At the beginning of the Fall Semester, FDU IT launched FDU Anywhere for students with the promise that a more comprehensive Software Catalog would soon be available for the entire FDU Community. Today, we are happy to introduce that Catalog. 

The Software Catalog is a web based directory allowing our community to easily view all the software programs available to us. Simply select your “user type” of student, faculty, or staff and you will be presented with a list of software options that are either free, available for purchase at an educational discount, or accessible through FDU Anywhere.

The catalog provides a variety of helpful drop down menus to filter or sort your selections. For example, the “Availability” drop down menu allows you to filter your results to view software that is available via FDU Anywhere, view software that can be pushed to University owned computers, or view open source software can be downloaded to any computer.  Each software option provides a description of the software and instructions for how to access or download.

To get started visit the FDU Software catalog:

This catalog replaces the Open Source software list that we announced in a recent Tech Alert. Going forward, the Software Catalog will be the preferred method of viewing an up to date list of recommended open source software options.

As always, our University Technical Assistance Center is available at (973)-443-8822 to answer any questions that you may have.

FDU IT is introducing a series of enhancements to our Office 365 platform. In the near future, many of our distribution lists, formerly known as mailing lists, will be migrated to Office 365. Once this process is complete, the FDU faculty and staff that own these lists will be able to perform basic list administration, including adding and removing members, without assistance from FDU IT.  We will provide list owners with more information on this functionality as soon as it is ready for deployment. 

In the meantime, members of a migrated distribution list will notice a change to their user experience. The “From” field, which previously would have displayed the address of the distribution list, will instead display the email address of the individual sender. Similarly, when a member clicks “Reply” on a distribution list message, their reply will go to the sender of that message. Some recently created lists were already on Office 365 and a few lists will remain on our old platform due to special circumstances.

If you require any assistance or have any additional questions, please call the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

As a periodic reminder, due to the recent rise in phishing attempts, we have implemented a new, easy to use, and consistent reporting tool which is integrated directly into your email application.

When viewing a message through the office365.fdu.edu web interface, there is now a drop down menu labeled as “Junk”. Simply select phishing from the menu.

If you view your mail from the Microsoft Outlook application, the dropdown menu will be labeled as “Report Message” but the process remains the same. Simply select “Phishing”.

If you are viewing your mail through the Outlook Mobile app on Android or Apple iOS, you will select “Report Junk” and then select “Phishing”.

Once you report a phishing attempt through any of these interfaces, the message will automatically be moved to the deleted items folder and a report will be sent to both FDU IT and Microsoft. There is also an option to filter spam messages. From the same drop down menu, select “Junk” and the message will be moved to the Junk Folder.

If you require any assistance or have any additional questions, please call the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

On October 14th, at approximately 10PM Eastern, our FDU-Secure wireless network will be updated with a new wireless SSL certificate.  Wireless certificates are a security mechanism that periodically expire by design. 

Upon your first connection to FDU-Secure after the update, you will be prompted to accept the new certificate. The tutorial below can assist with completing the security acceptance process for common platforms including macOS, Windows 10, Android and Apple mobile (iOS) devices.

If you have any questions, please contact UTAC at (973)-443-8822 or open a support case on IT.FDU.EDU.

Beginning tomorrow, FDU will require Cisco Duo Multifactor Authentication (MFA) for all student NetID accounts. We implore any student that has not already enrolled to visit our Duo Student Quick Start Guide and get Duo installed and configured. 

Once Cisco Duo is enabled tomorrow, students without MFA will be unable to access any FDU application that uses FDU’s Single Sign On (NetID) until they register. This includes WebCampus.fdu.edu and other sites required for Academic purposes. Failing to register in advance could result in lateness for class as you attempt to install and configure Duo at class time. 

Any student who would like to learn more about MFA please watch this video. If you have any additional questions, please contact the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

Microsoft enforces an occasional license validation for our enterprise version of their Windows Operating System and Office Software Suite.  For our community, this occurs automatically when an FDU owned device is connected to the FDU network.

Before the pandemic, this process did not require discussion. However, now that many of our faculty and staff members are working remotely, we need to ensure that everyone validates on a routine basis. This can be done by simply logging into the FDU VPN. Please make sure to connect to the VPN at least once per week for a minimum of 30 minutes. This will ensure that the Microsoft validation can occur successfully.

In the event that your license is set to expire in the immediate future, you will see the following error message. 

If you receive this error message, simply connect to the FDU VPN for a period of 30 minutes and the issue should resolve itself. If the message persists after the 30 minute period, please contact the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

Now that the semester is well under way, it is a good time to remind the community that we are in a period of unprecedented phishing attempts. Our faculty and staff have done a great job in recent months in not responding to the attempts that manage to breach our spam filters. However, new and more convincing attempts are always around the corner. Please review Spot a Phishing Scam for assistance with determining if a message is legitimate.

Additionally, please be aware that for security purposes, your FDU NetID account will be locked after five failed login attempts. In the event that this happens to you, please contact our Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822. They can assist you with unlocking the account and resetting your account password.

Our continued goal is to ensure that your IT experience is as simple as possible during this difficult time. Thank you for your attention.

On September 10^th, we announced Zoom’s intention to require all meetings to have a Passcode or Waiting Room enabled beginning September 27^th.  Due to customer feedback, Zoom has informed us that they will not be proceeding with this requirement and the passcode feature will remain “OFF” by default. 

Setting a passcode is a valuable security feature which we strongly advise, but ultimately it will be left up to your discretion.  Information about Zoom can be found in the 

Academic Technology section of it.fdu.edu. If you have any additional questions, please contact UTAC at (973)-443-8822 or email FDUTAC@fdu.edu

On September 25^th, between the hours of 11PM and 2AM Eastern, FDU will be performing updates to our campus network. 

As a result, people connected to the campus network, including the FDU VPN, may experience short intermittent outages for the duration of the upgrade. Additionally, people remotely connected to FDU services may also experience short outages during the maintenance period. 

In the event that you have any issues with connecting to the VPN after the update is complete, please reboot your device. If you have any further questions please contact UTAC at (973)-443-8822 or open a support case on IT.FDU.EDU.

FDU services, such as Webcampus, Zoom, FDU Anywhere or Office 365 are available on a PC or mobile device from the Internet. Students simply access the site, and login with their FDU NetID and password.

If you are experiencing technical problems connecting to any of these services from outside of United States or Canada, you can try using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, as long as it is legal in the country in which you are located. There are many regional providers with local points of presence throughout the world to select from.

One common VPN provider is Nord VPN.

This is a paid service, and will give you a good overall experience. Once you sign up for this service you will be provided with software to download and sign in with the credentials provided by the company.

Another option would be to use the FDU VPN, although the speed of the connection might be less than the local providers. Information on downloading the FDU VPN and connecting through your PC can be found at:

If you are continuing to have difficulties, please call the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822 or email FDUTAC@fdu.edu.

NOTE: Students who are located in Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, or the Crimea region of Ukraine must contact the University Technical Assistance Center at the above number or email before attempting to gain access to the above-referenced applications.

Starting September 27th, 2020, Zoom will be requiring all meetings to have a Passcode or Waiting Room enabled. Zoom has designed these security measures to give you control over your meeting security options while keeping the join experience as frictionless as possible.

•  For meetings that do not have either a Passcode or Waiting Room enabled by September 27th, Zoom will enable a Waiting Room for us.

•  Zoom has also improved the Waiting Room notifications so the meeting host can now receive a visual and auditory notification that an attendee has entered the Waiting Room. Hosts or co-hosts can admit them to the meeting.

•  Information about Zoom can be found in the Academic Technology section of it.fdu.edu. If you have any additional questions, please contact UTAC at (973)-443-8822 or email FDUTAC@fdu.edu.