Before embarking on your first lab assignment, there are some preliminaries you must learn (in addition to the basic Web and Windows skills that got you to this page): lab use policies, how our labs are set up, how to log into the ICS computer network, how our printing system (PayPrint) works, how to have the Engineering Copy center print sections of this Lab Manual for you, how to read and post to news groups from our lab.
So, this rather lengthy orientation has been put together to help you master these preliminaries. We’ve put together a series of pseudo-lab exercises that let you practice and apply the material as it is presented. Read all of this orientation section; practice the parts that are new to you, or for which you need review; do the activities needed for the class (e.g., activating your computer accounts) you’ve not yet done.
Pay attention to the details given here, as common computing tools or activities are often somewhat different in lab than, say, on your home computer. For example: Many of you know how to use Netscape Communicator or Microsoft Outlook to process email. But, since lab machines are shared, we don’t use these to do email; we instead have you connect to your UCInetID account using a tool called SecureCRT, and you do your email from there using a tool called Pine. So though you may know how to do email, you may not know how to do it from lab.
You must read a few documents stored on the Web that address ethical use of computing resources and academic honesty issues. (You may also be asked to read some of these documents in the course of activating computer accounts.) We require you to read these documents because, unfortunately, a few students in the past have abused their computer privileges or acted dishonestly and claimed ignorance of the wrongness of their actions. Do note that remaining or enrolling in this course binds you to abiding by these rules.
Go to the Web page ICS Instructional Lab Rules. Read the documents referenced under General Information about Ethics and the Lab Specific Guidelines section.
Read the UCI Academic Senate Policies on Academic Honesty and the Information and Computer Science Cheating Policy.
These documents cover several important policies about academic honesty that apply to you.
As we said in the Course Reference, you need to activate your UCInetID and ICS computer accounts. Follow the instructions there for doing so.
Important Note: It’s possible some particulars of the network will change after this lab manual has been printed. If any of those changes affect the instructions given here, we’ll announce them either in lecture or priority lab times.
Each first-floor ICS lab room has from 30 to 45 stations or clients forming a local area network (or LAN); Windows XP Professional is the operating system for each station. Each machine is an IBM-PC compatible that has more than enough horsepower for the work we will be doing in this class. There are also shared printers and several shared disk drives (called file servers). Each LAN connects to other LANs thoughout the ICS buildings and, through various mechanisms, to other computer networks and the Internet.
Most machines have a diskette drive that accepts 3-1/2" diskettes in IBM format only. All machines have a CD-ROM drive that can read both “computer” and music CDs and USB ports that can accept a memory stick. The machine also has a large local hard disk, where we store software for your use and where you can temporarily store your work—once you leave lab, you must remove all your work (and only your work, nothing else!) from the hard drive; more on this below.
Through your station you can also access the class file server and use the shared printers; we’ll talk more about these devices, as needed, below.
A word about rocking out while you compute: Yes, it’s true: You can bring your own music into the lab, on CDs or MP3 players or whatever, and listen to it while you compute—as long as you listen through headphones and otherwise do not disturb your neighbors. (You must supply the headphones.) We’re amazed how loud some of you play music. Loud music can permanently damage your hearing, and can be heard throughout the lab, even if you wear headphones. So, keep the volume down. If you do not, we may forbid you from listening to music (or anything else) in the lab. (See the ICS Instructional Lab Rules for more on this matter.)
The logon state: Unlike some other local area networks, Windows requires you to log on to the network, even if you don’t plan to use network resources.
When you sit down at a lab station, it could be in a number of states:
The most common state is a blue screen with a box labeled Welcome to Windows. The box contains the message Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to begin or a dialog box labeled Log On to Windows. If you see the Welcome to Windows box, press down the Ctrl key (and hold it), then the Alt key (and hold it), then the Delete key. You will get a message reminding you to save all your important work on your H: drive (more on this below). Click on OK to dismiss the message; the Log On to Windows box will appear.
If you see a black screen, or a black screen with a Windows XP logo dancing around on it, move the mouse. It may take a few seconds, but you should then see the blue screen with the Welcome to Windows box.
If the computer seems to be in a state other than described above, or you have trouble getting the Log On to Windows box, ask the Lab Attendant on duty or your TA (if present) for assistance.
Logging on: In the Log On to Windows box, at the User name: prompt, enter your user name; at Password:, enter your password; the password will echo as dots, to protect it. (You obtained your user name and passwordwhen you activated your ICS account.) If the Log on to: box does not say UCI-ICS, click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the box. When the menu appears, click on UCI-ICS. Then click on OK. (If you do not yet have your login and password, use the guest account login name and password for now. But do activate and use your own account as soon as you can.)
If your login and password are correct, you will be asked to wait for some seconds while the computer logs you in. Eventually, you will see a scenic background, a Recycle Bin icon, and a Start button (at the lower left of the screen). That’s it; you’re logged on!
Note: You will want to change your password whenever you think your password has been compromised. To do so, hold down Ctrl and Alt and hit Delete. A dialog box will appear; choose Change Password…, fill in the old password and new password (twice) as prompted, and click on OK to make the change. If your password change is accepted, you’ll get a message to that effect; click on OK to dismiss it. If the password change was not successful, you’ll be told that as well; read the message, dismiss it, and try changing your password again. Keep at it until you enter an accepted password.
Remember your password! No one can look up your password–it’s encrypted. So, if you forget your password, you will have to send electronic mail to helpdesk@ics.uci.edu to request that it be set to a new one (that you’ve given in the message), wait a day or two for the change to occur, and then log in and change your password so that (again) no one knows what it is.
When you are done using the computer:
Be sure to exit any applications you had open.
Make sure to back up any work you wish to keep, and be sure to take any diskettes with you. Keep them in a safe place, away from magnets (like speakers or telephones), intense heat (like your dashboard), and the (filled) bathtub.
Make very sure you have deleted all of your work, but only your work, that you were keeping on the computer’s hard disk.
Click on Start, click on Log Off. You will be asked if you are sure you want to log off; click on Log Off. This step logs you out, and leaves the machine in the logon state, ready for the next user. Logging out can take several seconds; please be patient.
Be sure to log out; if you do not, the next person who uses the machine has access to your account! Please, always leave the machine in the logon state.
We do not require print outs of any kind in this class, but you may find you wish to print some of the course materials, such as all or part of the Lab Manual, for easier reference. (After all, you don’t have to have a computer handy to read printed materials.)
ICS or NACS computer labs use the PayPrint system to provide printing services. Instuctions for using PayPrint in ICS labs is at Printing in the Labs; the PayPrint system in NACS labs works the same way. Note you have to purchase a PayPrint card to use this facility.
Since the PayPrint system provides you access to printers in labs across campus, be sure to print to the station you intend, so that your output will go where you expect. (Otherwise, you might be taking a very long walk to get your output!) It’s usually best to send your print out to a station in the room you’re in.
If you prefer, the Engineering Copy Center will provide you hard copy of any ICS 21 class web site: just go to the ECC and provide them the Web address of the material you want printed. The ECC charges five cents a page, half the cost of printing in the labs!
We post our assignment and exam scores on UCI's Electronic Educational Environment (EEE) web site. To see your scores, follow these instructions, courtesy of eee Help facility:
To access your grades on EEE:
Go to the EEE homepage at http://eee.uci.edu/
Click the 'Secure Sign In' button and enter your UCInetID and UCInetID password at the prompt
After login you will be taken to your personal 'My EEE' page
Locate the course you wish to view grades for from the boxes down the center
If grades are available you will see a 'Grades' link on the right-hand side, click this link
Your grades for this course will be listed
EEE has several ohter faciliteis you may find useful; explore it!
You should know how to back up your work to diskette or to a “memory stick.” You can also back up your work by copying it to the H: drive. H: will be “mounted”—made available to you—when you log in; it corresponds to disk storage associated with your ICS Unix account. You use the H: drive the same way as you use the C: drive. Storage there is ample for this course, but if you start storing all sorts of things there, you may find yourself out of room. You can get to the H: drive by clicking on Start, then My Computer, then double-clicking on the H: drive icon (it is under the Network Drives section of the window and is the one with (H:) as the last part of its label).
It is your responsibility to safeguard your work—and that includes making backup copies of it. If you lose your work, and you don’t have a backup, you will get no mercy from us: in particular, the assignment date will not be changed for you. If you have a backup, and it too fails because of circumstances beyond your control, we will consider extending your due date a day or two. See your lab TA if you think you are entitled to an extension because of a “backup failure.”
Do not write to the root of the C drive, that is, to C:\. Even it the computer lets you do so—and it probably won’t—you may inadvertently change or delete some files important to the computer’s functioning. Do not store things on your desktop. The computer lets you only store a limited amount of work there. Instead, write to the C:\Temp folder.
You can get to the C:\Temp folder by clicking on Start, then My Computer, then double-clicking on the C: drive icon (it is under the Hard Disk Drives section of the window and is the one with (C:) as the last part of its label). You may get a message warning you that the contents of the drive are hidden (for your protection); if this message appears, click on the line at the bottom of the window that says you want to show the drive's contents. The contents of the root level of the C: drive will appear. You will see the Temp folder there.
When you are done using the computer, you must delete your work —and only your work—from the hard drive. This includes any files or folders you have created (all of which should be in Temp). You probably first want to back up your work; just copy the folders and files to whatever drive letter corresponds to your backup device (A:, E: or H:). Be sure to also empty the Recycle Bin, if it isn’t already empty. (The easiest way to do this is to select the Recycle Bin, right-click on the mouse, and select Empty Recycle Bin.) You can also rapidly delete files by clicking on them and then holding down the Shift key and then hitting the Delete key; when asked if you are sure you want to delete the files, click on Yes. This approach deletes the files immediately. Never, ever delete files other than your own; you could make the computer nonfunctional!
Do note: the machines in lab are remotely reinitialized as required; among other things, that means any work you leave on the C drive overnight may be irrevocably destroyed. So be sure to copy any of your work on the hard drive to a diskette whenever you leave lab.
Further, if you leave your work on the hard drive, someone could copy it and turn it in as her or his work–a cheating situation in which you would be (inadvertently) involved. This scenario has happened! So protect yourself; remember to delete your work from the hard drive.
And one last, important note: It is surprisingly easy to copy, by mistake, a shortcut for a file or folder to your floppy or the H: drive instead of the actual file or folder. If you do, you will not have saved your work! Remember, a shortcut just points to your work; it is not a copy of it. If you save the shortcut, you’ve saved the file’s (or folder’s) location on the hard drive of the particular computer you used. Even if you return to that computer, the information will probably be gone! Be careful to copy your work, not shortcuts to it.
One feature of the Internet is its electronic news groups. There are thousands of them. Each is a repository of related information of interest to a group of people. Since each has an Internet address, one can post messages to a news group by sending email to it (although there are easier ways). Reading a news group requires the use of a news reader, which lets you read news groups, write messages to them, make a copy of postings to your printer or disk, and follow threads, messages that are linked because they are responses to the same initial message.
Accessing news groups
Fortunately, IE has a news reader as well as a Web browser; get to it by going to the IE Tools menu, selecting Mail and News and then selecting Read News. (You might be asked if you want to make Outlook your default mail handler; say no.) To learn to use the newsgroup tool, click on Help (in the Microsfot Outlook Newsreader window) and select Contents and Index. In the left window you will see an entry for Viewing and Posting to Newsgroups. All you need to know to read and post to newsgroups should be there.
Of course, there are other ways to access news groups and you can access news groups using any tool you like. But whatever tool you use, be sure you know at minimum how to read newsgroups; it is a basic internet skill.
Etiquette
There are several conventions and etiquette to using the Net, especially when sending messages, be they to news groups or people (so much of the etiquette also applies to email messages).
The most famous news group etiquette document is Usenet Organization and Etiquette, part of a manual for an old news reader called NewsWatcher. (“Usenet” is a name for the news group area of the Internet.) Read the organization section to get a good feel for how news groups are organized and for their history and traditions. Then, read the etiquette section; following its suggestions will make your news group experience much more pleasant.
Doing work on one computer by connecting to it via another computer is called remote computing. In lab, there is a remote computing tool called SecureCRT; we use it to enable you connect to your UCInetID account from the lab, so you can use a tool called Pine to access your electronic mail.
You can also connect to the UCInetID machines from any of the NACS labs on campus, and from any off-campus computer with the appropriate communications hardware and software. Here, we tell you how to access the UCInetID machines from our lab; you’re own your own to learn what you need to do to access those machines from other locations.
Connecting remotely to the UCInetID computer: To use your UCInetID from the lab, open the Start menu and select All Progams then SecureCRT 4.0, then (on the submenu that appears) SecureCRT 4.0 (again). A window will appear; in front of that window will appear the Connect window, which lists the computers accessible from the lab will come forward; select Ea.uci.edu and click on Connect.
Now a New Host Key warning may appear. If it does, click on Accept & Save. Now a dialog box will come up asking you for your user name; enter it. Do not check the Remember my username box! Then a dialog box asking for your password will come up; enter your password. Do not check the Remember my password box! (If you check these boxes, the next user at this machine could have access to your UCInetID account.) The dialog box will disappear, and the screen behind it will announce that you are connected to the UCInetID computer. You are now logged in to the UCI system, and ready to use email. When you’re done, type logout to leave the system, then select Exit from the File menu to leave SecureCRT.
(SecureCRT also has several other features; feel free to explore. You can find help with SecureCRT by clicking on SecureCRT ‘s Help menu.)
Using email. The manner in which you connect to the UCI machines is irrelevant to using email itself. You could use a computer in CS 364 or in the Engineering Gateway building, for instance, to connect to your UCInetID account. The reason: Pine resides on the UCInetID machine, not your local computer, so the tool works the same way no matter how you “got to it.”
Everything You Need to Know to Get Started in PINE has instructions for using Pine. You can also ask your TA for assistance.