Missing Jump Drive

Yesterday, something unfortunate happened. Someone lost a jump drive, there are flyers posted around the Studio about it. Everyone check through your bags and see if you didn't pick it up by mistake and return it to the person who lost it or to Robin, Art, or me as soon as possible. The person had a LOT of work on it.

Theft

While we do not know if what happened yesterday was an accident or theft, this is a good time to talk about theft before it becomes a problem. Theft is rare in the DDM but it does happen. We are a close group of friends and we trust each other. After a while for some of us it starts feeling like another room of our house, we forget that its a public place, so we forget about protecting our self. It happens to everyone. I do it my self, a few semesters ago I even left a hard drive in there and someone took it. Thankfully, I had everything backed up.

Stealing anything is not a good thing, but stealing a storage device is probably the meanest thing that someone can do in the DDM. When someone does this they are not just taking a $15 (or more) item, they are potentially taking hours, days, weeks, or even entire semester of work, work that could even help get them a job.

This semester is a hard one for all of us. As of now we have no student workers, no part-time, and Rob is not there as much as he use to be either. So we need to be a little more careful and depend on each other a little more than usual.

First Protect your self:

• Back Up ALL of your work in a few places.
• STOP working from storage devices:  (Storage device means STORAGE, NOT WORKING DEVICE. Save your work to the computer, put your STORAGE device away in your bag. Save it to your STORAGE device when your done). 
• Don't leave things in the studio.

Protect Each Other: 

• If you see someone get up and leave things offer to or at least try to keep an eye on there stuff until they get back.
• Watch for unfamiliar faces. The DDM Studios are for DDM Students ONLY. If you see someone you don't know ask if they are DDM students. If they are not, "NICELY" explain to them that they need to find a computer lab. If they refuse, tell one of the instructors, or go to the office and tell Linda or Frank (if they are not available who ever is working).
• Don't be offended or get upset if someone asks you if your a DDM student. This should make you feel better, because it tells you that someone is watching out for you and your stuff.

If you have other ideas how we can make the DDM Studios more safe please comment on this post.