Phase 2: Public Kiosks

Once the consulting staff has had time to become acquainted with Mac OS X, the next step is to introduce the new operating system on a limited and restricted basis to lab patrons.

As with the lab consulting staff machines, public access kiosks have been set up for patrons to use and experiment with.

Machines configured for Public Kiosks follow the "baseline" configuration except where noted below.

Hard Disk Maintenance - In addition to the baseline configuration, these machines are also set so that they are cleaned from a default setup each time the machine is in a idle state.

Configuration - As these machines are intended to be strictly for Internet access, all installed applications are limited to the latest Mac OS X native Email, Instant Messaging, and Internet software including notables such as Eudora, AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, Internet Explorer, Opera, and iCab.

Timeframe - The existing 12 Email/Internet stations in the Marriott Library have been been upgraded from Mac OS 9.2.2 to Mac OS X. In addition, the two Library Card Catalog and Help Desk terminals have also been upgraded to Mac OS X. These stations, however, remain dedicated card catalog search & Network ID application machines and are not equipped with any additional applications.

Each Email/Internet kiosk station supported by Student Computing Labs that was running Mac OS 9.2.x has also been upgraded to Mac OS X. This encompasses the four stations in the Olpin Union Lab (Union Room 161), the two sets of iMacs located in the common areas of Olpin Union Levels one and two, and the Macs in the Union CyberCafe.

With the success of the initial deployment of OS X on the aforementioned machines, three additional Email/Internet kiosks have been installed in the EMCB computer lab.

There are also plans to install OS X powered Email/Internet stations in the Peterson Heritage Center and Sage Point Residence Hall Computer labs.

At the beginning of November 2002, Mac OS X version 10.2, also known as "Jaguar", was installed on all of these machines. They are the first to receive the latest update to this UNIX based operating system.

For information on how the various parts of this phase of the deployment has progressed, please click here.