Well my transition to computing at UVA has been less than smooth. In general, UVA has very strict password standards. Most passwords must have a combo of letters, numbers, and other figures. Plus, unlike Clemson, there isn’t one general password that works for most things. Ergo, I have a freaking ton of passwords and barely enough memory to avoid having to have them tattooed on my arm.
My university/office computer is running on WinME. It crashes about 3-4 times a day, and I’m not even doing anything complex. Also, this POS came without Office. WTF kind of university computer comes without Excel and Powerpoint? I’m surprised they made sure it had internet explorer on it.
And, like at Clemson, there is a student server (i.e. the U-Drive) for storage of information to be accessed from anywhere. I spent about 4 hours figuring out that for some reason my home laptop just doesn’t work. The “Home Directory” program apparently doesn’t work with my ISP. But there’s a workaround with some software from Sun. To get this software I think I agreed to some TOS that requires me to castrate myself if my computer gets with 100 miles of a foreigner, or any other person who may have ever travelled to another country. After getting through the 276 step installation process, it turns out that my router probably isn’t compatible anyway.
So the “Home Directory” program is the one which logs you into the server, and creates an accessible “drive.” Via my office computer, I learned that all the damn thing does is map a network drive. So what did I do? I mapped the network drive, and told it to reconnect whenever I turned on my computer.
For some unknown reason (and there may not be because it’s completely fucking ridiculous), whenever you log into a lab computer (which you may not be able to do since you don’t remember which password is the one you need), you are not automatically logged into your “Home Directory”.
Of course these brilliant thinkers apparently didn’t even require lab logins until the last couple years.
At least they don’t use Macs (although a good number of first year engineering students ignored any and all hardware requirements because they got a free i-Pod with their otherwise useless Macs).
Viva Windows!
Viva Clemson!
Viva Free Beer!
