February 6th, 2012

Today's topics:

Firefox Extended Support Release

Mozilla is now providing an ESR (Extended Support Release) of version 10 of the Firefox Web browser. ESR releases are supported for 1 year, and LEPP plans on maintaining a yearly update cycle with this product for web browsing.

Note that the user interface for the new Firefox v10 is quite different from the interface for the old v3. Mozilla provides a list of common questions and answers at http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/common-questions-after-upgrading-firefox-36

Also, many plugins that you have will be automatically updated by Firefox the first time you run the new version. Some plugins might not yet have compatible versions.

LEPP Windows computers

We will be installing the new version of Firefox on Windows Tuesday, February 21st, 2012, starting at 4PM. Any currently open Firefox windows will be automatically closed by the update.

LEPP Linux computers

As Firefox is provided by our upstream vendor, LEPP will not replace the the version of firefox installed on each system. However, Scientific Linux 6 users can test Firefox 10.0esr using /nfs/opt/firefox . Please note that this is an unsupported installation of Firefox that may be removed if we find it causes any problems. For more on LEPP's Software Support policies on Linux, please see https://wiki.lepp.cornell.edu/lepp/bin/view/Computing/LinuxSupport#Policies .

Macintosh OSX Lion - updating 10.7.x to 10.7.3

If you use a Macintosh running 10.7.x and you wish to update to 10.7.3, we STRONGLY recommend using Apple's combo updater. Updating to 10.7.3 via "Software Update" has been known to put Macs in a state where no application can successfully launch. Two links for downloading the combo updater are provided below:

• http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1484
• https://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~software/private/software/MacOSXUpdCombo10.7.3.dmg

Use the link that works best for you. The second link is likely to perform better than the first link if you are on the LEPP network.

The issue and some stratightforward ways to resolve it are described at:

• http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/02/os-x-10-7-3-update-issues-fixable-in-many-cases-with-combo-version/

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General network and server maintenance will occur every Tuesday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM. The CLASSE-IT group will always announce any expected disruptions in our NewsLetter and via CLASSE-IT-NEWS-L, but with the size and complexity of our network there is always the potential for something to go wrong. We will do our best to contain all network maintenance and planned outages to Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM.

Unless other arrangements have been made, CLASSE-managed Windows systems may be updated and rebooted on Tuesday morning at 2:00 AM, so please avoid critical or lengthy operations at that time. For more details, please see SystemExpectations.

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Questions or problems? Submit a service request.

Other resources:

• CLASSE-IT Home Page
• Previous newsletters

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