[Macpartners] MIT web certificates - Time to Renew!

[Deb Bowser]

Date:  June 6th, 2007

To:    Members of the MIT Community

From:  Information Services and Technology 

Subj:  MIT personal certificate renewal time and Web Browser recommendations
for FY 08

Good morning:

MIT's personal Web certificates will soon require renewal. Certificates
obtained in the past year are set to expire on July 31, 2007.

Renewal of personal Web certificates is not automatic. To ensure continued
access to MIT's secure Web applications, such as Benefits, SAPweb, and
WebSIS, plan to renew in the coming weeks. You can obtain your new personal
certificate now at:

	http://ca.mit.edu/

As a reminder, if you use certificates on multiple machines, you will need
to get a new certificate for each machine. If you use multiple web browsers,
you will need a certificate for each web browser. Please encourage those you
work with to renew as well. More complete information and documentation is
available at: 

	http://web.mit.edu/ist/help/cert

Browser Recommendations
In preparation for this renewal cycle, Information Services and Technology
(IS&T), in concert with colleagues who maintain and support web sites across
MIT has developed a set of browser recommendations. These recommendations
help simplify IT support and provide a consistent set of standards for MIT
web site maintainers and providers, helping to ensure delivery of quality
web services to our community.

        -- Windows' users:
           Vista Enterprise: IE 7
           Windows XP SP2:  IE 6.0.2 SP2 or later

Internet Explorer is the recommended and supported web browser for the
upcoming fiscal year.  It is important that the web browser version be
current with the operating system and all critical web browser patches be
current. IS&T recommends that 64-bit machines run the 32-bit version of
Internet Explorer.

        -- Macintosh users:
           MacOS X 10.4.9 PowerPC (G3, G4 or G5):  Safari 2.0.3
	     MacOS X Intel 10.4.9:                   Safari 2.0.4

Safari is the recommended and supported web browser for the upcoming fiscal
year. It is important that the web browser version be current with the
operating system and all critical web browser patches be current. As a
reminder, MacOS X 10.3 (Panther) will be retired on June 30, 2007.

Firefox is the alternate supported web browser. Colleagues who opt for
FireFox should visit its home web site at: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/,
and update to the latest version. Firefox provides automatic updates. This
feature makes it easy to obtain the latest security and feature updates to
Firefox.  Firefox automatically downloads these small updates in the
background and prompts you when they are ready to be installed.

       -- Linux/UNIX users:
          Firefox 1.5.0.x
          the RedHat Linux update service provides security updates to
these browsers

IS&T hopes that providing this information now will allow community members
to plan accordingly. We remain confident that these web browser
recommendations will be effective for the upcoming year and lessen the
burden on software release efforts and desktop maintenance.  Please feel
free to share this announcement with colleagues who may be interested. If
you have questions or concerns, you can direct them to the Software Release
Team at swrt at mit.edu.

Deb Bowser
Team Leader - Software Release Team
Client Support Services
Information Services and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
W92-175
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-253-3879
bowser at mit.edu