Alex is a transplant from Oregon. He is part of the Physics computer & network support team.

Alex is a jack-of-all-trades-technical, with a focus on scripting computer and network administration tasks, website design/development, and software maintenance. He has a focus on helping less technical users interface with technology, and bridging the gap between complex computing systems and end users.

He also works as a photographer for the physics department, working to improve the department's collection of pictures of faculty, staff, and facilities for use in publications and the website.

Managed Computers

We have been spending a lot of time lately deploying our managed linux and windows systems to some groups around the building who are looking to spend more time working, and less time fighting with computer problems.

On windows, we offer a domain-joined image, where all user data is stored on our fileserver leaving nothing on the workstation to worry about backing up. Users login with their physics accounts. The managed windows image comes with Bigfix to keep everything patched and secure. Though users do not get access to login as an administrator, selected members of the group can have 'sudo' access, to do some activities with admin privileges.

We also offer a 'base' windows image designed for instrument computers, such as those taking data or controlling equipment, allowing us to help you get started with a safe and secure windows install in much less time.

For linux, we offer our Scientific Linux build, customized to login using your physics account, and home directory stored on the physics fileserver. Workstations can have optional second hard disks for data storage.

Bigfix

The department now has a site license for Bigfix, our agent-based software designed to help manage the huge problem of patches and security in the department. It is rolled out to all our managed windows builds, and is becoming available for any department owned computers. Bigfix replaces windows automatic updates, adobe updater, apple quicktime updater, office update, and many other update systems with a single unified update system, that does a better job checking and verifying security patches are in place, while being way less obnoxious to the user (do you wan't to restart now? huh? do ya?) through its configurable snooze feature.

WiFi

Improving our wireless internet infrastructure. We have already replaced most of our older access points with these new Proxim AP-8 boxes (pictured). With this we have rolled out the new WPA-Enterprise encryption scheme. It allows you to login to the AP using your physics username and password, and have excellent security over wireless! Unfortunately, it has proved to be somewhat unreliable on some devices.

Web

Redesign

I created the current website design using pure CSS and xhtml 1.0 transitional.

Wiki Based Intranet

The Physics Intranet is starting to be used more. We are working on moving much more content to it, including some sections for research groups and student handbooks.