Here are a few announcements regarding ARCH-IT and you guys. Please read this entire blog carefully.

1) 109 Moving to 419: The 109 lab is migrating to the 4th floor to Dudley Hall Room 419. This process will take place starting on Monday, July 16. Just to clarify, the 109 lab is moving only in spirit. There are, in fact, 31 brand new computers already occupying room 419. The official opening for the 419 lab will be Monday, July 16 while the official closing date of the 109 will be Monday, July 23. This means that for 1 week both 109 and 419 will be open at the same time. This should give ample time for all to migrate from 109 to 419.

2) Reminder…CADC12 will be down: This is just a reminder the CADC12 File and Print Server will be unavailable on July 13 beginning at 4:00pm due to maintenance. An upgrade to the Server will be performed and data transfer will occur. Due to the nature of the upgrade the Server must be taken offline for several hours. All file and print services will be unavailable during this time. Access to the class folders, staff and faculty folders will be unavailable. Printers will be unavailable to all during this process. Expect CADC12 to be up and running and all file and print services restored by 5:00am Saturday, July 14.

3) New Digital Video Cameras: The School of Architecture has purchased 4 brand new Digital Video cameras for checkout from the CADC Library. The new cameras are Sanyo VPC-HD1a and uses a Secure Digital (SD) card instead of tapes. Two High Speed SD cards will be provided with each camera along with a tripod and docking station. It is compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms.

4) Papercut: CADC-IT has purchased software called Papercut to track printer usage. This software documents the “who”, “what”, “when”, and “where” for print jobs. This means that it tracks who was printing, what was printed, when it was printed, and what printer was used. It also tracks other details such as paper size used, if color was used, how many pages were printed, etc. The School of Architecture is using this for information gathering only for the moment. There is also a Papercut client that will reside on all the lab and cart workstations. This client will allow you to do something you never had an opportunity to do before. ..see exactly how much you have printed over a given time period. Huzzah! Now, when you first see the Papercut client don’t panic. It shows you not only how much you have printed, but also assigns a dollar amount to each print job and a total of what you are being charged for all your print jobs in total. YOU ARE NOT BEING CHARGED. These are just arbitrary prices that have no meaning. Starting fall semester the Papercut client will start showing up on all lab and cart computers.

5) New Software: The School of Architecture is planning on having the AutoCAD 2008 Suite, Adobe CS3 Suite (including the new Dreamweaver and Flash), and Rhino 3D version 4 by the beginning of fall semester.

6) Off to France from Thursday, July 12 through Friday, July 27. This is just a side note, but just letting everyone know that I will be going on vacation starting the afternoon of Thursday, July 12. I will be back at work on Monday, July 30. In my place Blake Potts, my assistant, will be handling Architecture IT needs. He will be in my office in Room 432 and will answer my phone and e-mails. Blake will continue working on the Summer projects in my absence and can handle any IT related problems. Feel free to abuse Blake in while I am gone. Just kidding  Seriously, Blake can handle most everything I can, so don’t be shy throwing problems at him.