I have just returned from a week of camping near Colorado Springs and am now getting back into the swing of things as we begin the push to the start of a new term. It will be different this time, as I will not have the help of Brian who was always a big help with the computing here in the department.

I am working on rolling out the new computing website. It will have a lot more information that the previous site. It will also include a sign up proceedure for requesting Bastion Host accounts here at the NWC. I have a couple of machines in the Linux lab that are not working as they should and they will be in the queue for repairs next week. I also have a couple of new servers for both faculty and the department that I need to get installed and running. I have having serious issues with one and the update of the software. Seems that the RAID controler drivers are not part of the usual ones and the new kernel will not boot. So now I will be needing to track down that problem.

I now have a bit more control over the intro labs and will assist with the upper division synoptic lab this coming academic year. So I will be spending some time with the labs of previous years/sections and compiling a hopefullly more orginized set of labs. I am wanting to create a good set of labs that will introduce many of the the meteorological concepts as well as computing skills to make it easier on students as they move through the program.

Well, Brian and I imaged the new computer lab today. Even with all the interruptions, the lab is ready to be hooked up to the network. I still have the three iMacs in the Student Weather Center and three more in the Student Leaders office. But it has been truly amazing how quickly we were able to get machines up and running. The the Apple Desktop Remote software, I will be able to easily keep the machines upgraded and running well.

The next task for these machines is to get Matlab loaded and talk to the Geography sysadmin and see about how to get the ESRI products loaded into the Parallels MS Windows VM and talking to the license server. We should be set. Oh and as always, I forgot to add the printers, so it will give me a chance to test writing an install script to add the printers.

I still have a few connections to get activated. It has been a bit busy and I have not had the time to do my walk through. But most folks are letting me know if there are still problems. I am still waiting on the Computer Classroom furniture. That is a bummer. On the other hand, I am still needing to get the master machine for the linux lab built (Matlab, Splus and Undiata still to go) and the hard drive shipped back to be imaged to the remaining 25 machines. That disk should go out sometime Friday.

mjl