Earth & Planetary Sciences Computing Resources

Welcome to Computing at the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences!

The department has dedicated staff and various resources to meet the ever growing computing needs of the department. This includes hardware, software, network resources and support staff to help in the day to day life of the department for teaching, research and administration. The two departmental staff members are Hugh Chou and Ghassan Al-Eqabi, who are available to provide daily support on all aspects of your computing needs. The department computing policies and resources are overseen by a departmental computer committee, comprised of departmental faculty and staff, headed by Slava Solomatov.

Some labs and areas have there own specific people who maintain their computing systems, and they should be contacted directly:

The GIS Laboratory and Classroom is located on the third floor by the library, Room 308. The facility consists of 22 Dell Optiplex 745 Core 2 Duo systems with 4GB RAM all running Windows 7. There is a Graphtec CS510 Pro poster scanner and a large format HP poster printer available for use. You should contact Bill Winston if you would like more information.

The Undergraduate Student Room is located on the second floor, Room 236, and consists of three Dell systems running Windows XP for E&PS major undergraduate student use. One system is equipped with a flatbed scanner. Room 236 is also kept locked and any undergraduate students will need the room key for access to those systems.

Departmental Printers:
In Room 308 there is a Tektronix Phaser 7400 color laserwriter for use with the GIS workstations. There is also a HP DesignJet poster printer, a 42" DesignJet Z6100ps (some charges may apply). In Room 222 there are two departmental printers available: a HP LaserJet 4200tn printer named chert that prints duplex black and white pages, and a HP Color Laserjet 4600dn for faculty and staff use. Everyone should always print to the black and white printers and not the color one when you can since the color pages are quite expensive! There is also a networked HP LaserJet 4200tn in the third floor grad student office (332) and a HP LaserJet 2300dn in grad student office 181 for first floor residents. Let us know if you want to network your computer to these printers.

Departmental Computing Resources:

• E-Mail and LEVEE Accounts: All department faculty and staff can receive a full e-mail account on the main department server levee.wustl.edu. This gives you a spam and virus filtered e-mail address, plus backed up file storage and web directory space for class or research work. Graduate students can receive an alias which gives them a @eps.wustl.edu address forwarded to any e-mail account desired. Anyone can have your LEVEE e-mail forwarded to GMail or some other mail provider if you like. Account requests can be sent via this online form and aliases can be requested here. If your space needs are greater, we also have a secondary web server epsci.wustl.edu with additional space. There is also a URL for accessing webmail on levee. E-Mail Us for more info.
• Software: The department has some good deals for many popular packages through The Software Library and also directly with En Pointe. We have purchased multiple licenses of Symantec (Norton) Antivirus for all departmental (not personal) computers. Most Microsoft and Adobe products are available for very low cost as well. For more information visit our software page. We also have CD's for many free packages and Linux distributions available for folks to borrow. Also try our secret website full of handy dandy free software. Don't bother trying to access certain directories outside of the department, it will not work!!
• Computer Purchases: We can help you select computer systems and peripherals for whatever need may arise. (We have even been known to help with personal purchases!) We can help you find the best deals, although those can also be found at the WashU Purchasing site. Our preferred vendors for computers are Dell (Member# US11190783) and Apple. Look here for Personal Dell Purchases.

For accessories and peripherals we typically use CDW-G or NewEgg. Locally we purchase components at the Micro Center in Brentwood. Other preferred vendors with special discounts for us include Insight and GovConnection. For computer supplies, you can also get some good prices from Corporate Express/Staples, which you can order through the Marketplace at the AISystem web site.

If you are dirt poor and looking to buy a computer (yes, I am talking to the grad students here!) you can purchase a used computer for virtually nothing online at Geeks.com or via the St. Louis Craigslist. You can also try the Micro Center in the Brentwood Promenade which sells both refurbished and new systems (and just about everything else too). You can also visit a local new PC dealer like Clayton Computer on Big Bend (across from Office Depot) or a used dealer like The Computer Resale Store (9250 Manchester in Rock Hill, 962-8400) or EPC in St. Charles. EPC sells many of their used PCs for a steal via eBay. The place in Rock Hill is much smaller, but sells systems ready to go with software re-installed.

• Technical Support: We are here to serve. Any problems, complaints or questions, let us know. If you bother us too much with stupid Windows problems, we will simply start pushing Linux on everybody. We try to respond to any request made between 8:30am to 4:30pm on business days within 24 hours, but are typically faster than that. After 4:30pm you had better bribe me with food, or expect to hear me say "And why are you asking me now?"
• Printer Supplies: The department cheerfully supplies laser printer toner cartridges and ink jet cartridges for any lab in the department. We will also recycle your empties. Just let us know what you need and we can usually get them in 1-2 days. Our preferred vendor is NSC Diversified for toner, and we typically get inkjet cartridges from CDW-G or Staples.
• Classroom Computer Projectors: There are ceiling mounted projectors in 102, 112, 184, 203, 204, 281, 282, 308 and 333. Classrooms 102, 203 and 282 are run by the Teaching Center and they should be contacted about those systems (although we can help out in a pinch.) Rooms 184 and 204 now each have a PC, DVD/VCR, and projector which seems to be working well (204 also has a document camera). Room 112 has a ceiling projector which can be connected to any laptop or the old desktop on the cart in the room. Room 333's projector is connected to a Dell PC in the room, but can also be connected to any laptop. If you need speakers to watch a DVD movie in 333, just let us know in advance. Contact Hugh for assistance using those systems. The 281 projector is supported by Tom or Lars in the Remote Sensing lab. For other rooms, one Optoma (a portable 2000 lumen 1024x768 DLP Projector) is available for checkout. See Gail to borrow it. Rich also has a portable XGA projector purchased from a Space grant that can be used for educational purposes. Hugh also has two older SVGA projectors (one is larger than a Thanksgiving turkey, and the other sounds like a white noise machine!) available if you are truly desperate.
• Remote Access: We used to have dial-up access available for free, but come on, it is not 1994 any more! You should really get broadband Internet access at home. And if you think you can SSH into levee from anywhere on the Internet, you are dead wrong! However you should be able to SSH to artsci from anywhere and then SSH to levee from there. Also note that we turned TELNET access to levee off in 2008. If you are still trying to TELNET to places around the Internet you are showing your age! Maybe you should try using gopher and WAIS too. You can connect while listening to your 8 track tapes after playing video games on your Sega Genesis. Have a problem with that, call me on your rotary phone or better yet just send me a telegram.
• Personal Webspace: Your personal webspace on levee is in the directory public_html in your home directory. This is accessed using the URL:

http://levee.wustl.edu/~username/

or

http://epsc.wustl.edu/~username/

Please do not place gigantic images, movies or PDF files there since not everybody has a big fat pipe to the Internet like we do here at Wash U. We also do not have as much disk space as some other places, so if you want to post huge stuff, please consider putting it on another server. On levee we do not have quotas, but please be kind with disk usage, or you will have to experience the wrath of Hugh. We only have 18GB currently allocated for general departmental user storage. If you want a fancy domain name like geodude.wustl.edu we can set that up as well if the name has not been taken and it serves some real purpose. If you want your own custom name, you can also register for free at dyndns.org. As for content, you get to be creative but please refrain from being too political or commercial. This is a university after all. Also note that all the links and content on the main departmental site are maintained by Randy and not by Hugh or Ghassan, so let him know about changes there. We maintain the hardware and software that runs it, but Randy puts all the cool stuff there. For more tips on setting up your web site, check out the ArtSci Computing site for their Web Page help topics.

• Building Networking: Some folks think all of the ports on the walls of our modernly equipped building are live. Those people are wrong! There are well over 1,500 network jacks built into the walls but less than 600 live ports on our switches. If you want to connect a system to our network you must tell us what port you want to become active (e.g. 1234 N1), and then we will either assign you a specific IP address for a machine, or you must give us a specific MAC address (hardware ethernet address e.g. 01:AB:23:CD:45:EF) for us to allow access to the DHCP service provided by NTS.

To Find Your MAC Address: On a Windows system type ipconfig/all from the command line and make sure you give us the physical address for the ethernet adapter, not the wireless or firewire adapter. On a Mac, open System Preferences, click on the Network icon, select Built-in Ethernet and click the last Ethernet tab to find the Ethernet ID. On a Linux/Unix system, issuing a /sbin/ifconfig -a command will give you the MAC address.

To connect in the carrels in the library you simply need to bring your own CAT5 cable, set your laptop to use DHCP, and then plug into the port on the carrel. CAT5 cables are also available at the library front desk with a deposit. You will be connected live behind our router (no MAC address needed).

• Wireless Networking: Our lovely new building is currently a wifi hotspot hosting 10 Meru access points (SSID values of: GUESTWifi-WUSTL, WUFI-S, WUFI) flooding all classrooms, break areas, the library and the lobby of the building (yes, it even covers the restrooms). Anyone with a WUSTL Key and a laptop with a 802.11b/g compatible wireless adapter (or an iPhone, iPod Touch, or any wifi capable PDA or smartphone) should be able to access WUFI. You will need a laptop with the properly installed and configured software or an iPhone/iPod Touch to use the secured WUFI-S network. Anyone without a Wash U login can use the GUESTWifi-WUSTL network, but should realize it is bandwidth limited and not secured. NSS provides the campuswide wireless service. ArtSci Computing has some nice pages on using the wireless WUFI network, as does Student Technology Services (STS). We also have an extra 802.11b access point in the library with the SSID of EPLIB which gives a strong signal in the back of the library and connects behind a departmental router. Folks on the north corridor should be able to connect to EPSC1, EPSC2N, EPSC3 or Belkovich depending on what floor they are on. On the southern corridor, look for EPSC1, EPSC3W, PJS or WIENS-WIFI. Other labs (Remote Sensing, for example) also have their own wireless networks, but you will need WEP/WPA passcodes to access those networks.
• Backups Backing up your data is very important. We backup everybody's e-mail on the LEVEE e-mail server, but to allow it to work you must set your POP3 clients to leave the mail on the server for at least one day, or not delete your mail from your Inbox for at least one day. Another easy way to backup your e-mail is to set up a GMail or Live account and send a copy to that account. We can help set that up for you if you need assistance.

With today's giant hard drives on every PC, the department does not have the resources to backup everybody's computers. The backup of your document and data files is therefore your own responsibility, but we have several recommendations:

1. External USB Drive - Many people do not trust online backup so they can stick to a hardware based solution. That means an USB external hard drive or flash drive large enough to hold your essential documents. Most drives comes with some kind of backup software, but there are also free alternatives we can suggest.
2. Online Backup - With our superfast network, a safer and easier option is to use an online backup solution. If you have less than 2GB to store, you can sign up for Mozy Home for free and your documents will be safely stored online. For 50GB of storage it only costs $5.95/month ($65.89/year). Another similar product with 2GB of free storage is DropBox, but its paid services are a bit pricier ($9.99/mo for 50GB and $19.99/mo for 100GB). If you are going with a paid service, one of the least expensive but also the most advanced is CrashPlan (unlimited storage for 1 year for $49.99) We may be offering CrashPlan for free within the department soon, backing the data to a server in West Campus. Windows Live offers a free 25GB "SkyDrive" you can also use for online backup, and you can automatically backup your computer to a SkyDrive using the Starter Edition of Gladinet. Those who need even more space and do not mind their more cumbersome interface can also use ADrive who offers 50GB of free online storage.
3. GMail/Google Docs Some people just use the "e-mail as backup" solution where you e-mail important documents to a GMail account. For documents under 20MB that makes for an easily searchable solution with a >7GB storage limit. You can also upload your documents to an associated Google Documents account so you can actually edit your files online as well as store them there. That is truly living in the cloud!

If you have any questions you can visit Room 289, call Hugh at 5-4012, or e-mail us.

Hugh Chou, hugh@levee, Room 289, 5-4012
Ghassan Al-Eqabi, ghassan@seismo, Room 389, 5-5817
(Add .wustl.edu if e-mailing from off-campus!)

Remote Webmail Access