Academia, please use source control!

Dear Faceless, Nameless, System Admin at the University department where my unnamed wife works,

Let's call you Tyler and we'll call her Mary.

Tyler, please consider installing SVN (server side) and Tortuous SVN (client side) so that Mary doesn't have to cry on a Sunday mornings because someone (who will definitely remain nameless) started making changes on a different document than the most current document.

It's easy and fun. You install SVN as a web application (MS or Unix servers are both an easy install) and then your users can either access their docs directly through the web page or via an installed client call Tortuous SVN. No more shared drives, no more crying about lost documents.

Before SVN:

Them: "I know I saved it

You: "uh yeah, but then someone overwrote it on the shared drive with an older version!"

After SVN:

Them: "Wow things are so easy"

You: "Yeah, I'll have another Oberon."

SVN is so simple to use that even software developers can use it. Imagine what people with actual intelligence could do?