News

EMPAC exterior enclosure scheduled for December ’06

Student Senate Updates

Ed/Op

Letter to the Editor
Fund all or fund none

Letter to the Editor
Thank you Red Army

Letter to the Editor
Alumnus responds to column

Panhellenic Council
Fall sorority rush concludes

My View
Bill’s passage demonstrates new Congress needed

Staff Editorial
Take time to support RPI’s athletic teams

Editorial Notebook
Know rights in handbook

Editorial Notebook
Broaden major spectrum at fair

Top Hat
Grand Marshal offers career search advice

Undergraduate Council
Surround self with friends, drink responsibly

Straight from the Ass's Mouth
Media conglomerates threaten Internet neutrality

Features

Nigerian students honor their independence

Words to Eat By
Country View Diner serves comfort through variety

Dave Barry
Society scrutinizes people lacking muscles

Sports

Engineers adjusting to ECACHL play

Red Hawks look to next game after victories

Women’s soccer cruises past Elmira College 2-0

Men’s soccer continues to struggle on road

Engineers dominate Becker College

Rensselaer in Brief
IBM battery problems
Many students who purchased laptops and laptop batteries as part of the Rensselaer Mobile Computing Program may see “explosive” performances from their machines. On September 28, IBM and Lenovo—the company that has taken over the Thinkpad line of laptops—announced a recall of certain batteries manufactured by Sony, including some that were distributed with the RPI T-43s and T-60s.

This announcement came after a laptop caught fire at Los Angeles International Airport in September due to an overheating battery. This occured after a number of other computer manufacturers recalled several of their own Sony-made batteries for similar reasons.

The recall applies to batteries purchased between February 2005 and September 2006 for certain laptops in the T-, X-, and R-series. Members of the RPI community can take their batteries to Rensselaer Computer Repair on the lower level of the Voorhees Computing Center. Replacements are not yet ready; more details will be released to the campus when they are available.

Banner finally working
Banner, the database system that provides the backend for RPI’s information stores—including SIS, the Rensselaer Self-Service Information System, AppWorx, and the data warehouse—was offline during the period of September 21-29. Banner and its affiliated services were scheduled to be down over September 21-25 for upgrades and maintenance, but due to problems detected in system verification, it remained offline for an additional few days.

After the initial problem was detected on September 24, Institute staff worked overtime in conjunction with representatives from two vendors, SunGard Higher Education and Oracle Corporation, to solve the issue. Another flaw was found and fixed at noon on September 28 that would prevent the web service from working properly.

All the issues involved were cited as being highly subtle, occurring despite months of testing in a development environment.