[62222] in Hotline Meeting
Re: Case 319965: Tang quickstation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Salil Soman)
Mon Nov 4 11:10:49 2002
Message-ID: <001c01c2841c$c4055630$3b03fb12@cardimum>
From: "Salil Soman" <sal@ai.mit.edu>
To: <hotline@mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 11:10:59 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
the following response was sent to Brian Murphy & Oliver Thomas on
Thursday: - I realize this is perhaps a planning issue. SInce moving to Tang
in 2000 I've been working with Oliver & The Student Life deans & Housing's
IT person (Anthony Davis) to get athena equipment to serve the needs of
Tang's 400+ residents. I still think there is a need for machines that can
be used as workstations (especially once the snow hits), but my message
below details my assessment (as THRA secretary /webmaster and before that
Graduate Student Council Rep for Tang) of the population in Tang and the
compute nees the athena equipment in Tang could be used to address.
Thanks for the note, if I can be of any further assistance in deciding this
matter, please do not hesistate to contact me.
Salil Soman
Secretary / Webmaster
Tang Hall Resident's Association
----- Original Message -----
From: "Salil Soman" <sal@ai.mit.edu>
To: "Brian Murphy" <bmurphy@mit.edu>
Cc: "oliver thomas" <othomas@MIT.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: Tang quickstation
> Dear Mr Murphy,
>
> In response to your message I have prepared the following answer:
>
> The sunblade is one of 4 computers available to the 400+ graduate students
> living in Tang.
>
> Reasons why making the sunblade into a workstation could be a good idea:
>
> 1)Tang is far from any other Athena computing facility (its the west most
> point of campus)
> (graduate students do not have access to whatever facilities are in
the
> undergraduate dorms between Tang and the student center)
> 2) 80% of tang's residents are first year graduate students (For most
> graduate programs at MIT, the first year is when the bulk of coursework is
> done, and is often before students are placed in labs with computers, and
so
> these students often have need for the Athena computing environment to do
> work, get handouts, do research for classes or in choosing labs, etc)
> 3) >50% of Tang's residents are foreign students, - combine this with the
> fact that many of them are first year and this results in a large number
of
> residents not having any kind of computers of their own.
> 4) Tang has about 5 square feet of common space per resident - which makes
> up its 2 lounges, and the corner of the laundry room where the 4 Athena
> machines are currently placed. The machines are in this corner, because
> there is no where else to put them. In theory a reworking of the area
could
> accommodate a machine or 2 more, but that's all I can imagine.
>
> In this situation, the 4 machines in Tang are arranged as follows: 1
> sunblade and 1 dell that sit on a table on either side of a GREAT ATHENA
> PRINTER (THANKS FOR THAT, BY THE WAY) with chairs, and 2 sun-sparc 5's
that
> are on stands that have no chairs (and which are not really fit for
running
> things like matlab, star office, autocad, etc). If Tang was to have
anything
> resembling a workstation, it would be the sunblade and the dell (because
you
> could sit down). However, in the current configuration, only the sunblade
> has a 10 minute timer, all the rest of the machines have no timers at all.
I
> AM NOT ADVOCATING THAT MORE TIMERS BE INSTALLED ON ANY OF THESE MACHINES.
I
> am just trying to make the case for having the timer running on the
> sunblade.
>
> Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance on this matter.
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Salil Soman
> Secretary / Webmaster
> Tang Hall Resident's Association
> http://mit.edu/tang/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brian Murphy" <bmurphy@mit.edu>
> To: <ssoman@mit.edu>
> Cc: <hotline@mit.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 1:37 PM
> Subject: Tang quickstation
>
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > The purpose of the Qucikstations is to allow multiple users quick
logins.
> > Hence a 10 minute implied, but not enforced limit. If a Quickstation is
> not
> > what is need and a true Athena Workstation is then we need to have a
> > request sent to ac-proposals explaining what the purpose of the machine
is
> > and how it relates to educational computing. Once that is determined, if
> > approved we can convert the machine(s) to full Athena Workstations.
Please
> > let me know if you have any questions...Brian
> >
> >
>
----- Original Message -----
From: <hotline@mit.edu>
To: <BMURPHY@mit.edu>
Cc: <ssoman@mit.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 10:47 AM
Subject: Case 319965: Tang quickstation
> Mr Soman,
> We are awaiting your response, please get back to us ASAP we are
waiting to help you.
>
> +JOHN
>
> [11/04/2002 10:47:21 jtguy Comment]
>
> ===========================================================
> Please retain the case reference in the subject line for future replies
associated with this case
>
>
>
