Computing News

Computing News
King's University College Information Technology Services
Volume 1, Issue 1
Fall 2008
First Edition of ITS Newsletter
Fall ITS Workshops
GSS - Grade Submission System - November 17, 18, 20, 21,
11:30 -12:30 in W045
lab
Content Management
for Staff - December 8,
10:00-11:00am in
W045 lab
Content Management
for Faculty - December
8, 2:00 - 3:00 and December 11, 10:0011:00 or 2:00-3:00 in
W045 lab
WebCT - December 9
and 12, 1:00-2:30pm
in W045 lab
Inside this issue:
Backup Solutions for 2
a digital world
Don’t be afraid of in- 2
class audio/visual
equipment
How to install the
Microsoft Recovery
Console
7
Google’s new shiny
browser
5
PC or Mac - does it 8
really matter? Part 1
of a series...
Internet/Extranet/
Intranet - Huh?
7
Welcome to the first edition of
F1 , the King‟s Information
Technology Services Newsletter.
The submissions by ITS staff
were quite verbose, so designing a layout for the newsletter
was difficult. We settled on a
conventional format with a few
layout twists for fun and the
newsletter has been distributed
as a PDF file. Inside you will
find a range of articles covering
equipment use, product reviews, Internet terminology and
operating system recovery
techniques.
duced in the ITS department.
In an attempt to be environmentally responsible, no
printed copies of the newsletter
have been made. However, if
necessary, they can be pro-
Newsletter format, length and
style are easily changed, so
please let ITS know what you
think. Send comments to
[email protected]
Future newsletters will concentrate on the status of IT projects and upgrades of interest
to the College community.
Phishing Scams Continue
UWO mail system users are
continually receiving messages
asking for personal information.
The UWO Anti-Phishing working
group defines Phishing as a
form of online identity theft that
employs both social engineering and technical subterfuge to
steal consumers' personal
identity data and financial account credentials.
Official email communication
from UWO will never ask you to
email your password or other
personal information.
clicking on an attachment or
downloading and installing
seemingly legitimate programs.
Typically, these messages will
appear to be from a legitimate
source. Examples are UWO
Web Admin, WebMail Support
or the UWO E-mail Team.
Be careful to ensure that antivirus or software upgrades are
actually from the specified
vendor. If you have any concerns, contact ITS at 4441.
Other common phishing exploits involve the installation of
malicious programs on your
computer. These programs can
be unknowingly installed by
For more information about
phishing, visit http://
wellness.uwo.ca.
Technology Upgrades
ITS is constantly improving
computing services and the
network infrastructure at the
College.
Over the summer, all 30 public
computer lab workstations in
W143 were replaced with new
P4 dual-core systems.
You may have noticed people
installing antennas on the
Wemple roof. This isn‟t to improve the radio reception in the
cafeteria (although that would
be helpful) , but is a new redundant connection to the Internet
and UWO network resources.
King‟s now has two connections to the Internet, but both
run above ground using telephone poles on Epworth Avenue. In the event that a traffic
accident severs one of these
fiber lines, the dedicated wireless connection will automatically switch over and carry network traffic without interruption.
The new College web site was
launched in mid September
and offers a content management system, print formatting
and PDF creation, integrated
forums and mailing features.
Visit www.kings.uwo.ca to view!
Page 2
Computing News
ITS Mission Statement
The mission of Information Technology Services
is to provide innovative,
contemporary and accessible technology within
the service scope of
efficiency, confidentiality
and integrity to enable
and engage the students,
faculty and staff of King‟s
University College in
meeting their goals as a
collaborative community.
F1
Computing News
Volume 1, #1
_______________
F1 Computing News is
published by King’s
University College
Information
Technology Services
© King’s University
College 2008.
Contact: Tom Jory
[email protected]
Website:
www.kucits.ca/cnews
In-class audio/visual equipment: do not be afraid
Every classroom at King‟s is
equipped with a LCD projector,
computer, DVD player, VCR and
transparency projector. The larger classrooms are also
equipped with a lapel microphone and PA system.
The equipment is tested regularly and the computers are updated every two to three
months. However, problems
occasionally occur and, as a
result, the ITS Department provides continuous in-class support for all A/V equipment whenever classes are in session
(Monday to Thursday, 8:30 am
to 10:00 pm, Friday, 8:30 am to
4:30 pm). If a professor arrives
to find the equipment (or any
part thereof) missing, malfunctioning or otherwise not working
as it should, help is just a phone
call away. Support for in-class
equipment may be summoned
by calling the King‟s Reception
Desk and asking that IT Support
be dispatched to the classroom.
The Reception Desk can be
reached by calling 519-4333491.
It is highly recommended that
problems be reported immediately. IT Staff can usually solve a
problem very quickly and with
minimal class interruption. If an
issue is more severe, the equipment will be replaced as soon as
possible to prevent further disruption. Equipment problems
are uncommon and equipment
failure requiring replacement is
extremely rare. Please help the
IT Department maintain in-class
A/V equipment by reporting issues as soon as possible. Don‟t
wait for someone else to report
the problem.
If you would like to begin regular
use of the in-class A/V equipment at King‟s, or would like a
refresher training session,
please contact Corey Cooke at
extension 4387 or via e-mail at
[email protected].
Booking A/V Equipment
If you would like to have access
to the equipment on an irregular or occasional basis, please
complete the IMS Request form
at www.kucits.ca at least two
business days prior to your
class. This will ensure that the
a/v cabinet is open and the
equipment is set-up for you by
an IT Staff Member a few minutes before your class begins. It
is also recommended that professors inform their students
about this procedure when they
are scheduled to make an inclass presentation. Once the
IMS Request form is submitted,
the Media Specialist confirms
the request via e-mail and provides other important information to the user.
File Transportation to the Classroom
All of the in-class computers at
King‟s are equipped with a CD/
DVD-ROM drive, front USB ports
and 3.5” floppy drives. When
making a presentation at King‟s
users may burn their file to a
CD, e-mail the file to a webbased e-mail account (for example, Hotmail or UWO Webmail) and download the file on
the classroom computer, or use
a USB memory device. Using a
floppy disk as a method of saving files is strongly discouraged.
Corey Cooke
LCD projectors. When using a
laptop, users with a valid
@uwo.ca e-mail account may
access the wireless Internet
within the classroom. The cable
used to connect the laptop to
the projector in each classroom
includes a connection for audio
as well.
Attention Mac users
In order to connect a Mac laptop to the LCD projector in the
classrooms a 15-pin female
VGA adapter is required. There
are a number of different types
of these adapters and they are
specific to the Mac model. As a
result, Mac users must provide
their own VGA adapter.
Contact
If you have any questions about
the equipment available in the
classrooms at King‟s, please
contact Corey Cooke, Media
Specialist, [email protected] or
call 433-3491, extension
4387.
Using a Laptop
Faculty and students are welcome to use their own laptop to
make presentations in conjunction with one of the school‟s
Backup Solutions – Invaluable Methods in
a Digital World David Thuss
The adage is that you don‟t
know what you‟ve got „til it‟s
gone. When it comes to data on
your computer or laptop this
can be a sad reality. It‟s also
true that you don‟t know true
loss until you realise the project
you have toiled away with for
months (or years) is now located on a hard drive that will
not function – regardless of
how loud you yell. The hard
drive‟s announcement to you that
it was about to die was a series of
“bad” noises five seconds before
it quit. When even throwing it in
the freezer isn‟t going to bring the
data back, you come to the realisation that the data and all those
hours of work are gone.
Continued on page 3...
Page 3
Computing News
Backup Solutions – Invaluable Methods in a Digital World
From page 2
Those digital photos of your
family trip are gone. Your calendar and all its appointments
(including the reminder of your
mother-in-law‟s birthday) are
gone. That is unless you have a
proper backup solution in
place. You do have a proper
backup solution in place, right?
“The hard
drive‟s
announcement
to you that it
was about to
die was a
series of “bad”
noises five
seconds before
it quit..”
More and more we are moving
toward a paperless society. This
brings considerable benefits
but often removes any hard
copy of those files that represent personal toil. Replacing
your files and documents in the
event of a system failure need
not be the shedding of a million
tears and can be as easy as a
few clicks. This column, over
the next several editions of F1,
will focus on data storage, data
backup, and data recovery. Its
overall intent is to reveal what
data backup solutions each of
us can utilise whether on campus or at home. Many of the
solutions are cross-platform
compatible while ranging range
in complexity, reliability, and
cost.
You‟re right! Where can I start?
Today‟s focus is on what to
backup: what files are important, where these files are
stored on your computer, and
what is feasible to back up in
terms of size and the ability to
restore the data.
What Files are Important? (And
no, it‟s not “everything”)
Important files are, quite
frankly, those files that are not
easily replaced. This may include documents, photos,
email threads with colleagues,
website bookmarks, or even a
witty editorial comic – it‟s a
personal decision. Deciding
what files you want to back up
should include an assessment
of what programs you use on a
regular basis, what files these
programs generate, and what it
would mean if these files were
lost. If you use Microsoft Word
then you‟re going to want to
back up the .doc or .docx files
that it generates; if you‟re
transferring interviews from a
device with Sony‟s SonicStage
then you‟re going to want to
back up the .OMG/.OMA audio
files it uses. It‟s no consolation
to realise you didn‟t back up
something because you didn‟t
know they were needed.
I‟ve stated that you should focus on what files these programs generate because you
cannot backup the software
itself. Reinstalling Corel‟s WordPerfect will not make a corrupted .WPD file suddenly work.
For better data integrity, software and the files they access
are maintained separately –
this makes your files useable
on any computer without having to carry around entire software packages (and that‟s a
good thing).
Where are these Files located?
Knowing what files you want to
keep precedes the question of,
“where are they located?” Generally programs will save their
files in the default locations
defined by the operating system (i.e. Windows 2000/XP/
Vista, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, etc.).
As such, “My Documents” in a
Windows environment becomes
a haven for file formats of all
kinds while the same can be
said for your User directory (or
“Home” folder) in a Mac environment. Understanding your
operating system‟s folder structure will go a long way toward
ensuring that no important file
is overlooked while implementing a backup solution. Below is
a discussion of those files types
generally deemed “important”
and where you will find them on
your computer.
Documents
Within the Windows 2000/XP
environment this folder is, by
default, located in
<root>:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\. In
Apple‟s Mac OS 9, this folder is
in <root>:\Documents\. Both
Windows Vista and Mac OS X
(versions Cheetah through
Leopard) have adopted a Unixbased folder structure and so
the documents folder is filed as
<root>:\Users\user\Document
s\. Be aware that the “My
Documents” shortcut on your
desktop in Windows 2000/XP
is really just a shortcut; making
sure that you‟re properly backing up your files means ensuring you know where the files
really are located.
Photos
Windows 2000/XP stores your
photos as a subdirectory of the
“My Documents” directory.
Within Windows Vista and Mac
OS X, the pictures directory is
within the <root>:\Users\user\
directory so it is important to
include this particular folder in
any backup solution. Some
programs, such as those released by Kodak or Nikon, may
place your photos in different
areas of your computer when
you transfer your photos from
your camera such as
<root>:\pictures\. It is important to check where the photos
are being imported to ensure
that you are properly backing
them up.
Email Messages, Address
Books, and Calendar Information
Backing up your emails can be
a daunting task for most users
as the email client in use determines where the files are
stored and in what format they
are saved.
continued...
Page 4
Volume 1, Issue 1
Backup Solutions – Invaluable Methods in a Digital World
...page 3
By comparison backing up your documents and photos can be child‟s play.
Fear not! The following section covers
those email clients that you are likely to
be using. Now, there are three methods
through which you may be interacting
with your emails (beyond just saying
good morning): web-based, Internet
Message Access Protocol (IMAP), or
Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3).
This section focuses on the third type,
POP3, as the other two types do not
transfer the messages from the email
server to your desktop; your task of
ensuring access to these emails is
easy: trust that the complex sets of
redundancy that ITS has in place to
secure your email messages.
Increasingly it is rare to only use our
email clients to send emails. We also
use them as repositories for our contacts, calendar information, tasks, and
a place to find saved attachments. Just
as with backing up files, you want to
focus on what information is used by
the software that you cannot afford to
lose – this means that even if your
email client access your emails via
IMAP, there is still the matter of backing
up your contacts and possibly your calendar.
The most popular email clients are Microsoft Outlook (2003/2007/
Entourage for Macs), Microsoft Outlook
Express (Renamed Windows Mail in
Vista – with both to be succeeded by
Windows Live Mail), Eudora, Mozilla
Thunderbird, and Mail for Macs. Outlook Express, Windows Mail, and Mac
Mail are all installed with the operating
systems and generally have some slight
changes based on the version of the
operating system you are using. Western‟s ITS department offers some very
helpful pages on how to configure each
of these email clients for use with UWO
email addresses. The following list indentifies what files constitute your
email messages, address book, and
calendar. Some software, such as Microsoft Outlook, retains all of these
items in one file which makes backup
easier.
Microsoft Office: All email messages,
email contacts, and calendar items are
retained in a “Personal Folders file” (.pst)
by Microsoft Outlook. Outlook allows you
to create multiple identities, each maintaining a separate .pst file. The default
location for these files in Windows 2000/
XP is <root>:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Outlook\. In Windows
Vista they are stored in
<root>:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Micro
soft\Outlook\. Outlook offers a built-in
archiving utility that can periodically
backup your information. The downside to
this tool is that the archived files are still
stored on the same drive as your active
data. A solution to this is the Personal
Folders Backup utility that works for all
recent versions of Outlook and is available as a free download from the Microsoft Website.
Microsoft Outlook Express: Outlook Express does not retain all your messages in
one folder. Rather they are separated
according to your folder structure and
have the file extension “.dbx” (i.e. inbox.dbx, outbox.dbx). In Windows XP,
these files are stored in
<root>:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application
Data\Identities\windows user identity
number\Microsoft\Outlook Express\.
Windows XP used the “Address Book” to
maintain your contacts information; a
program that can be used outside of Outlook Express. Address Book saves your
contact information in .wab files that are
located in <root>:\Documents and Settings\user\Application
Data\Microsoft\Address Book\.
Qualcomm’s Eudora: Eudora stores its
address books, emails messages, and
attachments all in one folder. In Windows
2000/XP this location is
<root>:\Documents and Settings\user\Application
Data\Qualcomm\Eudora\. In Windows
Vista these files are located in
<root>:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Qual
comm\Eudora\. Eudora does not store all
of the data related to your emails in one
file.
Rather it separates them into a few different files and folders. For our purposes we
will focus on backing up mailboxes, folders, address books, settings (email account information), and attachments.
Your mailboxes (i.e. your inbox, outbox,
etc.) are all identified by name with the
extension “.mbx”. You will also notice
“.toc” files. To back up your mailboxes you
will need to back up these pairs of files.
Folders will have the extension “.fol” while
your Eudora settings file is simply
“eudora.ini” Finally, to save your attachments you should backup the entire
“attach” folder located in the Eudora directory. On more recent versions of Eudora, the program automatically creates
backup copies of your Inbox and Outbox
within the Eudora folder. These are identified with a three digit extension such as
“001”. A backup of your inbox will therefore be “in.mbx.001” and will have an
accompanying .toc file.
Continued on page 5...
Page 5
Volume 1, Issue 1
Information Services Guide
Back Up - What
should I be doing?
King's University College ITS - [email protected]
Client Support W047
Chris Atkinson [email protected]
David Thuss - [email protected]
[email protected]
Voice - 4441
From page 4
Mail for Macs (OS X): Similar to
Outlook Express, Mail does not
fully maintain your address
book although it can access
your contacts. The easiest way
to back up your address book is
to use the builtin backup utility.
Within Address Book choose
“Back up Address Book” from
the file menu. The process will
ask where you wish to store the
backup. Beyond your contacts,
there are two locations that
contain the files needed to
backup your Mail preferences
and your messages. Your Mail
preferences, such as email
accounts, rules, signatures, etc.
are contained in three files:
com.apple.mail.plist, MessageRules.plist, and SmartMailboxes.plist. These files are located in
<root>:\Users\user\library\pref
erences\. In addition, the Signatures folder in the preferences directory contains any
signatures you may have created. Your email messages are
located in
<root>:\Users\user\library\mai
l\. To backup your messages,
simply copy this entire folder.
OK, but now what?
Knowing where your files are
located is only one part of the
task of backing up your important files. In the next issue of
F1, I will focus on those utilities
that make backing up these
files a snap. If you have any
questions about the programs
mentioned here or about other
backup programs not mentioned, feel free to send me an
email at [email protected]
That‟s it for now and remember:
every car can go forward but
without backing up we‟d always
be stuck in the garage.
1This
statement should be
qualified; generally software
does not fall under the normal
routines of system backups.
Programmer
Todd Morrison - 4567
[email protected]
Director
Tom Jory - 4398
[email protected]
Walk-in hours:
8:00-12:00 and 2:00-4:30
KUC Website
http://www.kings.uwo.ca
Web Admin
Tim Bugler - 4480
[email protected]
ITS Website
http://www.kucits.ca
Instructional Media Services
Corey Cooke - 4387
[email protected]
However, using disk cloning software such
as Symantec Ghost, Apple Software Restore, or ODIN, one can create a disk image
of their entire operating system that can be
used in the event of complete system failure.
<root> refers to the drive that your operating system is installed on. In most cases,
this will be “C:\”; user references your
2
Computer Lab Reservations can
be viewed at www.kucits.ca and
arranged by calling 4441
username. For example, if you login with the
username “jim”, replace “user” wilth “jim”.
3The
folder that houses these files is marked
as a hidden folder in Windows by default. To
view hidden folders, click “Start”, and then
click “Control Panel.” Within Control Panel go
to “Appearances and Themes” and select
“Folder Options.” Under the “View tab” select
“Show hidden files and folders.”
Google’s Chrome at Home: A Contemporary Web Browser
Todd Morrison
Google has done much to bring innovation, function and fun to the Internet. Aside from being the
search engine of choice, Google offers many other technologies that enhance productivity and connectedness; examples of some of their excellent offerings include Google Maps, Google Docs and
Gmail. Many had wondered if Google‟s innovation would ever manifest itself in the web browser strata.
Would they dare compete in the browser wars? That time has come.
After much research and development, Google released “Chrome” earlier this Fall. I can imagine you
may be rolling your eyes and thinking “Just what the world needs… another web browser!” Such skepticism and disinclination are to be expected with the plethora of browsers available for download, in
addition to the quirks and inconsistencies each bring to your desktop. However, Chrome is much different; it breathes new life into the browsing experience and truly feels like a contemporary browsing application.
The virtues that Chrome espouses are many; it would be difficult to cover them all effectively in this
column. While Internet Explorer and Firefox remain ideal choices for the workplace, Chrome is a perfect fit for home. Thus, I will cover some of Chrome‟s most interesting features with a perspective toward home-use.
continued...
Page 6
Computing News
Google’s Chrome at Home: A Contemporary Web Browser
Default page: When Chrome opens, it displays a “Most Visited” page that displays graphic thumbnails
of your most-visited sites. By simply clicking on one of these thumbnails, the respective page will load.
Why have one home page when you can have a page that contains your favourites, each conveniently
accessible? Additionally, a search bar and recently accessed bookmarks are displayed on the page.
Benefit at home: Shared computers tend to have a
lengthy favourites list. Conveniently arranged graphic
thumbnails provide quicker access to your favourite
web content.
Figure 1 - Default Page Most Visited Thumbnails
Page tabs: While tabs have been a common feature in
web browsers for some time (Opera was perhaps the
first to offer a tabbed-view interface), Chrome takes
page tabs to a new level. Each tab has its own address bar. Tabs can be “torn-away” from the Chrome
application window to create their own window. Just
click on the tab and drag it away from the Chrome
window. Torn-away tabs can be re-attached to the
Chrome window by reversing the operation. Another
unique aspect of Chrome‟s utilization of tabs regards
under-the-hood technology: each tab runs in its own
memory space (“sandboxing”). Though this may seem
like nerd-speak, the benefit of this isolation can be
appreciated by all users. Have you ever had a series
of tabs open in your favourite web browser and encountered a web page that caused your browser to
crash, and thus lose all of your tabs containing carefully located web content? Chrome‟s sandboxing prevents misbehaving web pages from crashing the
browser and destroying your tabbed pages. Benefit at
home: If you share a computer at home and your
kids/roommates/cats like to visit JavaScript or plug-in
enhanced web pages, bad code will not kill your
browser session and carefully ordered tabs.
Incongito mode: Perhaps facetiously named, Incognito
mode allows you to retain a level of security and privacy not necessarily available “out-of-the-box” in other
web browsers. Incognito mode introduces an insulated browsing experience in that it prevents the
browser from tracking your page history and from
storing cookies generated during surfing. Benefit at
home: If you share a computer at home, Incognito
mode may come in handy while shopping online for
gifts for your loved-ones: your shopping history will
exist only for the duration of your use of Incognito
mode; or until you close the browser.
Figure 2 - A web page with "broken" elements. Chrome displays the page
without crashing; broken elements are identified by the black areas containing the "unhappy face" plug-in icon.
The features I‟ve highlighted are only a few of the
many Chrome has to offer. I have been using Chrome
at home for almost two months now, and I‟m a fan.
Why not give it a spin? It may become your favourite
browser. More information and the download for
Chrome can be found at www.google.com/chrome.
Chrome is available for Windows XP/Vista; a Mac
version is in development and is expected to arrive on
desktops before the end of 2008.
Page 7
Volume 1, Issue 1
Internet, World Wide Web, Extranet, Intranet, Portal...What is all this stuff?!
Many people use the terms Internet and
World Wide Web (aka. the Web) interchangeably, but in fact the two terms mean
two completely different things. The Internet
and the Web are two separate but related
things.
The Internet is a massive network of networks, a networking infrastructure. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to
the Internet. Information that travels over
the Internet does so via a variety of languages known as protocols.
The World Wide Web, or simply the Web, is a
way of accessing information over this medium known as the Internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the
Internet. The Web uses the HTTP protocol,
only one of the languages spoken over the
Internet, to transmit data. Web services,
which use HTTP to allow applications to
communicate in order to exchange business
logic, use the the Web to share information.
The Web also utilizes browsers, such as
Internet Explorer or Firefox, to access Web
documents called Web pages that are linked
to each other via hyperlinks. Web documents also contain graphics, sounds, text
and video.
The Web is just one of the ways that information can be disseminated over the Internet. The Internet, not the Web, is also used
for e-mail, which relies on SMTP, Usenet
news groups, instant messaging and FTP. So
the Web is just a portion of the Internet,
albeit a large portion, but the two terms are
not synonymous and should not be confused.
Now that we have that cleared up, let‟s take
a moment to chat about intranets, extranets
and portals. Again, these are terms which
are often used synonymously, but in actual
fact are very different things.
You could almost think of an intranet as your
own personal Internet. Like the Internet, an
intranet is a computer network that uses
Internet protocols and network connectivity
to securely share any part of an organization's information or operational systems
with its employees. The difference being that
an intranet is private, only accessible by the
organizations employees and is not accessible via the Internet (in most cases). Some-
times the term intranet refers only to the
organization's internal website, but often
it is a more extensive part of the organization's computer infrastructure and private
websites are an important component
and focal point of internal communication
and collaboration.
An extranet is a private network that uses
Internet protocols, network connectivity,
and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an
organization's information or operations
with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, employees or other businesses. An
extranet is usually accessible via a secured authentication (username / password) via the Internet, like King‟s faculty
and staff extranet.
And last but not least, a web portal. A web
portal is a web site that provides a single
function via a web page or site. Usually a
web portal is a point of access for information on the World Wide Web. A web
portal is more than just a search engine,
often offering other services such as
email, news, stock prices and other features. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and
feel with access control and procedures
for multiple applications, which otherwise
would have been different entities altogether. Generally speaking, most of the
Tim Bugler
sites we refer to as Search Engines (i.e.
Google, Yahoo or MSN) are in actual fact
Web Portals.
So now that I have made everything clear
as mud and filled your heads with evenmore IT jargon, I‟m going to really simplfy
things:
Internet: Really big network of networks
of computers. Any computer connected
to the Internet can communicate with
another computer connected to the
Internet.
World Wide Web: Simply put, an easy
way to access information over the Internet.
Intranet: Internal private network – not
accessible to anyone outside the organization.
Extranet: External private network –
available via the Internet, but only accessible by authenticated users.
Web Portal: One-stop shopping for all
your Internet / World Wide Web needs
(email, news, infotainment) such as
Google.
I hope you were paying attention; your
next web update may require you to answer a skill testing question!
How to Install the Recover Console for Windows XP
Chris Atkinson
To recover your operating system when your computer does
not start correctly or does not start at all, you may want to
install and use the Windows Recovery Console. However, Microsoft recommends this method of system recovery for advanced users only. Also, learn about the Recovery Console
command prompt, command actions, rules, how to remove
the Recovery Console, and how to install it during an unattended installation.
Microsoft recommends that you use the Recovery Console only after Safe mode and
other startup options do not work. The Recovery Console is recommended only if you are
an advanced user who can use basic commands to identify and locate problem drivers
and files. Additionally, you must be an Administrator to use the Recovery Console.
Directions for installing the Recovery Console are far too lengthy to detail in this newsletter, but ITS has posted the procedures at www.kucits.ca/recovery. If you have any questions, contact Chris Atkinson at [email protected].
Page 8
Computing News
PC or Mac - Does it really matter?
In the late 70‟s I began the
process of building an Apple II
computer. There were no „how
to‟ guides or FAQ‟s, and while I
located the majority of parts,
there were a few that seemed
impossible to get. Fortunately
while in California, I met the
owner of a Sony television assembly facility who took an
interest in helping me find the
missing pieces. When it was all
together, and after some interesting visits to the back rooms
of computer stores on College
Street where you could get the
necessary code burned into an
E-PROM for very little money, I
had a fully functional Apple II.
The computer, and many that
followed it, was based on the
extremely inexpensive Motorola
6502 processor which resulted
in the home computer revolution of the 1980s. Apple
stayed with Motorola into the
Macintosh days, but when the
IBM PC with its Intel 8088 processor arrived, it quickly became
a huge commercial success
and eclipsed the competition,
and my interest in the 6502
based computers.
Not a week goes by when I am
not asked for my opinion on
what platform a student or
faculty member should purchase. Obviously I‟ve been
using PC‟s for many years and
other than limited use of the
Mac Mini in the ITS office, I had
little Mac experience. I wanted
to offer a more unbiased voice
in the Mac vs. PC debate, so I
ordered an Apple iMac directly
from the on-line Apple store.
“The machine
itself is beautiful
with an excellent
monitor and an
aluminum frame
around the computer and keyboard.”
Ordering was easy. There are
few options for the iMac beyond CPU speed and monitor
size, and shipping was extremely fast. The package contained the computer with integral monitor, keyboard, mouse,
power cord, operating system
disks and a small instruction
book.
Tom Jory
Setting up the iMac was also
easy. The USB mouse connects
to the keyboard which connects
to the computer, then plug in
the power cord and turn it on.
On its initial start you are
prompted for user information
and you have the option to
create accounts for additional
users. Once it‟s up and running, you are greeted with many
unique and fun pre-installed
applications. The Safari
browser performs well and the
iMac seems quite fast with
regular tasks. The machine
itself is beautiful with an excellent monitor and an aluminum
frame around the computer
and keyboard. All the ins and
outs are available on the rear
and the optical drive reads and
writes to cd and dvd.
Apple now includes right-click
functionality and the included
mouse has two buttons, but the
feature is not turned on by default. Another issue was
“control” button on the keyboard could not be used for
shortcuts – you must use the
“command” key. Once these
two items were recognized, use
of the iMac was reasonably
similar to a PC.
The next test was to see how
the iMac performed in a real
environment, so I packed it up
and took it home for the kids to
use. Since the iMac looks
really impressive, their initial
response was “cool!” However,
until some of the mouse and
shortcut issues were ironed
out, there were many complaints. It‟s only been home for
a few days now, so the next
part of this article will detail
how the iMac continues to fare
in a household of Windows
users.
I now have a little more information for the next time I‟m
asked what platform I would
recommend. However, it‟s too
early to suggest one over the
other, but since students are
normally looking to spend as
little as possible, the iMac appears to be an expensive solution. Check out the Apple vs.
Dell comparison on this page
and I‟m sure you will agree that
while the iMac is an impressive
machine, it is considerably
more expensive than the PC
equivalent. For a student, surfing the net or composing an
essay will be accomplished on
either platform with the same
results.
Part II of this evaluation will
include a more detailed comparison of the hardware and a
closer look at the included applications.
Apple iMac
24” monitor
2.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU 6Mb L2 cache
2Gb ram 800Mhz DDR2
320Gb 7200 rpm hard drive
ATI Radeo HD2600 PRO video
OS X v10.5 Leopard
$1799
Dell Vostro 200 Desktop
Samsung 24” monitor
Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo CPU 6Mb L2 cache
2Gb ram 800 Mhz DDR2
320Gb 7200 rpm hard drive
Intel 3100 video
Windows Vista Basic
$818