Math Support Center Sign-In Sign-Out Form

An ancient (designed for Windows 98!) laptop is installed in the MSC as a dedicated station for students to sign in/out and leave comments. The system was implemented to simplify data collection for an intensive assessment of MSC use and is now available as a complete replacement for any paper forms. The department wiki has further details in the topic MSC.MscSignInSignOut.

FYI:

• The laptop is intended as a dedicated station for sign-in and sign-out.
• Firefox is configured with the sign-in page as its home page.
• The network connection is minimal -- only the sign-up server is accessible.

Troubleshooting:

• If someone quits Firefox, just relaunch it from the desktop icon.
• If the laptop seriously misbehaves
  1. Press the Power button to the upper left of the keyboard until it powers off
  2. Wait a few moments
  3. Press the power button to turn it back on.

Geek details:

• Yes, it's really booting from a floppy.
• Yes, its OS and configuration are all on the 64Meg USB Pen Drive.
• Yes, its limited network access is configured elsewhere.
• Yes, it's accessing a different machine.
• Yes, it's running Linux. DSL Linux -- Google:DSL+Linux
• Yes, it's good ol' Firefox running on a laptop with:
  • 300 Mhz Pentium MX processor
  • 64Meg RAM

The Logging system is web-based using an open-source CGI for maximum flexibility in choice of both client and server. Currently (Spring 2015) the client laptop is on a dedicated network connected through a NAT firewall to the Instructional Technology Office (ITO) network. A machine in the ITO hosts the cgi and collects the data.

Feel free to drop me a note if you're interested in more details.

Cheers,

-Dick

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