General Mac Information
Saving:
• To save to an external device, or your student account, you must first
save the document to the Desktop. At this point you can drag
the file to the desired location to be saved (U-Drive, USB disk, Floppy disk,
etc.)
Re-starting:
• To turn the G4 iMacs back on when shut down, press the small power button
on the lower left hand side of the base of the computer (when looking towards
it).
• To turn on G5 iMacs, hold down the power button on the lower right hand
side (when looking at the computer).
• Macs will re-start to Novell login screen.*
Logging into Servers:
• All Macs* are now set to the Novell login screen
at start-up. What this means is that you will NEED to enter a username into
the login screen to use the Mac computers.
- Students should enter their Novell username and
password to enter into the computer.
- After logging in, their U-drive window will automatically
pop up.
- If their username and passwords are not working
on the Macs, you can still login to them by using the generic login username
of "GCALab" and no password.
- They will still be able to access their U-drive
by following the steps below and selecting the U Drive folder.
- Be sure students log out of Macs by pulling down
the Apple menu at the upper right hand corner and selecting log out.
*All Mac computers in the Teaching
Lab side of the Swart Computer Lab will **not** be set up to the login screen
at start-up. The professor's have requested that the Mac's still start at the
desktop after re-booting. However, you may login to your student account by
going to the Apple and choose Log out, so that you can log back into that computer
on your U-drive.
• To login to the Shared Q: drive or Asimov COEHS servers,
you will click the server icon on the dock located near the “Start”
and Trash icons.
• Once you put in your username and password you should be prompted for
a volume, select "soft". This will open a window to choose "users"
or "shared". Users is the Student U: drive, and Shared is the Shared
Q: drive.
• Logging into Asimov:
Username: coehsuser
Password: coehs
• To Log Out: Drag Server icon on Desktop to trash (eject).
Using USB Disks:
•More than half the USB drives on the market will work off the keyboard
USB port.
•For those that don't they will have to use the USB port on the back of
the computer.
o You may need to gently unplug a zip or floppy drive to plug
in the USB disk. Please be sure to re-plug this in when finished.
Mouse Units:
On the iMacs-- if the mouse doesn't move, just unplug it from the USB port and
plug it right back in.
Internet Browsers:
• Mozilla: Netscape and Internet Explorer have been replaced on the Macs.
Mozilla is an Internet browser that can be opened through the Start button.
• Safarai: The other new desktop icon docked at the bottom is for Safarai
(looks like a directional compass). Safarai is another Internet browser.
Hard drives:
• In the upper right hand corner of the desktop there are now 2 hard drives.
HD_1 is the same as before, it will get reformatted to default upon restart
(erasing all new data saved).
• HD_2 is defaulted as empty. The data saved to HD_2 will remain saved
upon restart/logout, this will prevent patrons from losing all their work saved
to the desktop from being lost if the computer freezes up. However HD_2 will
be remotely cleaned on a periodic basis, so there is no guarantee saved data
will remain for any length of time.
o This will be important to clearly explain to patrons, they
should realize HD_2 is not a primary storage area but is only a one-sitting
BACK-UP, it is NOT like the Novell Student U: drive which is never erased
until the account is deactivated.
Burning:
If an inferior quality CD is used there may be problems both in the "burning"
and "copying" aspect. Lab Patrons should try using a higher quality
blank CD.
Mac Freeze-ups:
Hold down Command, Option, Esc keys. This is similar to <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del>
on a Windows computer. A “Force Quit” window should appear, highlight
the "frozen" application than click on "Force Quit" button.
Close the "Force Quit" window.
Printing:
• The Mac's print jobs do not show up on the print queue, but rather just
go directly to the printer.
• In some cases, Mac print jobs will "compete" with PC print
jobs, which may cause the Mac print jobs to be delayed. This is especially true
for large files such as graphic files.
o If a Mac print job never prints, it may have been automatically
cancelled due to this competition; try printing several times before reporting
the problem.
Double Sided Printing:
• All of our Mac's are set as default to print on both sides of the page.
To turn off double sided printing:
o Select File Print.
o You will need to change the third drop down menu (which currently reads
'Copies and Pages') to Layout.
o Once you are in the Layout screen, you will see "Two Sided Printing,"
then select the "off" button.
Applications:
• The Start button can be found on the Dock on the bottom part of the
desktop, this contains the Applications Folder
• If you single click on Start, the Applications will open. From there
you can double-click the name of the applications listed to launch them.
Legacy Programs Not Available:
• The only operating system available on the Macs in the General Access
Computer Labs is OS X (Jaguar version). Legacy programs that were written for
the 9.x operating system on the Mac side will not run, as we do not include
the Mac "Classic Mode" Operating System at this time.
• In the past, OS X was the primary OS, but Classic (9.x) was available
as well. In other words, in the past if a Classic Program was launched it would
bring up the older 9.x operating system on the Macs and thus it could run. This
is no longer the case. Keep in mind that there are some "former" Legacy
programs that if in fact were updated to run under OS X, these could run in
our General Access Computer Labs.
o The current Mac Image does not include the option of running
"Classic Mode" Mac programs, just programs written for OS X.
This page was last modified on
October 25, 2005
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