Each member of the Skirball Institute
has exclusive access to a portion of the Saturn server that has been allocated
to his or her group. Group members also have access to a shared Lab directory
within the group's several gigabytes of storage.
The purpose of these user
volumes is to ease collaboration between institute members and foster
adoption of a digital workflow wherever possible. It is far easier to
cooperate on a centrally organized project to which everyone has simultaneous
access than one which is chaotically spread across many different hard
drives.
In order to realize the full
benefits of an all-digital workflow, certain basic guidelines need to
be observed.
- All files related to a current,
on-going project should be stored on a universally accessible, secure
server, such as Saturn
- Systematically named directories
should be created and organized into useful hierarchies: e.g. a "documents"
folder which contains, among other things, a "grants" folder which contains,
among other things folders named "NIH", "DARPA" and "Met Life".
- Every file should be stored
in the appropriate directory as soon as it is created: e.g. scanned
images in "images", text in "texts", composite documents in "documents",
and so on.
- Do not move or rename the
files or directories until the project has been completed and archived.
After they have been safely stored on CDROM or other durable media,
the files are deleted from the server, making room for new projects.
Cross Platform Considerations
If you plan to use your files
on a mixture of Macintosh, PC or UNIX computers, remember to use file names,
formats and fonts which are compatible with all of the systems.
File and Directory Names
- Unix names must not contain
spaces or non-alphabetic characters such as slashes, colons, parentheses.
- DOS and Windows names
must not exceed eight characters total length, of which the last three
are a file-extension.
- Macintosh names must not
exceed 31 characters.
File Formats
- Use generic image and
file formats such as TIFF, EPS and TEXT wherever possible. If a cross-platform
software package such as Microsoft Word is used, use its native format.
- Access shared files by
opening them from mounted server volumes, rather than by alternately
downloading and uploading revised versions.
Fonts
- Use standard Postscript
fonts, such as Helvetica, Times, and Courier instead of Geneva, Ariel,
or New York.
- Use caution in applying
exotic font styles, such as Outline, Underline and Shadow.
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