The End of the Summer

If you're a Penn student who graduated in May, you've been lucky enough to have a whole extra summer to continue working in the lab. The bad news is that the summer break is about to end, the birds will start to head south, and you won't be able to use the lab anymore once September starts. The good news is you still have almost 3 whole weeks before the end of August! So use the time you have left to take advantage of of the hardware, software, and expertise the lab has to offer to finish up your projects before you disappear into the "real world" beyond college.

It's been really nice working with you all, and I hope we see you again over winter break or next summer when classes are out of session, when we allow alumni to use the lab (don't forget to bring your alumni card!)

No Food in the Lab

Although we (generously, IMHO) allow beverages in the lab (with a lid, please), we ask that you not eat in the lab. But you should feel free to step outside occasionally to take a bite.

Thanks.

Erased

Hey guys. Just a reminder that the workstations in the lab are erased without warning and on a fairly regular basis, so you should never leave your files on our computers if you ever want to see them again. We'll be glad to store your files on our network drive for up to 3 days at a time (just ask the lab consultant on duty for help). Even better would be to store your files on your own portable hard drive--they're very inexpensive anymore.

Deleting files

Hi all. Just a reminder that we'll be deleting all of the files in user storage, in class storage, and on the desktops of all of the workstations in the lab at the end of this semester, so if you need to save any files, please make arrangements to copy them over to your own drive before December 23.

It's kind of important, so I'll say it again:

WE'RE DELETING ALL OF YOUR FILES AT THE END OF THIS SEMESTER. PLEASE COPY THEM TO YOUR OWN DRIVE IF YOU NEED TO KEEP THEM.

Three Days

Just a quick reminder about our file storage/deletion policy. Although we would love to be able to store all of everyone's files forever and ever, we just don't have the storage space to be able to handle it all. So we have a policy that we will store your files on our networked hard drive for up to 3 days. And if you come back during that time and work on them some more, we'll keep them for an additional 3 days. And so on. And so forth. Etc. Etc. And you should never store your files on the desktop for longer than the duration of your work session that day. Anyone who sits down at a computer can delete things from the desktop. Just ask for help saving your files to our networked storage drive.

So if you're working on a project in the lab, be sure to come back every 2 or 3 days to work on it to avoid risking deletion. And please consider buying an external hard drive to store your project on. This gives you total control over your files, and you never need to fear that we'll delete them when you need them most.

New Poster Printer Prices

Starting today, we will be charging $0.02 per square inch inch for poster printing. So if your poster is 24 inches by 36 inches, the charge would be $0.02 x 24x 36 = $17.28.

Additionally, we are now required to charge 7% tax for posters which are not school-related. Most posters printed in the lab are exempt from this tax. Examples of tax-exempt posters are posters for class assignments, for academic conferences, for student groups, for official dorm or college house activities, or for sports teams/events.

Posters for which we charge tax include posters for a birthday party, posters to hang on your dorm room wall, or presents for friends/family. To calculate tax, use the pricing structure listed above and multiply the poster price by 1.07. For example, an 18"x24" poster would be 1.07 x .02 x 18 x 24 = $9.24

All this in more in our Poster Printer FAQ!

Three Days

Although we would love to be able to store all of everyone's files forever and ever, we just don't have the storage space to be able to handle it all. So we have a policy that we will store your files on our networked hard drive for up to 3 days. And if you come back during that time and work on them some more, we'll keep them for an additional 3 days. And so on. And so forth. Etc. Etc.

Until now, we've managed to be pretty liberal with this policy, deleting files only when we run out of space, and we've kept files for weeks, or even months past the promised 3 days. But recently we've seen an explosion in the use of Hi Definition video in the lab, which takes exponentially more room than plain old DV video. Anywhere from 40-50GB per hour, in fact, compared to the 13GB per hour for standard video. So our User Storage drive is filling up much faster these days, and we've been forced to start following our deletion policy much more strictly. (Today, for example, I deleted over 150 GB of files to make room for the people working in the lab.)

So if you're working on a project in the lab, be sure to come back every 2 or 3 days to work on it to avoid risking deletion. And please consider buying an external hard drive to store your project on. This gives you total control over your files, and you never need to fear that we'll delete them when you need them most. More on external drives in a future post, coming soon.