Windows/Novell Based Network
The Windows/Novell based network consists of approximately 100 high-end desktop personal computers in faculty, staff and graduate student offices, and two graduate computer labs. The currently deployed operating system on those desktop computers is Windows 2000 Professional.
The Windows computers are linked via a Novell network. The network is supported by a network administrator and some Econ graduate students.
Click on the link Contact Person to obtain information on how you can get help. At the beginning of each academic year the network administrator offers introductory sessions on how to use the Windows/Novell network. The following description of the Windows/Novell based network assumes that you are familiar with Windows.
Network Login/Logoff
Every faculty, staff and graduate student in the Department is given an account on the Windows/Novell network with a user name and password. Additionally every faculty, staff and graduate student in the Department is also given an account on the Department's GroupWise email server. Those accounts are typically created automatically for all members of the Department by the Windows/Novell network administrator. Users can request that their email is forwarded to some other email account by contacting the network administrator. To gain access to the Novell network the user has to login with her/his user name and password. A login screen is automatically presented upon startup of the desktop computer. To logout from the network go to "Start", click on "log off" and follow the directions. In the graduate computer labs, a previous user may have forgotten to logout from the network. In this case, go to
"Start" , click on "log off" and follow the directions. Upon login to the Novell network faculty and staff are also automatically logged into GroupWise email server, and can access their email via with the GroupWise email client. However, the GroupWise email server is also accessible without having to log into the Novell network
(e.g., from home). For more info click on the link Email.
Local Disk Space
Each desktop computer provides access to large local disk space. By default the disk space is divided into the following logical drives:
- The C-drive contains the operating system and local software. Users should not save their own files to this drive, since the contents of this drive is overwritten whenever a new operating system is distributed to the users.
- The D-drive and E-drive provide disk space for the user files.
A typical desk top machine is equipped with a ReWriteable-CD drive and a Zip drive. Users are advised to backup their files to CD or Zip disks on a regular basis. The local disk space of Windows desktops is not backed up remotely.
Network Disk Space
Upon login to the network the user gains access to several network drives. Some of the drives are read only and are only used by the network administrator. By default the user has read-write access to the H-, I-, and T-network disk drives.
- The H-drive provides shared network disk space for faculty and staff. Each faculty and staff member has a directory on that drive. Graduate students can store files on the drive under a directory of a faculty member, with the permission of that faculty member.
- The I-drive provides "personal" disk space. By default that space is limited to 100 MB for faculty and staff and 60 MB for graduate students. Users can request more space from the network administrator. For graduate students this request must be supported by a faculty member.
- The T-drive provides temporary disk space of 5000 MB. All files older than 15 days will be removed automatically from that drive.
Faculty members can also request additional disk drives for their research from the network administrator. Such a drive can also be shared with a graduate student.
Printing
All faculty and staff computers are connected to a local printers. The Department also maintains large black and white LaserJet network printers in the main office and graduate computer labs and a large color LaserJet network printer in the main office. Those printers can be accessed from Windows software by selecting the appropriate printer driver. The names of the printer drivers include the room number of the respective network printers. Users can also create PDF files by printing with the Acrobat Distiller printer driver.
For graduate students printing is monitored. For details see Grad Lab.
Applications Menu
Access to software as well as various data and information sources is provided though two menus. The "Top Applications" provides quick access to some of the most frequently used applications. The "Applications Network Menu" provides access to a large selection of application software, and data and information sources. Both menus can be access by clicking on the "Start" button and then selecting the appropriate entry. The following screen shot gives an illustration of the "Network Applications Menu".
A seen from the above screen shot from the "Applications Network Menu" the user can access several major submenus.
- Communications (Email, FTP, Telnet, WWW, Xwindows)
- Data Bases (Economics Data Bases, Literature Data Bases)
- Econometrics Programs
- Graphics Programs
- Mathematics Programs
- Statistics Programs
- Spread Sheet Programs
- Utilities
- Word Processors and Viewers
Each submenu offers access to a variety of software. The Department supports most standard econometrics/statistical and mathematical computing software. For more details click on the links Econometric and Statistical Software and Mathematical Computing Software.
FTP Server
Some users may wish to grant others the right to send to or retrieve files directly from a sub-directory on their hard drives via FTP. This requires the Windows desktop to be configured as a FTP server. This can be done by the network administrator at the the request of the user. By default the FTP server option is turned off. For security reasons users should only grant FTP access to a specific sub-directory subject to password identification.
Scanner
To scan documents users can use the scanner located in the main office. On instructions on how to use the scanner click on the link Scanner.
Xwindows and Unix
The department provides X-Win32 program that can connect to other Unix host running remote desktop service.
Users can then control Unix host using Graphical user interface. We also provide standard Unix connectivity utilities list telnet, ftp, ssh, and etc.
Both Wam and Glue servers provides FTP access to user account, and we have both text and graphical FTP clients for file transfer.
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