[rescue] Do you remember when? Security software.....

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, N. Miller wrote:

> hire me.  I didn't expect that the relationship between Rice's computer
> services and their library was as strained as it had been at TAMU.  Boy
> was I ever wrong...and I put my foot in it by stating that it was obvious
> that X, Y, and Z needed to be done in the library.  All of which stepped
> on computer services' turf.

You have no idea.  Rice IT pisses everyone off.  They're also the 800lb
gorilla that everyone needs to play with nicely.  I fought them the
whole time I was there.  They would just do piddly things to annoy folks
without administration approval.  Port-blocking and such.  They blocked
port 80 to my dorm drop one week.  Why?  I don't know.  It wasn't
policy, and I was a -web developer- paid by the University!

I should point out that I wasn't employed by IT.  I was employed by a
department whose sole job was to integrate all the old data (including
stuff on paper) into big web-enabled SQL-backed applications.  Even so,
our relationship with IT was strained.  We couldn't even convince them
to let us colo servers in the Mudd building.  All our production-rung
equipment was in the back of an unused biology lab.

The ONLY good thing that came out of Fondren Library absorbing
$department was that we got someone on our side big enough to actually
push IT around when need be.  The soul of the department kinda vanished,
though.  I think there may be one member of the original team left.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke   )  "We're Texans.  We figure out ways to do these
Elgin, TX          (    things..."                    --Bill Bradford