Newsletter for 9 June 2004

Wed 09 Jun 2004 Newsletter

Newsletter - 2004/06/09

Newsletter - 2004/06/09

1 BBQ

The sun is (sometimes) shining and the paperwork has been completed, so there’ll be a BBQ on Sunday 20th at 2pm. For those who have been to a CompSoc BBQ before, we’re in the next site over site (site number one). This is located at the bottom of health centre road, just follow the plume of smoke. :)

You don’t need to sign up to attend this event.

We will have a map to the site available shortly, which will be emailled out before the event.

2 Mega LAN

Immediately following the Barbequeue, most of you will have at least a week of freedom, when your exams are over and you can completely relax. To help with this, CompSoc are running the longest LAN we’ve ever held; 78 hours of gaming fun, with 40 other CompSoc members.

The LANs are THE social event of the CompSoc calendar; it’s a great opportunity to have some fun, meet a bunch of cool people, and just enjoy yourself! Feel free to just turn up and chat even if you can’t bring a computer.

Also, the Linux User Group will be having an installfest at the LAN to assist anyone who would like help in getting a Linux system installed and running.

So, if you want to relax after your exams, or just want to come along to see what all the fuss is about, don’t hesitate to sign up on our website! Sign-ups for the LAN are open now, and spaces are filling up fast! Reserve your place now at: http://www.uwcs.co.uk/events/details/?id=308

Guest signups open this Sunday, at 11pm. Please ensure that if you are unable to come along, you cancel your sign up to let someone else have the place.

3 Academic Activities

The Academic Team has been fairly busy recently with their exams - however, we are still working hard at providing a variety of fun and interesting activities. Arrangements are already well underway for a programming competition in Term 1 next year, complete with (worthwhile) prizes, and we are making plans for numerous tutorials and workshops, ranging from the course-related (C, Perl, and Swing, for example) to the just-for-funs (PHP, C, Game Level Design).

We are also in the process of arranging a number of guest and special lectures, as well as producing revision guides to the more challenging computer-related courses. Watch this space for more details!

If you think you could arrange a fun and informative academic event or revision guide or something else useful, then please do contact us - we would love to have anyone willing as part of the Academic Team, helping us organise events! Email us at academic@uwcs.co.uk.

4 Linux User Group

The Linux User Group meets every Wednesday during termtime in The Lounge (The room with the sofas, next to the reception in the Union North building, 1st floor) at 7:30pm for informal, friendly Linux related discussion, help and advice. If you need a hand with your Linux installation, or you just want to chat and find out what it’s all about, pop along and say ‘hi’.

5 Technical Team

The Technical Team is responsible for the maintenance and smooth operation of all CompSoc’s services. Our activities are documented in the following website: http://wiki.uwcs.co.uk/TechTeam/

If you’re interested in what we do, then take a look around that site, and if you think you want to help run a number of linux servers, then get in touch: teamteam@uwcs.co.uk

5.1 New Servers

We now have a server cupboard, kindly hosted for us by the Computer Science Department. This will allow us to offer a better FTP service for our members, a faster server for members to log into, and an overall better and more efficient server provision. As services are developed and moved onto the servers in this cupboard, expect notifications to be posted to this mailing list. We will be minimising our downtime such that you will barely notice any outages caused by the new services.

5.2 Insomnia downtime

Insomnia, the gaming server, recently had some downtime and went back in on Wednesday morning. This was in order to resolve a hardware issue that is affecting performance on Insomnia. This means that any email to member’s personal domains will be delayed until Wednesday morning. We are working on a way of removing Insomnia without delaying email to member’s domains, so this should not happen again.

6 Network Cable

We still sell high quality CAT6 cable to our members. The price is a 50p base charge plus 50p per metre for the first 10 metres plus 40p for every metre thereafter. For example, 20m will cost you 0.50 + 5.00 + 4.00 = 9.50.

Email us at cat6@warwickcompsoc.co.uk with requests

7 Contact