Using other Computers

For your work in CS 104 you may use other computers other than your lab computers. Using other computers is more like driving a car other than your own for the first time. When you first get behind the wheel of car that you have never driven, you need to explore where things are and how they work. Where are the controls for the lights, the windshield wipers, radio, the shifting mechanism. You try and feel comfortable about your surroundings. You may even have to ask the owner about where things are!

The same is true for a computer other than our lab computers. Computers can be customized by their owners. Utilities and programs can be stored in many places. You need to do a little exploring. You may even have to ask a lab assistant.

Working with files in Windows 95/98/NT

WARNING

All computers are not equal. The software that is installed, the customizations that have been made and user base will typically alter the default settings. So even if a computer is running under Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT, you may not experience the same kind of environment as you do on the third floor. Our lab is very close to the default setting for interacting with Windows 95/98/NT. Most textbooks agree with our environment.

You also have less chance of the instructions being exactly the same if you change the operating system. Other labs such as the first floor of RB and the library are running under an operating system called NT. The default setting of NT and Windows 95/98 are so close that you will not notice a difference. It's under the covers where all the changes have been made. However, on these computers, customizations have been installed to change the normal way of interacting with the environment. Some of you have notice that the application Windows Explorer is no longer on the Start menu. So how are you going to launch Windows Explorer to locate or create files! As with every good environment, there is usually two ways of completing a task. When no Windows Explorer is available, you must use My Computer.

Working with Office Files

Our course is based on Microsoft Office 2000. Any files retrieved from the lab will be stored in Office 2000 format. So if you have Office 95 or 97 loaded on a machine, do you think that the lower version of Office will read the newer version of the software correcltly? Of course not! In lecture we talked about compatibility. Office 2000 is a newer product. There are more goodies in it and it also stores files more compactly. When a 95 or 98 version of Office sees this 2000 version it doesn't know how to put up the file and that's why you see all those ugly characters.

However, all is not lost. Office 2000 lets you save the files as the 95/98 versions. You might get a warning message stating that the type of features included in your file will not be saved in the lower version. You may have used some of the newest features in the document. However, the other parts will be saved. For Microsoft Word, the 95 version is Word 6.0/95. When you save your Office file, you must always use the Save As option. Under the Type options, choose the option that states 95 or 97. Again, this depends on which version you have installed. Now your file can be read by the lower version.