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

E-Mail and LEVEE Accounts: All department faculty, staff and graduate students can also get an 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. Account requests can be sent via this online form or via e-mail to support@levee. If your space needs are greater, we also have a secondary web server epscx.wustl.edu with additional space. There is also a secret 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 Software Plus. We have purchased multiple licenses of 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. 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, but their prices on ink and toner are not as good as from ABM or ILG.
  
  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 at RetroBox/Intechra (although the $27 shipping does hurt) or PC Surplus Online, or try the wu.forsale newsgroup or the St. Louis Craigslist. You can also visit a local new PC dealer like Clayton Computer or Dimension Computer, or a used dealer like EPC in St. Charles. EPC sells many of there used PCs for a steal via eBay.


• 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 9:00am to 5:00pm on business days within 24 hours, but are typically faster than that.


• 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 vendors are ABM, Quantum Technologies and ILG. For service we use Quantum Technologies as well, who are also nice enough to pick up our empty toner cartridges (under the "packages" table in the main office).


• 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 as large as a Thanksgiving turkey!) available if you are truly desperate.


• Dial-up Access: Good, old-fashioned 56K dial-up access is available via the ArtSci modem bank. Students can use their artsci accounts and dial-in to (314) 512-0028. There is also a toll-free long distance number available, but it should only be used for brief periods since the department must pay for the long distance charges. When on the road, a cheaper route is actually to purchase a prepaid long distance card and dialing directly to the 314-512-0028 number. If you are still interested in the toll-free number, E-Mail Us for the secret number. Faculty and staff can receive an artsci account by filling out this form. 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 last year.


• 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 the giant RAID system on artsci, so if you want to post huge stuff, please consider putting it on your artsci account space. Students have a 100MB quota on artsci accounts, and faculty/staff can get more if needed. 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 Pages results in their knowledge base.


• 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 a wifi hotspot for the old Bluesocket campus wireless network (i.e. NOT the Meru network that doesn't work so well!) flooding all classrooms, break areas, the library and the lobby of the building (yes, it even covers the restrooms). Anyone with an ArtSci account (or one from CEC or many other campus "realms") and a 802.11b compatible wireless adapter should be able to access it. Look for the WLAN network and login using your account username and password. Look here for more information on the campuswide wireless network. 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 EPSC3 or EPSC1 depending what floor they are on. Other labs (Rayland, Seismology and Geodynamics, for example) also have their own wireless networks, but you will need WEP/WPA passcodes to access those networks.