Jwolf

[What's New in ITS]

What's New for Fall Semester 2008
This is an attempt to document the changes in computing and networking completed over the summer and made available for the start of Fall semester, 2008.
 * Public Computing Spaces
 * Bartle Library Information Commons: Total number of workstations increased to 181.
 * Main Floor, South side, new carpeting and furniture was added. The alcoves at the east end of this area now contain three 8 1/2" x 11" scanners and one 11" x 17" scanner.  A cluster of printers is located near the Commons attendant station.
 * Main Floor, North side, Six stand-up express workstations and a printer cluster replace workstations near the core by the Commons attendant station. At least one of these printers is a duplex printer.
 * Mezzanine on the second floor now contains 14 workstations that are part of the Bartle Library Information Commons.
 * Residential Community Computer Labs: All computers in Newing, CIW, Hinman, Mountainview, Susquehanna and Hillside communities have be replaced with newer computers.
 * Hinman computer lab now has 16 workstations and two printers.
 * Pharos printing
 * Software was upgraded to version 7.2
 * Duplex (2 sided) printing is available in Bartle Information Commons.
 * Users must select the Duplex printer when printing from an application and go to the printer labeled "Duplex" to release.
 * Users are charged $0.03 per image (side) printed.
 * Pharos quota system for black & white laser printing has been modified.
 * Initial seed is $7.50.
 * The quota is credited by $2.25 each week.
 * Unused quota remains available until the end of the semester. Whenever the account is out of money, the BUC$ card must be used to pay for printing.
 * This permits 825 simplex pages or 1375 duplex pages.
 * Software installed on Pod computers
 * Windows workstations
 * Operating System: Windows XP Professional
 * Microsoft Office 2007 Professional
 * By default, files saved from the Office suite on Pod machines will be in the Office 2003 format. Users must exercise care saving and retrieving documents that move between Office 2003 and Office 2007 packages.  Office 2003 cannot read Word, Excel or Powerpoint files saved in Office 2007 format (docx, xlsx, pptx).
 * Check the software database (http://its.binghamton.edu/files/software/public/query.pl) for other installed software and current versions.
 * Macintosh workstations
 * Operating System: Mac OSX
 * Microsoft Office 2008
 * By default, files saved from the Office suite on Pod machines will be in the Office 2003 format. Users must exercise care saving and retrieving documents that move between Office 2003 and Office 2007 packages.  Office 2003 cannot read Word, Excel or Powerpoint files saved in Office 2007 format (docx, xlsx, pptx).
 * Office files that rely on Visual Basic tools will not open in Office 2008 for the Mac.
 * Linux workstations
 * Operating System: Ubuntu 8.5
 * Blackboard
 * The production Blackboard environment now has 3 application servers and a database server. The increased capacity should permit continued growth in utilization by faculty and students.
 * The current version is 8.2
 * Adaptive Technology in public areas
 * Videoconferencing for classes
 * A Polycom PVX7000e system has been installed in Academic A G05 (The Collaboratory) to permit faculty to synchronously interact with classes at other universities around the world.
 * Two Pan/Tilt/Zoom cameras
 * Ceiling mounted echo canceling microphones.
 * Image projected on screen via data projector.
 * Desktop Virtualization Experiment
 * Available October, 2008.
 * Central server runs network licensed versions of Matlab, ProEngineer, SPSS and Stata.
 * Users use browser to connect to server and interact with the remote desktop from their own computer.
 * Off campus users must connect to campus via SSL VPN (https://ssl.binghamton.edu)
 * Users can access shared network storage (H: drive) and networked printers, including Pharos printers, as well as files and printers on their personal systems.