This is an update for those of you currently not under the thumb of GVSU.
For some reason, GVSU has always taken a proactive stance against technological innovation. To a certain extent it makes sense, given the intrinsic variability in bleeding edge tech.
Now, to put this in perspective, GVSU is not afraid to throw money at developing technology throughout the university, as we have better wireless coverage than most division one universities. However, they still maintain rather backwards policies as far as software is concerned.
There are a couple of issues that have been irking me lately. The first most pressingly was that there was no way to change the screen resolution in labs. All the labs have decent LCD monitors, but all the machines are locked at 1024×768 resolution, when the native resolution is 1280×1024. This is problematic because you not only get the blurring, but the pixel aspect ration is different so everything looks distorted. Luckily, have have figured out a work around for this.
The next issue is that Dark Room doesn’t work in the labs. The irony of this, is that Microsoft has already released the .NET 3.0 framework, but the lab does not even come equipment with .NET 1.1 (granted you can get this if you are willing to wait for it to cache on the local machine). My problem is that Dark Room requires .NET 2.x to run, and there is presently no way to get it in the lab environment.
Thirdly, the way permissions are setup in the lab, java applications run just horribly. You can monitor system utilization, and it systems to throttle the java virtual machine to around 2% cpu utilization, and only a fraction of available memory. This makes using any demanding java apps required for classes unbearable.
Fourthly, well this issue is one more of greater amusement to myself than anything else. When you go to the blackboard site, for whatever reason, you are greeted this this warning message:
Warning: Internet Explorer 7 – Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 7.0 as a downloadable update. Academic Computing is NOT recommending installation at this time.
We are continuing to test and have found incompatibilities within Blackboard as well as differences in the way fonts are rendered in various applications and web sites.
Please DO NOT download and install IE7 until further testing has been completed and we have determined how it will work in the computing environment at Grand Valley. We will notify the campus community when it is available.
Now, keep in mind that you cannot install IE7 on any machines on campus, so this message is obviously in reference to the personal machines of individuals. To make matters worse, MS is putting out IE7 with windows update. Ah yes, good times.
I’m just thankful there is a portable version of Firefox!
2 Comments
This is an amazing post that I hope reaches GVSU students. I agree with the resolution issue. I believe it was you that sent me a tool to change it and anytime I was suck using a lab machine I always used it to up the rez. I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking with that one. The standard desktop image at work allows you to change it and to be honest it makes total sense.
Regarding IE I feel really sorry for GVSU’s student HD. They are going to get slaughtered once WinXP auto pushes IE7. HD’s across the country are going to just get obliterated. IE7 is a small improvement overall from IE7 but for web based applications there are going to be incompatibilities across the board.
Putting Firefox on a USB 2.0 and running the portible version was exactly what I did. Also just installing it on your student network space is a good idea as well.
As I still work for good old GVSU IT. I too can say i’m frustrated. I”m not sure which features are not working with IE7. We have been using that for some time in our own office and have never had a problem.
On the defense of GVSU, they do not make “Blackboard”. I put it to “Blackboard” to have fixed this problem already. They are to blame. IE7 has been in the works for months, they knew about it. Heck I was testing it in May.
“Blackboard” released mini service packs throughout summer and I think they already did one this fall. Now your telling me someone couldn’t put the “fixes” in by now. Thats BS and a stupid company then.
.Net 1.1 should be on, because service pack 2 is on. I will ask people about that. They may have “taken” it out though.