I'm the undergraduate representative to the ETF fund for Computer Science, and we had about $80k to spend on hardware and software for education related purposes. So far, some money has gone towards the SDC and installing multimedia capabilities in some of the CSC116 and E115 classrooms. What other education related hardware/software is needed? Please let me know, or PM me. Thanks.

2/5/2007 5:02:38 PM

make .net, visual slickedit, and other non-free development tools available.

2/5/2007 5:25:30 PM

any adobe products for free would be fan flippin tastic...
just more software in general that we can have on personal computers, it's annoying to have to use software we can only have by: a. going to a lab, b. downloading from limewire (aka illegally), or c. $400+ for something decent
or some money to classes that just CSC people take, not 116 and e115, which half of engineering take.

2/5/2007 6:47:23 PM

Take 3/4 of that money and get a full-time non-tenure faculty member instructor to actually teach how to use existing hardware/software (or opensource alternatives). Take the last 1/4 to pay for TAs for those courses.

Otherwise, could you please provide a list of hardware/software items current ETF funds are going towards? Then, please list the current ideas for what it should go towards.

2/5/2007 6:57:39 PM

Personnel

2/5/2007 7:25:07 PM

MASM or similar compiler options for x86 hardware would be nice. I'm a PPC Mac/Linux user and ended up having to piece together my own intel box for CSC236, b/c neither myself nor the lab tech in EBII could get any compilers to work on the lab machines

2/5/2007 7:28:09 PM

Visual Slickedit would be very nice.

2/5/2007 8:46:29 PM

Eclipse

2/5/2007 11:04:18 PM

Not that I think the current faculty is lacking in any way... but it's really the only place money can be effectively spent. The equipment we have is adequate.

2/6/2007 12:44:37 AM

^^^^ Virtual pc. If you fuck up, just restart from an image.


Also, get some dick warmers and nintendo wiis for the lab.

[Edited on February 6, 2007 at 1:15 AM. Reason : sdf]

2/6/2007 1:14:53 AM

I'd ask for vmware over vpc, and some vanilla os images

2/6/2007 11:02:31 AM

i was going to say a free copy of vista. then i remembered to check the msdnaa download page and saw that it was already there.

i'd prefer the ultimate edition, but i can't really justify spending $200+ on it if i can get the business edition for free.

2/6/2007 11:11:07 AM

i'd recommend vmware over vpc also

and why did you mention freeware bous?

2/6/2007 11:15:23 AM

because it is better than the software that costs money?

2/6/2007 11:21:17 AM

Quote :

"any adobe products for free would be fan flippin tastic... just more software in general that we can have on personal computers, it's annoying to have to use software we can only have by: a. going to a lab, b. downloading from limewire (aka illegally), or c. $400+ for something decent or some money to classes that just CSC people take, not 116 and e115, which half of engineering take."

That's damn right. You need to create a small fund that can be used for random software needs of students that are approved. If you want some really good ideas talk to Margaret Hudacko (huck@ncsu.edu). I bet you $10 she'll give you some solid ideas. She's the webmaster for the Engineering depts. She'll know current needs better than most and she's a lot more realistic than most people at the university.

2/6/2007 12:19:25 PM

ETF Guidelines:
http://www.provost.ncsu.edu/admin-resources/documents/etf/etf-info-guidelines-2006.doc

Couple things to note:
1. VS.Net, Visual Slickedit, Eclipse, and a ton of compilers are already available on hundreds of machines in the college. See: http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/software/applist
2. Significant money has already been spent to decrease the cost of lots of software through the bookstore. If you haven't looked in a while, I recommend you do. In person, the bookstore website doesn't list most of the stuff available at reduced cost. Some info here: http://www.ncsu.edu/software/
3. Sorry, but there ain't no way they are asking for student input on full-time positions. If they were gonna use that money for faculty or staff, they'd likely have made that decision before you got involved.
4. Since CSC is a Linux/Windows dept. VMWare makes waayy more sense than VirtualPC. However, buying hundreds of copies is gonna eat through the money fast for little benefit. You can do essentially the same thing by checking out computers via VCL.

My suggestion is that CSC fund E115 better (especially training for the TA's). That way the students might actually know how to use all of the hardware/software that the college is already paying for.

2/9/2007 1:13:09 AM

VMware or Parallels for Mac users.

And I knew lots of people who pirated SlickEdit for their own computers.

[Edited on February 9, 2007 at 1:25 AM. Reason : ]

2/9/2007 1:24:36 AM

Quote :

"My suggestion is that CSC fund E115 better (especially training for the TA's)"

listen. screw E115. that class is a joke to begin with.

help out some real CSC classes.

2/9/2007 2:13:53 AM

money spent towards building a security concentration of computer science.

2/9/2007 9:11:42 AM

heres a plan, stop E115 and use the money saved that way on a class(really any of the existing classes) that is actually worth a shit

same applies to E101

2/9/2007 11:17:05 AM

Let me just say, the focus of ETF funds should not be on increasing or retaining the number of students in computer science. That being said, E115 is not a good area of focus. Would recommend more emphasis on juniors and seniors and giving them the resources they need.

Example: I remember Windows Server 2003 was available on MSDNAA for download. Thats great, I don't have a machine to play with it. I lab freely available with equipment where CSC students can test out various tools. A lab where CSC405 can simulate network traffic and analyze it with tools. Etc.

2/9/2007 12:24:04 PM

there are some great suggestions here. I think that the lab mentioned to test things out might be put on the back burner as there won't be enough money left, but I will suggest that. I think that security issues may limit this, but I really like the idea and will bring it forward.

I have also asked about software, and the general consensus is that we might be able to do this, but that this is better directed at the group that handles software on campus. These funds should be oriented much more towards classroom oriented software/hardware needs.

I will post an update once some decisions have been made.

2/9/2007 1:13:14 PM