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February 1, 2010
Computing News - Server Problems; Printing; Server Upgrade
The following was sent to all department members on February 1st.
We had a server failure early this morning and are running with only one server instead of the usual two. Updates and more information are available on the Computing News blog:
http://www.math.mcmaster.ca/blogs/computing_news/
In particular, see:
Other items of general interest follow.
As we suffer the sluggishness of running on only one (six-year-old) server, I might mention that we have a new primary file/mail/web server on order and should have it installed and running in the next month or so. The new server will not only be faster but will allow us to arrange for much faster failover in the case of problems. We will be scheduling several hours of downtime in order to move to the new server and will give you plenty of notice.
A note about printing charges and excessive printing: while our system for reporting and charging for printer use (in excess of the published annual limits) is not working properly right now, we are still tracking printer use and expect to be billing again soon.
I remind you that if you need several copies of a printout that you should use the photocopier in the main office: the photocopier is less expensive to operate and you won't be tying up the printer.
And while the problem of getting the square of the requested number of copies appears to be solved, I note that Adobe Acrobat (and possibly other apps) is ignoring requests for multiple copies.
