Welcome to the New Year and the New ADN

Welcome back to campus! We're starting the new academic year with many significant improvements in computing, particularly for students and teachers. Perhaps the most dramatic changes are in the public microcomputer labs -- the rooms have been renovated and the equipment replaced with modern computers. There is also some impressive multimedia capability in the newly renovated lecture centers, and an Information Arcade in the Main Library where teachers can get help on preparing their multimedia presentations. And further, our first ever UNIX computer for student use will be available soon (a machine for faculty use is recently online).

The pace of improvements will continue throughout this year. But our main focus will shift towards extending the ADN-ii network and improving our network services, particularly to enhance communications. This means more information on WWW and Gopher, improved database and directory services, easier email, and advanced access to new machines. And most importantly, as the network grows, it means more people to communicate with instead of a convenience for some people, network communications will become a necessity for everyone.

In short, completing the network will make it easier to learn, teach, research, and generally conduct the university's business. We welcome your suggestions; send them to suggest@uic.edu.

• Supporting Student Computing: No Cost Mac and Windows Labs for Students
• And Coming Soon: UNIX Accounts for Students
• Tigger Has Arrived! (UNIX Accounts for Faculty and Staff)
• Student/Staff Email Directory
• Dialin-3 to the Internet
• Get the Kit on the Net
• The ADN Datasave for UNIX
• X Windows at Your Desktop
• REACH: the ADN Resident Experts Program
• UIC Virtual Electronic Library
• The Information Arcade Is Coming
• The Electronic Lecture Centers are Opening Too
• Want to Make Your Class Handouts Public? Use Gopher!
• fax.uic.edu Now Supports PostScript Faxing
• Internet Courses in Netnews
• Public Color PostScript Printer Now Available on Campus

• 173 DELL 486/66 PCs, with 16 MB memory and 15" monitors, running MS-Windows, a few with CD-ROM drives.
• 81 Apple Macintoshes, including 71 PowerMac 7100s with 16 MB memory, 15" monitors, CD-ROM drives, System 7, and SoftWindows, which allows them to run a few MS-Windows programs.
• 48 remaining IBM55SX PS/2s (386SX), running DOS 5.

There's lots of software on the public PCs, including Gopher or Mosaic, WordPerfect, Quattro, Paradox, SAS, SPSS and Minitab, a full range of Borland languages including Pascal, C++ and Assembler, TCP/IP, and many more.

If you're an instructor, we want to help you use the labs for your class. We can load software on the public machines for your class to use, but please give us two weeks notice. You can teach a class or two (or many!) in a lab. Contact the CSO, 413-0003 or consult@uic.edu, for more information.

All Labs have a nearby PostScript printer, and all except the Library, SRC and SRH have wheelchair accessible desks. Available Software includes Gopher or Mosaic, WordPerfect, Quattro, Paradox, SAS, SPSS and Minitab, Borland Pascal, C++ and Assembler, TCP/IP, and more. (See the Web for more information, URL http://www.uic.edu/%our{PL-HOURS}%.

See Operations in LL55 BGRC or the CSO for authorization to enter BGRC after hours. SoftWindows on the PowerMacs allows them to run a few MS-Windows programs.

Want to help us name this workstation? We'll make the final decision, but we're looking for suggestions. The contest is running on Netnews/Usenet, in the group uic.unix.contest; it ends on September 30. The first student who submits the winning entry will receive a $50 voucher good at the University Bookstores.

Your netid is used as your login id on tigger. Accounts and consulting will be handled in the usual way -- notes to consult@uic.edu or calls to the CSO at 413-0003. Basic UNIX and Basic vi seminars are scheduled for the fall. The handouts for these seminars, one-page double-sided crib sheets, are available on INFORM: on CMS, through Gopher, and now through our WWW home page (URL http://www.uic.edu ). In both Gopher and the Web, INFORM is under "The Computer"; search for UNIX. Enter softlist on tigger for a brief list of software (or http://tigger.uic.edu/softprod/tigger.html).

Do you use SLIP? You'll need a new copy. Get one at the CSO in Room 2267 SEL, at Room 124 BGRC (call 413-0196 first for BGRC delivery), or by anonymous FTP from ftp.uic.edu. As more people begin using the new SLIP, we will change Dialin-1 and Dialin-2 to provide full Internet access also.

• The workstation is connected to the ADN-ii campus backbone and support the TCP/IP protocols.
• The workstation operating system is one of the following: IBM AIX, Sun OS or Sun Solaris, HP-UX, SCO UNIX, or DEC Ultrix.
• The workstation is under the control of a faculty member and is used exclusively by that faculty member for personal research and educational needs.
• The faculty member agrees to use ADN Datasave to back up only those files that cannot be reproduced from original vendor media.

If you are interested in enrolling your personal UNIX workstation in ADN Datasave, please send email to datasave@uic.edu with the following information: your name, title, department, and phone number; and your machine's Internet domain-style name (like tigger.uic.edu), vendor name, and operating system name. We will get back to you with installation information as soon as possible.

Registering for the ADN Datasave the easy way! After you've installed the Network Services Kit on your desktop machine, here's the easy way to register it for the ADN Datasave. (But it does involve logging on to ADN CMS.) Telnet to uicvm.uic.edu from the PC that you want to register. After you logon, enter the command: dsreg Answer a couple of questions and you're registered!

X windows is a multitasking windowing and graphics system that's terrific for browsing the Web Mosaic client for X Windows (which you can use on tigger when you connect to it using X Windows) is always the best and newest.

Each department chair was asked to nominate one person as the department's Resident Expert. The REs might be faculty, staff, or students, employed for this purpose or not (and most are not), but they all share a willingness to help their colleagues. In addition to helping you directly, they're helping us learn what you're doing and what you need from us.

Each Resident Expert was asked to send a letter to members of the home department, to let you know who your Resident Expert is and what expertise he or she has. If you haven't received that letter, please call the CSO to find out who your expert is. This program is in no way intended to replace our own consulting services, but we believe it will be a very valuable addition to your consulting options. A big Thanks! to all the REs for volunteering their services.

The Virtual Electronic Library initiative is supported by a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Office of Education. The CIC membership includes the Big 10, and a few more.

The equipment in the Arcade includes two Apple Macintosh Quadra 840AVs, each with 64 MB of RAM and 1 GB of disk space, a color scanner, a color inkjet printer, a VCR, a laserdisc player, a movie camera, a digital photographic camera, a graphic tablet, and lots of software. There is also a Macintosh LC 575 and a Zenith Z-Select 100 personal computer running DOS/Windows. All four machines have built-in CD-ROM players. Access to the Arcade will be available by appointment. For more information, contact Tom Jevec, Electronic Services Librarian, 996-2730 or TJevec@uic.edu.

The Library, with the Computer Center's help, is developing a training and advising program for the Arcade. We're very interested in hearing what you think of the Arcade; send your comments or questions to Ed Garay (996-0188, garay@uic.edu) or Michael Sperberg-McQueen (413-0317, cmsmcq@uic.edu).

Thinking about using computers in your teaching? For more information on the Information Arcade, the Electronic Lecture Centers, or on using computers for instructional purposes in general, please contact Ed Garay (996-0188 or garay@uic.edu) or Michael Sperberg-McQueen (413-0317 or cmsmcq@uic.edu).

The computer equipment in the ELCs is integrated with a color projector, sound system, and a laserdisc player. There's standard audiovisual equipment, too, including a slide projector, a mounted movie camera, a VCR, a cassette deck, and various film projectors. All the computer and audiovisual equipment is driven from a touch-screen podium in the front of the ELCs. Each ELC holds 120 students. The Timetable Office handles reservations for the ELCs. (But they're already pretty much booked up for Fall Semester.)

For more, see the Web: URL http://www.uic.edu/http://classrooms.uic.edu.

We're now using new UNIX email to fax server software, running on tigger. Fax email addresses of the form Jane_Doe7085551234@fax.uic.edu still work. There are minor changes in how you query the status of your fax and how you're notified when your fax is sent. Another change, necessitated by a large increase in the use of this service, is that we are developing a scheme which will allow us to charge the few people who overuse the email-fax gateway.

There's also an important new feature: if the text of the note is PostScript output saved into a file, the fax server will process the PostScript and print it to the receiving fax machine. The text of the fax note must contain only the PostScript file. This is very important; otherwise, the fax server might send your two page PostScript fax as 100 pages of text. The fax server assumes PostScript when it sees that the first line of the note's body is a PostScript comment: %!...

The Computer Center document Quick Facts for Electronic Mail Faxing explains all (quickly!); use INFORM with the search keyword fax.

Another Internet course will start in October, "The Roadmap for the Information Superhighway Interactive Internet Training Workshop." This course is from the University of Arizona; it will be carried in the newsgroup bit.listserv.roadmap.