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1. How do I get help?
To request help or report a problem or suggestion, send email to the
A-65 lab manager.
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2. Who can use the lab?
The lab may be
reserved
only
for courses in School of Earth Sciences departments and programs,
no more than three months in advance.
Contact the
A-65 lab manager
for information on how to use the lab and get course software
loaded onto the PCs.
During the summer months, when not needed for Earth Sciences
courses, the lab may be used by courses of other units in the
University. Contact the
A-65 lab manager
with such requests.
When not
scheduled for course use, the lab is accessible for
individual use by students in current Earth Sciences courses,
or by anyone who is affiliated with an Earth Sciences department or program.
The time period between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. each day is reserved
for a maintenance window, when the lab computers may be rebooted
without warning, so running long processes on these
computers is not advised.
The computers in the neighboring
G.R.I.D.
lab are better suited to running long jobs for individual research.
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3. The lab door is locked. How do I get in?
The Mitchell Earth Sciences Building is always open on weekdays from
8 am to 6 pm. During evenings and weekends, the exterior doors are
unlocked during the same hours that the Branner Library is open. You
can check their hours at the
Branner Library website.
The A-65 lab doors have a combination lock.
Your course instructor can give you the code.
People affiliated with the School of Earth Sciences, who are not
currently taking a course in the lab, can request the code from the
A-65 lab manager.
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4. How do I switch operating systems?
The
iMac computers in the A-65 lab
can run either the Windows XP
operating system or the Mac OS X 10.5 operating system,
thus giving access to a wide variety of
software programs.
By default, these computers start up running Windows XP.
To switch to Mac OS X, you must restart the computer while
holding down the
Option
key until a screen is displayed showing disk icons for Macintosh
and Windows. Click on the Macintosh icon and then click the
"up" arrow to start Mac OS X.
If the computer is already running Mac OS X, simply restart it
to switch back to Windows XP.
See this web page
for complete instructions, including screenshots, to switch into the
operating system of your choice.
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5. How do I login to the computer?
You need a valid full-service SUNet ID and password to login to the
A-65 computers.
All regular students, faculty, and staff have a full-service SUNet ID.
A guest "base service" SUNet ID is not sufficient!
If the computer is running Windows XP,
press the
Control,
Alt,
and
Del
keys together to bring up the login screen (click through the
policy screen).
Select the "stanford.edu (Kerberos Realm)" domain
in the
Log on to:
field, provide your SUNet ID name and password in the
User name:
and
Password:
fields, and click the
OK
button.
Make sure that the stanford.edu domain is selected before trying to login.
See the
detailed login procedure
for screenshots, including the logoff procedure.
If the computer is running Mac OS X,
simply provide your SUNet ID name and password in the
Name:
and
Password:
fields of the login screen and click the
Log in
button.
See the
detailed login procedure
for screenshots, including the logoff procedure.
If you have just started or restarted the computer,
for example, to switch operating systems, wait about 30 seconds
before trying to login.
The computer needs to resynchronize its internal clock with the
campus time servers before a login will work.
Be sure to logoff when you are done with the computer.
Otherwise, the next person can impersonate you and access your files
or cause other mischief.
If you sit down in front of a computer and the screen shows the normal
desktop with icons for programs that you can run, then someone left it
logged in from a previous use. You should logoff that user, then login
under your SUNet ID. You must be logged in under your own SUNet ID
to access
files you have saved on these computers.
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6. Help! The computer won't accept my SUNet ID.
Only valid full-service SUNet IDs will work for login to the
A-65 computers.
If you have only a "base service" guest SUNet ID, or if you are a
former student with an inactive SUNet ID, you cannot successfully
login to these computers.
Assuming you have a normal full-service SUNet ID,
first make sure you are following the
correct login procedure.
Remember that you
must
use your original SUNet ID username,
not
one of the email aliases you may have created at the StanfordYou web site!
Even if you follow the correct procedure,
there are two known problems with logins that may affect you.
The first known problem affects only Windows XP.
SUNet IDs are defined in the campus kerberos servers
and the information is copied to the Windows Active Directory
after every update to the kerberos servers.
Windows XP logins on these computers authenticate to the Active Directory.
Sometimes, this copy operation fails for a particular SUNet ID.
In that case, the affected SUNet ID will not work for Windows XP
logins on these computers.
Mac OS X logins are not affected because they authenticate directly
to the campus kerberos servers.
The solution for this first problem is simple: reset your SUNet ID
password. You can even reset it to the same password as before!
The process of resetting is the key action because it forces the
information to be updated in the kerberos servers and in the Windows
Active Directory.
You can reset your SUNet ID password from this web site (for example,
from a computer where someone else is logged in):
http://stanfordyou.stanford.edu/
After resetting your SUNet ID password, quit the browser that you used
or logoff from the computer (otherwise, someone else at that computer
could change your settings).
The Windows domain should be updated with your reset password within
five minutes.
The second known problem affects primarily Mac OS X.
When restarted into Mac OS X, the computer must resynchronize its
internal clock with the campus time servers, because Mac OS X
stores the time value differently than Windows XP. This can take
a few seconds after the login window appears. If you try to login
before this time resynchronization completes, your SUNet ID can
be "locked out" from that computer. In this case, the solution
is to restart Mac OS X again, and wait longer (30 seconds should be
sufficient) after the login window appears before trying to login.
In principle, logins to Windows XP right after a restart
could also fail if time resynchronization has not finished, but
that seems to happen less often, and usually does not "lock out"
the SUNet ID - just try again after waiting 30 seconds.
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7. Where do I find the course data?
Some instructors load data on the School of Earth Sciences file server
to be accessed by the entire class.
The network file share they use is automatically accessed by the computers in
the A-65 lab in read-only mode.
You can copy the course files from there to your local computer.
On Windows XP,
just open the
H:
drive from
Windows Explorer,
or double click the
Class Data
shortcut on the desktop.
On Mac OS X,
double click the
Class Data
disk icon on the desktop.
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8. Where can I save my own files?
You have three options for saving your own files, described in more
detail below:
A) Save them in the
My Documents
folder on Windows XP, or the
Documents
folder inside your home folder under Mac OS X.
These locations are stored on a protected file server.
Files saved there can be used on any computer in the lab.
B) Save them on the local
Scratch
disk partition
(D: drive in Windows, or disk icon for Mac OS X).
They can only be used on this particular computer and are not
backed up.
C) Save them to another file server on campus where you have an account,
or to a flash memory drive, or burn them on a CD or DVD.
Any user files saved on the server or local computer disk
will be erased at the end of the quarter!
Copy files elsewhere if you want to keep them after the course ends.
The lab computers automatically access the special
a65
network file share on the School of Earth Sciences high performance file server,
sesfs.stanford.edu.
A separate folder is automatically created on the
a65
network file share
for each new person the first time he/she logs into any of the A-65 computers.
The
My Documents
folder under Windows XP and the
Documents
subfolder of the home folder under Mac OS X
are mapped to a common location in the user's folder on the
a65
network file share.
The "Desktops" from both operating systems are also mapped to a (second)
common location in the user's folder on the
a65
network file share.
Files stored in these locations are accessible from any computer in the
lab (but not from any computer outside the lab),
running either operating system.
Please note that files you delete from these folders stored on the
server are immediately and completely deleted - they do not go into the
"Trash" folder.
File recovery from backups
may be possible for important files that were accidentally deleted.
Each user has a 10 GB quota on the
a65
network file share.
Files on this network file share are protected with full backups
for the duration of the academic quarter, but are erased after the
quarter ends.
Each computer also has a 50 GB "Scratch" disk partition
(D: drive in Windows, or disk icon for Mac OS X).
Any user may save files there for the duration of the academic quarter,
but their integrity is not guaranteed.
This scratch disk partition will be erased after the quarter ends.
Users can mount other network file servers to save or transfer files,
including "home shares" on
sesfs.stanford.edu
(Earth Sciences students only) or the
AFS file servers
(all students).
An "sftp" client program (see the
Supported Software list)
is also provided to transfer files to other computers on the network.
Finally, users can save files to USB flash memory devices or burn
CDs or DVDs.
Policies for these computers prevent you from modifying any
system files, installing new programs, or creating file or print
shares.
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9. Do I have to use the same computer every time?
No. All computers in the lab have identical software configurations, and
all computers can access your saved files,
if
you save all your work to the
My Documents
folder under Windows XP or the
Documents
subfolder of the home folder under Mac OS X.
Those locations are
stored on the School file server.
If you save your files on the local "scratch" disk partition
(D: drive in Windows, or disk icon for Mac OS X),
then you must login to that same computer again to access those files.
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10. Can I use the lab printers for general printing?
The two printers in the lab are provided to print Earth Sciences
course-related work
only.
They will only accept print jobs from the computers in the lab,
which already have the correct print queues defined.
Personal laptops brought into the lab cannot connect to the printers.
Use a65-laserjet for normal black and white printing.
Please use a65-color only for color documents.
Both printers have built-in duplexers.
Select the "two-sided" print option whenever possible to print on
both sides of the paper and conserve trees!
The School absorbs the cost of the printers and supplies.
If students abuse this service by printing large personal documents
or work for non-Earth Sciences courses, a cumbersome printer
accounting and charging system will be implemented.
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11. The computer asked me to restart - can I ignore it?
The lab computers are setup to automatically download and install new
critical security patches released by Microsoft for Windows XP
or by Apple for Mac OS X.
A dialog box may appear while you are working that asks you to
restart the computer in order to finish installing updates.
You may continue working.
When you are done, completely shutdown (or restart)
the computer instead of just logging off.
The install will finish when the next person starts up the computer.
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12. How do I get the video projector to work?
The ceiling mounted video projector is connected to the video input
selector switch next to the "instructor's computer", A65PC7.
That switch has two inputs:
"A" is permanently connected to the auxiliary 15" monitor next to
A65PC7; "B" has a standard VGA cable that you can connect to a laptop
(set your laptop output to 1024x768 resolution).
Press the selector button to pick your desired input.
When using A65PC7 as the input, you must drag the window(s) you want to
display over to the auxiliary 15" monitor. That monitor has exactly
the same resolution as the video projector.
You turn on the video projector using the switch mounted on the wall to
the right of the main whiteboard and pull-down screen. After you press
"ON" you must wait approximately 30 seconds for the projector to warm
up. When you press "OFF", the projector takes approximately two
minutes to cool down. You cannot turn it back "ON" until it has
finished the cool down cycle.
If the video projector is on but showing only a blank blue screen,
first make sure that the video selector switch next to A65PC7 is
set correctly for the computer you are using as the video source.
If that is correct, someone may have accidentally pressed the
"Source" button on the wall-mounted control. In that case,
press the button, possibly more than once, until "PC Analog" input
is chosen.
