Access to the iMac Suite
Please note that the iMac Suite is usually open 24 hours a day and every day of the year, except days when the university is officially closed.
As an imd student you are welcome to drop in and use the iMac Suite when it is open. However, please note that before entering the room for private study purposes you should check the iMac Suite timetable posted on the door to ensure that the room is free. If there is a class in progress and you need to use an iMac workstation then you can enter the Suite quietly and ask the person in charge of the class if you can use an iMac. The decision is theirs to make and you should respect it.
iMac How-To-Guides
A number of help guides have been compiled for you to become more familiar with the features of the iMac. iMac / Mac How-To-Guides.
FTP to the AD Network
There is a help guide on how to FTP to the iMacs via the AD Network - internally and externally. FTP to your personal space on the AD network.
Access to other Block 16 computer workstations (floors G and C)
Also keep in mind that there are computer workstations on other floors of Block 16, in the LRC and at a number of locations in the university that you can use for general computing tasks and some multimedia work. So if you cannot get into the iMac Suite you could try Rooms 16G26, 16C27 and 16C29.
At the start of the year, you are given two Active Directory accounts – one for use in the LRC and for your email and one for use in the School of Computing and Mathematics. Your Student Number or Bcode is the userid for both of these accounts. It is suggested that you use the same password for both of these accounts. The Active Directory account in the School of Computing and Mathematics can be used in the iMac Suite and on the other computer workstations in Block 16 and can be retreived from here. This and other useful information regarding access to computer workstations in the School of Computing and Mathematics can be found on the site lab information.
Please do not touch, poke or press display screens
Please do not touch, poke or press the surface of the computer monitors in the iMac Suite. This can damage a display panel and at best makes the screen dirty for you and other users. A number of screens have already been damaged from just this sort of treatment. It is worth noting that this matter was raised by a student who had noticed other students treating the screens as described above and that screens had been damaged as a result.
File storage
As a student in the School of Computing and Mathematics you have been allocated storage space on a networked hard disk drive on the Active Directory server. On the Windows 7 workstations in Block 16, this is called the P: drive. The same file storage area in the iMac Suite is called SystemFiles\StudentNumber. This account space is to allow you to store your work so please keep personal files to a minimum. While SystemFiles\StudentNumber is very reliable you should also make frequent backups of your work on removable media to ensure you do not lose work. Keeping adequate backups of your work is your responsibility. Remember that the same file storage on the Active Directory server is available in the iMac Suite as SystemFiles\StudentNumber and as Drive P: on the Windows7P workstations in Block 16.
Local hard disks
Please also note that local file storage on the hard disk drives in each iMac workstation are not suitable for long term storage. Files written to SystemFiles\Users\Shared are deleted each time you logout or each time the computer restarts (even if this is the result of the computer crashing). LocalUserFiles is cleaned each night at 04.10 but students can work through this process. Monday morning between 04.00 and 05:00, the iMacs are unavailable to allow for Operating System updates.
Advice on backing up files
Many students do not take adequate backups of important files, even though sometimes they believe they do so. Having a good file backup strategy is important when working with computers so consider using an approach similar to the following suggestion.
Each time you save an important file add a number to the end of the name. For example when working on a project to create a flash animation about mobile phones name the initial Flash file 'mobile001.fla' then after making some significant changes or maybe every thirty minutes save the file with an updated name 'mobile002', 'mobile003'..'mobile014' and so on. Following this type of strategy means that if a recent edit goes badly wrong or a file becomes corrupted you can rollback to a recent version and minimise your loss of time and effort. The leading zeros allow the files to be sorted alphabetically up to 999 versions, which should be sufficient.
Then to be doubly sure, at the end of each session make a copy of the most up-to-date version, and possibly of a few other key versions, to a backup folder on Volume01\StudentNumber and to a removable medium (e.g. a USB Flash Drive or CDRW or DVD-R).
It's worth noting that in almost all cases losing an important file is not considered to be grounds for extenuating circumstances and as such extensions are seldom granted should this happen. The principle being that you should have adequate backups of your files.
Printing
Please note that the default printer on an iMac workstation is 'IMDBWPrinter' and this black and white printer is located in the iMac Suite. A colour printer called ‘IMDColourPrinter’ is also located in the iMac Suite. Students can also use '16C26BWPrinter' which is located in room 16C26 and ‘16G26BWPrinter’ in room 16G26.
Students can purchase print cards in 16C26 and 16G26 at a cost of £2 for 40 units. The cost of printing a page on the colour printer in the iMac Suite is 10 units per page. The cost of printing a page on the black and white printers is 1 unit per page.
To print a file first select the printer you wish to use from the printer list in the software you are using and then print in the normal way. This will send your print job to a printer queue on the release station computer that is near the printer you selected.
Next insert a printer card into the card reader that is near the release station computer and printer you have sent the print job to. Then using the release station computer click on the job you want to print. Nothing will be printed until you have released your print job in this way.
