Computer shopping just got cheaper

ITaP Main > Enabling The Future > Enabling Learning

Computer shopping just got ~~easier~~ cheaper

ITaP has launched an online headquarters of high-tech shopping exclusively for Purdue faculty, staff, students, and alumni. ITaP Shopping features hardware from Apple Computer, Dell Computer, HP/Compaq, and IBM, specially priced for Boilermakers. Software discounts are available for faculty, staff, and students.

"The intent of this online service is to leverage the volume of institutional purchases to drive down prices for personal systems," says Carlin "Rick" Smith, who heads vendor relations for ITaP. "This is a win-win situation for Purdue and the vendors."

Shoppers can expect discounts of around 10 percent on already reduced educational pricing, and can expect better products as well. "We are able to offer to students business-class machines at a consumer price. That's a real advantage," Smith says. Products available include complete desktop systems, notebooks, printers, flat screens, and PDAs. All laptops are wireless ready. Shoppers enter vendor portals to create personal accounts and then purchase directly from the vendor—all with Purdue-specific pricing.

Future plans include broader marketing to Purdue constituencies and introducing new products such as scanners, digital cameras, and additional software.

ITaP Shopping Offline, a resource center in Stewart Center G65, recently opened. In this facility, shoppers can test-drive the technology, receive consulting help, and watch demonstrations. Future plans also call for closer relationships with the academic schools to provide better advice to students and offer customized packages for specific disciplines, Smith says.

Software products including a virus protection program, multimedia software, and a Web development program are available with a valid Purdue identification card through the BoilerCopyMaker office in the Purdue Memorial Union.

Visit ITaP Shopping at www.itap.purdue.edu/shopping for the complete line of products available. — A.P.C.

Bringing high- performance computing to the classroom

High-performance computing has been available to researchers on the Purdue campus since the early 1960s. But, as at most other universities, comparable power has not been available to students in the classroom.

Today, an increasingly complex world produces an increasingly complex set of problems at the student level. For example, solving realistic problems in computational chemistry demands extensive computing cycles. Plus, students need power for 3D renderings for everything from modeling a virus to landscape design.

To meet these needs, ITaP developed the high-performance classroom project that provides students access to clusters assembled from machines retired from the student computer laboratories.

Now professors can assign real-world problems and tap national grid resources. Scott Meador, an assistant professor of computer graphics technology and a member of ITaP's Envision staff, emphasizes that the high-performance classroom also allows students to become familiar with the grid computing environment and the queuing and scheduling of data sets.

Recently a student rendered a complex scene on the cluster in three minutes. It would have taken 59 minutes on his desktop. With the addition of two large memory server systems, gifts from Sun, ITaP now can extend this capability throughout the campus. — M.M.J.