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Public Facilities and Fileservers

Trinity is fortunate to have available an impressive assortment of hardware for academic use. This is briefly described below. Later in this document, we will describe some of the applications available on each system.

Public Facilities

The Library, Information, and Technology Center houses several labs, including 2 in the 24-hour zone (LITC B). These are available for faculty, staff and student use. Help Desk hours are listed on the main page of the Computing Center's web site: http://www.trincoll.edu/RaetherCtr/ComputingCenter/. When school is in session, the building opens by 8:00 AM, and the front door remains unlocked until 9:00 PM. At that time access is provided by a magnetic card reader, located outside the main entrance. Please bring your Trinity ID card with you when you use our public computing facilities.

All users of the pubic facilities are urged to bring at least two zip disks or flash drives for storing their data. One disk will hold original data, the other should be used as a backup in case the first disk fail. Although floppy drives are available in most locations, it is strongly recommended zip disks be used rather than standard floppy disks, which hold fewer files and are more prone to become corrupted. (Flash drives are generally better than either type of disk.)

Windows - 20 Windows computers are also provided in the LITC, on levels A and 1. These run Windows XP, and all are connected to networked laser printers. These computers are connected to the telecommunications network as well. The PCs also have hard disks and fileserver access. These computers  "clean" themselves each time they are booted, deleting programs and files that were not placed there by the Computing Center.

Macintoshes - 15 Macs are available throughout LITC, on level 1 and level 2 (one of them connected to a scanner). They all have network access, including access to several fileserver volumes (called "Class Software", "Bantam", and so on) and for class-related work, networked laser printers.

All Macs are equipped with hard disks. The hard disks will store the Mac operating system and classwork applications, Word, Excel, and other commonly used software. These Macintoshes also are cleaned each time they are restarted.

Printing - Printing to laser printers from Macs and PCs is available over the network. Output appears in two bins that project from the wall near the Student Help Desk office on the B level. A third bin provides color laser printing.

Faculty members who wish to make special software available for a particular class should contact Academic Computing directly. Specific solutions or recommendations depend on the type and cost of the software, and the size of the class. Please contact your Resource Specialist to discuss your needs as far in advance as possible.

Owing to increasing complexity of operating system software, requests for modifications to the configurations of the public computers can only be accommodated if they are made by April 15th for courses taught in the fall and Nov. 15th for courses taught the following spring.

The Fileservers

Trinity operates a number of file and print servers.

  • A fileserver is a computer on the campus network that makes its storage capabilities available to users over the network. It shares these resources. Such computers are maintained by the Computing Center. They are very fast, and often have very large storage areas to share.

    In general, file servers are used when large files, be it programs or data, need to be shared with multiple individuals on a recurring basis.

    Our fileservers have names like zep, tamba, and caribou. Each serves different uses and users. Most academic computing resources of interest are stored on zep, in "share areas" called Bantam and Class Software. "Share areas", when made accessible on your PC or Mac, behave just like your hard disk, or a zip disk - except that the storage area is not physically attached to your desktop computer. Another important difference is that these major storage areas are generally only modifiable by Computing Center staff.

    Class Software stores applications used in classes (including statistical packages, programming languages, Mathematica, etc.), and large datasets. Bantam is less central. It contains a collection of campus-standard programs and accessories for those who are interested.

 
  • Print servers collect, organize, prioritize, and dispatch jobs from users to printers. All print jobs sent to the public lasers on the B level of LITC are managed by a print server.

UNIX Server Shakti

One server, called "Shakti", is a general resource for users of TSP, BMDP and other programs that once might have been on a mainframe computer.

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