[WEB4LIB] Re: Updating plug-ins

[Jean-Marc Edwards]

At the University of Ottawa we do pretty much the same.

We have installed the following plug-ins on our public workstations :

Word viewer
Adobe Acrobat Reader
WinFrame ICA plug-in (to access our CDs on our WinFrame server)
RealPage plug-in (some electronic journals need this)
MediaPlayer

We also added QuickTime but have a lot of problem with it
because our Netscape browser is on a server and not local.

We run other helper apps like 
W3launch (for web access to loacl CDs)
Cdlaunch (for CD access from a DiscPort server).

We are now considering adding PowerPoint.

We try to have 2 revisions a year for updates. Not more.
We do our updates in the same time we upgrade our security software 
which is WinSelect and Fortres. All the plug-ins options are 
controlled by WinSelect. 

Jean-Marc Edwards
Information Technology Access Librarian 
University of Ottawa


On  5 Oct 99 at 13:03, Dan Lester wrote:

> At 07:34 AM 10/5/99 -0700, Barbara Brattin wrote:
> >The plug-ins need to be downloaded on each individual machine, and our WinU
> >security makes this labor-intensive. How have the rest of you dealt with
> >this? Do you take a stand and provide only the top ten, or do you try to
> >have every one available? How do you streamline downloading so the process
> >is not so labor intensive? We are running an NT network, with Windows 95 on
> >the desktop and  WinU security/ menuing software on public stations.
> >Thanks!
> 
> At Boise State we don't have speakers on our web stations, and don't add 
> "plugins" in the usual sense.  However, we do link Acrobat, Word Viewer, 
> Excel Viewer, and Powerpoint Viewer, as they are needed to support either 
> remote journal articles or content put on web pages by faculty 
> members.  Fortunately, we haven't really had the demand for the "latest and 
> greatest" of viewers for various video formats, MP3, VR, and so 
> forth.  We'd tend to resist those unless we could be shown a curricular or 
> research need.
> 
> Of course students can, and do, go to computer labs to do many of the 
> things we don't support in the library.
> 
> cheers
> 
> dan
> 
> --
> Good, Fast, and Cheap: Which two of the three would you like?
> Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716 USA 208-383-0165
> dan at 84.com   http://www.84.com/  http://www.postcard.org/
> 
Jean-Marc Edwards
Bibliothécaire - Technologies de l'information et accès
Information Technology Access Librarian
University of Ottawa Library Network
Courriel : jedwards at uottawa.ca
Tél: (613) 562-5800 ext. 3225