10 Jan 2005:

Did you ever forget a floppy diskette, CD, or USB drive in or attached to a workstation? You wouldn't be alone; many people do.

Thanks to the efforts of student lab assistant Peter Paquette, there now is a means of notifying you when you leave formatted media in or a storage device attached to a workstation.

The facility consists of a script that runs when you logoff. It checks all drives that could have removable media inserted or attached, and if it can find formatted media for any of them (specifically, a valid volume id), it beeps the computer's speaker. It won't work for unformatted media, like a new diskette or CD-R.

So, please, the next time you hear a series of beeps after you or your neighbor logs off, please check for your media or USB drive and remove it from the computer, or tell your neighbor to do so.