Hours and Availibility

I am available on campus, in my office at 468 Claudia Cohen Hall, Monday through Friday during the hours of 9:00AM - 5:00PM.

During work hours, I forward calls placed to my office phone, to my SAS Nextel phone. If one were to call my office, my Nextel would ring. I always keep my Nextel on-campus and on during working hours. I never take the Nextel home, off-campus.

Computing News...

Windows 7…

On October 23, Microsoft is slated to release the latest version of the Windows desktop operating system, titled Windows 7 (7). Just like 7's predecessor, Windows Vista, Microsoft has been very open with the public in testing during the beta and release candidate phases. Anyone with a Windows Live ID can freely download and use the beta and release candidate version of Windows 7 for a year, free of cost. Microsoft was not always into this type of public relations tactic. Windows 2000 and XP betas were only available to Partners and Technet subscribers. A bit of image reconciliation is needed by Microsoft now, after the PR disaster which became Vista.

The majority of computers on campus still run the legacy Windows XP. Windows XP (XP) is fine for 99% of the computing tasks which folks need to perform on a daily basis. Microsoft's business model and their platform development process have successive versions of their products render previous versions obsolete. As moldy as Windows XP users may deem their version of Windows, many cannot make the substantial change to Windows Vista. The 'Vista-Skippers' are the folks Microsoft is hoping to force an upgrade to Windows 7.

As of now, Windows 7 is still development software. The betas and release candidates downloaded and installed for free will expire at the end of March, 2010. Development software should never be used on a production computer, or a machine that is relied upon for daily use. Not until the final product is released by Microsoft will it be considered a supported item by SASC and the university. At that rate, ISC and SASC will only support Windows 7 that comes with a new computer. Upgrades from a previous version of Windows will not be supported and are not suggested. Windows works great with a clean install at periodic intervals, but is not always practical in critical working environments.

For those wanting to install Windows 7 please note...

SAS Computing will only deploy Windows 7 on new allocation computers and not upgrade existing computers, in-place.
If a new computer is needed to replace an aging Windows XP PC, wait. Try to hang on until the end of October before ordering. Computers purchased now will come with Windows Vista and a voucher for a free upgrade to Windows 7. Windows upgrades are something that should really be performed when there is no other option for preserving user data and settings.

If it all possible, wait until after 10/23/09 before purchasing a new computer.

Snow Leopard Released...

Apple has released the latest iteration of it's Mac OS X operating system, titled 10.6 'Snow Leopard' (SL). SL was marketed as an upgrade to the previous release, 'Leopard'. Anyone installing the SL upgrade will find their computer not too much different from the way it was before. Hence the $29.00 retail price for Leopard users looking to upgrade.

New Stuff...
Bottom Line...

SAS Computing does not recommend or support users upgrading their own allocations Mac with SL. Nor does SAS Computing perform rolling upgrades of computer operating systems when they are released. Mac users are likely to see SL on their next allocations Mac.

If the desire to upgrade cannot be resisted, then a few steps can be taken to make the process streamlined and successful.

The process will upgrade your computer along with all of the data and applications to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. To perform a clean install with the retail upgrade media, the computer's hard disk must be erased prior to the upgrade starting.

CCAT Server Decommisioned...

On June 15, 2009, ISUS will deactivate the server known as 'CCAT'. All mail, web, and list services provided by the server will have to be closed or migrated to another SASC server by that time. Efforts are under way to contact and make arrangements with those that use CCAT for any technical reason. Web-pages should be moved to either Mail.SAS or FacStaff, in the case of faculty web-sites. All SAS faculty and staff should have their e-mail moved to the FacStaff cluster by this time. Please feel free to contact me with any comments of questions. The official SASC information web-page.

Pharos Print-Release Stations for the 237 and 371 Labs...

In February, the chairs for the departments which fund the consumables for the Cohen Hall room 237 and 371 labs decided with SASC to implement the Uniprint/Pharos print system for lab users and graduate students. Print jobs sent from the lab computers and from graduate student computers must use the Pharos software to print successfully. All print jobs submitted to those printers will require the submitting user to release the job at the printer with their Penn card. The main reason behind this change is to cut down on the amount of waste produced by unclaimed print jobs and unnecessary printing. A cost of $ .05 per page, single-sided and $ .07 per page duplex is standard for lab users and graduate student computers. More information.

Wicked Fast Scanning from Room 235...

The photocopier in the little nook of Cohen Hall 235 has been modified to allow anyone, with access to the room, to scan documents and send them out via e-mail in PDF format. The big draw-back is that the scans are monochrome only (black & white, no color). Despite the lack of color, the scanning component of the photocopier is more than adequate for scanning books and documents into PDF for use on Blackboard or elsewhere. I would be very interested to see a scanner on campus that could do the same job faster. Please contact me for instructions on how to use the copier for this purpose. The process is very easy and takes only a few moments.

How-To: TrueCrypt ...

Learn how to secure your data on Windows, Mac and Linux computers by using the free, open-source program TrueCrypt. Data security and privacy is an essential consideration for all users

 

This page was last modified on September 18, 2009.