Windows-2000 for Computing Science Induction
Welcome to the Department of Computing Science, and to the University of
Newcastle. In order to make best use of this document, you need to have:-
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Registered as a student of the university, and so have a valid student
number.
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Self-registered on a UCS (University Computing Service) PC Cluster.
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Read and followed the guides 120 Getting
Started with Windows 2000 and 121 Managing
files in Windows 2000. It is preferable if you read these guides on
the screen of your PC, but you may take one printed copy (of each) if you
need to.
Common Tools
In addition to programming assignments, you must become familiar
with other common communications tools. You are expected to read your personal
electronic mail and check the newsgroups relevant to your program of study
on a daily basis. Announcements about coursework and lectures are often
distributed in this way. Not seeing them is no excuse for not knowing,
and will seriously reduce your chances of getting a successful result
at the end of your module.
Electronic Mail
After you have registered for an ID on the university computers, you will
be given a personal mailbox for electronic mail. Messaages sent to this
address will be directed to the computer account that you obtained by self
registration (as described earlier). Spend a few minutes finding out your
own e-mail address, and that of a few friends and your tutor. You can use
the "E-mail address" sub-menu item on the "Search" page of
the University's Web site. The search page may be accessed using the
"Search" icon in the top right hand corner of the University's
home page.
You may find that several people are listed when you look up a surname.
It may help you identify your tutor if you know that staff login IDs all
begin with at least three letters, whereas student login IDs all begin
with n and a digit. If this does not help, then you may wish to read the
UCS guide "How to use and
look for E-Mail addresses" for more advice.
Access to your personal mailbox is achieved using the
Student Webmail Service. You will
be asked to log in to the system (using your Windows 2000 identifier and
password), after which you will be able to read your mail, send new messages,
reply to messages sent to you, etc. The Webmail Service is described in
guide EM03.
Microsoft Office
If you have time, explore some of the other parts of the Office suite of
programs. You will probably end up using Microsoft Word to write up many
of your assignments. You should read the UCS
documentation on Microsoft Word.
News
The Student Webmail Service also provides a way of viewing the newsgroups.
Clicking on the "News" icon will cause a page to be displayed, giving
you the opportunity to subscribe to new newsgroups, and to unsubscribe from
newsgroups in which you are no longer interested.
On the main mail reading page, there is a drop-down list of all your mail
folders, and this list also contains all of the newsgroups to which you
currently subscribe. Selecting one of these will cause the contents of the
newsgroup to be displayed, and the news items can then be viewed in the same
way as "regular" mail messages.
This method of reading news is not totally satisfactory, and it is
intended that a different (non-Web-based) news reader will be installed on the
campus Windows 2000 systems. You will be informed, probably by a message posted
to the newsgroups, when a new (and better?) news reader is available.
Here are some of the newsgroups to which you are advised to subscribe:
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ncl.cs.announce
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ncl.cs.cscNNN (Your module leader may have asked for the creation
of a news group for discussions relating to that module. If such a group
exists for your module, then you are expected to read it).
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One (or more) of ncl.cs.stage1, ncl.cs.stage2 ncl.cs.stage3, ncl.cs.msc
or ncl.cs.phd as appropriate.
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ncl.ucs.announce
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news.announce.important (this newsgroup will occasionally receive
postings of major importance to the news system itself)
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news.announce.newusers (this newsgroup receives regular postings
of introductory material. You should read some of this, and/or the
introductory
UCS guides, and should then un-subscribe from this group).
Programming Languages
Departmental Software
Most departments in the university have special software that is made available
mainly for their own students. This is
linked to the
start menu. Software will be added to this menu during the year as
it is needed.
Chris Ritson |
2 October 2000 |