We are delighted to announce that the four aging Macs in the Great Hall have been replaced by four fancy schmancy new iMacs running Mac OS X 10.5.
With a bigger monitor, much faster processors, and more RAM, the new computers should be a huge improvement.
We’re also using Mac OS X’s new Guest User account feature. Every time you log out, the machines will restore to a nice fresh state. All old documents are removed, and preferences get restored to their sane [snip...]
When I left you in my last post on saving energy in the computer labs, I had four machines suspending in the M210 computer lab. There were mixed results during the test run. The older, Dell Dimension 4600 computers went to sleep and woke back up without a problem, however the newer Dell Optiplex 745 computers failed to come out of suspend approximately 30% of the time. Try as I might, updating drivers and playing with BIOS and power settings, I was unable to [snip...]
Ever wonder how much power an average idle computer takes to run? A newer Dell Optiplex 745 with a 22″ LCD monitor, such as those in M210, consume 110 Watts just sitting there, not logged in with the screen saver on. When the monitor goes into power save mode, the consumption goes down to 70 Watts. When the computer itself goes into standby mode, power consumption plummets to just 2 Watts. Since most of the ~65 Thayer lab computers are idle most of the time, [snip...]
Jordan is demonstrating the latest weapon in our safe-computing arsenal: The public Purell dispenser.
Located in the M210 computing lab, we encourage its use early and often as the Winter flu season gathers steam.
Directions: Apply once to hands before using the public non-sanitized computer keyboards. Apply once more on your way out.
Extra credit: Do not sneeze on the keyboards.
Note: Use only as directed. The following is highly discouraged:
![Dricker demonstrates the wrong way <em>[snip...]</em></p>
<div class=](http://computing.thayer.dartmouth.edu/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/dricker_purell.jpg "Not this way!")
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Did you know the M210, Cummings 227, and CAD computing labs are staffed most afternoons and evenings by a member of the Computing TA cadre?
These students-by-day are available to help folks use the lab computers, printers, and applications, and are a great resource for learning how to use some of the advanced software we have installed. Individual program expertises vary from TA to TA, but most are well versed in Matlab. If you need help, ask!
New this term, the CAD Lab is staffed two evenings [snip...]
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