The 756 ESB computer lab will be closed from 6:00pm to 10:00pm tonight, 11/09, for software maintenance. The lab’s virtual Windows XP installations will now include Matlab 2009a, Visual Studio .NET 2008 Professional, and VTB 2009 to accommodate Dr. Jignesh Solanki’s EE591A course.

Matlab and Visual Studio have been available in department labs for many years. However, VTB is a new addition to the department’s facilities. VTB stands for Virtual Test Bed and is developed by USC. VTB is used for simulating large-scale, multi-technical dynamic systems, including electrical, mechanical, thermal & control systems.

More information about VTB can be found at http://vtb.ee.sc.edu

New for the Fall 2009 semester (literally, we put them in place the first week of classes) are 23 brand new Intel Core2 Quad based PCs. It was time for the good ol’ P4s in 813 to go per our replacement cycle. We gathered input from our faculty and students to get a feel for specs of the next generation machines. Here are some details:

Mainboard: Intel G45ID
Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q8400
RAM: Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR2
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 160GB SATA
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9600GSO w/ 512MB GDDR3 by ASUS

We went with quad core processors to accommodate requests for multicore programming projects. Beefed up graphics cards were added to accommodate requests for courses teaching OpenGL programming.

The room remains split with half of the systems running LOUD based on Ubuntu Linux 9.04 while the other half run Microsoft Windows XP. Additional software upgrades for Fall include Matlab 2009a and Visual Studio .NET 2008 Professional.

Stay tuned for more information about other labs scheduled for hardware and software upgrades.

If you haven’t caught E-NEWS or heard the buzz around the department, make note that OIT will be upgrading GroupWise on the server side this Wednesday, September 16th. The maintenance window will run from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.

GroupWise will be upgraded to version 8 and will include changes to the Web Access client. Desktop clients aren’t being upgraded at this time so for those of you that are ambitious, I wouldn’t recommend trying to change your client just yet. OIT is going to make version 8 of the client accessible in the coming weeks. LCSEE Systems will be glad to help with upgrades on department systems if you’d prefer not doing so on your own.

More info as it becomes available…

We’ve setup a Twitter account! Follow us to catch quick updates from our group. Click below and follow @lcseesystems

To provide a better mechanism for keeping our user constituency up to date about the latest happenings involving the Lane Department’s computing infrastructure, labs, and facilities, we’ve decided to take advantage of this great blogging service provided by WVU Web Services.

Sure, spamming everyone in the department has been one way to get messages out to users. However, a lot of information we’d like to send out isn’t of a critical nature and doesn’t quite necessitate a massive push of email to 2600+ users. Rather than pushing updates about what we’re up to, we hope you decide to watch our RSS feed and read blog articles at your convenience. (Hint: Try out Google Reader. It’s fantastic for quick access to RSS feeds from your favorite sites.)

This blog will also be a great place to check for blurbs about computing infrastructure problems and updates and not just news and information about the information technology advancements we’re making for the department.

Remember; answers for questions, requests, and comments are just a few clicks away. Drop us a note by emailing helpdesk@csee.wvu.edu.

So for now, stay tuned!