Computing news and announcements

New computer since July 2010? Power management coming Jan 11 (new date)!
The School's BigFix power management program is getting less effective over time as computers are replaced, since there has been no automatic enrollment of new computers. We will enable power management to all CRC supported computers that do not have any setting on January 11, 2012. You can change the setting yourself or opt-out entirely. Read the news item for more details.

GRID computer disk cleanup & software upgrades Nov 21, 2011
Operating system and application software will be upgraded on the Mitchell A59 G.R.I.D. lab computers and all user created files stored on the local hard drives will be erased on November 21, 2011. All files on the SCRATCH disk partition will be erased. Application preference files, browser bookmarks, and similar account customizations will be erased. Files saved on lab computers on the desktop or in your Documents folder will not be affected for normal users - they are actually stored on your home share on the School's file server, sesfs.stanford.edu. Exception: desktop and Documents folder files for users who don't have a home share, including most undergraduates and visitors, will be erased because they are stored on the local hard drive.

Computer network and telephone upgrades in June and July, 2011
During June and July, 2011, the computer network in Geology Corner, Mitchell Earth Sciences, and Green Earth Sciences buildings will be upgraded to provide gigabit (1,000 megabits/second) speed to all computers (ten times our current standard), and support new Voice-over-IP (VoIP) network telephones with advanced features that will replace all our old analog phones. Only selected network jacks will be activated for gigabit service as described in the article; all others will be de-activated. The Y2E2 building already has gigabit network service with VoIP phones, so it will not be upgraded.

G.R.I.D. lab upgrades will erase some user files on Jan 18, 2011
Computers in the Mitchell A59 G.R.I.D. lab will get operating system and application software upgrades on January 18, 2011. Some locally saved user files will be erased as a side effect. See full article for details.

Your computer can save energy with BigFix power management
To support energy saving goals, the School of Earth Sciences would like to see everyone configure their computers on the Earth Sciences network (whether Stanford or personally owned) with BigFix power management. You can download a simple tool to make your setting or "opt out".

GRID computer cleanup Oct 8, 2010: user files to be erased
All user created files stored on the Mitchell A59 G.R.I.D. lab computer hard drives will be erased on October 8, 2010, as part of a lab cleanup. All files on the SCRATCH disk partition will be erased. Application preference files, browser bookmarks, and similar account customizations will be erased. Files saved on lab computers on the Desktop or in your Documents folder (Mac OS X) or My Documents folder (Windows) will not be affected for normal users - they are actually stored on your home share on the School's file server, sesfs.stanford.edu. Exception: Desktop and Documents folder files for users who don't have a home share, including most undergraduates and visitors, will be erased because they are stored on the local hard drive.

Door codes changed for Mitchell computer labs
The combination codes needed to open the doors to the School of Earth Sciences computer labs have been changed. This is done periodically as a security measure and to limit use of the labs to authorized people. Anyone in the School of Earth Sciences may request the new codes.

Power management to be implemented on supported computers
As part of the university's sustainability intiatives, power management features will be centrally enabled on CRC supported computers in Earth Sciences using the BigFix program on July 14, 2010. The basic setting for all School computers will be to put the monitor to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity. Office computers (but not lab computers) will be targeted for more aggressive energy savings by putting the entire computer to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity. Users can switch between the two settings or "opt out".