USC Nurse Anesthesia School Web Access

The first week at the University of Southern California School of Nurse Anesthesia in the Keck School of Medicine is completed. That’s 5 days down and 495 counting down to graduation August 31, 2006. Meeting all of the faculty and new students, as well as all of my new text books, and getting all of the details worked out for a new campus has taken an adjustment. Currently I am studying full time with work on hold for the foreseeable future. This program is so much fun even if it is very challenging and tons of work.

Noris Library Access

Doing research on line is always a treat. What makes it really wonderful now is the search engines are capable of doing so much work for you from the comfort of your home. The first thing you have to do is to set up a user name, email and computer access. You can do this at the ISD New Student web site. Once you have the entire log in stuff taken care of you are free to roam about the web at USC from the library or from home.

The problem with accessing the library system from home is that access to the secure areas is blocked unless you know the secret! Well it’s not really a secret but a process that takes a little to set up. The idea is that the computer system on campus wants to see if you are from the outside or from a campus server. If you can make your computer look to the system like you are on campus than all is hunky dory and you can get full text searches and down loads of every thing on Ovid.

VPN (virtual Private Network) software is available from Cisco systems that will allow you to log into Noris Library from a distant location as if you were on campus. The problem with the newly issued VPN software is that it is not supported by the tech people on campus and is a little difficult to get working. At least it has been for me. I am still working on the set up of the VPN software at home to see if I can get it to work. The advantage of using VPN is that you can use your current FAST DSL or Cable internet provider to give you quick search and downloads.

Dial Up Solution

Sometimes the newest technology is not the most reliable and the old tried and true “horse” will get you to town. USC has a dial up web access for students that works just fine. The tortoise wins the day. At least in the race that was offered last week for my entertainment. I am currently using the dialup connection into Pasadena with a 626 area code to access the secure network parts of the Ovid search engine at the Noris library. It works just fine even if it is a little slow. Actually it’s not that bad because most of the downloads are text without graphics. I may just keep it this way.

Wireless Future

I have a bright shiny laptop with the Centrino technology and all the trimmings. The IBM screamer is really sweet at the coffee shops working on line with the wireless networks. In order for me to get it to work on campus with the wireless network there is going to require a little bungling and tweaking on my part. More to come on this topic. And now some entertainment.

Tommy Cam

You can see what’s going on campus overlooking the famous Tommy Trojan by clicking on the Tommy Cam link.