FAQ
Last revision November 29, 2011
- How do I get help?
- Who can use the lab?
- The lab door is locked. How do I get in?
- How do I switch operating systems?
- How do I login to the computer?
- Help! The computer won't accept my SUNet ID.
- Where do I find the course data?
- Where can I save my own files?
- Do I have to use the same computer every time?
- Files saved on one computer don't show on another!
- Can I use the lab printers for general printing?
- The computer asked me to restart - can I ignore it?
- How do I get the video projector to work?
- How do I use this funny Apple keyboard in Windows?
1. How do I get help?
You can contact the A-65 lab management to request help or report a problem or suggestion
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 management 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 management 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.
Running long processes on these computers is not advised. They are configured with the BigFix Stanford Green power management setting that puts the computer to sleep after 30 minutes of idle time (meaning no keyboard or mouse activity). This can interrupt long-running processes. In addition, 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. The computers in the neighboring G.R.I.D. lab are better suited to running long jobs for individual research.
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 management.
4. How do I switch operating systems?
The iMac computers in the A-65 lab can run either the 64 bit Windows 7 operating system or the Mac OS X 10.6.8 operating system, thus giving access to a wide variety of software programs.
By default, these computers start up running Windows 7.
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 7.
See this web page for complete instructions, including screenshots, to switch into the operating system of your choice.
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 7, press the Control, Alt, and Del keys together to bring up the login screen (click through the policy screen). Provide your SUNet ID name and password in the User name: and Password: fields, and click the OK button. 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.
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 may affect both Windows 7 and Mac OS X. 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. Both Windows 7 and Mac OS X 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 logins on these computers.
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 7. 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 7 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.
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 7, just open the H: drive from Windows Explorer, or double click the a65classdata shortcut on the desktop.
On Mac OS X, double click the Class Data disk icon on the desktop.
8. Where can I save my own files?
You have three options for saving your own files, described in more detail below:
- Save them in the Documents folder in your profile on Windows 7, 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.
- Save them on the local Scratch disk partition (E: drive in Windows, or disk icon for Mac OS X). They can only be used on this particular computer and are not backed up.
- 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.
On Windows 7, the a65 file share shows up in Windows Explorer as a network location labelled with your SUNet ID. If you open it, you will find a Documents folder. This is where you should save files. Under Mac OS X, save files in the Documents folder of your home folder. These two Documents folders 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" or "Recycle" 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 minimum 50 GB "Scratch" disk partition (E: 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.
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 Documents folder of your profile under Windows 7 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 (E: drive in Windows, or disk icon for Mac OS X), then you must login to that same computer again to access those files.
10. Files saved on one computer don't show on another!
Some people report that they save files in My Documents (Windows), Documents (Mac OS X), or on the Desktop (either OS) on one computer, and then find that they cannot see those files on another computer or the other operating system.
This is a known bug that occurs if your very first login of the quarter on any A65 computer uses Mac OS X. The lab file share on the School file server is wiped clean every quarter break. Your first login of the quarter re-creates your own folder on that file share. Mac OS X does not create folders with the correct permissions to be accessed from Windows.
The fix is simple: wait about one hour. A background process on the file server fixes all broken permissions on the lab file share. It runs once per hour. If waiting does not fix the problem for you, please report it to the A-65 lab management.
11. 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.
12. 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 7 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.
13. 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.
14. How do I use this funny Apple keyboard in Windows?
The iMacs use an Apple keyboard designed for Mac OS X. However, there are equivalents for the special keys normally found on a Windows keyboard that you can use when the iMacs are booted into Windows.
The key on the bottom row labeled alt option is equivalent to the Windows key.
Use the F14 key on the top row to dump a screenshot of the entire screen into the copy/paste buffer.
Press the option and F14 keys together to dump a screenshot of the currently active window into the copy/paste buffer.
For other keyboard equivalents, see Apple knowledge base article HT1216.
