I'm doing this in two weeks....
on
Dorm Storm?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I'll be doing this myself as a ResNet consultant for a major east coast university. Some quick tips:
1) If a user has crappy hardware, tell him or her so. Make them splurge for a 3com. When you're configuring that many students, if 1% of them are running cheap-ass ethernet cards that their local vendors told them would "speed up the internet" or some such nonsense, I can guarantee you'll be spending plenty of time supporting that 1% over the phone for the rest of the year. Nip the problems in the bud.
2) Definitely keep it as simple as possible. Make flowcharts. Win98? Ok, open box, insert card, driver disk / os disk, so on and so forth. Make sure everyone working gets a flowchart. Make them for the top 5 operating systems at your school. If the situation they encounter doesn't work / doesn't have a flow chart, have the consultant refer the problem to his manager. This minimizes hassles for everyone - flowcharts help your techies streamline things, and as a bonus you only get problems that require actual thought.
3) HIRE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. One day of training for 1 consultant for every 50 anticipated setups per week. (Our "Dorm Storm" lasts for three weeks. YMMV) Seem excessive? This is 10 setups a day - enough to compensate for the average difficult setup. More will leave your techies bored. Training should include NIC installation, different OS's, common user questions and the like. Bonus: handing out cd's with an automated installation and config program
is a good idea. Handing out static wrist guards so that someone working under you doesn't fry an expensive machine and piss of someone's daddy is a *great* idea.
4) Only higher tech support that is friendly. These people will be interacting IRL - they'd better be able to at least fake people skills.
5) Keep everything as low stress as possible. That means air conditioning everywhere (it's the little things), free coffee for techies / walk in students, and anything else that makes this massive hassle a little less of, well, a massive hassle.
6) Past five o clock, stay open with a skeleton staff, and have consultants ready to drop in on the dorm who are on call (i.e. have immediate phone access and the ability to go at a moment's notice.) Don't abuse this privilege, but do use it.
7) Lastly, be prompt. Have everyone who doesn't get serviced by flowcharts go to the first manager AND DEALT WITH IMMEDIATELY. More than 24 hours for turnaround is too late, especially with this heat. Those who can't get helped by the managers should be an extremely small group - have one more manager and/or an emergency response team to deal with these guys.
Good luck with yours... I'm at 1.5 weeks and counting...
Not quite. You're making a common mistake here - confusing the Islam of today with that of yesteryear.
Let's see... ignorance of technology? Umn, that's a pretty big screw you to the people who invented medicine, astronomy, and chemistry as we know it. Don't get me started on mathematics.
Here's a link for the goatse weary: http://www.al-bab.com/arab/science.htm.
The muslims of yesteryear gave us a btter calendar, which we refused; a better number system, which we grudgingly accepted; a better understanding of astronomy and medicine, which we scoffed at; and preserved all of those greek and roman texts - ya know, the canon of western thought?
So where did Islam go wrong? Way too many schisms within the groups. There are no actual schisms in the sense of christianity, mind you - the fractures start taking place at the jurisprudence level. Oh yeah, and that whole colonialism / subjugation of the middle east thing. (Read Said's Culture and Imperialism. Read Orientalism. Hell, read anything, you sound like you need it.)
In closing, racism bad, and everything you know is wrong. Have a nice day:)
Wow, you haven't posted in at least a few months -
and you went to all the trouble of asking mommy to let you use her iSmac, *and* help you with the multi-syallabic words, *and* make an utterly bigoted and ignorant comment? I'm *flattered*. A/S/L ?;)
I was watching the news tonight, and for some reason the BBC picked up on this square watermelon drivel - guess it was on Reuters or something. Anyway, they show it on the preview, and during the break my dad tells me how they do it - I'd guessed genetic engineering, when it is in fact just allowing the fruit to grow into a square enclosure. So how did he know? He'd done it when he was a kid... in Iran... in 1960.
He proceeded to show me photos. Apparently this was a regular practice at the time - what's the deal with us First Worlders catching on so late?
... is that this is happening *everywhere*. After the AOL / Time Warner debacle, the shutting down of the various baby DSL's, the increased push by Microsoft for dominance at the server/desktop/pocket pc level... we're getting way too 1984. Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer indeed.
We get all of our content in one place, because it's quick and it's easy. The sad thing is, all the cool stuff slips between the cracks. It's kinda like radio these days: you can get decent sounding blandness on any radio station, but good luck getting Tom Waits. Updated for today: you can get an easy OS installed free, but stability is gonna be a bitch to get your hands on. Or, for this new survey: you can get your news and your content at CNN and Yahoo!, but you're going to get one narrow viewpoint - McContent, if you will.
...
Re:Motherboard for us homebrewers / LAN freaks?
on
Tiny Little Computer
·
· Score: 1
Damn. Well, no use arguing when I fell for it that badly.
(feeling sheepish for getting trolled *that* bad)
--avtr
Re:Motherboard for us homebrewers / LAN freaks?
on
Tiny Little Computer
·
· Score: 1
My, how utterly moronic of you.
Notice I never said I was a "gamer" - or even mentioned games, first off. I said - or rather implied - I was a homebrewer / LAN freak. In reality, I am a gamer - but certainly not of the persuasion that you think. I haven't played a retail or arcade system since about the launch of the PSOne. People like me - people who dislike your crapass FPS shooters and crave *real* gameplay - have been forced to become retrogamers, running emulators to play our forgotten classics. RockNES and ZSNES, along with Raine and MAME, for the most part, should run just fine on a Celeron. In any case, assumptions make an ass out of you, and, well, you.
Hmmm. I'll assume that you meant Celeron's were *not* cool anymore - and I suppose they aren't, if you desperately need speed. (Poor spelling is a sign of poor breeding. Try previewing your post.) I don't particularly, as I am not of the aforementioned gamer persuasion. A box this small for me would mean a rather interesting thin client - mods I've been thinking of so far are making a 6 by 3 box with a 5 inch LCD for it, or perhaps integrating it with a keyboard, kind of like a laptop with no screen. (Think Neuromancer - Oh wait, you probably can't read too well, judging by the intellect you've just displayed. Try getting the audio book of Neuromancer.)
As for the GeForce, I won't be getting one - not that I couldn't at this size. With a slightly bigger case, if you're at all familiar with either the MicroATX or FlexATX form factors, you'll notice PCI slots are easy to come by in small boxen. Not quite as small as this, though - but hey, as I'm not the "gamer" you so desperately want me to be, who cares?
As for your idea that this is a custom kit - I highly doubt it. Besides the fact that it uses all standard parts *except* for the mainboard, I'd assume that the motherboard could be found by in some cheapo etailers stock, simply because it isn't that innovative. It's a tiny motherboard with no AGP and an Intel 815 chipset. Small motherboards are nothing new. I've seen cases that are just about this size running celery 533's.
So let's see - you assumed I was a gamer, and made an ass of yourself. You assumed I'm a newbie - nope, wrong again sweetmeat. You assumed that I haven't got more case mods under my belt than you have peach fuzz on your chin. Three strikes, you're out.
Waiiiiiit a minute - I get it! You looked up at the member info, figured I'd just signed up because I heard of this really K-RAD L1NUX SITE D00D and I was open to attack.
Nice try, tough guy. Step away from mommy's IMac before you get hurt.
--avtr
Motherboard for us homebrewers / LAN freaks?
on
Tiny Little Computer
·
· Score: 2
There's one big problem with this thing (well, probably more, but this is the one that hit me hardest): it costs an arm and a leg.
Does anyone know what the mainboard in this beast is? With a motherboard that small, us LAN party type people could buy it and do the rest ourselves... I mean, a Celeron and a DIMM are lying next to me right now, and I'm sure I could get a laptop cd-rom for cheaper than that. Someone ID that mainboard!
Slashdot Mirror
I'll be doing this myself as a ResNet consultant for a major east coast university. Some quick tips:
1) If a user has crappy hardware, tell him or her so. Make them splurge for a 3com. When you're configuring that many students, if 1% of them are running cheap-ass ethernet cards that their local vendors told them would "speed up the internet" or some such nonsense, I can guarantee you'll be spending plenty of time supporting that 1% over the phone for the rest of the year. Nip the problems in the bud.
2) Definitely keep it as simple as possible. Make flowcharts. Win98? Ok, open box, insert card, driver disk / os disk, so on and so forth. Make sure everyone working gets a flowchart. Make them for the top 5 operating systems at your school. If the situation they encounter doesn't work / doesn't have a flow chart, have the consultant refer the problem to his manager. This minimizes hassles for everyone - flowcharts help your techies streamline things, and as a bonus you only get problems that require actual thought.
3) HIRE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. One day of training for 1 consultant for every 50 anticipated setups per week. (Our "Dorm Storm" lasts for three weeks. YMMV) Seem excessive? This is 10 setups a day - enough to compensate for the average difficult setup. More will leave your techies bored. Training should include NIC installation, different OS's, common user questions and the like. Bonus: handing out cd's with an automated installation and config program
is a good idea. Handing out static wrist guards so that someone working under you doesn't fry an expensive machine and piss of someone's daddy is a *great* idea.
4) Only higher tech support that is friendly. These people will be interacting IRL - they'd better be able to at least fake people skills.
5) Keep everything as low stress as possible. That means air conditioning everywhere (it's the little things), free coffee for techies / walk in students, and anything else that makes this massive hassle a little less of, well, a massive hassle.
6) Past five o clock, stay open with a skeleton staff, and have consultants ready to drop in on the dorm who are on call (i.e. have immediate phone access and the ability to go at a moment's notice.) Don't abuse this privilege, but do use it.
7) Lastly, be prompt. Have everyone who doesn't get serviced by flowcharts go to the first manager AND DEALT WITH IMMEDIATELY. More than 24 hours for turnaround is too late, especially with this heat. Those who can't get helped by the managers should be an extremely small group - have one more manager and/or an emergency response team to deal with these guys.
Good luck with yours... I'm at 1.5 weeks and counting...
Not quite. You're making a common mistake here - confusing the Islam of today with that of yesteryear.
:)
Let's see... ignorance of technology? Umn, that's a pretty big screw you to the people who invented medicine, astronomy, and chemistry as we know it. Don't get me started on mathematics.
Here's a link for the goatse weary: http://www.al-bab.com/arab/science.htm.
The muslims of yesteryear gave us a btter calendar, which we refused; a better number system, which we grudgingly accepted; a better understanding of astronomy and medicine, which we scoffed at; and preserved all of those greek and roman texts - ya know, the canon of western thought?
So where did Islam go wrong? Way too many schisms within the groups. There are no actual schisms in the sense of christianity, mind you - the fractures start taking place at the jurisprudence level. Oh yeah, and that whole colonialism / subjugation of the middle east thing. (Read Said's Culture and Imperialism. Read Orientalism. Hell, read anything, you sound like you need it.)
In closing, racism bad, and everything you know is wrong. Have a nice day
Wow, you haven't posted in at least a few months - ;)
and you went to all the trouble of asking mommy to let you use her iSmac, *and* help you with the multi-syallabic words, *and* make an utterly bigoted and ignorant comment? I'm *flattered*. A/S/L ?
...kthnxbiteme.
--avtr
I was watching the news tonight, and for some reason the BBC picked up on this square watermelon drivel - guess it was on Reuters or something. Anyway, they show it on the preview, and during the break my dad tells me how they do it - I'd guessed genetic engineering, when it is in fact just allowing the fruit to grow into a square enclosure. So how did he know? He'd done it when he was a kid... in Iran... in 1960. He proceeded to show me photos. Apparently this was a regular practice at the time - what's the deal with us First Worlders catching on so late?
... is that this is happening *everywhere*. After the AOL / Time Warner debacle, the shutting down of the various baby DSL's, the increased push by Microsoft for dominance at the server /desktop/pocket pc level... we're getting way too 1984. Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer indeed.
We get all of our content in one place, because it's quick and it's easy. The sad thing is, all the cool stuff slips between the cracks. It's kinda like radio these days: you can get decent sounding blandness on any radio station, but good luck getting Tom Waits. Updated for today: you can get an easy OS installed free, but stability is gonna be a bitch to get your hands on. Or, for this new survey: you can get your news and your content at CNN and Yahoo!, but you're going to get one narrow viewpoint - McContent, if you will.
...
Damn. Well, no use arguing when I fell for it that badly.
(feeling sheepish for getting trolled *that* bad)
--avtr
My, how utterly moronic of you.
Notice I never said I was a "gamer" - or even mentioned games, first off. I said - or rather implied - I was a homebrewer / LAN freak. In reality, I am a gamer - but certainly not of the persuasion that you think. I haven't played a retail or arcade system since about the launch of the PSOne. People like me - people who dislike your crapass FPS shooters and crave *real* gameplay - have been forced to become retrogamers, running emulators to play our forgotten classics. RockNES and ZSNES, along with Raine and MAME, for the most part, should run just fine on a Celeron. In any case, assumptions make an ass out of you, and, well, you.
Hmmm. I'll assume that you meant Celeron's were *not* cool anymore - and I suppose they aren't, if you desperately need speed. (Poor spelling is a sign of poor breeding. Try previewing your post.) I don't particularly, as I am not of the aforementioned gamer persuasion. A box this small for me would mean a rather interesting thin client - mods I've been thinking of so far are making a 6 by 3 box with a 5 inch LCD for it, or perhaps integrating it with a keyboard, kind of like a laptop with no screen. (Think Neuromancer - Oh wait, you probably can't read too well, judging by the intellect you've just displayed. Try getting the audio book of Neuromancer.)
As for the GeForce, I won't be getting one - not that I couldn't at this size. With a slightly bigger case, if you're at all familiar with either the MicroATX or FlexATX form factors, you'll notice PCI slots are easy to come by in small boxen. Not quite as small as this, though - but hey, as I'm not the "gamer" you so desperately want me to be, who cares?
As for your idea that this is a custom kit - I highly doubt it. Besides the fact that it uses all standard parts *except* for the mainboard, I'd assume that the motherboard could be found by in some cheapo etailers stock, simply because it isn't that innovative. It's a tiny motherboard with no AGP and an Intel 815 chipset. Small motherboards are nothing new. I've seen cases that are just about this size running celery 533's.
So let's see - you assumed I was a gamer, and made an ass of yourself. You assumed I'm a newbie - nope, wrong again sweetmeat. You assumed that I haven't got more case mods under my belt than you have peach fuzz on your chin. Three strikes, you're out.
Waiiiiiit a minute - I get it! You looked up at the member info, figured I'd just signed up because I heard of this really K-RAD L1NUX SITE D00D and I was open to attack.
Nice try, tough guy. Step away from mommy's IMac before you get hurt.
--avtr
There's one big problem with this thing (well, probably more, but this is the one that hit me hardest): it costs an arm and a leg.
Does anyone know what the mainboard in this beast is? With a motherboard that small, us LAN party type people could buy it and do the rest ourselves... I mean, a Celeron and a DIMM are lying next to me right now, and I'm sure I could get a laptop cd-rom for cheaper than that. Someone ID that mainboard!
--avtr