As you may or may not be aware, there is a proposal by the ISU Computation Center to deal with the increasing e-mail load on the ISU computer network.

This is largely targeted towards the Vincent e-mail servers.

Some individuals cannot download a relatively small amount of e-mail, while others have servers that will just not respond or are very “sluggish.”

The Computation Center has described this problem as something students and faculty will have to solve themselves through voluntary action.

The problems seem to center around a couple of features that are mainly used in conjunction with the Eudora e-mail software, such as how often Eudora automatically checks for new mail and leaving the mail on the server.

The Computation Center is proposing that they “may have to enforce a minimum frequency interval that users can check their mail. (Perhaps 10 minutes).”

Could you imagine not checking being able to check your e-mail for 10 minutes or more?

I am no e-mail junky, and for most situations, 10 minutes would be plenty of time.

But sometimes getting a prompt e-mail response is critical to efficiency within the university.

This issue brings up another point. Some quick research on the Internet yields that ISU is quickly falling behind in the rankings for best or most wired colleges.

Now obviously a state-sanctioned school can not compete with private college funding.

However, even among state/public schools ISU has been slipping in the past few years.

I must congratulate the ISU telecommunications department for its effort on offering very innovative technology.

How about improving server resources? How about increasing the number of servers to handle the additional load? How about instead of negatively bashing the increased load on the servers, we turn that into a positive?

A way to say, “Hey, ISU faculty and students are taking full advantage of the technology available to them.

Let us expand our computing facilities and capacity. Let’s upgrade our servers so they can handle the additional load!”

Instead of trying to decrease load on the ISU servers, let’s upgrade them to handle the additional load.

I was a systems engineer at an Internet service provider before I came to college, and currently I am working as an assistant network administrator on campus.

I understand the server load problem, but there will always be an increasing number of users.

As informational technology professionals, we are constantly forced to expand our resources to handle the load, not cut back on the usage.

In addition, how about letting the students and faculty know what is in the works for our computing facilities. Is this a big secret?

Let’s model Telecomm and put together a phased plan for upgrading the equipment we have.

If one exists, let’s post it on the Web and make people aware. At last check, the computation center updated their site on Aug. 18, 1998.

Does this sound like a department that is on the cutting edge of technology?

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Michael Whaley

Freshmen

Management information systems