Not sure how to change your outgoing message in your Infomail box? Puzzled over just how call diversion works?NACS/Electronic Communication Services offers telephone and Infomail training classes free of charge to campus staff, faculty and student employees. The classes are conducted at the Electronic Communication Services office in our conference room. We cover everything from the basics to the creative, providing “hands on” training. You may sign up for a class by calling ECS at 824-5123 or by sending E-mail to Gpbonham@uci.edu.
NACS Struggles While Others Eat Turkey
Equipment failures frustrated users and NACS alike when over the Thanksgiving holiday both the Educational Access (EA) systems serving 15,000 students and the E4E system serving 3,000 staff experienced considerable downtime. The most serious problems occurred with the EA systems resulting in 36 hours of down time and a day of lost e-mail. NACS staff invested 16 person hours over the holiday restoring service. NACS is evaluating the cause of these failures and will be taking steps to reduce the probability of similar failures in the future. We sincerely apologize to our clients for the loss of service, and greatly appreciate the understanding and patience from those affected.
Lighting Every Pillow In UCI Residence Halls
What would you think if someone said they were going to light your pillow? Well, if you live in the New Middle Earth (NME) residence halls you might know that this means you and your roommate will have access to your own high speed network connection to UCInet and the Internet in your room. Network access will be made available to NME residents beginning with the Spring 1997 quarter. A total of 481 rooms and 900 active network connections will be provided.
NACS has partnered with UCI Housing in a commitment to “light every pillow” at UCI by providing ethernet network connections to the residents of UCI Housing. The entire NME complex was recently re-cabled with high speed data grade category 5 cable and new network equipment is currently being installed. The new connections will be 10MB ethernet which is several hundred times faster than the 28.8K modems NME residents are currently using. The higher speed is practically a requirement for residents to fully participate in UCI’s Educational Electronic Environment and utilize services available on the World Wide Web.
Currently network access is available in the Arroyo Vista complex and should be available in the Palo Verde complex before Christmas. Future plans are to “Light Every Pillow” in all the residential housing complexes — planning is currently underway to bring data connections to Lower Middle Earth, Mesa Court, and Campus Village. It is hoped that significant progress can be made in these complexes by Fall of `97.
If you have any questions about the Light Every Pillow project, contact Brian Buckler, NACS ECS Operations Manager, by e-mail at bbuckler@uci.edu, or Rob Ameele, Associate Director of Housing, at rameele@uci.edu.
NACS STAFFING NEWS
Duncan Phillips
Duncan Phillips has joined NACS Departmental and Distributed Computing Support (DDCS) as a system administrator, responsible for support of Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as some Civil Engineering and Physics clients. Duncan worked for NACS as he was completing his undergraduate degree here at UCI, and has demonstrated a rare combination of technical skill, quickness at learning, and warm interpersonal skills. We are happy to welcome him to the group.
Duncan replaces Sinclair Fleming, who has left NACS for a job in the communications industry.
Rick Colman
Rick Colman comes to us as part of a special arrangement with Dave Schetter and University/Industry Research and Technology (UIRT). Rick has been employed for several years as a highly skilled designer and engineer of commercial World Wide Web sites, and will be plying his skills on behalf of the UC-ACCESS project. UC-ACCESS is a UCOP-sponsored effort at UCI to communicate information about UC faculty research and UC programs which could be of use to California business and industry as part of UCOP’s technology transfer program.
Kim Carpenter
Kim Carpenter has joined the NACS’ Business Office as an Administrative Assistant. Kim is no stranger to the UC system, having worked at UC San Diego for 5 years and most recently at UC Riverside. She also worked for the Navy Purchasing department for several years. Kim brings lots of good administrative expertise with her, and we are glad to have her on board.
Alternatives for Modem Users
ALTERNATIVES FOR MODEM USERS
As a member of the UCI community, you have unlimited use of NACS'”free” modem pool. However, for many people, sharing 300 modems that serve a community of approximately 20,000 faculty, staff, and students is inconvenient and, at times, frustrating. The free modem pool is designed as a default service to ensure that everyone at UCI has at least some remote access. There are alternatives to this basic service.
Dedicated Modem Service
NACS offers “Dedicated Dial-up Modem Services” to faculty, work-groups, and departments. These services provide dedicated modems and unlimited connection time to UCInet and the Internet. The cost is $45 a month plus a one-time, $90 set-up charge (waived now through June 1997 – see below).
$45 a month is relatively expensive for a single user, but if shared by several individuals, the cost becomes comparable to the least expensive Internet Service Providers. For example, a department or group with 45 people might share a bank of 10 modems — the resulting monthly cost is only $10 per person. A small group of 4 people can share one modem at a cost of $11.25 per individual per month.
More information about Dedicated Modems can be found at: http://www.nacs.uci.edu/communication/dedicated.dial-up.html
To order this service, please call NACS Electronic Communication Services at extension 5123 or send an e-mail message to NACS@UCI.EDU with “Request for Dedicated Modem Service” in the subject line. To help departments ease current modem access issues, NACS will waive the $90 setup fee now through June 1997 for dedicated modem commitments of at least 6 months.
Internet Service Providers
A second remote access alternative is using an Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as Netcom, Pacific Bell or a variety of others. Information concerning ISPs can be found at: http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/antaccess/isp.html
A disadvantage of using ISPs is that certain services (such as Britannica On-Line) are not available due to access being restricted to users from the uci.edu network domain.
NACS welcomes your comments and suggestions concerning remote access to UCInet; you may direct them to ourNACS@UCI.EDU address or to any NACS manager.