The "ship taking on water" has plugged many of its leaks.

Student computer users and staff of the Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) say the organization has engineered a dramatic turnaround from one year ago, when then-Acting Director Richard Steen described HASCS in a confidential memo as a "ship taking on water faster than it can bail it out."

A two-month Crimson investigation last February and March found that HASCS--which maintains the network used by student and faculty for everything from personal e-mail messages to research--was plagued by staff and space shortages, budgetary constraints and poor working conditions.

A lot can happen in a year, however.

Last May, Yale's Director of Instructional Computing Services Franklin M. Steen, no relation to Richard, took over as permanent director of HASCS.

Since that time, Steen has overseen an extensive overhaul of Harvard's computing resources, both machine and human.

In terms of computers, Steen created a main UNIX machine ("fas"), installed the 35 Hewlett Packard workstations donated last year, split the mail and newsgroup servers off from each other to increase the efficiency of both and purchased a Net-work Appliance Box to distribute files more consistently across the network.

Steen has also restructured his staff and greatly increased the number of user assistants in an effort to move assistance away from the Science Center and into the Houses.

"Frank is largely responsible for the improvement," says Eugene E. Kim '96, former president of the Harvard Computer Society (HCS). "He is a mover and shaker and gets things done quickly and efficiently."

"Frank Steen is surviving and progressing admirably," adds Paul Martin, dean of the division of applied sciences and co-chair of the Committee on Information Technology.

Although Kim credits Steen with greatly remedying HASCS's former situation, he says it could still be improved.

"I'm a very critical person and I think [HASCS is] far from even close to being perfect, but...comparing with last year, what they have done is remarkable," Kim says.

Users and staff members say HASCS tends to be defined more by its mistakes than its successes.

"No one notices that the news service has been up since February 24," says Thomas W. Heft, a senior UNIX systems programmer.

But everyone notices when the computers crash or the network goes down.