posting and mailing)

Heya Jackson!

Thanks for alerting us to the wireless issues there.  I swung by and took a look at a couple computers with Stanley, and saw just what you're talking about with the card being either yankable-by-the-wire or contrariwise getting pushed inward.  I got the impression from him that the contractors were giving you guys some lip, which is quite unfortunate.  OTOH they're correct to point out they're just the installation crew, not the system designers, and can't substitute a different brand or model.  (On a third hand, we think we've seen the Cisco Aironet PCI card in both half-height and full-height models, in the recent batch of school installations, and sometimes the shortie was used where it should not have been.  That's clearly an error, though not precisely what you were facing at Mollison.)  

It must be said, there is also the element of student behavior.  Too bad the students there didn't get a pre-lab briefing about the new setup.  Ah well, the schools can't always work these things out.

It looks like the installers' pattern when they find a wired room but with more computers than working (and accessible) network jacks -- hence with hubs or mini-switches tucked away under tables etc etc -- is to target the computers in the mini-switches to get wireless, with the idea of ending up with each computer ether plugged in directly to a wall-or-floor raceway jack or else on the wireless.  So Stanley and I were glancing around and confirmed there seem to be no more hubs/mini-switches in the lab -- along with your clean-up efforts, it is looking good!  

But there is an issue with that -- OTS never puts in little hubs, so all of those were put there by CUIP or paid by Mollison's petty cash funding.  So the wireless contractor should not be treating them as salvage and carting them off, as we think they have done at some schools.   If you get a chance, please see if you can scout around and find if there are packed-up cartons with these hubs and maybe CAT5 cable segments.  If they're sitting there and have labels for shipping to the contractor, please ask Stanley or the school admins to put it aside and hold off on sending it out, and let Shaz and me know.  Thanks!

Have you been updating the Mollison school web?  I guess there aren't new items on the front chronology, but linked listings look updated.  If you can fit this stuff in with everything else, cool!  (But I'm practicing saying "Maximum!").  (And it took me a minute to realize Zero People is a band, not a description)

Thanks much,

  ==Mitch 

--
Mitchell Marks 
CUIP Tech Coordinator    http://cuip.uchicago.edu
CUIP: Chicago Public Schools / Univ. of Chicago Internet Project
5640 S Ellis Ave  AAC-007, Univ of Chgo, Chgo IL 60637 

Telephones:  Area 773 (O) 702-6041 (C) 620-6744 (F) 702-8212 (H) 241-7166  
Email: Primary address: mitchell@cuip.uchicago.edu
	CPS: mmarks@cps.edu (alternate mmarks@cps.k12.il.us)
	Alternate UofC addresses (use especially to report problems with cuip.uchicago.edu): mitchell@cs.uchicago.edu and mmar@midway.uchicago.edu
	Off-campus (ISP) address: mmarks@pobox.com

Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done:

Where the Youth pined away with desire
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.