ITHACA, N.Y. -- Are you a weather junkie? Do you want to keep up with the latest computer security updates? Do you routinely check your stock quotes throughout the day?

If you are one of the 37,000 people who have used uPortal.Cornell to keep these and other services on your computer screen and to navigate Cornell's Web space and the Internet at large, you will have discovered that a new version appeared May 22. If you haven't used uPortal before, you will find it at http://uportal.cornell.edu.

uPortal.Cornell is a Web service that offers convenient and easy access to a wide variety of information and services. The portal offers Cornell online services such as Just the Facts and the entire Bear Access suite, information about employment opportunities, Cornell news, libraries and computer labs and, of course, the weather, and can act as a gateway to the rest of the Internet. 

On the first visit, members of the Cornell community see a default channel selection based on their university affiliation -- faculty, staff or student. From there, they can customize their view by adding content and creating new tabs. They also can choose the look of uPortal.Cornell: Several "skins" (graphical interfaces, of which each has a different look and feel) are available in the new version.

Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) debuted version 2.4 earlier this month, and on May 22 the new version became the default. CIT provides a migration channel in the new version to migrate former settings and to save address books, groups, e-mail settings and Web bookmarks. The migration channel is at the top of the Cornell tab. 

Because CIT couldn't migrate individual channel selections, they must be added by clicking the arrow at the upper left corner of a column and selecting "Add Content" from the pull-down menu, then selecting the channel of choice from a list organized by categories. Channels can be added to the Personal tab or to any additional tabs created. 

"Welcome to the uPortal.Cornell Tour" provides a tour of options and is accessed by clicking on "Help" in the top right-hand corner of the new portal. 

uPortal.Cornell relies on uPortal, free, open-source software being developed by higher education institutions. "uPortal.Cornell is continually evolving," said Jon Atherton, CIT's lead for packaging and delivery. "As the uPortal software grows and evolves, uPortal.Cornell will as well."