Go see the lab use chart or read about it here.
This page describes the Current Lab Use page, which can be used to see how busy our labs are at the moment or find a lab with available computers. Try it and come back here if you have questions or want more information.The application presents several options to modify what is queried and displayed. You may choose platforms (Windows, Macintosh, Linux), types of labs to show (open, classrooms, or both), what to show (chart or data table), or particular buildings. A "query string" can be added to the web address if you do not want to manually select the options you want to use all the time.
Options for the query string are:
For example:
We might like to add to this application:
Counts are available for open labs (rooms not usually scheduled) and classrooms (rooms often scheduled for classes). The default is to show just open labs since we don't want to mislead you in thinking a classroom has available seats if there is a class scheduled. Soon we'll have class schedules available so we'll be able to show you when a classroom has open time.
Computers such as those in hallways, private labs, and various other facilities are not included in the data shown by this application.
Computers used by help desk consultants are included in the counts; while these are usually not available for general use, they are also usually in use and you usually wouldn't be misled into going to a full lab.
All logins and logouts are recorded for each computer by PALS, which has a private database with a record for every IP address that "logs into" Pals. Beginning November, 2003, an additional module reads the Pals IP address data every minute, and updates an MS SQL table of CLC computers when the login/logout status of that computer changes. CurrentLabUse.aspx reads that table (through a view; actually, a view of a view of the table) to get the number of computers and the number of computers that have someone logged on, by room and platform.
This program is not available for non-CLC labs because we don't have data tables defining the IP addresses of all your computers.
The Latest Change column shown in the data table view is the most recent logon or logoff among the computers in that platform/room group. For the chart view, the data time shown in the label "Lab use as of . . ." is the maximum date/time of the most recent login or logout for all the computers. If that time stamp is significantly old and it is not a holiday, then there may be something wrong with the module that does the database update every minute.
The program is written in VB.Net and uses ASP.Net and ADO.Net. The data table is produced by a GridView control bound at run time to a DataTable loaded by a SqlDataReader. The chart is produced by brute-force html (tables within a table, with the background color of the cells of the inner tables set to make the "bars") assigned to an ASP label. The data is obtained by a simple query and an SqlDataReader. In both cases, the totals are obtained via an SQL view.
Note that computers not "active" (broken or out for repair) are not included.
This all performs very well, most of the time. If it is occasionally slow, it is most likely the web server doing other things.
| Date | Who | Changes |
| 11/1/07 | cjs | Add libraries as a room type; default to open labs and library rooms. |
| 2/12/07 | cjs | Minor changes. |
| 2/1/07 | cjs | Major version update: - links on top to CLC pages - links for each room to details on that room - drop-down list to select a campus - try to default to the campus you are at - fix layout for building list (extend option panel) |
| 3/28/06 | cjs | Views changed to get login state from PalsUsers.Logins table |
| 3/21/06 | cjs | Add campus code and select on campus |
| 10/14/05 | cjs | Remove dtPing check in LabComputersView3 in case ping job breaks |
| 1/12/04 | cjs | Fix some invalid room assignments Put out current version, fixes some error I don't understand. |