ResNet service to these rooms stopped working at about 3am on Fri 5th Oct. We replaced it with a completely new switch at about 11.30am the same day, and restored the service.

Unfortunately the new switch then stopped working at about 12.40pm. We replaced that switch to at about 5pm.

Freewire TV

Frewire TV provides multi channel digital TV over ResNet to your computer. If you want to try Freewire TV, please:

• Turn on the TV signal to your room using My ResNet
• Download the Freewire application from the Freewire website

If you receive a message that 'channels are off air' on all channels then make sure that Freewire is available in your residence and you have switched on the TV signal with My ResNet.

Problems with the ResNet security checker on some Windows systems

The ResNet security checker seccheck.exe does not run correctly on Windows XP 64-bit edition and some, but not all, non-English language versions of Windows. In particular we have seen problems with Hungarian and Polish versions of Windows, but there may be others.

We'd like to fix these problems and are working on it, but it is tricky as we don't have access to all the foreign language Windows versions. In the meantime, please see ResNet knowledgebase article 23 for some instructions to do it manually.

If you need help, please phone the ResNet Help Desk on 89001 from your room. It is now much easier to get through than it was earlier in the week.

10.30am Tuesday October 2nd: only two days into Freshers' Week 3600 students (out of about 5000 in halls) have now successfully connected to ResNet and are up-and-running!

Now term has started the ResNet Help Desk is open longer hours - from 2pm to 8pm Monday to Friday. If you have any problems connecting to ResNet please first read the troubleshooting guide in your ResNet pack. If you still need help please give us a call from your room, free on 89001 internal.

We have as many people answering the phone as we can, but it is inevitably very busy at this time of year. Sorry if you don't get through straight away. It is often easier to get through after 5pm.

3170 students (out of about 5000) successfully connected to ResNet on their own before the Help Desk even opened on Monday. If you've already connected to ResNet and have a query which isn't urgent you might like to email us - resnet-help@bristol.ac.uk