Popular Shuttleboy Program Returns Temporarily

The popular "Shuttleboy" program, which allows students to get the three next shuttle arrival times at favorite points around campus, is now up and running again, its creator announced yesterday over a Pforzheimer House e-mail list.

David J. Malan '99, who first put the program on-line last October, had taken it down to update the shuttle schedule for the new school year.

Malan said that a recent Crimson article about the program, as well as messages from a series of Shuttleboy users, prompted him to finish updating the schedule.

"Thanks for liking him [Shuttleboy] so much," Malan wrote in the e-mail message. "I honestly never expected all the hype."

The solution is still temporary, however, as a permanent home has yet to be found for the program.

Shuttleboy, which resides within Malan's personal FAS account, will vanish when his account is closed, unless a more permanent solution can be found.

Malan, who is teaching computer science at the extension school, told the Crimson that he expects to leave his current post "this year or next," and Shuttleboy will lose its home on the FAS system at that point.

Rick Osterberg '96, coordinator of residential computing at Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS), said the organization would not allow the program onto the public domain of its servers due to concerns that HASCS would be stuck maintaining and supporting the program.