I stopped posting about the Super-Tent, because not much has changed since we moved in. I did get a bigger desk when Mark left Rockefeller, which matters to me but not much to anyone else. I have continued to take pictures of Rockefeller as the various construction projects proceed, though.
I took a bunch of pictures at RU today, including some of our DR site being expanded to become our primary machine room. Lots of AC & UPSes going in. I even got my father and Stu (Data Center Manager — he gets an office outside the Super-Tent!) in a couple.
We just got a Canon imageRUNNER 2880i copier in the Super-Tent (the old copier died, and this one’s smarter). It has an Ethernet connection and a phone line, so can be used as a smart fax machine & scanner, and accessed via email.
Sounds great! I’d love to be able to send & receive faxes from my desk, and it’s half as far from my desk as our primary printer (oscar, as in “The Grouch”). Amy had desktop faxing with RightFAX at Debevoise, and it was quite convenient.
I tried to print, using the generic PS driver. Instead of a 2-page document, I got 34 pages of PostScript code — this is what happens when the printer treats a PostScript job as an ASCII lpd job, but it’s annoying and wasteful.
So I went to Canon’s download page http://www.usa.canon.com/html/download/irc2880.htm; spent 10 minutes figuring out which versions were current and which were old; and then grabbed their current PPD, Mac PS driver, Mac UFR II driver, and Mac Fax driver (in BinHex format — how quaint!). I have no idea what “UFR II” is, and their documentation provides no clues, but I guess it’s their private page rendering language, since it appears to be a peer of their PS driver).
I installed all four drivers (they wanted me to reboot 2-3 times during the process — I declined), and tried to print. Bang! Application quits. I tried again. Bang! I could kill any application (including Safari, BBEdit, TextEdit, and Console) by simply attempting to print — instead of a print dialog, the application vanished in a puff of invisible smoke.
So I uninstalled all 4 drivers (they did provide an uninstaller). I rebooted. I tried again, still no joy. I sent a bug report to Apple, but I assume this is Canon’s fault. Apple should program defensively — counting on printer drivers to behave properly is just begging for trouble — but really, this looks like Canon’s problem.
I deleted all the printing prefs I could find, and even moved aside the Canon drivers & PPDs (presumably from the Tiger installation, since Apple provides a set of Canon drivers on the DVD), but no joy.
I sent a note to Canon’s tech support department, and got back a response saying “We value you as a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you.” It also said “You will want to contact your dealer/reseller for any technical or hardware support on this unit.”
Well, no. If I wanted to contact our reseller, I would have done so. I want to contact Canon, whose name is on the stupid thing, and whose driver is crashing my Mac — I can’t even print to the HP any more. But despite claiming they want to help me, they refused, point blank. Feh!
The only bright spot is that after an Archive & Install and large raft of patches from Apple (since the Mac Pro came with 10.4.8), I can print again — at least to the HP LaserJet. I was afraid whatever was causing the crashes would be carried along with the Archive & Install, but fortunately it wasn’t. In an hour I was back in business, and I was able to do other work while the computer crunched on the reinstall.
The fly in Apple’s A&I ointment is that it disabled sshd! Remote Desktop & Personal File Sharing were still active, but I had to manually re-enable the “Remote Login” service. Predictably, I discovered this when I was elsewhere and needed access to my Mac.
We’re all in here. When I got in we sat on our desks, waiting for computers and chairs to arrive; now most things are unpacked and stowed. Storage is about the same as the old space. Temp is fine. Noise is definitely worse, but it wasn’t great on the old space either. We’ll see.
One nice thing about the Super-Tent: I got 3 gigabit Ethernet jacks. Copying a 4gb Parallels VM from Mac Pro to a first-gen MacBook Pro took 2:42 (using cp over an AppleShare mount), at 206mbit/s. The same copy to a Samba/Linux share failed (likely due to an invalid filename), but cp of the equivalent tarchive took 4:42, at 118mbit/s (apparently the tent’s uplink is busy).
As described in Major Mac Movements, I did a lot of computer shuffling recently. On Sunday night I moved my gigabit Ethernet switch to our private home network, which was much easier than I expected. I labelled all my Ethernet cables (the longest part), then plugged in an 8-port 10/100 switch, moved all the cables from the 8-port 10/100/1000 switch to the new one, and moved most of the cables from the Linksys WRT54G’s 4-port switch to the (now-empty) GE switch.
Now network transfers from the PowerBook to the www (PMG4) max out slightly over 100mbps, and will get substantially faster when I upgrade the PowerBook to a MacBook Pro, and also in the fall when I swap the PMG5 in to become www.reppep.com.
Everything is done except the TiVo swap, although I may have to send the MacBook Pro back to Apple from work because the brightness still flickers, and will see if the 23″ CD continues to flicker in the Super-Tent.
The IT Office staff has moved, along with management. Most of the UNIX Systems Group moves Tuesday. It’s not a happy thing, although we’re hoping for mitigating factors.
Just in time too — this place is falling apart around our ears. A heavily used door is broken, the bathrooms are broken (broken toilets, a flood, and an ant colony). The copier broke and has been left behind. The new bathrooms have no urinals; we’ll see if that has a significant impact on cleanliness.
Furnishings are not great; the monitor arms don’t quite fit under the tasks lights, the new locks are different than the old ones, so while we had the same key for desk/cubbies/pedestal before, the old pedestals can’t be keyed the same as the new desks/cubbies. I’ve been offered a new pedestal, so I wouldn’t have to carry more keys, but the new ones are smaller…
We’re refusing furniture to have more floor space, and various things are now inconveniently farther away.
We’re out of boxes already, and I haven’t packed up (although I have gotten rid of some stuff).
Hopefully Monday will be less busy than today, so I can pack!
My group is currently scheduled to move on May 1, and it looks like the Super-Tent will be ready. It isn’t yet, but they’re pretty close. This week I learned about VESA monitor mounts. VESA has a series of (poorly named) standards for monitor mounting; both my Samsung monitors use a 100×100mm VESA mount, and (with a small adapter) my new Apple 23″ display does as well. I have a VESA mount of some sort on order, but have not been able to find out what they actually purchased yet.
I am now wondering if I would’ve been better served by a taller monitor, instead of the widescreen aspect ratio, but it doesn’t seem like our space will be so tight that this is going to be important. Fortunately, even though I am using different displays, they are both silver, both 1200 pixels high, and both use the same VESA mount, so I should be fine.
The Mac Pro arrived today, and it does seem substantially snappier, although it’s the “low-end” Mac Pro (4 2.66GHz Xeon cores), compared to the original fastest PMG5 (2×2GHz G5s).
I have already salvaged the 120gb drive from my old 700MHz Microway Linux machine; nothing else was worth keeping, although it was a fine Linux test box for several years. I got rid of the Sun Blade 100 (500MHz), which was invaluable for testing (and net installing) Solaris 8-10, even though it never got much TLC. I’ve tentatively decided to keep the Windows Dell, as much so I can test p2v conversions as because I haven’t yet installed the Remedy “Action Request” (help-desk ticketing) client in a Parallels VM yet.
I’ve seen my RHEL5 VM fail to respond to input on the MacBook Pro a few times, so if that continues to be a problem I’ll switch to the VMware “Fusion” beta. I very briefly played with several of the VMware pre-built “appliances”, but for my work it’s as valuable to run through the installer as to actually log in, so I will be installing Solaris 10 x86 (my first x86 Solaris install) tomorrow under Parallels.
With the frosted glass (still under paper) the partitions are taller than I expected, and the 4-person cubes are larger than I expected, but there is still going to be a major lack of privacy. With 60+ people in the tent and HVAC turned on, it is also likely to be quite noisy. We’ll know soon!
And my current office; the new Mac Pro & 23″ CD are on the right; the old PMG5, 19″ Samsung & Apple 17″ LCD are on the left (all going away). The Windows Dell is out of sight on the right floor. Ironically, I will actually have boxes for the two nicest/most expensive pieces of equipment because they’re new — assuming I don’t give up and throw the boxes out in frustration at the crowding first.
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](http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/album/ru/super-tent-20070417/Pages/21.html “My current / old cube”
I installed several hundred megs of patches, am right now copying over my MP3s, and am now installing XCode (should be standard on Mac Pros!) to install Fink next.
I was discussing this week’s plans for computer rearrangements with Amy, and was amazed when I listed them all. Most of these will happen this week.
ssh, b) Safari, c) Leopard testing, & d) Parallels/VMware hosting & testing. I’ll bring my own PBG4 in for ssh & Safari, do Parallels/VMware on the new Mac Pro, and move Leopard testing to the PMG5 at home.Then later this month, we’ll pack up our offices and move everything to the Super-Tent. I’ll be moving the Mac Pro and PBG4 w/ 2 displays, and getting rid of my Sun Blade 100, Dell Windows PC, & Microway Linux PC — replacing them with VMs on the Mac Pro.
People are also calling it the Pavilion and the Big Top (I like Big House), and we’re now supposed to move in April 27th (previously it was set for March 15th, but I guess we’re not going to make that one). Last week, moving boxes showed up in our current office — that wasn’t encouraging.
We’re discussing steps to alleviate the crunch, like swapping out desktops for laptops and virtual machines, but I’m somewhat surprised there’s no big movement in this direction. Personally, I’m hoping to get rid of 3 desktops and upgrade a laptop. Mac Pro octo (when released) should be a dandy VM host too.
It would be helpful if we could do some telecommuting, but I’m not sure if the Powers That Be will allow it. We’ll have to see how bad the crowding and noise are — the real experience may change everyone’s thinking (or it might not be too bad, but that’s a lot to hope for). The partitions certainly were higher than I expected, and the cubes less tiny, although if we double up, they will be very cramped. On the bright side, I hear the city will only give a 5-year permit for the tent, which is better than I expected. It’s not a good thing when you’re relieved at only spending 5 years in a large semi-permanent “building” with outside bathrooms. But hey, at least we’ll have good connectivity. Oy vey!
Anyway, new pics are up.
I was up on the 8th floor of the Rockefeller Research Building (RRB), and got captured by the prospect looking down, south onto the FDR and the East River, and separately west onto York at 63rd Street (and the Peggy Rockefeller Plaza). I took a bunch of pictures, including a few of the crowded mess that is my cube. Our move to the Super-Tent has been pushed back from March to April (tax day?), so I’ll have to clean up and dump a bunch of stuff soon, to fit into the new cube-farm.
But I was reminded that, overall, RU is a good place to be. It’s why I came back after leaving several years ago, and why I’ve stayed this time (I’m in my 7th year this round).
FYI: Our web group has posted an excellent Interactive Campus Map.
Oh, and the camera is still going strong after having taken a total of 188 pictures & movies combined since its initial charge.
I had a conversation with a co-worker about our new space. We’re moving into the Super-Tent in March, and the construction on Theobald Smith Hall (where we’re being kicked out of for the gut renovation) is supposed to finish in 2011. There’s been no discussion about where IT will go after we move out of the Super-Tent, except that we’re not moving back, because Smith (and Flexner) will be all open-bay lab space (no administrative departments allowed).
We all assume Flexner will start as Smith is winding down, so if Smith takes 4 years, Flexner might take 3 (until 2014). At that point, Bronk is going to look quite old and unloved (as it already does, actually), so that’s 2017. RU IT is over 60 people now, so by then we should be 80+, and the University is extremely unlikely to have a nice space to put a group of 80+ people (we’re currently in 5 locations in 4 buildings, spanning 5 blocks).
So perhaps in 2017 (barring major construction delays, and we all know all construction finishes on time, right?!?), the University will be trying to figure out what to do with 80 people, who are less important than any lab.
At this point, I have to think they’ll wait to think about it (as they waited to give us new space, or renovate our existing space for a few years). Perhaps 3 years later the City will finally make them remove the tent (which is not approved as a permanent structure, of course), so around 2020, I expect RU to be scattering the IT department across campus again. Maybe we can find the 13th Colony!
Note: Bathrooms will be outside — outhouses are so retro!
Check out my Super-Tent photos and the RU article on the construction plans.
The building I work in at The Rockefeller University is almost a hundred years old. It has a history of important science and medicine performed within its walls, and is thus a national historic landmark. On the other hand, it’s in awful shape. The University cannot replace it, so they have decided to gut our building (Theobald Smith Hall) and the adjacent Flexner Hall; the buildings will then be completely rebuilt internally, and converted to open lab space.
The renovations and landscaping are expected to take several year, at which point IT won’t be moving back, because the buildings will be only for labs, so we’ll get put somewhere else. Unfortunately, IT does not get good offices. We are currently scattered across several floors of 3 buildings, with servers in 4 rooms across 3 buildings — and insufficient environmental support for all our equipment. Construction always takes longer than planned, and it seems likely they will renovate another building after our two are finished, which means the space crunch will continue longer.
The immediate impact: in the early spring we will be moving to a new temporary structure (the “Super-Tent” — “it’s not a tent!”). It’s being assembled right now, two stories tall. It will be real office space, but it’s going to be crowded and noisy. I hope it has sufficient heating, cooling, power, and networking, but we can’t know yet. Here’s a picture of the “Super-Tent” under construction:
