Indicating continued support for the Macintosh platform despite plans to switch administrative offices to Windows, Computing Services is working to adapt the core Dartmouth software for use in the new Macintosh operating system.
A beta version of BlitzMail for the Mac OS X operating system -- known to some familiar with its development as "Blitz X" -- has been in a testing phase for several months. Representatives of Computing Services were unable to provide a date for the final release of the program.
While maintaining all the same features as older versions, a beta version of BlitzMail version 2.6 tried by The Dartmouth performed well.
Adopting the appearance of other Mac OS X programs, Blitz X uses the same interface familiar to current BlitzMail users, but does allow users to bring up a menu with a "right-click" on a file.
Previous versions of BlitzMail can run in OS X's "Classic mode," which uses OS 9 to open older programs that it could not otherwise run. Classic mode saps a computer's memory resources so programs run slower.
Development of a version of the Kerberos authentication program for Mac OS X is also "underway by at least one member of the consortium that developed the product in the past," Director of Communications Services Bill Brawley said.
The incompatibility with Mac OS X of older versions of Kerberos -- used to access many of the College's online resources -- is one of the main obstacles to Computing Services providing support for the operating system. Though they may offer informal advice to OS X users, Computing Services employees are not trained to use this system.
Computing Services also recently added a new feature called the Dynamic Directory Name Service to the Dartmouth Name Directory -- a database on the campus network that stores the user names, passwords and phone numbers for BlitzMail and Kerberos.
"We were behind the curve by not having it in place," network manager Steve Campbell said. Using DDNS "brings us more into the mainstream."
DDNS replaces the old system of displaying a computer's unique numerical identifier, known as an Internet Protocol address, which changes depending on the computer's location on campus.
While IP addresses are still assigned to networked machines, users will only see the name they assign to their computer. This enables the name to "follow" computers that move around campus, such as laptops.
Besides the standardization of computer names by assigning a permanent moniker to a computer -- in the format "name.kiewit.dartmouth.edu" -- there are a number of additional benefits.
For example, if a hacker attacks a computer, DDNS allows Computing Services to better identify the machine's owner, Campbell said.
The new naming scheme also permits students to run servers on their computers, which many student organizations already do, and is a necessary step to adopting Microsoft's Active Directory software, Campbell said.
Active Directory allows for easier network searches so that users can quickly find the resources they need, though Campbell said it would only be available on Windows computers.
While the software raises privacy issues since computer names are shared with the central server, Campbell said he does not believe it will pose a problem.
