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September 28, 2005
Fall Move-In
Anti-climactic.
That's all I have to say. You build and build something for weeks - even months; you're all prepared, fully staffed, and things look good.
Then you wait for it like the tide of darkness unleashed by Sauron in the Lord of the Rings. But instead of being overwhelmed by evil hordes and being rescued at the last moment by a great hero (or heros as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimley often traveled together) - the rush never comes. It swells and comes right up to the brim, but never overflows.
It appears that our long hard efforts were all worth it. Students have only been on campus for about 11 days, and already we have more registered devices than at our maximum last year.
Sophos is being complicated here and their, but seems like a dream next the last-years' High-Maintenance Command Antivirus, installed by the notorius (notoriously irritating) Patchlink. But those days have passed. When you install ANY program on 1000 machines, your bound to find some problems (some are with the software - others with the machines.... most are in fact problems with the machine in my experience).
So, long story short, Sophos seems to be the king, and life is running relatively smoothly compared to where we have been at this time in years' past. John Rushing has gotten right into the swing of things, and is heading up the Landers Computer Lab portion of Residential Computing with great skill and enthusiasm. He has already made this process go much smoother than usual and I am expecting great things from him.
More to come later on RW2 & the Online Housing Application...
Posted by ellism at 1:27 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2005
Training
August 2-5, 2005 : CBORD Training in Ithaca, NY
I attended a variety of courses/workshops varying in a broad range of topics all centered around the CBORD Housing Management Software.
No certifications received.
I was able to meet the support personnel I work with routinely, face-to-face. This allows me to more closely work with them and get support from them.
With more intricate knowledge of the CBORD system, I was able to come back to WOU with the ability to automate more processes, and streamline some of our existing processes. One of the largest classes was about the WEB API, which we opted not to use in the end. It is a very powerful and flexible interface, but we decided we did not have enough time to both learn and implement the Online Housing Application (use the WEB API) before it's October 1, 2005 deadline.
I also learned some of the PCS features, and learned to integrate the two systems a little more closely.
In the end, we learned about their 'packaged' online housing application which will be rolled out in a basic form October 1, 2005.
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June 22-29, 2005 : ResNet Symposium Conference 2005 in Atlanta, GA
I attended a variety of courses/workshops varying in a broad range of topics all centered around Residential Networking Issues (we call ours ResComp - Residential Computing).
No certifications received.
Utilizing the knowledge from this conference, we were able to more effectively plan for Student Move-In (happening now), Student CD creation, Powerpoint Education, and much more.
Much of the Redwolf v2.0 design was inspired by thoughts and systems seen at this conference. Much of the talk of a NetReg system was drawn from this conference. I took a class on becoming a new manager, which has helped me as my position has recently become a supervisory position. I learned other skills and made friendships that I have already utilized to increase our productivity and enhance the services we offer to students.
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We have had at least one Third-Party software trainer come, but it was very specific training for that application alone (and little was pertinent for me).
Posted by ellism at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2005
Move-In Day Approacheth
Well ladies & gentleman - we have come to that place. It's like when you getting married. You plan and plan (and scheme) and plan more and yell and cry and laugh (and maybe giggle), but then when the time comes, you just say "if it ain't done yet, oh well". You can only be so prepared - eventually you have to jump off the roof with you woobie tied to you like a parachute and hope to heck you fly.
I think we'll do slightly better than a 6 year-old with a woobie for a parachute, but you understand the point.
Redwolf is working. It needs some more reports, but what doesn't?
The lab got mostly ghosted, and is now being prepared for sunday by my staff. Training is tonight, so we'll be well prepared for Sunday.
The Online Housing Application has 2 weeks of slack (until the 10/1/06) deadline, so I'm feeling confident there too as most of the critical parts are coming together.
I'm still pretty stressed, but that will pass. Last year we sat around on Sunday, because things were smooth. I pray it is that way this year too. It'll get busy, don't get me wrong - but we'd like to get most of the students in without too many issues.
Well I have one actually critical thing left to do today (which is sync-ing the HMS & PCS patron DBs), and after that I'll be feeling much better.
Signing off till after the craziness - Michael
Posted by ellism at 6:08 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2005
Stay in Bed
Ever have a day where you decide it would have been better had you stayed in bed all day? Today is that day for me. Working hard all day for a small amount of accomplishment, a longer list and more frustration, is not my ideal work environment.
However, this day shall pass. More things got figured out, and with a bit of fresh perspective from tomorrow, it'll all be OK.
Redwolf2 is coming along. Only 1-2 more seriously technical things to work out. Then the resident registration system has to be finished tomorrow. Another long, hard coding project. Oh well.
Finally, the Housing Application is moving, but still slowly. Good meetings should be good, but this morning's put me behind and I'm still there.
Like I said, tomorrow will be another day. :)
Posted by ellism at 3:12 AM | Comments (0)
September 9, 2005
Comings and Goings
Well today we conclude another fine week. Unfortunately for us, next week is the last week before New Student Week (September 18th- ...).
With only 5 days of work for John, and 6 for me (as I'll probably come in on Saturday to make some finishing touches, etc... - we really have to prioritize our projects. The Computer Lab will be finished, and the staff should be tranined and all of that should go well.
Redwolf's Critical Areas will be done, and are ahead of schedule. We already have 80 registred devices which is a great number. Today we found a switch with a disfunctional blade. John and I probably spent about 5 hours trying to get this guy online, and it turned out to be the switch! Oh well, better to find out now with one guy, instead of later with 8 people. :)
The Online Housing Application is, as usual, behind and of considerable debate as to wether or not it will be done by it's October 1 deadline. I am confident of this - we will have it 'working' in some state or another. I may not be 100% pleased (along with others) but at least it will have been launched, and we can build from there.
Well enough yak, back to gettin' it done.
Posted by ellism at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)
Online Housing Application - Progress
Today I worked with support for quite a bit, and was able to get the first version of the New Online Housing Application off the ground. It took 3 versions of the pages, as well as multiple configuration changes to finally get everything to connect and sync up.
Interestingly enough, the pages are dynamically built from preferences built in the UI for our Housing Management System. I'm not totally sold on the language they are written in, but I'm feeling confident that they can make them work.
Now that Judicial is up (and hopefully stable - we'll find out tonight @ training), getting ANYTHING up for the Online App is great news. Many of my other projects are ahead of schedule (miraculous, I know) so I can really focus on this application for the next 3-4 days. After that we'll do the finishing touches for Move-In and get everyone connected.
Then I'll have just a couple more days to put the finishing touches on the Online App, and I just pray that it will all work appropriately. May I be greatly blessed in my work and may it not die a flaming death like that one of Bill Gates' presentations. Bleah.
Posted by ellism at 2:16 AM | Comments (0)