Ladies,

In the past I have spent a great deal of time trying to clean up our U: drive server. Although some of this is routine maintenance, it became apparent that some of your U: drives were getting too BIG! Your U: drive is not meant to be an MP3 or video repository. It should be used primarily for your school work files.

Therefore, we have instituted a quota on U: drives. The system will warn you if your drive exceeds 75 MB, and after 100 MB, the system will refuse to save anything else until you've gotten the size down. It is critical that you monitor your U: drive usage or else you may find yourself unable to save a critical document or other file.

To view how much you have stored

Go to 'My Computer' on the desktop and then open your U: drive. From the 'Edit' menu, choose 'Select All'.  This will highlight all of the files and folders you have stored. Right-click one of the highlighted files or folders (doesn't matter which one), and select 'Properties'. Wait a few seconds while the computer adds up the total size.

Why we have limits on disk size

I hate to do this because I know many of you have come to rely on being able to store all of your items online, however we are exceeding the capacity of the tape backup. As past events in the server room have demonstrated, backups are necessary and more important than unlimited storage space. This decision will not effect about 95% of you out there, but please check your space to make sure you don't get stuck.

Your options

If you have a lot of stuff in your U: drive you can simply delete what you don't want or back it up to CD-R's. Six computers in each lab have CD-R drives.

If you are unsure how to use the CD-R drive, we have been thinking about holding a class on it - provided there's some interest level. Please fill out a help form and let us know if you are interested in learning how to burn your own CD.

What not to do

Whatever you do, please do not save anything to the lab computer hard drives - that includes the 'My Documents' folder as well as the 'Desktop' or 'C:' drive. For one thing, it's unreliable. Just because you got to use a specific computer one day, doesn't mean you'll get it the next. Also, we often do 'rebuilds' on our computers in the labs. There is no guarantee that your information won't be written over in the future.

And as always, please do not install any software on the lab computers. If you are caught either installing or using unauthorized software you will receive a pink slip.

Thanks for your understanding,

Mr. Hunnefield