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

ResNet is now up-and-running for autumn 2007! Many international students arrived this weekend, and several hundred have already connected to ResNet successfully.

ResNet packs have been delivered to Unite House, Chantry Court, Deans Court, Woodland Court and the nine halls of residence. Packs will be delivered to the student houses later today. If you need a pack please ask your hall office or Senior Tutor.

The pack contains everything you need to connect to ResNet.

If you need to pay your ResNet subscription, please visit us at the Computer Centre, Tyndall Avenue (10am - 5.30pm Mon-Fri.). You can connect to ResNet first and pay afterwards.

If you have any problems connecting, please telephone us on 89001 internal or email resnet-help@bristol.ac.uk.

During the vacation period (starting on Monday 25th June) we are increasing the peak-time usage 10GB per week as the network is less busy. We may review these limits throughout the vacation period.

Off-peak periods remain unlimited.

Peak-time is 6pm to 12 midnight and off-peak time is 12 midnight to 6pm

Enjoy

During the Easter vacation ResNet helpdesk is closed on Friday 6th April, Monday 9th April and Tuesday 10th April. We are open again on Wednesday 11th April from 2pm.

Well so far we have a whole 8 people connection to ResNet with Windows Vista and we have had (that I know of) two people needing to rebuild their systems. Both rebuilds have been caused by running the ResNet Security CD and installing the old version of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise (8.0i).

How can ResNet let us accidentally install the wrong version of McAfee VirusScan I hear you all asking.

Well, when the ResNet security CD is run, we check to see what version of Windows is being run, if it is not 2000 or XP, we exit the installation. Vista (in its infinite wisdom) then pipes up saying something about running the install in compatibility mode, emulating (probably) XP, so the installation can continue After McAfee VirusScan is installed, your system will either blue screen and crash or not allow updates to the VirusScan definitions file - either way this is not good. Currently we have not been able to resurrect these dead machines.

Please, please, please do not run the ResNet Security CD on Windows Vista or your Vista installation may get fried.

To register your Vista system simply visit <http://register.resnet.bris.ac.uk> and follow the on-screen instructions.

If you are considering upgrading an existing computer to Vista - don't. Give it a few months before spending your hard earned cash on something that will probably make an older machine run like a 3-legged donkey

Well we said that Windows Vista could be unleashed on ResNet in February and we were almost right, March 1^st is pretty close

To get Vista through the registration process you will need to visit http://register.resnet.bristol.ac.uk and follow the on-screen instructions. At some point you’ll have to phone the ResNet helpdesk to get a registration shortcut code. The phone lines are currently open from 2pm to 5:30pm Monday to Friday

We are working on making the Vista registration process more slick but currently it's a bit manual - sorry about that.

If you have any feedback about Vista, good or bad, then please drop us an email resnet-help@bristol.ac.uk

We are advertising a newly created full-time job for a Systems Specialist (Wireless & VPN). The job will be working alongside the rest of the ResNet team, but concentrating on our wireless services on campus rather than ResNet in the halls.

If you or anyone you know is interested you can apply at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/vacancies Closing date is 9.00 am on 05 March 2007

If you are interested in part-time jobs with ResNet (working on the help desk, visits or admin support) we'll be advertising for those during the summer term, to start in the autumn.

The University is looking for feedback from students - please help us with either of the following and get something for it

Spare an hour of your time and earn a £10 Borders voucher

We're looking for volunteers to help evaluate a new University service
for students. If you're chosen to take part in the evaluation,
we'll give you a £10 Borders voucher!

To volunteer, you need to be:

• A student at the University of Bristol
• Free (and fairly flexible with your time) for an hour on either
• February 21st or February 22nd 2007

The evaluation will take place at a central location in the University.

If you're interested, please send your name and contact information
(email address or phone number) to Stuart Church at
stuartc@pureusability.co.uk (Pure Usability have been hired by the University for this evaluation)

Privacy
We promise that your name and contact information will (i) be kept in strict confidence, (ii) never passed on to anyone else, and (iii) only used for the purposes of this evaluation.

Complete IS web survey and win a book token!

The IS website has recently been redesigned. In order to make sure that users are happy with our new site, and check that we have achieved our aims, we need your feedback!

Therefore we would really appreciate it if you could complete our online survey. All who do have the chance to enter into a prize draw for a £10 book token. The survey is open to all staff and students across the University, so please feel free to forward the survey link to friends and colleagues.

The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and the closing date is Thursday 22 February.

It's that time of year when everyone returns to Bristol all bright and refreshed after the new year break!
Some of you will have brought a new computer with you, and find that you're having problems getting on ResNet. If that's you, scroll down for some tips that should help.

If you're having any other problems with your ResNet connection, our telephone helpdesk will be open 2pm-8pm Monday-Friday and we can fix a lot of problems over the phone.

We're expecting it to be very busy on the phones next week (We're expecting over 4000 people to try to connect at the same time!) so if you have trouble getting through to us, we're very sorry, but please keep trying, we answer calls as quickly as we can!
How to reset your connection to work with a new computer

• Use a friends connection to visit Manage My ResNet (http://manage.resnet.bris.ac.uk)
• Log in using your UoB username and password.
• Scroll down to "Connect a new computer to ResNet" and click the link. This will reset your connection to work with your new computer.
• Switch on the new computer and go to http://register.resnet.bris.ac.uk/ to get it all up and working!

If you can't access web pages, or only internal web pages

You may find that you can use Mulberry, MSN Messenger, etc but only access internal web pages (and if your home page is something from outside the university this will look as if the web is completely broken). This can happen if your computer looses the web proxy settings. It is easy to fix - see configuring your web browser to use the proxy server