Many new SMU students, AND some current SMU students, still do not know how to properly configure their computer. Being as slackers as CIT being undermanned, many SMU students conveniently asked (usually) their SIS peers to configure their laptops. In general, IT-literate students will kindly allow themselves to be outsourcing destination for many things that are supposedly very basic and easy and beyond their scope of academic work (not to mention quite boring)

However, I always believe that the best help you can get is the ability to help yourself. So with that philosophy in mind, here is the list of super basic stuffs that SMU students need to know.

• Setting up Ms Outlook to receive email (PDF)
• Setting up SMS password reset system (PDF)
• Mac OS guide (PDF)
• Connect to Student Wireless Network (PDF)
• Anything else that may be relevant (CIT Website)

The PDF guides may not be of the latest version. Refer to CIT website for the latest info. All the information above can be found at CIT website for free.

Nevertheless, the reason I convert the first four guides into PDFs is to make it convenient for people to store these very basic stuff into their laptop. This will enable people to configure their basic laptop function themselves without the need to connect to internet OR to call CIT. The PDFs also makes it easier to email help to one of the most IT-illiterate guys in your team. Just email them.

Yes. Feel free to download them and store them well in your laptop.

Do not get me wrong, CIT provides great services to SMU population. It is just there is too few of them around. With this handy information at hand, on/off line, I believe we all can lessen the burden of those people at CIT

Ok maybe the term ‘hardening’ is not exactly right since it is usually done on a more complex system. Nevertheless, after the incident where my blog is hacked by unknown attacker or two, I become a little bit paranoid. Thanks to Holy Shmoly, there is somewhat a definite guide on how to ‘harden’ your wordpress site.

The latter part of the article is a bit… technical but try to do at least the ‘Secret code’ part and ‘upgrade’ (preferably clean upgrade) and change ‘password’. I believe those three steps are sufficient for most of you.

Nevertheless, fell free to do all the steps mentioned (including installing IDS). I believe it will be an enriching experience.

In any case, random secret key generator can be found here.