IT News Blog

Some users have come across a "C++ assertion failed" message when using PDQ/CSVWriter. If you are experiencing this problem and have versions 0.59 or 0.60 installed on your computer, contact the Help Desk at ext. 8080. To find out your current version, in PuTTY, right-click on the top of the window and select About PuTTY. The error seems to occur when the window resizes after you complete sorting the records. Rolling back to version 0.58 seems to have solved the problem - for now.

Unbeknownst to me, some Mac users who connect to Waldo via Terminal are already using the protocol SSH in place of Telnet. Plainly speaking, this means that instead of typing telnet waldo.it.emerson.edu, the user is typing ssh waldo.it.emerson.edu. Both SSH and Telnet have similar functionalities when it comes to the Waldo system. SSH is simply a more secure network protocol than telnet when data exchange takes place between two computers, namely, your computer (the client) and Waldo (the server.) You can learn more about SSH from wikipedia.

The problem, or rather, my discovery, happened this week when a user, who had been away, called in and didn't know what to type at the prompt his_ECnet_Username@waldo.it.emerson.edu. You may know that ECnet usernames are often not synonymous with Waldo usernames. To correct the problem, do the following:

Well, everyone, including yours truly, makes errors. I discovered, by accident, that there ARE menus in PuTTY after all. Instead of the traditional left-click, one right-clicks to view the menus. You can start a new session, copy to clipboard (and hence paste the screen to a document) and change your configuration settings and much more!

A few users have commented that with the older terminal emulation software such as QVT TERM, they were able to take a screen shot of a PO or budget line in Waldo using "cut" and "paste" from the menu bar. The menus are just not available in our current PuTTY configuration. What you could do in this case is: Select the area you wish to take a screen shot of and press CTRL and C to copy. Next, open a word processing document such as Word, and press CTRL and V to paste. The values may be unaligned when pasted.

For information security purposes, your Waldo password is set to expire every 90 days. Some users who use PuTTY to connect to Waldo have had problems logging in for the first time or after changing their passwords.

Users will get a warning that their password is about to expire 10 days prior to expiration and that they could change their password. If you changed your password and are unable to log in with the new password, it is most likely that the password you chose was not accepted by the system.

Try logging into Waldo using your old password. If you are able log in successfully, the system may prompt you again to change your password if it has not expired.

Waldo users with new Windows computers have been using PuTTY, a more secure application, to connect to Waldo. A few have had problems printing, especially to "Port." If you have executed the "Print" command in Waldo but the print job disappears into LaLa land, here's most likely why: PuTTY has to be configured for each user who is logged on to Windows. If you have six people who use the same computer, PuTTY needs to be configured to print to "Port" six times, once for each Windows user. The solution? Log on to Windows, contact the Help Desk at ext 8080 or Fong at ext. 8478 and we'll help configure your PuTTY for printing.