FAO Newcastle University students/staff

Messiah Khan · 25 Jun 2008 at 08:55

A few questions for you people familiar with Newcastle uni due to an upcoming interview;

What OS' do you use in the university? Is the main OS XP or have you moved to Vista? Is there much use of Linux/Unix/OSX etc in various departments? What version of office is used? What network software is used? AD or something else? If anyone has used the AV loan service, what equipment is available and how does the loan service work in terms of booking equipment etc. And any other secrets relating to the AV/IT side of things in the university would be helpfull.

TheDean · 25 Jun 2008 at 08:58

When I left in '06 it was Xp on all the workstations. In humanities there was no sign of any unix or varient.
No idea on anything else.....

hargi · 25 Jun 2008 at 09:00

Im going on the 30th July to there IT centre on a course so will have a look for you

Messiah Khan · 25 Jun 2008 at 10:20

TheDean said:
When I left in '06 it was Xp on all the workstations. In humanities there was no sign of any unix or varient.
No idea on anything else.....

Cheers. Hope its still the same, but i suspect they may have changed since then.

hargi said:
Im going on the 30th July to there IT centre on a course so will have a look for you

Edit; Read that as June not July. 30th July is too late.

Bill101 · 25 Jun 2008 at 11:20

If it's like Liverpool, then they use a Managed Windows system which is XP with added flakyness ! I would imagine that the computer services want everyone to use the same OS, even Apple is frowned upon here and they offer a limited helpline
The network is Novell
They block every P2P site they can think of

Hamish · 25 Jun 2008 at 12:10

Messiah Khan said:
A few questions for you people familiar with Newcastle uni due to an upcoming interview;

What OS' do you use in the university? Is the main OS XP or have you moved to Vista? Is there much use of Linux/Unix/OSX etc in various departments? What version of office is used? What network software is used? AD or something else? If anyone has used the AV loan service, what equipment is available and how does the loan service work in terms of booking equipment etc. And any other secrets relating to the AV/IT side of things in the university would be helpfull.

I left doing IS in 07.

They use AD, windows XP and Office 2003 when I left.
Computing science uses Linux (fedora) and has a few clusters.
I think the loan service is web based like most things. They don't have many propriatary applications, mainly MS stuff. They use endnote on office which might be stopping them upgrading to 2007.

have to say that the IT dept there is excellent well organised, well documented and helpful.

Hyper · 25 Jun 2008 at 12:21

Delete.

Jotun · 25 Jun 2008 at 12:32

Bill101 said:
They block every P2P site they can think of

Really?

I've never tried myself there for obvious reasons but I've seen quite a few people downloading torrents there, and certain torrent websites are accessible too.

Pav89 · 25 Jun 2008 at 12:52

I'm in the school of computing science at Newcastle. All general clusters are xp based but our school also has a few Linux clusters which cannot be acceded by anyone else. Yes they block lots of stuff - can't even videocall In MSN and you can't game online. All this applies to the halls too. There is a wonderful program called yourfreedom though which bipasses the system LOL . Sorry I'm on my iPhone at work right now so can't talk till ***

Messiah Khan · 25 Jun 2008 at 15:09

Thanks guys.

Hamish said:
I left doing IS in 07.

They use AD, windows XP and Office 2003 when I left.
Computing science uses Linux (fedora) and has a few clusters.
I think the loan service is web based like most things. They don't have many propriatary applications, mainly MS stuff. They use endnote on office which might be stopping them upgrading to 2007.

have to say that the IT dept there is excellent well organised, well documented and helpful.

Lets hope they still use XP and office2003 as its what I use at work now. Anyone else out there know about Newcastle uni?

Una · 25 Jun 2008 at 15:15

Messiah Khan said:
A few questions for you people familiar with Newcastle uni due to an upcoming interview;

What OS' do you use in the university? Is the main OS XP or have you moved to Vista? Is there much use of Linux/Unix/OSX etc in various departments? What version of office is used? What network software is used? AD or something else? If anyone has used the AV loan service, what equipment is available and how does the loan service work in terms of booking equipment etc. And any other secrets relating to the AV/IT side of things in the university would be helpfull.

Hey I just graduated from Newcastle's Comp Sci course... Around the uni there are a mix of Windows XP machines and Linux machines (a small number).

Linux is used pretty heavily in Comp Sci labs. First year labs are windows xp, 2nd/3rd year linux only (can use windows through a virtual machine or move to a windows lab). XP and Office 2003 is the standard in the normal clusters around the uni. Openoffice in the Linux labs.

Networking software - well you got three accounts really. One is on a windows server, one on a unix server and one on a special CS linux server (if you do the course).

No idea about AV stuff. I got some hardware loaned to do my group project on (a dell axim pda with a GPS device) but that was part of the course.

I don't think they have deployed vista yet but if your really interested I guess I could check online somewhere.

They do block some things but you can get round it using proxy/ssh tunneling.. No one ever checks

Izi · 25 Jun 2008 at 15:47

Messiah Khan said:
Thanks guys.

Lets hope they still use XP and office2003 as its what I use at work now. Anyone else out there know about Newcastle uni?

Newcastle as a town is a nice place to live. Night life is great, students everywhere.

Dont know much about the Uni other than my sister went there and she loved it.

Pav89 · 25 Jun 2008 at 18:00

Messiah Khan said:
Thanks guys.

Lets hope they still use XP and office2003 as its what I use at work now. Anyone else out there know about Newcastle uni?

Yes we use Office 03 there (I know cos I have to keep changing all my damn docs into the older format! LOL!)

Pav89 · 25 Jun 2008 at 18:02

Una said:
First year labs are windows xp, 2nd/3rd year linux only (can use windows through a virtual machine or move to a windows lab). XP and Office 2003 is the standard in the normal clusters around the uni.

We spent quite a bit of the 1st semester in the 1st year in the Mill on the linux machines with the infamous Aad!

Messiah Khan · 26 Jun 2008 at 09:08

Una said:
*snip*

Great answer, thanks.

thought said:
Newcastle as a town is a nice place to live. Night life is great, students everywhere.

Dont know much about the Uni other than my sister went there and she loved it.

I know, thats why im moving there.

My GF got a job there yesterday. Its a perfect job for her with relatively good money, so lets hope im in as much luck.

Pav89 said:
Yes we use Office 03 there (I know cos I have to keep changing all my damn docs into the older format! LOL!)

Hehe, I know the feeling. I keep having to do it for students here. Well that's reassuring. At least I don't have to get up to speed with Vista just yet.

If anyone has more information on the AV loan service I would be very gratefull.