The Alfred Computer Guy

“I've been working on some projects in the library that are saved to my U Drive. Is there a way to access them on a personal computer (i.e. not a university owned computer) without trying to cram the large files onto a jump drive, the size for which I don't even know exists?”
- Anonymous

There are actually many ways to accomplish this. In terms of speed, reliability and usability, the best way is to mount the U:Drive on your system as a network drive.

On a Windows system (XP, Vista, or 7), click your Start Menu and then right-click “My Computer” or “Computer," then from the drop-down menu, choose “Map Network Drive." Choose whichever drive letter you wish (most people choose “U” for familiarity, but it doesn’t really matter for the most part) and in the field marked “Folder”, enter the following (without the quotation marks): “\\jobs.alfred.edu\[your username]”.*

When you click OK, it should ask you for your username and password. Enter as your username “ALFRED\[your username]”. Your password is your standard Alfred password. If all went well, you should now have a drive mounted on your system in the My Computer folder that you can use just like a pendrive, as long as you remain on the network. Please keep in mind that this will only work while you are on campus.

Mac users connect in a very similar way. In your Finder, go to the top menu bar, choose “Go”, and then “Connect to server”. In the “Server Address” field, type “smb://jobs.alfred.edu/[your username]” and hit "Enter". Enter your user credentials just like before (“ALFRED\[your username]” as your username) and click "Connect".

If you don’t get any errors but still don’t see the drive on your desktop, don’t fret – OS 10.5 and later versions have a preference turned off by default that you will need to fix. In the top menu bar, click Finder and then Finder Preferences. Go to the General tab and in the area marked “Show these items on the desktop”, make sure “Connected servers” is checked. Again, this will only work on campus.

If these don’t work for you or you need to connect from an off-campus network, then you can always navigate your web browser to http://my.alfred.edu and select the “My U:Drive” Option. I know it can be a bit difficult to maneuver through, but we are actively addressing this and we hope to have a much cleaner web-based system rolling out soon!
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Thanks for sending in your question! I’d like to take the opportunity for the rest of this article to discuss something of interest: Windows 7. This new operating system from Microsoft will be rolling out to the public on Oct. 22, and I’ve had the pleasure of using it for the past several months.

I should state right off the bat that I am not a big Vista fan. I like XP well enough, insofar as it’s a reasonably functional OS and I’m comfortable with it, but I really don’t enjoy using Vista and having talked with a wide range of users on campus, I know I’m not alone. Whatever arguments I’ve made about Vista being buggy, slow, bloated and having poor driver support can be easily mitigated with the counterargument of , “Well, spend more money on better hardware." As true as this is, it still rubs me the wrong way.

In my mind, the true test of an Operating System is how well it performs on substandard hardware. New features, graphical tidbits and multimedia doodads are wonderful, but if they are just piled onto one another without clean refinement, then you have a bloated mess. Vista, in my opinion, is the OS equivalent to a car coming out of the “Pimp My Ride” garage. Each individual element on the car is somewhat noteworthy, but it’s a jumbled wreck of a vehicle (not to mention extremely expensive!).

Then, you have the Mercedes S-Class; the car that defines the future of automotive gadgets--the high standard in fun options, but built in a subdued, refined, sophisticated package. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Windows 7… the Mercedes S-Class of the computer world.

The first thing I noted about Windows 7 is the speed. From the time I started booting off the DVD to the time I had a fully functional operating system installed and running was 15 minutes. On XP, it usually takes between 45 minutes to an hour and for Vista, you’d better start popping some popcorn and have a good movie rental lined up.

Menus, explorer windows and applications all ran with snappy responsiveness. We did some testing with a combination of Windows 7 and Office 2010 beta – every Office application opened in less than one second flat.

Driver support also seems to be somewhat of a non-issue as well. I chalk that up more to the fact that manufacturers and vendors have had several years to write and refine their Vista drivers coupled with Windows 7 being able to utilize most any Vista driver out there.

Stability also appears to have been addressed. I haven’t had a single crash, blue screen, or application freeze occur and not without trying! My primary computer is a mishmash of different vendor parts and I made sure to put the screws to each and every one of them using complex graphic design functions as well as stress test programs designed to make everything run under a full-load.

Lastly, it just looks great. The one thing I couldn’t fault Vista on was the appearance. The Aero features made for a quality viewing experience, the new Explorer menus were fairly solid and the icon improvements were immediately noticeable. Windows 7 has all of that (and more), but provides it in a fast, stable environment.

In summary, Microsoft has done something I never thought possible: they have made a new operating system that I don’t just have to use--I actually enjoy using it.

Do you have any questions you would like to ask? Send me an e-mail at: stone@alfred.edu with the subject “Alfred Computer Guy.” Mac, PC, Linux, OS/2 Warp, NeXT… hit me with your best shot!

*Don't actually type "[your username]". This area is for your alfred username, ex. jkl12, qwe3, fg8.