Beaver planning to beef up Internet connection

TOPH TUCKER ‘08

It’s a common complaint: the computers at school are just too slow. Sometimes it may be an issue with the computer itself, although the school is constantly upgrading the machines. More often than not, though, what students are noticing is that the connection to the internet is slow.

Anyone fortunate enough to have been on one of the computers when the school is mostly deserted will have noticed that when you get it all to yourself, the connection is great. The issue is so many students doing so many bandwidth-intensive things at once.

In a couple months, Beaver plans to remedy that with a new connection 30 times as fast as our current one. While you aren’t likely to get much use out of it this year, we thought we’d give students a look at what’s to come. We spoke with Pat Ausman, Director of Technology, about the changes.

What is our current internet connection?
We currently have a T1 connection. It was installed 7 years ago. (Ed. note: hey, that’s when I came to Beaver! –Toph) It has a speed of 1.5 MB/sec. Some would equate this to the speed of what you have with a cable modem at home. It really is better than that because we have the full 1.5 MB/sec reserved while at home you share your cable speed with others on the same node.

What are we upgrading to?
We are going to install a T3 connection. It is rated at 44 MB/sec. We are also upgrading the main router and firewall networking boxes to make sure they can handle the additional potential load.

Why are we doing this?
At certain times of the day we are using 100 percent of our bandwidth. Last year at the same time we were using about 80 percent at peak times. With the explosive growth of video available on the web we needed to be able to better support our BCDS business processes that use outside database resources and provide more robust access to all types of web products for use in the classroom. We looked into various solutions, such as just getting an additional T1, but decided that a T3 connection would give us over 30 times the bandwidth for about 3 times the cost of what we spend now. We wanted more than just a one year solution.

When will it happen?
The physical connection of a T3 connection is different than a T1 so a new router has been ordered. The order for the line has been placed. Sixty days is not unusual for installation, though you can never tell. “The last mile”—which is the connection between our building and our service provider's nearest point of presence—is only handled by the local phone company, not our service provider. This tends to be the most unpredictable factor in determining the timeline. Also, there will be some delay once all the pieces are here and installed to allow the switchover to occur in a non-critical time. (Ed. note: that probably means “not before summer break.”)

Should students be able to see a noticeable improvement?
Yes.

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Thanks to Ms. Ausman and the Tech Department for keeping things running smoothly, and for keeping us in the loop.

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Oh FirstClass (with FirstClass tips & tricks)

TOPH TUCKER ‘08

I, like many students, have a love-hate relationship with FirstClass. During the final stretches of the Junior History paper last year, I think quite a few of us became painfully aware that it goes down from 2:00 AM to around 3:15 AM for backups. Web access is frequently unreliable, and has a nasty habit of logging you off after even the briefest spurt of inactivity—without notifying you or saving your message-in-progress. (I’ve heard it said that “FirstClass is down” is the new “My printer broke” is the new “My dog ate my homework.”)

Even when, technically speaking, it works fine, there are issues. Take, for instance, the trichotomy of Middle School News, Upper School News, and Student News. Theoretically, all-school announcements should go in Student News, Middle School-only announcements should go in Middle School News, and Upper School-only announcements should go in Upper School News. But in practice, there are very few announcements that are that specific. Usually, items just get posted everywhere they can, which results in a tremendous amount of redundancy.

A few different types of item get into these news conferences. There are, of course, the news items. There are the uploaded documents, like the Senior Yearbook Pages instruction document (which is really just for seniors) or the Support Our Troops document. But most items pertain to Lost and Found.

A few years ago, Vivek Pai ’08 designed a dedicated Lost and Found web site (akin to his Library web site) which introduced an organized and logical system for tracking those ubiquitous wayward personal possessions. Unfortunately, it was never really adopted. Other efforts have sprung up, too, ranging from fashion shows to placement in last year’s winter play. Yet the FirstClass news conferences and (to some extent) the daily meetings continue to bear the brunt of the burden.

Occasionally debates spring up. For instance, is it acceptable to campaign for class officer in Student News? A couple months ago, a lengthy discussion of the merits of various superheroes took over Student News for several days. It makes me wonder whether there should be a conference just for discussion—where better to debate school policy than on the email system that most people check regularly?

Part of the purpose of this newspaper is to provide a home for that kind of discussion. But thus far, there hasn’t been too much debate in the comments. Is it because our readership is too small? Or because our readers are hesitant to comment? Or both?

In any case, FirstClass is a huge part of our school, yet one that it not always well-understood. To help you make the most of it, we’ve compiled a list of useful tips and tricks.

Toph’s Terrific Tech Tips
dedicated to Alex Firer, who never forgave me for abandoning "Toph's Terrific Tech Tips" after just one presentation in 6th grade...

1. Want to download the FirstClass client at home? Good idea—it’s much better and works more often. Setting it up is simple:
   
   a. There are several versions each available for Windows, Mac, or Linux, and in 12 different languages. Their web site forces you to deal with a big messy table, but we’ll make it simple: Windows English or Mac OSX English. If you need something else, go here.
   
   b. Install the software and open it up. In the upper right corner of the login window, click “Setup.” Enter fc.bcdschool.org next to “Server:”, which is about halfway down the page. Click Save.
   
   c. Login in just like you would at school. You should be all set!
   



2. Stuck using it in a browser? That’s fine. A few tips:
   
   a. The site is http://fc.bcdschool.org/login (in case you forget)
   
   b. It has a tendency to log you out while you’re writing a message without telling you. So when you try to send it, it’ll tell you you’ve been logged out, and your message will be lost. Just in case, get in the habit of copying the text of your message before sending it. (On Windows, with the cursor in the message box, Ctrl-A followed by Ctrl-C should do it. Ctrl-V pastes your message back in if you lose it.)
   



3. Out of storage? At a certain point you’ll need to delete some messages to send new ones. If it still won’t let you send anything, try logging out and then back in.
   



4. FirstClass only saves messages for one year. You can keep a message for longer by right-clicking it, clicking Properties, and setting the Expiry Period to “Never.” (Pretty soon, though, you’ll start bumping up against that storage limit.)
   



5. FirstClass goes down for server maintenance every night between 2:00 and 3:15 AM. Keep that in mind when you’re putting the finishing touches on your History paper at 1:45 AM.
   



6. Did you just accidentally send a message without attaching something? Did your message have an unfortunate misspelling? Click “Unsend” on the toolbar. It’ll only work when sending messages to other school accounts, but it can be a life-saver.
   



7. FirstClass stalking: click the “History” button on the toolbar to see who has read your emails.
   



8. FirstClass’ quirks, small storage limit, and downtime mean that your messages aren’t particularly safe. But you can set it up to automatically forward everything you get to another email address. You won’t be able to reply to the sender, and you won’t have access to some message info (e.g. time sent, time received, time read), but it’s a lot better than nothing. My FirstClass account forwards everything to my Gmail account, so I can delete big 10MB emails on FirstClass but still have them on Gmail, and I can read my emails even when FirstClass is down. To set this up…
   
   a. In the program: on the Desktop, go to Edit (at the top menu bar) and click Preferences. In the Messaging tab, under “Automatically forward,” type your email address in the “Forward to:” box. Select “Yes” in the drop-down boxes for Local Mail, Internet Mail, and Voice/Fax Mail. Where it says “Method,” make sure it says “Forward.” (Do NOT set it to redirect, or else it won’t show up in your FirstClass mailbox.) Click the OK button in the bottom-right.
   
   b. On the web site: on the Desktop, click Preferences on the left. Scroll down to messaging. Under “Automatically forward,” type your email address in the “Forward to:” box. Select “Yes” in the drop-down boxes for Local Mail, Internet Mail, and Voice/Fax Mail. Where it says “Method,” make sure it says “Forward.” (Do NOT set it to redirect, or else it won’t show up in your FirstClass mailbox.) Scroll all the way down and click the Save button.
   



9. You can customize your FirstClass appearance, both the program and the web version. Play around with the different options—you’ll have to log out and back in to see the changes.
   
   a. To change the appearance of the program, go to Edit (on the menu at the top), Preferences, and then the Viewing tab. Look at the drop-down options next to “Client interface.” “FirstClass Explore,” for instance, lets you keep everything—desktop menu, mailbox, and the message you’re currently reading—in a single window. (You can change other aspects of the appearance under the General tab.)
   
   b. To change the appearance of the web version, again go to Edit, Preferences, and then the Web tab. There are a couple of interesting options in the dropdown menu next to “Web client interface.” For instance, “Mobile Device” gives a simplified interface optimized for viewing on, say, an iPhone or another cell phone.

Have any other good tips? Any questions? Any thoughts on FirstClass, on the purpose of the news conferences, or anything else? We welcome your comments.

UPDATE: An anonymous commenter pointed out another fantastic feature of FirstClass--chat. There are a few different ways to start one, but the simplest might be clicking "Who's Online" on the desktop toolbar and clicking Instant Message on the toolbar. (There's also a dedicated Chat button right in the main window, but I think it moves around depending on which version you have.) From there you can invite people with the button in the lower right.

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