Each year, as thousands of students move into the dorms, the Student Network Access Program helps them plug into the Internet. This year, though, the SNAP team is assisting with a new service: wireless Internet.

SNAP began in December 1995 as part of an initiative of the Computer Advisory Committee to give students Ethernet access in the dorms.

The group didn’t actually perform its first hookup until August 1996.

“SNAP is a small part of the Solutions Center, which answered 36,000 student-related and 60,000 overall questions last year,” said Frank Poduska, systems analyst for Academic Information Technologies.

Phil Spike, chairman of the Computer Advisory Committee, said helping students set up their computers is important to maintain security and compatibility for the thousands of students using Iowa State’s network.

Working with the SNAP team assures security and compatibility by setting up password protection, removing spyware, scanning for viruses and patching program weaknesses, said Josh Walderbach, SNAP Coordinator.

“If one [computer] is infected, it can infect them all,” Spike said. “There are always viruses brought back to campus.”

Viruses can be spread whether the computer is hooked up through a wireless access point or Ethernet.

Most people who sign up for help are freshmen, Walderbach said.

Johanna Alwin, freshman in interior design, signed up to have her computer connected by the SNAP team.

Technician Fred Lucas, senior in pre-business, was assigned to the job.

Alwin purchased an Ethernet cable for less than $7, and the hookup took just over 40 minutes.

“Most students need to buy cables,” Walderbach said. “That is about the only hardware we’ve had to sell this year.”

Lucas said the SNAP team budgets one hour per installation.

“Most of them take about 45 minutes,” Lucas said. “But I had one this morning that took over two hours.”

He said completing six installations a day, with five-minute breaks between jobs, is not unusual. Last year, during “dorm storm” — the three days leading up to classes — the SNAP team connected about 3,000 computers.

“The number was so high last year because there was a large virus outbreak,” Walderbach said. “Right now we’re doing 200 to 300 machines per day. We expect to service 1,000 machines this time.”

Usually during dorm storm, the SNAP team recruits faculty volunteers.

“We have volunteers from [Administrative Technical Services] and other full-time staff to get this done,” said Marie Meyer, sponsored programs administrator. No specific figures on the number of volunteers or total hours spent on installations were available.

Full-time staff volunteers are needed because computer fees can only go to paying part-time student employees, Spike said. One percent, or $50,000, of student’s general computing fees goes to SNAP, with additional money coming out of the Academic Information Technologies budget, said Mike Bowman, assistant director for Information Technologies Security.

For more information on the SNAP team, call the Solutions Center at 296-6000.