3/26/08 - SCC phones will be down.
Fairfied Campus, Vacaville Center, Vallejo Center, and Harbor Theater phones will be down from 8am - 12pm, on Wed. 3/26/08.
Additionally, Vacaville Center phones will be down between 1pm - 5pm, on Wed. 3/26/08.

Dell Education Personal Purchase Program

Dell offers a discount for Solano Community College Faculty and Staff.

Solano Community College has joined the Dell™ Education Personal Purchase Program (EPP) and that’s very good news for you! For more information, visit Dell’s Secure Education Employee Purchase Store at www.dell.com/edubuy to learn more or to place your order today! Dell recommends their specially trained EPP sales representatives to help you at 1-800-695-8133, Monday-Friday 7:00am-11:00pm, Saturday and Sunday 9:00am-10:00pm CST.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: Why is this the best deal on a Dell PC for home?
A: EPP offers you savings not available to the general public.
— Savings of up to 6% off all Dell™ Dimension™ desktop and Inspiron™ notebook systems.
— Discounts taken on top of most generally advertised Dell Home Sales prices and promotions.
— Discounted 3-5 day shipping
— Award-winning services and support

Systems priced (before shipping and tax)	Up to $800	$800 up to $1600	$1600 and Above
Base Discount	2%	4%	6%

Q: How do I learn more? How do I place my order?
A: Simple.
— Visit Dell's Web site at www.dell.com/edubuy.
— Dell recommends placing orders at 1-800-695-8133, Monday-Friday 7:00am-11:00pm, Saturday and Sunday 9:00am-10:00pm CST and speak to an EPP sales consultant who will be happy to answer your questions, help you configure a system that’s best for you, and take your order.

Q: How do I become eligible for the Dell Education Personal Purchase Program?
A: You already are eligible simply by working for your institution. You’ll be asked to verify your institution when you order.

Read the full brochure to find more details. (PDF)

Important! Solano Community College does not provide warranties or service for personal purchases.

Security News

Solano Community College establishes its own Certificate Authority (CA)

We have now created our own Certificate Authority (CA) so that we can generate our own certificates for secure communications over the Internet.

Our public web server,  www.solano.edu (which includes secure.solano.edu) uses a certificate from Verisign, Inc. (www.verisign.com). Verisign provides security certificates that allow for encrypted transactions over the Internet. All major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) understand valid Verisign certificates. Encrypted communications means that nobody can intercept and read the user's data, especially critical information such as username and password.

For services used by SCC faculty and staff and not the general public, we have started to create our own certificates. This saves us money and effort since the Verisign certificates have to be purchased and renewed when they expire.

It does mean that in order to use Outlook Web Access (owa.solano.edu), faculty and staff have to follow a short series of steps to install our self-made certificate into his/her computer. Once that is done, the computer will be able to continue to have secure, encrypted communications with important services such as Outlook.

Installation instructions

Cisco Clean Access network admissions control system installed

Everyone faces the same common Internet threats such as viruses, trojans, exploits, and more. SCC has installed a firewall at the edge of our network to protect the campus from external threats.

How do we protect ourselves from internal threats? As more faculty, staff, and students use notebook computers, the threat axis has shifted to include internal threats. People can easily (and unintentionally) bring viruses to campus when they bring their notebooks from home. To combat that, we have installed a new type of security called 'network admissions control.' Cisco Clean Access works to make sure that a notebook is safe before allowing it access to our network.

Faculty and staff can install a small software client that communicates very quickly and efficiently with the Clean Access server. The server scans the computer for known virus signatures and checks to see if the virus definitions and windows updates are current. If they are not, the computer gets a connection to the Internet that will allow the user to fix the problem. Then the computer will be allowed access to our network. A common and recurring warning will be issued as anti-virus vendors update their virus definitions and the user is then required to download and install those updates. Clean Access provides a one-click method for accomplishing that.

Students will have their computers scanned for known problems and will be allowed access if the computer is clean enough or will be allowed access to the Internet resource that will fix their problem. For instance, if a virus is found, they can get to an anti-virus software vendor to fix the problem.

This system will allow us to give wider access to the campus network for the campus community. We will soon direct the network connections in the lounge area of the Student Center (Building 1400) to use this system and students will be allowed and encouraged to use those connections.

FAQ for Clean Access