Park Avenue Resources
You do NOT have any permanent hard disk space allotted on these workstations. Local scratch space should be considered volatile.
You are NOT allowed to install your own software on these workstations.
The CD-RW disk: formatted capacity is about 650 MB (in CD-R mode, about 550 MB in CD-RW [DirectCD] mode).
The DVD-RW disk: formatted capacity is about 4.5Gb.
The current systems no longer have Zip drives.
USB memory keys, memory card adapters or external disk drives may be used, provided they do not require custom drivers. These usually work best on the Windows XP machines (the grey Dell Optiplexes). There are a pair of USB ports on the front of the machine under the light grey panel. You may need an extension cable to make a reliable connection to these ports. The monitors on the GX280 machines have two USB ports on the lower left edge.
We will not diagnose problems with personal storage devices.The \TEMP directory: this is where you can store stuff, temporarily. Beware that it means exactly that: temporarily. Things left there are not at all safe: If the available space becomes tight the administrators will remove older and larger files to make room. You will not be able to access these files from other machines.
You will have a pre-created subdirectory to store your files.- Your Personal folder:
This is currently drive T:\ Files saved to My Documents and your Desktop will be redirected to the same location. This space is subject to a standard 300MB file quota. You will be warned if you approach your quota limit.
This folder is only accessible to you (AND the administrators). What it means is that other users do not have access to this folder, so things saved there cannot be read by other users.
There is a desktop shortcut provided to drive T:. This drive is common to all the machines in Park Avenue, and it will be set to point to your files when you logon.
There is a desktop shortcut to the local scratch directory.
Beware, again, that even this folder cannot be considered safe since there is no regular backup of files on these machines. So, again, if you want to keep something, store it on your own removable disk.
If you need to move files between the department and home on a regular basis and a disc is not suitable, you may wish to investigate the Webfiles service offered by the campus. Note that files on this system are not backed up!. If you apply the Kerberos patches listed on the Laptops page and install the general VPN client from software.berkeley.edu you can make a direct connection to your T: drive from off-campus. The department does not support the VPN package for students. If you do choose this method, you must be running a clean and secure system.
-
Personal web pages. If you have a personal web page that you would like to link to the department, you should contact the Graduate Economics Association for a link. The easiest service for public personal pages on the Berkeley campus is Webfiles. More knowledgable users may prefer the Open Computing Facility. This student-run operation provides Unix shell accounts with scripting and database support. The research computing facility, Socrates, can also provide web service. An Academic Computing Research (ACR) account application is required in most cases. Socrates has a number of statistical and mathematical packages available.
If you encounter any problems with your use of Park Avenue or Field Research Office computers, send email to . This address is read by the Windows system administrators. Do not send messages to the Econometrics Laboratory (i.e., do not send messages to trouble, manager, consult, or postmaster as you would if you encountered problems with one of the Suns). It delays your message, and takes up the time of the Unix administrators.