Bad news: We will probably never host another LAN.

You all had probably figured that out already given the profound lack of activity, but I thought we should make it official. Christopher and I worked hard to make progress with the administration once I got back from Europe. After pulling some strings, we managed to score a meeting with Teresa Remelius, the Dean of Students, and Roberta Ambur, the Chief Information Officer.

We came prepared. We had put together a proposal for what we wanted in terms of support. The sticking point, of course, was any Internet access. I had surveyed a ton of other university-affiliated LAN clubs around the country to show that our requests were in-line with national trends. We put together a firewall proposal that we could implement to allay ITS' security concerns. We also put together some material about how hosting regular, successful LAN parties on campus would benefit the U. in terms of recruitment, making USD less of a commuter campus, etc.

Early on in the meeting it became clear that all ITS had to do was say "we worry about security," and that was the end of it. CIO Ambur did not want to talk about specifics, so I requested a meeting with the new Chief IT Security Officer, Joe Brayer.

Christopher and I met with him a few weeks later. He was unwilling to put a linux router on the network, but he was impressed that we had actually put together a thorough proposal. He was going to meet with his people and get back to us. We heard from him after a few weeks. ITS would wire some special network ports into the rooms we commonly use that would go straight out to the Internet without interacting with USD's local network. That would solve their security concerns. We could hook anything we wanted up to it without any interference at all. We would have a limited but consistent amount of bandwidth available. Basically, we got everything we needed. We were overjoyed. It would take some time to do the wiring, but they said the first room would be ready after Winter break.

Of course, that did not work out. When the semester started up again, I got an e-mail from Joe explaining that we were basically screwed:

Thanks for your patience while we tried to find a room for the gaming port. Over the last several weeks Student Services has been searching for, and discussing, possible locations to put a gaming port. They have determined that there isn't a room that we can put the gaming room port in.

It took me two years of fighting the administration to make a deal on our reasonable request. Once we finally won them over, the CSC was being torn down and Continuing Ed was going to be full of CSC stuff. Together with Dean Remelius, we looked for other places on campus, but none of them seemed workable. I was convinced that there were no other options until a week or so ago when I got an e-mail talking about other meeting rooms on campus. A couple of them sound almost possible. Who knows?

All I know is that I am at my wit's end. I'm just tired of it all. LANs would make this school a better place, but almost without exception (I am grateful to Rick Haught for his support and devotion to students) the administration here has been, at best, passive-aggresively hostile. Maybe I am just projecting after two years of getting the run-around, but this last move by ITS, et al. to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory just feels like more of the same.

I have not done a good enough job of staying in contact with everyone during the year, and accordingly it seems like everyone has lost interest. At least that is what everyone I spoke to has said. So it seems like the time has come to burry u.frag. If anyone wants to get active and keep fighting the system, by all means let me know. I probably have some fight left in me, but I need to know if people actually care anymore.

Anyway, I want to thank everyone who supported us or came to our parties. I hope you all had a great time. I know that Christopher and I did.

Cheers,

Matt Rognstad
u.frag president

Big update. Lots of important stuff. Please read.

First, some site news: We switched our web hosting to a more sustainable solution. We transferred all the site's files and backed up the database, so everything should be working correctly. If you find any errors in the actual site, please let us know so we can fix them.

We also changed our domain name from ufrag.org to u-frag.org. We had to do this because we messed up during the transfer process and accidentally released our ownership of the old domain. Then a cyber squatter ripped the old one out from under our feet literally the instant it happened; he had a standing order for the domain. The guy also owns ufrag.net and ufrag.com (neither of which have actual web sites). Presumably he's just trying to get some money from us; we weren't going to play that game. Bottom line is he's a prick, but we screwed up. It won't happen again.

Please, do NOT go to the old site. The jerk who squatted our domain makes money from every hit. He spent enough to buy ufrag.com and ufrag.net as well, so he's spent a decent ammount of money. Let's make sure he loses money on the deal. So anyway, please update your bookmarks or whatever.

Second, a question about the theme for the site: When I made the design, I purposely made the forums open in a new window because I hate having them smooshed into the normal design. Christopher told me that a number of prefer to have everything in one window and are using an older (and uglier!) theme to make that happen. I'm attaching a poll to this story. You need to click on the 'comments' link to see the poll. I want to know if (1) you're happy with how things are now, (2) want the forums to open within the normal site theme, i.e. they would sit where all the news stories do on this page, or (3) want to forums to open full-screen like they do now, but you want it to happen in the same window as you used to go to the main site. I can modify the current theme to do all of those. If there is sufficient interest, I can make all three. Then you can set which one you want in your profile, and it will use your prefered theme for your visits as long as you're logged in.

Finally, an update regarding future LANs: We have NOT given up. We're just trying to resolve the Internet access issue. We had a meeting last Friday with The U.'s CIO and Dean of Students. This coming Friday we're meeting with the chief of security for ITS. There are a couple options in discussion. Christopher and I are committed to making this work. We'll keep you all updated.

Thanks, and we hope you all had a good Dakota Days!

We're thinking about setting up a dedicated server in Christopher's dorm room. We'll be running a CS 1.6 server on it. We can probably run one other game. What should it be? Check out the poll in the forums.

Just a quick note to let people know that I revamped the links section of the site. It should be easier to find what you want now. I also added a couple major sections. One is about security software, e.g. anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewalls. All the stuff in there is totally free. THere are also links to free games and cool networking programs. I suggest you give a look.

Edit:

There is a forum poll about whether and when we should have more LANs. Please vote.

Here's a thread for posting Mediacom information.

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Hey everyone, I'm back from Europe. w00t! I had a blast over there, but now it is time to get down to business.

It looks like the site has stagnated since I left. That sucks. You all need to get on the forums and start posting stuff. I know a lot of you are wanting a LAN party. Based on how things went in March and how much time I've had to spend during previous LANs trying to trick computers into playing CS without an Internet connection, I'm not too optimistic that it would work given the current situation.

I am going to lean really hard on ITS to try to make some progress on that front. We'll have a better shot at convincing them to work with us if we can demonstrate that we are an active community of gamers, so seriously hit the forums. Bring your friends.

As a possible (and I stress that it is only a possibility) alternative, we could try to get Mediacom to hook us up with cable modem access in the CSC. That might not work out. Perhaps the physical cabling makes it impossible. Perhaps USD won't allow it. Perhaps Mediacom would want money. I don't know what all could go wrong, but lots of things could stand in the way. In the meantime, I will have better leverage if I have a big list of people who are Mediacom subscribers. So if you subscribe to Mediacom TV or Internet and go to our LANs, please send us an e-mail, post a comment, or post in the forums and tell me what the name on the bill is (probably your parents) and what you subscribe to and where (e.g. Matthew Rognstad, TV and Internet, Vermillion). Thanks.

Tim Goehring, the advisor for MTI's Technology Club, dropped us a note about an upcoming LAN they're hosting from 10:00AM April 16 to noon April 17. Admission is $10, which includes some pizza. He seems like a good guy, so I think it would be great if some of you jerks headed up there to do some gamer, er, networking. (Har har, I can hear the groans for that one all the way over here in Europe; sorry.)

Anyway, here's the link to their site. Check it out.

As mentioned in the last story, we're going to be having a LAN this coming Saturday, March 19th. It'll be in the Frankenfeld rooms again. The price is three dollars if you register, five if you don't. As usual, we'll be providing the soda, and you can have as much as you can drink. The LAN is running a bit later than most of our previous LANs, and we think this'll make it way more awesome.

This LAN, in addition to PC gamers, we're also going to have a lot of xboxes and xbox players. So, bring your box, a TV (if you can), and some friends. We'll also have a few LCD projectors to hook your boxes up to, but those are first-come first-serve.

Anyways, that's about it. I expect to see all you ladies and gents at the lan! We're gonna have a blast!

Due to poor planning, and a lack of involvement on the part of the U.Frag leadership team, we didn't get our crap together in time for this LAN.
We've recently undergone a change in leadership, and are all trying to get used to our new responsiblities, as well as balancing those of school and work.
The LAN has been rescheduled to March 19. I apologize for the confusion and the rescheduling.

We're going to be having our next LAN party February 26th. The location has yet to be determined, so stay posted for more info.

From what I've heard, most people seem to think the LAN was a great success. I certainly agree; in my view, it was the best LAN I've attended in Vermillion (and I've been to a ton).

I want to thank everyone who gamed with us. LANs aren't much fun unless people show up for them, and you all did just that in droves. I think it was the higher attendence that set this LAN above our previous events. Thanks a ton. As someone who invested tens of hours behind the scenes getting things organized, I cannot express how energizing it is to have things go so well. I really makes me want to put in the effort next time!

Also, we should all give a huge "thank you" to HyVee for helping us out with all the soda we consumed. We had about twelve twelve-packs, and we drank almost all of it.