Do you have a laptop program? Do you have laptops you loan to students? Do you have Macintosh computers that have a wireless/wired connections? If you have any of these, we want to hear from you. We are working on fixing some kinks and could really use your help. Head on over to our contact page if you want to help us out!
Computer Lab Solutions will soon be releasing three new add-ons for the LabStats suite of software. These products will be released before the end of June.
The first of the three programs is LabGrab. This software is designed to help administrators manage lab reservations. Loren Honeycutt, a member of the LabStats team walks through the program here.
The other two products are PrinterStats and LabAlerts. Walk-through videos will soon be available.
Computer Lab Solutions will soon release three new products under the LabStats suite. These add-ons should be released by the end of June. The three products are:
PrinterStats
PrinterStats tracks and records the data and usage of each printer on campus from one central location. PrinterStats is an easy way to manage multiple printers’ supplies efficiently. PrinterStats can also show the administrator when a printer is active or not.
LabGrab
LabGrab is a lab reservation program with capabilities of reserving more than just labs. Using labs and rooms set up in LabStats, administrators can choose and display labs available for reservation on a public page. The LabGrab features provide ease of organization and notification of reserved labs and rooms.
LabAlerts
LabAlerts is a message service that allows an administrator to deliver messages to a single computer, a specific lab or campus wide. Designed with safety in mind, LabAlerts can be used to alert the whole campus in case of an emergency. LabAlerts is more than safety though; with the unlimited html possibilities, LabAlerts can be used for any type of message in any setting.
Jesse McCorkle, from University of New Orleans and one of the beta testers for the new products said, “we are liking the new reporting and app grouping features. The colleges like the ability to run reports against classes while my bosses like being able to run reports against groups of apps such as MS Office as a whole or SAS. It lets them see if these apps we are paying a lot for are being used by students are not. They had to add the different counts together before.”
If you are interested in trying these products out now we are still looking for beta testers.
If you are interested in seeing the latest changes coming to LabStats and test the newest products you can apply to be a beta tester. Apply here and you could be selected to be the tester for the next release from Computer Lab Solutions. Anyone is eligible to apply. Don’t sit on the sidelines anymore — become an active part of making Computer Lab Solutions even better.
On April 13th, 2011 we released a new and radically different version of LabStats, version 5. Now that we’re a year on, we can take a look back on the release and how it’s been both a positive and negative experience as well as take a peak in to the future. It’s been a ride to say the least, and I’d like to take some time to reflect on the last year.
Software and the way it is used should always be evolving and as such LabStats 5 was an evolution of its predecessor, LabStats 4. The largest changes took place in the core operating principles of the software. Java was exchanged for .Net, Apache Tomcat was exchanged for IIS and Firebird was exchanged for Microsoft SQL. These changes not only allow for a more stable environment that was easier to work with, but they also added speed and compatibility with environments that were already present for most of our customers. Unfortunately, these changes caused problems for some of our customers but through those problems came much advancement.
One of the advancements came in the re-writing of our client for Apple computers. At the outset of LabStats 5 the Mac client relied on the Mono framework to communicate with the server. In beta testing this worked well, but after the release we quickly found out that there were environmental limitations to the Mono framework. After many hours of work from our development team, we were able to release a version of the software that came with a native client for Mac machines. It has quickly proven itself to be far more reliable then the Mono based version and has also added an easier installation method as it can quickly be deployed through a .pkg and relies on no other software.
Another positive change came in the addition of an HTML5 view to LabMaps. Originally, Microsoft Silverlight was used as both the editor and viewer for LabMaps. Using Silverlight gave us a very powerful platform to use for editing maps, but the lack of compatibility with modern mobile devices quickly became a severe hindrance. The HTML5 LabMaps are easily viewed on your Android/iOS device, while also providing a “lighter” option for campus displays.
To add to the functionality and speed on the server end, we recently introduced the “Server Push Port.” This added port (8055 by default) allows for a constant, open connection from the client to the server. Having this constant connection and removing the need for a continual TCP handshake removes a drastic amount of load from the server’s processor and allows an even faster report of the machine’s real time status.
This leads us to the future, and what it holds for LabStats. As always, our development and support teams are always working to improve the functionality and usability of our product. We’re also very excited for the introduction of two new products, LabAlerts and LabGrab. Both of these products will offer new ways to utilize your labs and interact with the users.
I look forward to the future growth of LabStats and the growing value it can provide our customers.
- Christian Hayes, Computer Lab Solutions CEO
CEO Christian Hayes and Clint Moses from sales recently had the opportunity to visit Malaysia to meet with CLS’ first customer in Malaysia and other potential customers. They had a great time and met some great people. Clint shares his thoughts from the trip below.
The trip was great. Having never traveled to Asia before we didn’t know for sure how big of a change it would be culturally. I found that despite some cultural differences we had a great deal in common and the people there were so kind and helpful. We were always greeted by lots of smiling faces. At the schools we visited their IT staff members were fun, friendly and great to work with.
We went to the campus of our first customer in Malaysia and helped our reseller and one of his employees get LabStats up and running in their labs. The process went very smoothly and they seemed really excited to start using the product.
We also visited another school nearby where their IT Department is known for being innovators and early adopters of new technology. They were eager to see the capabilities of the product and the information it could provide them, and were excited to be one of the first to have the opportunity to deploy LabStats in Malaysia. They should be a customer shortly.
I am confident our re-seller CJ is going to do great things with LabStats in Asia. He is a hard-working and intelligent person. I am excited to work with him to take our product to a new market where the need for the information we provide in our product could be a great value.
Clint with LabStats re-seller CJ and the IT staff at Monash University.
Christian showing one of our re-seller's employees the ropes at Nottingham University.
Yes they even found some time for sight seeing. Here is Clint with a monkey at the Batu Caves.
Christian outside of the Batu Caves.
To supplement your support experience, we’ve started creating short support tip videos to explain easy-to-confuse processes or common problems. In these quick videos our support staff walks you through these common problems step-by-step. Hopefully these support tips can save you time and frustration and help you get these problems resolved quickly.
Here is one of our latest support tips videos, Common License Key Problems in LabStats.
And our course our support team is always happy to help you or answer questions at support@computerlabsolutions.com.
Look for more support tips videos to come.
Our senior developer, Dan, explains Application Grouping, a new feature that is coming soon to LabStats.
Check out what Tony Miller and David Creech from East Carolina University did with LabMaps. We thought it was pretty fly, and wanted to share it with you. Imagine the things you can do with your LabStats, when you start fiddling around.
We didn’t want to post huge pictures, but from the screen shots you can get a general idea of how it works. Basically if a student can see from the LabMap availability counter that Austin 104 has a lot of vacancy, they can then easily find where the lab is on the Google map.
Major props to Tony and David.
SIGUCCS was an amazing success! Clint and Jon had a great time visiting and hanging out with all of you, and enjoying the great weather!
Clint said, “I had a great time sharing information about LabStats with everyone and meeting many of those who make SIGUCCS happen each year. I can’t wait for SIGUCCS 2012 in Memphis! Thanks for coming to see us at our booth and we’ll see you all next year!”
Some pictures from the conference.
