Crunch-time and the Labs


February 18, 2000 - It’s that time again already…
Mid-terms!!!! You’ve got a million projects due, two papers, and three exams. How do you even begin to get everything done in time? You fly through your papers and exams, but you’ve barely started your final revisions for one project. It’s due tomorrow afternoon, so you head to the labs at 7:00 p.m., planning on putting in a full night’s work and sleeping until class the next day. Wrong! Everyone has had the same idea. All of the computers are full, and the waiting list is so packed that people are sitting in the hall – with sleeping bags. After waiting for two hours to get a computer, you sit down and work steadily for the next 4 hours.

You’ve finished your project, and are printing when (here’s where you take your pick of disasters): the electricity goes out, your machine crashes, there’s a postscript error and it won’t print, your zip disk starts that "click-of-death" thing, your file won’t open again, the application unexpectedly quit (with an error of type —something), or you spill your coffee into the keyboard. All disastrous events! To top it all off, the lab is closing in an hour! What do you do?

Take a deep breath and ask yourself these questions.

1. Did you save your file recently? If you worked for even 1 hour without saving, you are asking to have a crash (computers can sense these things:). If you worked for an entire session without saving, you will have to start over from the beginning of your session. This is not much of an option when you are this close to a deadline.

2. Do you have a backup copy of the file and all images attached? If so, you are a genius! You can simply restore your file and continue working or printing.

3. Do you have a spare Zip disk with the file on it? See number 2.

4. Why are you drinking coffee in the lab when no food or drink is allowed? Food and drink are not allowed in the labs. If you happen to spill, inform the lab monitor immediately. If you fail to do so, you could cause stuff to become damaged and eventually have to be replaced. We’d much rather you tell us that you spilled than to find out later because the item no longer works properly. (It’s like how your mom would punish you more for not telling her that the lamp got broken rather than the fact that you were playing ball in the house in the first place. Except we won’t ground you:)

The general rule of thumb is this; if you don’t want to have to do something twice, be sure to save after making any major changes. When trying out dozens of options for each element, it is hard to keep track of what worked the way you wanted. Here is a list of strategies you may want to keep in mind whenever you work (not just around deadlines).

1. Keep multiple back-ups on a couple of different disks. Disks can fail or get lost. And a lost zip disk in these labs is not likely to get turned in to the lab monitor. If one disk fails, you have a spare to save your files and hold any back-ups.

2. Resave under a new name every time you make a significant change. Simply saving several versions of a file can help you track down errors that may occur at a later time (such as postscript errors or font problems). See last week’s article on troubleshooting postscript errors.

3. Save Often!!!! If there is one rule of using a computer in any graphics function, it is this; anything that can happen will when you least expect it, or when you have a deadline. Saving often can get you back to a good state if the computer crashes or loses power (how many of you can remember when the left side of the Open lab used to lose power often?).

4. Allow yourself ample time to print and debug. Because you can never tell what will happen, it is a good idea to try to print or finish up well before deadlines. If you plan ahead a bit, you can avoid potential space problems, such as not being able to get a computer, and leave yourself time to fix or get help to fix any major technical problems. Faculty in the Design College have little tolerance for "Technical problems!", as an excuse, if you have these technical problems 20 minutes before class. Be able to show a very recent version of the work in place of the final if you absolutely cannot get your recent file to work, and the faculty member may be a bit more sympathetic.

5. Do not plan to render animations the night before a project is due. Everyone else in your class may be planning the same thing, and I can guarantee that things will not work out exactly as you expect. Start rendering a week in advance if at all possible, and work with other students in your class to get a schedule set up for rendering. A good time to render images or animations which need more than 6 hours to render, would be Friday or Saturday nights. You can start rendering before the lab closes and pick up your finished piece when the lab opens the next day. There is to be no unattended rendering during lab hours. This ties up machines that are needed by other students.

The best way to avoid problems is to give yourself plenty of time to work and get things printed or rendered, and to always make multiple back-ups of multiple versions of your file. Play it safe, and you’ll get the project in on schedule.

–J

Jennifer Nieland is the lab coordinator for the College of the Design student computer labs.