Spring 2001 Microcomputer Systems 810:023

VBScript debugging and Internet Explorer settings

There will be a new handout prepared and published here before Wednesday's final exam period. I will also have a link to the Computer Skills and Concepts Ghostbusters and Problem solving web published Powerpoint presentations (should be 20 to 25 of them done by Wednesday morning).

The new handout/material on Ghostbusters and Microcomputer Systems will be available later sometime during finals week. Until then, to prepare for the Wednesday session (our final is at 10 am Wednesday), you can read these two over.

There will be some True/False, Multiple Choice, and fill in the blank questions over the waggle dancing bees and Ghostbuster's problem solving handouts and lectures. The lessons on phases or stages of the problem solving process are very important and perhaps useful for troubleshooting and learning and dealing with network problems.


Last four weeks (Weeks 12 to 15 pages) for Spring 2001

Quiz announcement for Networks quiz on Wednesday, April 18th. This is an in-class 20 to 25 minute quiz.

You may have a HAND-WRITTEN 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper cheat sheet, covered front and back for the quiz. Your cheat sheet is worth 5 or 10% of the quiz points.


Unix script file (Friday, April 13th handout). Compare to DOS Batch and Command files. Hands on class on Monday, April 16th.
Last four weeks (Weeks 12 to 15 pages) for Spring 2001

Wednesday, March 28th note: Chapter 7 online quiz, hands-on classes schedule, bc calculator techniques, and cheat sheet assignment (due Wednesday, April 4th).


Scanners PowerPoint presentation and handout from Friday, March 23rd class.

The Monday, February 26th lab exercise handout is due on Monday, March 5th. There are extra copies of it taped to my office door, 323 Wright.



Chapter 3, File Systems online quiz consists of 57 questions. You may take it anytime between now (February 28th) and Friday, March 9th.
Web site from while the faculty nova.cs.uni.edu was gone and not yet replaced.
Friday before spring break topic: Hamming Codewords and error correction for networks. Hamming and CRC quiz 2nd handout from Friday, March 9th. We did NOT cover the CRC concepts yet!
The Friday March 9th class also covered EFERA acronym for the 5 essential issues to consider when connecting two or more nodes (workstations) over some link (media such as coaxial cable or fiber optic cable). Know and memorize the EFERA acronym. Encoding, Framing, Errors, Reliability and Access are E, F, E, R, A.
Encoding
Encoding the digital data on the signals that the analog media can transmit, and decoding it back to the digital binary pattern when received.
Framing
Sentinel approach and byte count approach to know the end of a frame. Detecting the exact start of a frame is the other issue. "Not me" and "Mine" example.
Error detection
Even and odd parity. Hamming codewords.
Reliable delivery
Sliding windows. Timers and ACKs. Automatic resend after timer goes off if no ACK from destination host.
Access control
CSMA/CD and CSMA/CA and token passing we have already studied.

Thursday, January 25th email note about Chapter Two Quiz and New Perspectives Labs homework assignment. The CPU Simulator lab and the Troubleshooting lab assignment is due on Friday, January 26th.

Online QUIZ #1 over Chapter One is now available. You can take it on any Wright Hall lab PC up through Monday, January 29th. The lab closes at 10 p.m. Monday thru Thursday and at 5 p.m. on Friday. It is open from 5 until 10 p.m. on Sunday.


The assignment handed out in lab today (Friday January 12th) will be due one week from today in class. Send me email if you missed class and did not receive it and want to stop and pick up a copy from my office door, 323 Wright Hall. I will have copies on Wednesday.
ASSIGNMENT #1: Pre-lab assignment due on Friday in the Wright 339 PC lab. The hands-on class will focus on networking, so the pre-lab assignment is meant to prepare you for the lab concepts ahead of time. It is due at the beginning of lab. Assign #1 gradient enhanced version.

Both the Spring 1999 web page and the Spring 2000 web page are useful to see what kinds of topics are covered in this class. Keep in mind, the rate of change for networks, PCs and operating systems means the class will change quite a bit in response.


Networking terms and concepts - This LAN is your LAN. Link to this for definitions you need to look up for your 1st assignment. We will have a hands-on class on Friday, January 12th in Wright 339 lab.

Spring 2001 course outline

Class #1 review and class #2 preview

  1. Monday, January 8th class started to cover IP numbers. This is the foundation for understanding how networks and the internet work. This list summarizes and goes beyond what was covered in class #1. Item #2 was all that was covered at the very end of class #1.
  2. Class #1 introduced the command prompt, the IPCONFIG command, the idea of and IP number and what the IP acronym stands for (Internet Protocol). The IP number being made up of 4 octets, where each octet represents a number between 0 and 255. And all 4 octets representing a 32 bit number in the computers binary represenation.
  3. The IPCONFIG command was demonstrated in class. We will use this command in the Friday, January 12th hands-on class in Wright 339 lab.
    • The Windows NT command prompt can be accessed two different ways. Start menu, Programs, command prompt is one method. The other method is Start menu, Run, and type cmd (short for CoMmanD, which invokes the cmd.exe program).
    • The ping, ipconfig, and tracert commands we will do from the Windows command prompt (often called the DOS prompt).
  4. An IP number consists of 4 octets. The IP number for COBRA is: 134.161.1.11 and since each octet represents 8 bits (binary digits), the actual IP number is 4 bytes or 32 bits. IP stands for Internet Protocol.
  5. The IPCONFIG command (typed at the DOS or cmd.exe program prompt), tells you what the IP number is for the machine you are working on in the Wright labs.
  6. The ping command can be used to find out the IP number for a remote computer. For example, ping www.uni.edu would reveal the IP number for the UNI web server computer. 134.161.1.13 is the IP number for panther.uni.edu, which is the actual name for the UNI web server computer.
  7. You are NOT expected to understand the IP concepts discussed above or the overview handouts until about the middle of the 3rd week of classes.
  8. We will work with many of these concepts in Wednesday's lecture class and on Friday in the 1st hands-on class (WRT 339 lab, NOT the usual WRT 112 lab).

Class #2 and #4 handouts

Here are the handouts from the 4th class lecture (Wednesday, January 17th class) where IP numbers and the internet concepts were discussed. You now know the w.x.y.z form of an IP address and how to determine whether its class A, class B or class C network address.
  1. Here is an overview of IP numbers, binary and subnet masks.
  2. More binary mysteries revealed. Why 254, 252, 248, 240, 224, 192 are so common as subnet mask numbers?

The chapter one quiz will hopefully be available from the Start menu, Programs, Testing menu starting on Friday, January 17th and lasting through Monday, January 27th.

The quiz is an open book quiz. It will consist of 29 questions. 2 or 3 of them will be fill in the blank, but the other 26 or 27 will be multiple choice and True/False.


Start menu, Programs, Testing, Operating Systems Guide is the menu choice. Your user id and password were handed out in the 1/12/Friday class lab. I can send you the password by email, if you didn't get it yet or forgot it. The user id is easy. Its the same as your COBRA/VIPER/ICEMAN or your ACAD user id.