Steen says that in a complaint-driven business, there are many things to do at one time--and HASCS must choose between fixing small problems that bother a few users or preparing larger items for the future.

"New accounts and courses supersede stuff likefinger--there are priority items involved," Steenexplains. "We can't handle everything at once."

The director says the organization iscontinually on the move, preparing for the presentand the future at the same time.

Network activity is increasing by about 50percent a year, Steen says, "and we have toprepare for that. But at the same time, we have todeal with the current problems."

"We have to prioritize," Steen says, "but theremight be some dispute about what's mostimportant."

Steen was criticized earlier this year when hefailed to act promptly to shut down access to alog file which contained the names of students andfaculty and the files they had downloaded. Some ofthe students were teaching fellows who haddownloaded pornographic material.

Steen said at that time that closing the logfile was not a priority for HASCS because usershad not complained about its accessibility.

Some students still complain that HASCS'semployees maintain endless "to-do" lists and thatrequests for the most minor improvements sometimetake weeks to be implemented.

"Sometimes I ask for them to fix something likethe 'fortune' command," Richard B. Osterberg '96says. "It would take just half an hour to compileit on the three machines, but they just don't havethe time to do it."

Fortune is a command which gives usersdifferent fortune cookie saying every time theylog on.

Critic also say HASCS has several vacancies inthe organization, some in crucial positions.

Steen has not yet hired a UNIX systemadministrator; currently, two employees maintain asystem for 14,000 users.

UNIX Systems Manager Michael G. Burner, who byall accounts was the soul of HASCS's UNIX systems,resigned last summer to take an outside positionthat he "couldn't resist," according to Osterberg.

"Mike Burner...now that is one third of thebrain's behind the UNIX system resigning rightbefore the installation," Kim says.

Osterberg echoed Kim's sentiment.

"Burner was god-upon-god of Harvard Unixsystems," he says.