Progress of the Express Terminal Upgrade

 

Henry Wong

Have you noted that some big changes have been made to those Express Terminals located on Level 4 (the mall) of the Academic Building and Level 2 of the CSC Student Terminal Area in recent months? Yes, such changes indicate that the second phase of the Express Terminal Upgrade has been completed (note: the first phase was previously described in the March 1997 issue). The goal of this enhancement is to improve the user interface from the old text-style menu to the user-friendlier graphical user interface (GUI) with easy Intranet/Internet access. Followings are highlights of the upgrade:

1. All Express Terminals are now running under the Windows 95 environment and have been replaced by Pentium PCs equipped with 64 Mbytes RAM, a 600 Mbytes auto-recoverable hard disk, mouse, sound card and speakers. 2. With the installation of the Web browser software, Netscape Communicator, the Express Terminal home page will be displayed automatically whenever the terminal is booted up or restarted. Additional software such as Acrobat Reader, RealPlayer has been installed to help users in accessing Web sites with document and multi-media features. 3. With the sponsorship and support from Student Development Services (SDS), 5 additional Express Terminals have been installed in convenient locations like the Sports Complex, Students’ Union and SDS Office for students’ use. Furthermore, a new Express Terminal, specially designed for disabled people, has just been installed on Level 4 (the mall) of the Academic Building. As we know that the enhancement exercise is a continual process, the CSC will undoubtedly continue to improve the Express Terminal services from time to time and your comments and suggestions are most welcome.

Computing Services Centre City University of Hong Kong ccnetcom@cityu.edu.hk