JOMC Computing

As many of you have discovered by now, isis.unc.edu no longer allows standard ftp access for uploading and downloading files. Instead, you have to use SFTP. WinSCP is a good, free sftp client for PCs, and both fetch v5 and fugu work for Mac OS X.

However, if you have previously connected to isis using fetch or fugu prior to its reconfiguration this spring, you may get an error stating that a connection could not be made to the sftp server. You may need to update your known_hosts file with an updated host key. If you use fugu there is a tool to do this. Go to the Fugu menu and select Preferences. Click on the Known Hosts tab, select isis.unc.edu and delete. A new key will be automatically generated the next time you connect. You can also edit the known_hosts table by hand. Using TextEdit go to File/Open. In the Search field enter ~/.ssh, and then select the file known_hosts to edit. Highlight the text for isis.unc.edu, delete it and save the file.

The new JOMC website has been running now for almost a week. No, this joomla-based site isn’t perfect, but it is a major improvement in both form and functionality. Many people deserve credit for making this happen. Kyle York has been tireless in his efforts to see this through, and Patrick Gale from the School of Public Health has been a great help this past month as we pushed to launch. Patricia Owen worked hard to build the joomla infrastructure, make the new design template work in joomla, and port much of the old. Jan Yopp, David Alexander, John Kuka, and others have made contributions to make this happen.

Now that we have a clean, modern, functional website, I thought it would be interesting to see just how far we’ve come. Perhaps you remember this look from 2000, not long after we relocated from Howell Hall:

Later that year we added a webcam looking out on Polk Place, and made its view the central image on the site.

Our most recent redesign was in 2001:

This was certainly better, but it hasn’t aged particularly well. As you can see, we’ve come a long way.

(images courtesy of the wayback machine, www.waybackmachine.org)

Skype has been a very useful tool for making ip-based phone calls. We even used it last spring to make a video call to Japan for a Park Fellowship interview. However, a reading of the end user license agreement reveals that we can’t use it on campus. The following is a section from the Skype end user license agreement:
4.1 Utilization of Your computer. You hereby acknowledge that the Skype Software may utilize the processor and bandwidth of the computer (or other applicable device) You are utilizing, for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication between Skype Software users.

Unfortuantely, if you have Skype installed on a School computer in use on campus, neither the processor nor the bandwidth is yours to give to an outsider. This might not be such a big problem, except that Skype can direct network traffic to your computer, which can have an impact on the network availability and performance for others here. If your computer becomes a problem on the network, ITS Networking has the ability to shut off your port.
You can (in violation of the agreement with Skype) use it for outgoing calls if you turn it off when not in use. Or, better yet, there are alternative products which do not have the same legal or technical complications.

One question that I get all the time is, where is there wi-fi access in Carroll Hall? This came up again over the weekend at Podcastercon. The success of this program required the conference to use Carroll 111 as well as rooms in Murphey. There was an assumption on the part of some attendees and presenters in 111 that there would be access. This is, for now, wrong.

There are 6 access points in Carroll. There are two on the ground floor, in rooms 15 and 67, one on the first floor, in room 148, one in the Park Library, and two on the third floor, outside the Freedom Forum and in the Research Center. Two additional access points, one in room 33 and another in 283, were stolen.

So what about 111? There is the possibility of getting service from either 67 or 148, but there should be no expectation of quality signal. The radios are far away, and not directed toward 111. At the time we did the site survey for wi-fi, it made no sense to provide access in that room. because it is just too big. The network would be easily saturated, and everyone would be unhappy. However, all is not lost. ITS is planning a pilot for that room in which several 802.11a radios will be installed. This should mean that hundreds of people with 802.11a receivers should be able to get online and get good service. More on this when it happens.

The School currently has over 700GB of online storage. That may seem like a lot, but it will fill up. We do have disk quotas for students, set generously at 500MB (or even higher by request) , but toward the middle of every semester I get complaints from people who’ve hit their limit. One cause of this is that they have files from previous classes that they never removed, no longer have access to, but still own. It’s never too early to think about backing up. Students should (and faculty should remind them) move their files to CD or DVD prior to the end of the semester, before their access goes away.