IT Meeting @ 2010-05-19 19:30:00
IT Meeting, Wednesday 19th May 2010
19:30, B2.03
Meeting Started: Wednesday 19:40
Finished: Thursday 00:23
Present: Edward McCutcheon (IT Officer), Fergus Cooper (President), Robert Gardner (Chief DM), Linas Trumpickas (Publicity Officer), Joe Morgan (Chief Editor), Tim Davidson, Chris Cousins, Andrew Maddison, Matthew Wilkinson, Martin Mee, Adam Hall, Alex Ware
1. Welcome & Apologies
Ed welcomed everyone to what he imagined to be a hugely important IT Meeting, and informed them of how the Agenda would be run through once (to discern our practical objectives) and then again (for their technical implementation). These minutes consolodate both run-throughs into each point. He also chastised those who had been to Costies and caused the meeting to start late at 19:40.
Apologies were received from Benjamin Lewis and Bernard Sexton.
2. Offsite Backups
Ed reminded everyone that we'd been discussing Offsite Backups but had not yet implemented the policy.
Ed suggested that the procedure be:
Create Backups after the Publicity had been given to Emmersons
Files be backed up to an External 1TB Hard Disk which we already own
The Disk to be stored in the IT Officer's Bedroom
This received warm approval after discussing a couple of other possible locations: the Proj Box, a liason with CompSoc or the SU.
Vote to follow Ed's suggestion and use the IT Officer's Bedroom: Unanimous - Motion Carried.
It was decided backups would not be encrypted.
3. Services Alive during Refurbishment
The following services will be maintained during the Refurb:
Website (& EPOS by consequence)
Mailing Lists
Mailing Aliases
Remote Desktop
P-Drive (and hence other drives)
Forums
Database
Firewalls
LDAP / NIS / DNS / DHCP
New Website
Trac
BZR
The following services will not be supported:
iLight
Slideshow PC
Entertainment
Computer Terminals
Printing
We will be configuring the webcam to hopefully stay up, but this is not guaranteed.
The Servers will be relocated to Humanities Room H0.28 until the end of term, and then moved to H0.41.
We will cut down the servers we are using to:
Sony
Barco
Columbia
Tristar
Village
Remote Desktop will be supported through the Windows 7 clients Ardman and Warner, which will be moved to the Server Rack during the Refurb.
These two machines now support multiple remote desktop sessions.
The IT Team were encouraged to come before and after the screening of EXAM to help empty the Exec Office and remove items from the Server Rack (including the UPS) for transportation.
Notice is hereby given to the Society that all IT Services will be suspended after EXAM until the servers can be restored, hopefully during the Sunday, but maybe until midweek 6.
4. Personal Computer Logins
Tim announced his recent success in getting the Windows machines in the Exec Office to log in to a domain. This means that selected people may now have individual login accounts to the computers - where they can save all their documents, passwords, profile (desktop background etc), and it will be secure for their use only. Members of Publicity will have the P-Drive made available to their account automatically, ditto with Exec. It also means all three computers in the office support Remote Desktop access by Publicity, and each also supports more than one user.
It was discussed who would get a personal account in the short term and the long term.
The long term applies for when IT manages to link accounts with the website, and hence as soon as you are added to a certain group an account becomes enabled for you.
In the short term only: the Executive, necessary members of the IT Team and the Senior Publicity Team will receive accounts.
In the long term: Exec, IT, all Editors, DMs will. The question of Proj accounts could not be resolved.
Ed will look into a Quark upgrade which allows the same file to be edited by multiple individuals at the same time.
Tim and Ed will look into a way of simplifying Remote Desktop access, probably using Kix.
5. Touchscreen Tills
Andy showed the till he had successfully installed a touchscreen inside, and Edward fetched the bezel allowing him to complete the project.
The till will be installed by the DM Qualification Early show on Friday, or by Hot Fuzz at the latest.
It would then be put forward to the DM Committee as to whether to purchase units for the other laptops.
The cost of a touchscreen is about £55/each.
6. New Website Development
A lengthy discussion was had over the current prospective designs.
Points include:
We don't show films on Mondays.
Alternative views of the schedule and other events listings should be made
The current design is to bland - it needs colour!
A few suggested modifications to the film preview on the homepage
The next three films section on the schedule seems redudant if its on the homepage
The KPMG logo cannot be changed as it has been - effects cannot be applied to it, and it must be either black/white or blue/white.
KPMG text will need to go on the homepage
No Film Relevance in Design
Warwick Student Cinema text cannot be removed from around the logo
Later, discussions were had over the linking structure, and Apache rewrite rules. One conversation which remained unresolved was whether to use ID numbers or text to refer to individual inputs in URLs.
The issue of Permalinks was brought up, but discussion did not complete.
7. L3 Screens
The Exec and the Refurb group have approved the purchase and installation of two 38-42" LCD screens, mounted to the ceiling in the foyer outside the lecture theatre. They will display moving trailers (without sound) and static slides for us and other paying societies throughout the day, and upon set up of a show by a DM, the right hand side screen will display slides explaining prohibited food and drink in L3 and the entrance. It was proposed by the DM Committee that the right hand screen be showing this information for 1 hour from show activation.
The screens will be installed by Andy (as required by the Refurb group), and there will be a computer built with a good graphics card to serve the screens, located in the Proj Box. 4 CAT5 Network cables will be run from the Proj Box along to the foyer and corridor. The right hand screen will be connected to a VGA splitter to show the same content as the left hand screen, and will be prompted to change input by a Serial Port Input, switching it to the second output of the new TV computer.
The screens will be purchased when a suitable deal occurs at Aldi.
The computer will be built towards the end of term or before the next academic year starts - Alex is to create a specification.
The rest of the equipment we already have in stores.
8. Summer Refurb Installations
The main focus of this point was to discuss card readers.
It was proposed that the President suggest to the refurb group that the outside door for the corridor be changed to open inwards, allowing the Card Reader system to be implementable. The full physical implementation of the readers and locks it was said is the responsibility of the Technical Team and hence Edward will email Tech to get them to fulfill this. In terms of IT, Andy will ask the University for software that uniquely identifies a University card, rather than our current which supplies a uni number only. We will keep one of the old Exec Office machines to use as the machine which approves and denies cards. Andy pointed out that the card readers should not have the wiring showing.
Tim has suggested a prototype be made with equipment we already have.
9. AOB
IT would like to dispose of the Small Laser Printer - print quality has been damaged beyond repair.
Tim reported that the Firewall Rules need to be rewritten.
Ed asked Tim to resolve the need for all visitors to register their MAC addresses to access the FilmSoc Network.
The resolution of the recently reported Website Hack was discussed - the conclusions are not minuted here for security reasons.