Undergraduate Computing Lab Introduction, 2011 - 2012

Location

The Geography undergraduate computing facilities are located in three rooms: two teaching labs in rooms 115 and 239, and the auxiliary lab in room 114. They are open to any student registered in Geography techniques courses, directed studies, research assistants, and Geography graduate students.

Equipment

Rooms 115 contains 21 PCs, Room 239 has 20 PCs and room 114 has 17 PCs. All the labs have identical software packages. However, labs 115 and 114 have one station each with higher desk clearance to accommodate students in wheelchairs. In these two stations the mouse can be substituted by a track ball to facilitate accessibility. Please talk to the lab supervisor to request the change.

All three labs are connected through a network, so you can access software, data, and printing from all three labs. See ‘Getting around the labs” later in this document to learn how to properly store and manage data.

Access Times

The computer labs follow the general schedule:

• First two weeks of each semester:
• Monday – Friday 8:30 to 17:00
• Closed on weekends
• Rest of the semester:
• Monday – Friday 8:30 to 18:30
• Closed on weekends (extra hours are usually made available towards the end of the semester to accommodate project work)

Detailed lab schedules are posted outside each lab. Because rooms 115 and 239 are teaching labs, please check and respect the posted schedule before sitting down in one of the stations. If the teaching labs are busy, please use room 114.

There is no admittance to the teaching labs during the first hour of scheduled sessions for students not registered in that lab section. Access to any idle computer in the room during the second hour is at the discretion of the lab instructor.

Room 114 serves as an overflow room and can be used by any student when the other 2 labs are occupied. Workstations in the auxiliary lab are on the first-come, first-served basis. With the exception of IDRISI32, the same software is available as in the teaching labs.

Lab Fees and Passwords

The labs have restricted access:

1. Only students enrolled in geography courses that require lab use can receive an account. These courses are usually Geography techniques courses, selected atmospheric science courses, or directed studies.
2. In exchange for the payment of a $25 dollar fee, each student receives a username and password. Additional fees for photocopying (usually $5) may be added by each instructor at his/her discretion.
3. Fees are paid to Jose Aparicio, the lab supervisor, during the first lab session. If you registered late or cannot attend your first lab, you can find him in his office in room 240D.
4. A tax receipt will be issued four weeks into the course and distributed during lab sessions
5. Each user has a printing account associated with his/her username, with initial balance of $0 printing credits. You can add printing credits in the department’s Main office in room 217 during between 8:30 and 16:00, Monday – Friday.
6. Any positive balance in the printing account can be refunded at the end of the semester.

Lab Assistance

If you need assistance with your labs or need to report any problems, the lab supervisor will be around the labs from 10:30 to 17:00, Monday – Friday. Alternatively, you can contact him at labhelp@geog.ubc.ca.

Additional resources

Familiarize yourself with the GIC’s reserve readings and map systems. Frequently, instructor and TAs will use the GIC as a repository of additional information that will help you with your assignments.

All lab computers have CD burners. It is a good idea to backup your project data on a weekly basis.

 

Getting around the labs

Accessing the workstations

In exchange for the lab fee, you will receive a username and password. This information gives you access to the computers in any of the labs. Please be mindful to log off after you finish your session. If you don’t, you are risking having your files deleted or corrupted, and your printing credits wiped out. To log off properly:

• Left-click the “Start” button and select “Shutdown”
• From Shutdown dialog window, select “Log off your username"

Remember, you are subject to university rules regarding appropriate use of school computing equipment. If you abuse the labs, you will lose your access privileges. There is an icon on your desktop linking to Policy 104 explaining your rights and responsibilities.

Printing your work

There are two printing areas for the computing labs:

1. Room 114 printers:
• Black and White laser (printer name: hp4015_ps or hp4015_pcl)
• Colour laser (printer name: hp4650c_ps)
2. Room 239 printers:
• Black & White laser (printer name: hp4250_ps or hp4250_pcl)
• Colour laser (printer name: xp6200x_ps)

You will notice that two of the printers have multiple names. The names actually refer to the same printer, but use different languages to communicate with your program and process your request. Some programs are picky about printing. The first name is the one most likely to work and should be used it first.

You can access all printers from any of the labs. However, the printers in 114 are a bit faster and more convenient if you are working in 114 or 115. You need to add printing credits to your account in the Geography Main office in room 217. The cost per page is:

• $0.10 per page for black and white
• $0.40 per page for colour

A few things to keep in mind about printing:

• Don’t assume that the program you are working with knows where you want to print. Make sure to use the “Print Preview” or “Print Setup” options, if available, before you send you job.
• If your job does not print, don’t just send it multiple times. The two most common reasons for no output are lack of printing credits or printer backlog. There is a link on your desktop that allows you to check the balance in your account and the status of the printer queues.

Saving your work

It is important that you spend time familiarizing yourself with proper saving techniques to avoid the pain of lost assignments. First, you need a general picture of the lab setup.

Each computer in the labs has a local hard drive, usually named Local Disk (C:) drive, where you will find your working directory called Data. In addition, because all the stations are connected through a network, you also have access to a server drive, called username on ‘snew server ’(H:). Each user account has a designated space in the H drive that can only be seen by that user.

When working on your labs, these are the guidelines you should follow:

• Download the data for you lab to the working directory C:\data\ in the local drive
• Work and save to your local working directory as you complete your assignment
• After you are done with your session, but before you log off, copy your work from the C:\data\ working directory to the server H drive using windows explorer – see “File management in Windows 2000”
• Log off from your station

It sounds a bit complicated but there are certain advantages to doing it this way:

1. Because many people use the labs, if you were to leave the data in the local drive, you run a high risk of losing your files
2. Because the server H drive can be seen from all the computers, you are not limited to always working from the same workstation. You can retrieve your files from any of the labs
3. It is faster to work locally, but safer to store data on the server

Please DO NOT save to ‘My Documents” or to ‘Desktop’. You might problems retrieving you work or troubleshooting any file or software problems.

Read your lab instructions carefully as they will have detailed instructions on how to retrieve the lab data for each assignment.

File Management in Windows XP

Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer is the program that allows you to manage all the files in your computer. With it, you can copy, rename, delete, or move any of your files.

You can launch Explorer file management window in two ways:

• Double-click the icon on your desktop, or
• Right-click the “Start” button and choose “Explore” from the context menu

The window that opens will have 2 panes:

• Left-hand or “folder” pane lists all the drives and folders in your computer as well as those you can access through the network
• Right-hand or “content” pane that list the contents of any drive or folder you select in the left pane

In the left pane, you will notice that certain drives or folders have a ‘+’or a ‘-’ next to them. If you click on the ‘+’, you will expand the drive or folder to reveal more folders within it. If you click on the ‘-’, you will collapse the folder or drive.

Creating Folders

To create a newfolder:

• In the folder pane, select the drive or folder where you want to create the new folder
• From the ‘File’ menu in Windows Explorer, select ‘New > Folder’
• Enter a valid name

A file name can contain up to 215 characters. However, it is not recommended that you create file names with 215 characters or with spaces in it. Most programs cannot interpret extremely long file names. File names cannot contain the following characters: \ / : * ? " < > |

Selecting Files

To select a single file, click on the icon next to the file name.

To select a group of files that are consecutive, left-click on the first file, hold down the Shift key, left-click on the last file in the list, all the files should be highlighted, finally release the Shift key. These can be copied, moved or deleted as if they were one file.

To select a group of files that are not consecutive, left-click on one of the desired files; hold down the CTRL key, select the remaining desired files in any order by left-clicking on them.

To select all the files in a folder, you have two options:

• Choose ‘Select All’ from the ‘Edit’ menu, or
• Hold down the CTRL key and press the ‘A’ key (Ctrl+A).

Moving and Copying Files

Files can be moved between A, C, and H drives. The other drives have restricted access. C:\data\ is the drive\folder for student use during lab sessions, the working directory.

Windows has many ways to accomplish the same task. Here are two ways to move or copy files using Windows Explorer:

Option 1:

• Select one or more files in the content pane, as described above
• From the ‘Edit’ menu in Windows Explorer, select ‘Copy to Folder’ or ‘Move to Folder’
• In the dialog window that pops up, select the destination of your files.
• Click OK

Option 2:

• Select a source drive/folder in the folder pane
• Select one or more files in the content pane, as described above
• Move your pointer to the highlighted file(s)
• With the right-button pressed, drag the selected file(s) from the content pane to the new drive or folder in the folder pane
• Release mouse button and select ‘Copy Here’ or ‘Move Here’ from the pop up or context menu

Deleting Files

Please be careful when deleting files. They are not always recoverable.

• Select file(s) or folder(s) in Explorer’s Content pane
• Move pointer to highlighted files and right-click
• In the context menu, select ‘Delete’