A new help desk that opened last week in the Faner Computer Learning Center to help SIUC students connect to the Internet from home is making computer advice more available to those with heavy day-time class loads, desk staff members say.

Tim Smith, a senior in computer science, said he spent his Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks setting up the new help desk. He said the facility is designed to help students with problems regularly encountered while connecting to the Internet through SIUC’s server.

Smith said the help desk handles basic questions about on line access and applications and refers more complex problems to the Information Technology Customer Service Center.

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The Customer Service Center employs full-time faculty and staff while the Help Desk is staffed by undergraduate students working part time, he said.

Joel Kimme, a sophomore in computer science who works at the help desk, said it is designed specifically for students, with evening hours not available at the faculty and staff-oriented Customer Service Center.

Students don’t keep banker’s hours, he said. But I think a lot of them think we do because I have been here from 4-7 p.m. at times when only a couple people showed up all evening.

Smith said the desk has two computers and two staff members on duty from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday and 4 to 8 p.m. Sundays.

This is the busiest lab on campus, so we are able to help lots of people with problems here, he said. We offer help on a walk-in basis, and when we get our phone lines we’ll do call-backs to see how people are doing.

Smith said students interested in connecting to the Internet through SIUC should come to Computer Learning Center One with two double-sided, high-density 3.5 floppy disks to pick up a package of software provided free by the lab.

Properly installing and setting up these applications is how the help desk staff spends most of its time, Smith said. He said most visitors to the desk have problems connecting to the SIUC server.

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Kimme said once the software is properly installed on a student’s personal computer, exploring the applications and learning their capabilities through trial and error is the best way to become familiar with the programs.

You can just play around and figure out how things work, he said. A lot of people are afraid of messing things up, but once the programs are installed you can’t hurt much.

Visitors to the help desk may leave with more new knowledge than they expected because the staff tries to teach students as much as possible about their new applications, Smith said.

Usually we go as far as we can with a person, he said. They have a narrow view of what they need to know, but once we’ve given them that information, we try to help them understand anything we think they need to know.

Kimme said students should try to keep their time on the server to a minimum by doing things such typing e-mail messages before they connect. He said although the University server has 88 modems in operation, there are so many users that it can take dozens of tries to connect.

Get on line, do what you need to do and get off. It’s fairer for everybody, he said. If you are connected and not doing anything, it is even harder for everyone else to connect.