<p>Living 12 hours away, it made sense for us to load up the car with just what DS already owned here, and either have packages sent or shop in T-town for the rest. Bought a ton of stuff from Amazon, using Amazon Prime to avoid shipping fees, had it sent to the new mail center…just praying it would all be there when we got there and not be a hassle to pick up. Imagine our surprise when we showed up at the mail center at 4:45 one afternoon and by 5 pm, the boxes were delivered to DS’s room! There was absolutely no line. They had all of his 16 boxes (Amazon split my big order into a bunch of small shippments) on a big cart, he signed for it, they loaded it up into their van, drove it to the dorm and delivered straight into his room. Now they did caution us that this service was only available for move-in, otherwise he’d be carting his own boxes. I would give the new mail center an A+++ for move-in effeciency and service!</p>
<p>Great to hear that the mail center is up and running. DD will be receiving some textbooks Thurs/Fri of this week and it is reassuring that the mail center is ready to receive!</p>
<p>Glad to hear it. I just hope the experience is sustained when the real crush arrives…</p>
<p>Can you tell us where it is located? I did rent a box online, but son hasn’t gone by yet. We just got an email for books from a prof and they will have to be ordered and delivered to campus, with the short time notice, and hoping to find it quickly when we bring him back to campus Sunday evening.</p>
<p>Is the mail center accessible on the weekends?</p>
<p>Thanks for any info.</p>
<p>I don’t know about the hours, but it is located on the first floor of the Ferg. If you walk in by the from the fountain side, it’s just behind the Starbucks, on the left. The folks working there could not have been nicer, and this was at the end of a long day dealing with us new/lost parents!</p>
<p>It is located in the Ferg, in the same space the former USPS occupied. The Paty package center is no more.</p>
<p>[Campus</a> Mail - The University of Alabama](<a href=“http://campusmail.ua.edu/ferguson.html]Campus”>http://campusmail.ua.edu/ferguson.html)</p>
<p>The people are so nice and caring there. The manager walked us to the box, tested the combo and we discovered it did not work. So glad she did because I could see my child just never opening it and thinking it was her (she is not good at combo style locks). I knew that they send you an email if you have a package but they send you an email if you have mail too!! Nothing worse than going to the mailbox and it being empty!!! There are also security cameras facing each box area too.</p>
<p>Just ordered a HDMI/DVI cable for my son to be shipped to the mail center. I was wondering how it was going to work out.</p>
<p>Is the cable to tv digital? S0 Do you need a regular coax cable or hdmi to get a picture?</p>
<p>He needs to connect his laptop to a display. His laptop has a HDMI connection and his display has a DVI connection.</p>
<p>Interestingly, his room in RCW didn’t have a cable TV connection, but the other rooms did. No big deal though since he doesn’t want a TV in his room anyway.</p>
<p>Also, he said that the download speeds are throttled. I guess they want to preserve bandwidth.</p>
<p>The cable system on campus is analog cable. There is no “digital” or HD available. The channel lineup claims some of the channels are HD, but in reality this is not the case. They might originate in HD, but the implementation by UA does not preserve any channels originated as such.</p>
<p>The good news is that no sort of converter or set-top box is required. The bad news is that the picture quality is utterly craptastic.</p>
<p>I hadn’t experienced or observed reports there was any sort of throttling going on, but with a campus that big, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for the network management and security myself.</p>
<p>Although anecdotal, I did notice last year in Presidential that any sort of Bluetooth peripheral was useless, I am sure 900+ kids in such close proximity, each with a phone that probably has it would be a contributing factor to the resulting wireless congestion.</p>
<p>For those of you whose kiddies purchased the mailbox service for this year, the notification widget on their myBama page is quite nice. I was pleasantly surprised … they WILL know if they have packages.</p>
<p>There are hd channels. They are on the .1 channel above the respective analog channel. Some TVs sort analog and digital channels differently which makes finding the channels difficult but most order the channels in numerical order with digital and analog being next to each other. </p>
<p>I lived on campus and received HD channels fine on my television. It’s important to remember to scan for digital channels using the menu as they will not just be there like analog channels.</p>
<p>East Edge claimed to have HD channels but they were downconverted feeds of the HD channels occupying a digital space. UA’s HD channels all come in at 720P and should not be experiencing downconversion.</p>
<p>No lines and nice staff at the Mail Center! However, the van-delivery deal is only in effect on official move-in days…DD carried a HEAVY, HUGE BOX with a gel mattress topper back to the dorm…I assisted with two lesser packages. ;-)</p>
<p>Where were those 6’4" dudes. :)</p>
<p>That is exactly what dd wanted…</p>
<p>To know.</p>
<p>Rookies…</p>
<p>WHAT?! The center was not open today…went by ~4pm and all doors/access to mailboxes locked. What’s up with that? This is very unexpected. I thought they had access to their box, even when center office is shut?</p>
<p>Aeromom, you needed to go in to other entrance.</p>
<p>Which entrance is that? We went to one opposite supe + a back/side door. We asked people; we asked UA people. Everyone was as puzzled as we were.</p>