This is a mini-help/FAQ text file for the Laptop Users of CS160 or CS169 class. Modified 2/20/2004. If you are viewing this on a web-browser you may wish to download it and open it in notepad with Word Wrap turned on, as formatting may not be optimal. Please save your boxes and be sure you have all the parts. Parts List HP Omnibook 500: 750 MHz PIII, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB harddisk. Laptop first used during the 2002 Spring Semester. Battery Power Supply Orinoco Wavelan PCMCIA Wireless Ethernet Docking Station. Floppy Drive DVD Drive Parts List IBM Thinkpad 570e: 450 MHz PIII, 128 MB RAM, 6 GB harddisk. Laptop first used during the 2000 Fall Semester 2 Batteries Power Supply Orinoco Wavelan PCMCIA Wireless Ethernet D-Link Wired PCMCIA Ethernet Card Dongle Floppy Drive Floppy Drive Cable # Be carefull with the laptops. These are not Panasonic Toughnotes(TM). They will break if you drop them. They will break if you stuff them in a full backpack. They will break if you close the screen on a pencil or pen or any hard object. They will break if you flex the LCD screen. If you must carry the laptop in a full backpack, be sure to put it between two flat items, such as your books. Yes, someone has done each of the above things to break a laptop. The wireless cards should not be in the laptop when you put it away in the backpack. They may flex and break. Please remove the wireless cards before you put the laptop away. # Both machines have "Speed-Step"(TM) technology, which means they both run at approximately 200 MHz when they are on battery power. # Batteries should last 2-3 hours under normal use when the wireless cards are not plugged in. Wireless cards reduce battery life by approximately 1 hour in standard mode ( The connection LED is always green). Wireless cards reduce battery life by approximately 1/2 to 1 hour in low power mode ( The connection LED will be blinking). Times may be reduced on some laptops due to heavier battery use by some students. # (My opinion) The IBM laptops have better keyboards and feel more responsive. The HP keyboards occasionally skip keys or require harder key-strikes. # HP Omnibook 500 Laptops include a docking station. Please be very careful with the docking stations. If you undock them incorrectly, you will destroy the disk drive. We have no means to replace the drives. There are two undocking switches, both on the right side of the dock. Use the one towards the front. Pressing this down will safely undock the laptop electronically. If the laptop refuses to undock, it is because windows believes that the dock, or some device on the dock is in use. Sometimes you just need to shutdown the laptop to force windows to release the device. The undocking switch towards the back is a manual undock. Do not use the manual undocking switch unless the power is off. Make sure all LED lights are off. You will destroy the disk drive if you do this incorrectly. # IBM Thinkpad 570e laptops do not come with a CD-Rom drive. I do have 8 docking stations with CD-Rom drives which I can loan out. As these are limited, you may only check them out for a maximum of 1 week. However, it appears that at least 4 do not work. I have recently (2/18/2004) learned that these docking bays get damaged if a user installs linux and does not power off the machine prior to undocking. Now that I know of this, I will be checking the docking stations when you return them to me. If you damage them, you will pay for them. Please be careful with them. ? How do I install software on the IBM laptops? There's no CD-Rom Drive. I have docking stations that you may check out for a few days. There are 2 working docking stations available. You must return them. See above. ? Who do I contact for help? For all laptop specific questions (mainly hardware issues) william@eecs All other instructional questions - Lab computers, Software, Printers, account questions or anything else please use inst@eecs.berkeley.edu. When you ask for help, it is usually best to "reply to all" or at the very least, include inst@eecs.berkeley.edu when you respond to us. You will usually get a faster answer. ? Can I unplug machines in the labs to power my Laptop? NO! NO! NO! NNN NNN OOOO !!! NNNN NNN OOO OOO !!! NNNNN NNN OOO OOO !!! NNNNNN NNN OOO OOO !!! NNN NNN NNN OOO OOO !!! NNN NNN NNN OOO OOO !!! NNN NNN NNN OOO OOO !!! NNN NNN NNN OOO OOO !!! NNN NNNNNN OOO OOO !!! NNN NNNNN OOO OOO NNN NNNN OOO OOO !!! NNN NNN OOOO !!! Please do not unplug any instructional equipment (monitors are equipment) to power your laptop. I have provided power strips in 330 Soda, 277 Soda, and 271 Soda. Please use those. There are also a few unused floorboxes, with two outlets each, towards the front of 271, 273, and 275 Soda (near the whiteboards). 271 Soda has a power strip near the middle of the room and two wall outlets. 273 Soda also has the two outlets on the center column. 275 Soda had power strips that were stolen. 277 Soda has one power strip, since two others were stolen. Please also do not move the power strips around. Our machines do get damaged when you indiscriminately unplug the machines. We currently have 4 unusable machines in 277 Soda because users have continuosly ignored my whiteboard messages and unplugged them. We also have one in 330 Soda due to someone unplugging machines and moving the power strip to it's place. If you are caught unplugging machines, I may confiscate the laptops I've issued, especially if you've been warned at least once. # The laptops use Lithium-Ion Batteries, which are essentially large capacitors. If you leave the batteries unused for a week to a month, expect them to be discharged. You do not have to worry about initially conditioning them, as I have done the 3 full charge and discharge cycles prior to first handing them out. They should essentially be memory free. The batteries are old, 3-1/2 years for the IBM's, 2 years for the HP's, so they may be starting to fail. If they are not charging fully, or discharging in 30 minutes or less bring them in. I have plenty of spare thinkpad 570e batteries and only 2 spare HP batteries. ? How do I login? Initial user : Admin Initial password : locopass you will be asked to change your password after you login. # I want to use my class account, but it doesn't let me install software. You must be an administrator to install software. If you wish, you may use the Admin account to do all your work. If you wish to use the class account as your main account, be sure to change your profile to a Roaming profile. In previous years, it was beneficial to use a Domain account to easily access instructional resources. With the various Microsoft worms and viruses, the department has decided to limit access to the domain, so the domain account only provides a minor additional benefit. # If you use your class account, you will definitely want to change your profile from "roaming" to "local". This will improve your login and logout times by placing your profile on the local computer rather than having it transfer across the network. What gets transfered across the network for a roaming profile is everything in the "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME" folder. This includes but is not limited to all temp directories (except c:\temp), IE settings, and your Desktop (Yes, that desktop). Many people put large files on their desktop. Never do that with a roaming profile. The desktop on roaming profiles should only contain shortcuts. To change your profile: Right-Click on "My Computer" Select "Properties" from the pop-up menu. Select the "User Profiles" Tab. (This may take a few seconds) Select your account name. Click on "Change Type" Select the "Local profile" radio button. Click "OK" Click "OK" You are done. ? How do I add my class account to the administrators group? Go to Start-->Settings-->Control Panel Double-Click "Administrator Tools" Double-Click "Computer Management" (This may take a few seconds) Click on "Local Users and Groups" Double-Click on "Groups" in the right window pane Double-Click on the "Administrators" group. When the "Administrators Properties" Window pops-up, Click on "Add" Type in your class account name (e.g. eecs\cs160-aa) in the lower pane Press enter It should ask you for your username and password. Enter your "EECS\cs160-??" (replace the ?? with your account letters) Press enter Click on "OK" Click "OK". Close the other windows. # Some of you may have noticed that you can change the Administrator account settings here too. If you are not going to need my help, be my guest. That is technically my backdoor into the machine. It allows me to help you if you lose your own local Admin password. Or you need to leave the laptop with me for some service. If you do change the password, and need my help, you will need to give me a way to access the laptop. If you know how to crack the passwords or do crack the password or believe that someone can crack the password, go ahead and disable the account. ? What do I do if I accidently took it out of the domain? These Laptops are the EECS domain when you first receive them. Do not remove them from the Domain if you are using an EECS account or you will not be able to log back in. You need to bring it to 333 Soda or 386 Cory and a staff member can add you back into the domain. ? What if I'm using a Local account instead of a domain account and I accidently remove myself from the domain? You can still use your Laptop. You will have to enter a Username and Password for each domain resource that you use, which is no different than when you normally log into a local account. Join the EECS workgroup if you need easier access to domain resources - the machine names will show up in the EECS workgroup. ? What happens if I break the LCD screen? You need to bring the laptop to 333 Soda and find William. This will be a non-warrantee repair and you will pay for the damage(s). Please be carefull with the laptops and you will not have to worry. Do not place the laptop in a full backpack. If you do put the laptops in your backpacks, place the laptop between two flat objects to distribute the pressure across the surface. We get about 1-2 of these broken screens per every 25-30 laptops every semester. ? What happens if my laptop stops working? Bring it in to William in 333 Soda. I can replace it with an IBM Thinkpad 570e and get you up and running. These machines are all out of warrantee. They will not be repaired. If you have data you wish to recover, I can attempt to recover the data by moving the drive to an IBM Thinkpad. If that does not work, and you feel the need to recover the data, you may find a data recovery company and pay. I suggest you back up the data periodically. ? I use AT&T broadband at home, how do I switch between the workgroup and the EECS domain if I do not have permissions to bring the computer into the Domain? You don't. AT&T does not require you to join their domain in order for your machine to work. You can have your machine in the EECS domain and still connect through AT&T. There may be instructions on the internet. ? I want to instal Linux on my CS160 or CS160 Laptop. How do I do that? We do not officially support anything other than the default installation. You are on your own. Do a search on google. The following two links were available in May, 2002. http://www.obviously.com/laptops/OmniBook500linux.html http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ibm.html ? How do I protect myself from viruses and worms on the internet? Norton anti-virus is installed. You should periodically download the virus signatures to keep up to date. If you want a free firewall, try ZoneAlarm from http://www.zonelabs.com. It's very basic and most importantly, free. Be sure to run windows update. Microsoft is supposedly releasing updates on the first Tuesday of the month, but they released them twice this month. Please be sure to keep them patched, or the department may firewall you off from the EECS network. ? The red "Pointing Stick" isn't working wery well or is worn out. Do you have any replacements? Yes, Come to 333 Soda and I will swap out your old one. ? Why does my keyboard type funny characters? The letters are all messed up. When I type 'asdf' I get 'aoeu' You have accidently swapped your keyboard to the dvorak layout. I use dvorak and turned on the option when I was doing installs. If you accidently hit the left shift and left alt key simultaneously, you will switch between the two different installed keyboard layouts. To turn it off, so you never have this problem again. Click on Start-->Settings-->Control Panel Double-Click Regional Options Click on the "Input Locales" tab Select the Dvorak locale "English(United States) United States-Dvorak" Click on the "Remove" Button For those who wish, you can use the "Regional Options" settings to add foreign language keyboards. ie German (has T and Z swapped as well as different symbols) Korean (allows Korean text entry) Dvorak (for those who have RSI - Dvorak will not improve your typing speed. That is a fallacy. Dvorak layouts reduce finger travel, which helps if you're typing all day since you were 5 or playing pc video games 8-16 hours/day for the past 10-15 years. It took me a month to learn, a second month to get get fully up to speed, and a third month to swap between qwerty and dvorak comfortably. I still use qwerty for games, because games are configured for qwerty. The qwerty layout was used to prevent manual typewriters from getting stuck, so that you could type faster. You could still get the keys stuck, if you were a really fast typist. Even if you are not fast, you can still occasionally get them stuck, at least I did when I was learning on one. Dvorak is also more right handed centric... You type more of the keys with your right hand, so I've moved my mouse to the left. It helps if you're ambidextrous. There are also right handed only or left handed only dvorak layouts.) # Data. It's the end of the semester and I've turned in the laptop, but I've got data I want to recover. Please backup your data before you turn in the laptop. I wipe the drives and place a new image on the laptops at the beginning of each semester. Your data is your responsibility. If you are lucky enough to get to me before I start the new images, you might have a chance to recover your data. Please do not count on me to be your data backup source. You can Ignore this. Since CS160 is about usability, I would like to rant that the qwerty layout should not be on little tiny devices such as the blackberry, pda's, cell phones, or any other tiny little supposedly one-handed device. There is no good reason to have that abhorent 2-handed layout on what really should be a one-handed device. I hope that those of you who are eventually hired to design these types of devices will pass that on. Hunting and pecking on a qwerty layout is just inefficient. An alphabetic 5x6 layout with the vowels along a center row allows for better one-handed use. (keep the consonants in alphabetic order and arrange the vowels on their own line in alphabetic order). Or come up with something better that is not made for two handed typing. I am one consumer who would prefer a one-handed keypad layout that could be used with either the left or right hand. I can learn new keyboard layouts. Even a chording keyboard would be preferable. bcdfg hjklm aeiou npqrs tvwxy @.*z# or abcde fghij klmno pqrst uvwxy @.*z#