Computing

Working from Home

Communications

Slack

Most everyone at NCEAS, in the office and remote, is signed into Slack for most of the day. See our Slack page.

Zoom

Everyone with a UCSBnetID has a personal Zoom room available to hold video calls or conferences. Sign into your Zoom account.

Email/Calendaring

Email and Calendaring are the same when working remotely. Sign into your G Suite account. See more details at email and calendaring.

Sharing files and working collaboratively on office documents can be done with Google Drive and Google Docs using the G Suite login. More details are at Google Drive.

Accessing Business and Analytical Servers

Some NCEAS services, such as the AdminDB and GUS, can only be accessed from NCEAS’ network, or from the UCSB VPN. The same applies for certain services on analytical servers, such as Samba on Aurora and Mazu.

We recommend using the UCSB VPN (UCSBnetID required) for most use cases, though sshuttle or Remote Desktop might be better options depending on the use case.

UCSB VPN (preferred, download from NCEAS if you don’t have a UCSB G Suite account.)
NCEAS VPN (macOS/Linux only)
Remote Desktop for macOS or Windows or some Linux servers.

More Remote Access Options

See our Remote Access page.

Home Networking

The best option, by far, is to work on a wired ethernet connection:

If that’s not possible, some other options which may help:

Moving your Wi-Fi router to a place closer or with less walls between it and your computer
Plugging in other devices which use your Wi-Fi (other computers, streaming boxes, TVs, etc)
Purchasing a new Wi-Fi router or mesh kit (see Router or Mesh Kit recommendations from The Wirecutter)
Checking the DOCSIS version of your cable modem or calling Cox. You can test your cable connection by plugging your computer directly into the cable modem and running speed tests, bypassing your Wi-Fi and router.

Test your speed:

Netflix speed test
Cox speed test (for those using Cox at home)