So.... who else hates MUGSI? I've been trying to get on that damn thing all day. Up until about 2 hours ago i wasn't even getting to the first website. I was just getting a server time out error.
Hey, McMaster, here's an idea. You've got something like 20-30 thousand students... why not make a server capable of handling at LEAST that many users at one time? Yes it will be redudant 95% of the time, but that way students will be able to see their marks and change their courses when they want too.
OR, why not make SOLAR accessable 24/7? why does it get shut off a night? do they have some sort of SOLAR master who sits at a terminal approving all requests all day long? I think not.
Come on McMaster. get on the ball. what the hell am i paying you $10000 a year for?

All good points.

I'm not sure about why MUGSI is down (I had the same issue), but every year UTS gets a huge spike in traffic to MUGSI when classes start. I think they made a good decision to move the timetable out of MUGSI and put it on a separate server because the timetable is what I would imagine would be busiest. So, in that respect I think it has improved from last year with the downtime, but it still has room for improvement.

As for SOLAR, Mac is moving towards it being up 24/7. Apparently there are a bunch of processes that need to be run nighly to update all the databases university-wide about the various changes you made to your schedule. When you add or drop a class and submit it, it doesn't end there.. there are a lot of things that have to happen behind the scenes to process the request and they don't get done until nighttime when SOLAR goes down. UTS is working on a way to make it 24/7 though... so some day... we'll be able to drop a class when we're sleep deprived at 4am hehe

btw... what program are you in that's costing you $10,000/yr? LOL

I had issues getting my timetable two days ago but was able to get it yesturday just fine

Lol. i exagerate slightly. my program costs me like... $6000 ish. maybe a bit more? plus after i buy books and everything, i dunno. its a lot of money.

Speaking of money Fletch, you bring up a good point, one that is my biggest annoyance... CUSTOM COURSEWARE.

$100 for a hardcover textbook? Ok... maybe thats fair. At least I can keep it on my shelf, or sell it back to the bookstore.

$80 for custom courseware which is just photocopies of a few dozen pages and is non-refundable and flimsy?


I think if we should be complaining about anything, it should be custom courseware

I agree! And also, canceled classes piss me off too. I mean, yeah, i don't go to every one of my classes... but god damnit i want to option too! i have one prof in particular who canceled like 6 or 7 lectures last year... if you figure that each course costs roughly $500, and there are... what? 14 weeks in the term... that's like 42 lectures... so that works out to roughly $11 per lecture.. so if he canceles 6 classes, that's $66! i should get that money back or something. i dunno.

but yeah, custom coursewear is a load of shit. just a way for the school/profs to make more money if you ask me. drives me nuts.

lol. Its all about the $$$. Remember... university is a business these days.

I think performance has improved from last year, but it is still pretty slow

It might be better if you didn't have to get to SOLAR through MUGSI.
That just seems unnecessary and makes it doubly annoying to access your SOLAR stuff.

I was ready to stab my eyes out with a rusty spoon during course selection but now I know if I go online around 5:30-6 am no one is on, usually.