CU Math Department Computer FAQ

Math Department Computer FAQ

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Answers

How do I write a web page?

With Netscape Communicator you can create and edit web pages pretty easily because the interface is similar to a word processor. Using this method you do not have to know any HTML, you just have to know what you want the page to look like. There are buttons for boldfacing, indenting, making text larger, coloring the text or the background, inserting an image, etc. This program is installed on all of our own machines; it is not installed in the lab in 407.

On a Mac: Look under the Apple menu in the upper left of the screen.
On Windows: Look under the Start menu in the lower left of the screen.

On Unix: Click on the desktop, select "Applications" and then "Netscape" or type netscape at the command prompt.

While you are using Communicator, you should of course save your document regularly. This means you are saving a local copy that resides on the machine you're sitting at. In the math department, web pages need to be stored on our server which is where you'll have to move this file to. See the next question for details.

What do I do with a web page I've written to put it on the web?

First, you must put the web page on our server. That is described below for each platform. After that, you should provide a link to these resources in the University-Wide Bulletin. That procedure is addressed in another question. The reason you should do the latter step is so students can find your web page. Often, students use these materials to assess their interest or ability to take a class, so it is important to allow them to find these resources without having to hear about it from you during class.

First, do this: Log in to your Unix account and make sure you have a directory called "html" in your home directory. You can do this by typing

ls

and seeing if one of the items in the list is called "html". If so, you're set. If not, type

mkdir ~/html

and now you're set.

To put a page on our server from a Mac
First, follow the steps in the next question to mount the volume "MyWebPages" on your desktop.
Now, there is a new icon on your desktop. You have "mounted a remote volume." It represents the directory in your math account called "~/html", which is where you have to put your web pages. Put your new web page in there by dragging it in from wherever you saved it.

Advanced tip 1: Make an alias to the new icon somewhere convenient, perhaps your Apple menu. Recent versions of Mac OS have a menu under the Apple menu called "Recent Servers" that access it quickly as well.

Advanced tip 2: Mount MyWebPages before you start working. Then when you save, save it directly into MyWebPages. Your changes are visible on the web as you work!

Note: In the future, you can edit files in this folder directly. Just re-mount MyWebPages using the above procedure and open the document or documents that are in it. It's just like a Zip disk or a floppy, only you access it differently. Plus it's on the Web. Currently, Mary and Laurent use this exact system to update almost every page on our web site from their Macs!

From Windows

Follow the steps in the next question to find your home directory on the Unix machine. Inside is the folder called "html." It represents the directory in your math account called "~/html", which is where you have to put your web pages. Put your new web page in there by dragging it in from wherever you saved it.
Advanced tip 1: Make a shortcut to the new icon somewhere convenient, perhaps your desktop.

Advanced tip 2: Access this folderbefore you start working. Then when you save, save it directly into your html folder. Your changes are visible on the web as you work!

Note: In the future, you can edit files in this folder directly. Just locate your html folder using the procedure described here and open the document or documents that are in it.

From Unix

This is the easiest. Since you're on a department Unix machine, your home directory on the math system is right there! Just save your documents in the directory called "html" inside your home directory. So if I am Peter Woit, the path to my web pages is /home/woit/html or ~/html, either one.

How do I see my Unix home directory on Mac OS or Windows?

On the Mac: Go to the Chooser. Click "AppleShare." If you don't see a bunch of names (zones) in the bottom pane, go to the "AppleTalk" control panel and make sure "Ethernet" is selected in the popup there (answer Yes when it asks you if you want to turn on AppleTalk). Select the zone "Mathematics" and then on the right, the server named "LinuxAppleVolumes." A dialog should appear

Enter your Unix username and password and click "OK." Now one of two things happens. If you get the following dialog box

you're in business. Select "MyHome", don't click the checkbox (unless you want MyHome to be remounted every time you reboot your machine) and click OK. A new volume appears on your desktop with all the files from your home directory in it. The other volume, "MyWebPages" has only the contents of the directory html in it.

If the dialog doesn't have any volumes in it, you need to log in to your math account and issue the command

cp /home/default/.AppleVolumes ~/.AppleVolumes

Now repeat the above procedure and you're all set. If you read this file, you'll see that it contains the text

~/html MyWebPages options=crlf ~ MyHome options=crlf

You can see from this how to add directories to the list of volumes that appears. It is unknown if the "options=crlf" is necessary. Feel free to leave it off.

On Windows: Double-click "Network Neighborhood" on your desktop. Double-click the server "cpw" inside. Inside are folders for all the Unix users, one of which is yours. You won't have permission to change or view anything in anyone else's folders unless such permission has been granted to you, just as under Unix.

How do I link my syllabus URL into the University-Wide Bulletin on the web?

This step is important for informing your students that you have a class home page. Open a browser window and visit the bulletin page for the math department's classes ("Course Schedule"). This is linked from our department home page and depends on the semester and year. Find your course and click the section number to see the full bulletin page for your section. At the bottom is the "section key". Hilight the (long) section key and either write it down or select "Copy" from the Edit menu in your browser.

Now, visit this page and read the information. Click "access the forms" in the second paragraph. You will need to enter your cunix username and password. On the page that appears, scroll down to the "modify information for a section" part and click the link. Now, enter all the information you want to change, but don't forget to provide the section key you noted in the first paragraph, so they know what section you're modifying. There is lots of information you may change, but in particular be sure to provide a URL (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~...etc.) to either the syllabus or class home page or both. The following morning, students visiting this page will see a link to this location and can follow it. Nice work!

How do I download a roster for the classes I'm teaching?

Just visit Student Services Online on the Columbia web site. You'll need to log in using your cunix username and password. From there, you can do many things (even more if you're also a student, like get your grades) like get a roster in tab-delimited or Excel format, or get a list of emails for pasting into your email client (they recommend addressing all such mass emailings to yourself, with the students all in the Bcc: field, so they don't see each other's addresses).

How do I write a fancy web page?

Some more powerful web page editors include Claris Home Page (Mac/PC), Microsoft Front Page (PC only), Macromedia Dreamweaver (Mac/PC), and Adobe GoLive (Mac/PC). Dreamweaver and GoLive especially are for advanced users, containing features that allow you to make some fancy pages with layers, DHTML, animated GIFs, and pre-made JavaScript behaviors like image rollovers, buttons, and window management. All of these products are available at academic pricing. Contact our campus J&R store in 101 Philosophy Hall at 854-8108 (hours are M-F 10-6).

Claris Home Page is installed in several of our Macs, as well as on all the Macs in the 407 computer lab. This product has a cute feature (under the File menu in the Remote submenu) that lets you download and upload pages directly from any FTP server. You would type math.columbia.edu for the server and ~/html for the directory.

Other products may be available in the department soon.

How do I put a sample exam with lots of math symbols on the web?

The powers that be wish that this question had a more satisfactory answer. Math markup, a la TeX and LaTeX, is not part of HTML yet, though the World Wide Web Consortium is working on getting MathML, a proposal for just this sort of thing, included as a standard part of HTML and web browsers. For now, though, there are only some workarounds. The one most likely suited to your needs is to make a TeX document (a sample midterm, say) and just convert it to a PDF file and let the students download it from your web page. It is viewed outside of the browser by Acrobat Reader, a free viewer. This is an ideal solution for sample exams and homework solutions, because the file can be printed out anywhere (the computer modern fonts are embedded in the PDF file) and so looks like TeX output. Another option, though, is to use latex2html. To use this, put the .tex file in your html directory and run

latex2html file.tex

It will output a whole web site, with navigation links among your sections and chapters. Math symbols are turned into zillions of .gif files, one for each appearance of each symbol. This method is really to browse large documents and is ill-suited to teaching, because it is almost unreadable in print and has no typographical quality, which is what TeX is all about. Usually you're just making sample exams and homework solutions and the PDF solution is better.

There are two steps to distributing a PDF file on the web: make the PDF file, and link to it from your web page. The first step is covered in the next question. Once you have the PDF file (midterm1.pdf, let's say), put it in your html directory in your home directory. Then, edit your web page and add a link to that file. The procedure to do this differs among the different products, but what you want to look for is adding a link to some text. Type something like "download the sample midterm here" and hilight it. Find the "add link" command (in a menu or on the button toolbar) and type midterm1.pdf for the link text. When the students click the sentence, midterm1.pdf pops up on their computer. To be polite, link them to the web page where they can download the reader if they don't already have it. It's at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html.

How do I make a PDF file from a TeX source file?

This, thankfully, has gotten easier. Sort of.

First method: This method is easy if you don't have any eps pictures in your document. If you do, you have to convert them to little PDFs first. If you just have a document with math symbols, macros, and other non-graphics, you're in business. If it's a plain TeX document, type

pdftex file.tex

If it's LaTeX, type

pdflatex file.tex

Sorry, AMSTeX users appear to be out of luck. But AMSLaTeX, since it's just LaTeX with a package added, works fine with pdflatex.

This program outputs the file file.pdf which can be viewed by anyone with a PDF viewer. The output includes Postscript versions of the computer modern fonts, and so the quality is excellent.

Second method: This method works for an arbitrary TeX file, including one with graphics in any format, and with amstex. It requires the use of either a PC or Mac with Acrobat Distiller (a commercial product, part of Adobe Acrobat). This product costs about $100 with academic pricing, and is usually in either J&R's in Philosophy Hall or in the bookstore on 115th street. You simply TeX the document (on the Unix machine or on your own machine) and then dvips it with

dvips file.dvi -o file.ps

Now, open file.ps with Distiller. It will output a PDF file that you can put on the web or use however you want. As with the first method, the fonts are embedded so the quality is excellent. Adobe also offers a web-based Distiller that you can use for free 3 times, or you can register for a fee. See the Create PDF site for more information.

Third method: This method is similar to the second method, but uses the free program ps2pdf, installed on our Unix machine. It does a mildly worse job than the other two methods, as it bitmaps the computer modern fonts, but it is workably good. Try it and see what you think of the output. After you produce the Postscript file, type

ps2pdf file.ps

This produces the file file.pdf which you can distribute to your students.

Advanced tip: There is a nice package called "hyperref" that lets you do more with the PDF format. For example, it can hyperlink cross-references (to the bibliography and to sections and equations) automatically. It can also change colors of headings and links, for easier on-screen viewing. You can also output to a smaller page that is landscape-oriented so that the PDF file has enlarged type and fits on the screen without having to scroll. If you intend your document for on-screen viewing, use this package. It is easy to use a single source file and one of TeX's "ifthen" statements to target either print or screen, if you want maximum flexibility.

How can CCNMTL (aka Cinamatelly) help me make a course web page?

Visit their web page. They will work with any instructor, by appointment or walk-in, in their Lewisohn or Butler lab locations. The will help you design and create a course site, and they have lots of equipment (CD burners, scanners, fancy web page creation software) you can use. Their services are free.

How do I have my photo taken by the department to be put on the web?

Laurent and Dolores keep the department's digital camera in their office in 508 Math. They can take your picture and have it put in the faculty or student web listings.

How do I set my default printer under Unix?

If you are using the tcsh shell (if you don't know what I'm talking about then you are) type

setenv PRINTER lw421

to set your default printer to be the one in 421. If you are using the bash shell, you instead type

export PRINTER=lw421

Here are the names of some other printers:

`lw421`	The default, the printer in 421. Duplexing is turned on and off at the printer
`duplex`	Duplex printing to 421
`duplex2up`	Duplex printing with two pages per side to 421
`lw408`	Printer in room 408, with duplexing turned on and off at the printer
`duplex408`	Duplex printing to 408
`duplex2up408`	Duplex printing with two pages per side to 421
`lw509`	Similar to 408, but in room 509
`duplex509`	Ditto
`duplex2up509`	Ditto
`lw206B`	Similar to 408, but in room 206B
`duplex206B`	Ditto
`duplex2up206B`	Ditto
`lw410`	Printer in Mary Young's office

Other printers in personal offices are named using a similar scheme, for example lwthaddeus in Professor Thaddeus' office.

Printing to the printers like "lw408" instead of their duplex counterparts like "duplex408" does not control whether to print double-sided or not. Instead, the printer's own configuration menu controls whether to duplex the job. If you want to be extra-careful, check the setting at the printer. You do this on the little LCD display of the printer. Look for a menu called either "Configuration menu" or "Paper handling." If you want to specify single-sided printing from the command line, use, for example,

lpr -Plw421 -Zsimplex

which overrides the printer's hardwired setting. If you want to force duplex output, the option -Zduplex does the job, or you can use the alternate duplex printer name. So, the following are equivalent:

lpr -Plw421 -Zduplex

lpr -Pduplex

How do I remove a print job from the queue in Unix?

From Unix
Let's say you printed to lw421 and want to delete your job from the queue. Type
lpq -Plw421

You will get output like the following
Printer: lp@cpw  'lw421'
 Queue: 1 printable job
 Server: pid 27499 active
 Unspooler: pid 27500 active
 Status: printing 'gregl@cpw+496' starting OF 'ifhp' at 19:55:57.738
 Filter_status: (of) code = 12301, 'tray 3 open' at 19:55:57.835
 Rank   Owner/ID                  Class Job Files                 Size
 Time
active gregl@cpw+496                A   496 computerFAQ.shtml    33923
19:55:57
Note the number under "Job" (in this case 496) and issue the command

lprm -Plw421 496

Your job is now removed from the queue. Some pages might still come out of the printer since the printer reads a few pages ahead.

How do I check my email when I'm not on campus?

Our so-called "IMAP server" which you are using when you check your email, does not allow connections from outside the columbia.edu domain, for security purposes. Therefore, unless you are on campus or dialed in to Columbia's own modem pool, you cannot use clients such as Netscape Communicator or Outlook / Outlook Express to check email. There are two solutions.

The easiest way is to use the web. On our home page there is a link to check your email using your web browser. This system is very complete. It allows you to view all your folders, it allows attachments, it records your sent messages in the regular sent-mail folder, and the next time you use Pine or your usual email client, that client will reflect deletions or additions made using this system.

Another solution is to use cunix email instead. See the question below on forwarding email to and from cunix. This email account can be accessed using any email client, from anywhere.

How do I FTP a file to or from my math account from off campus?

Use the web-based FTP program linked to from our home page. Another method is to telnet to the math system (see next question), then ftp the file to your cunix account (by typing ftp cunix) and then using your usual FTP program (Fetch or WS_FTP or whatever) to contact your cunix account. This method must be used even if you are dialed in to the Columbia modem pool.

How do I telnet to my math account from off campus?

You must use an ssh-compatible telnet program, again for security reasons. This can be done in three ways.

First, you can download one for your system. If you have a Mac, look here (to download NiftyTelnet with ssh support) Windows users look here (to download Tera Term Pro and the ssh plugin for it).

If you cannot or don't want to use a special client, you can telnet to cunix using any old telnet client at all. The address is "cunix.cc.columbia.edu". From there, type

slogin math.columbia.edu

This will allow you to connect securely.

The third method doesn't require a telnet client but does require a web browser. Our home page has a link to a page that uses Java to log you in securely. This system, since it uses Java, will have some limitations and instabilities. Read carefully before clicking on the link, in case your browser is not supported.

These methods must be used even if you are dialed in to the Columbia modem pool.

How do I connect my home computer to the internet using Columbia's dialup server?

While in the department, visit this AcIS page. From there, click the link for your operating system and then click the link to view the documentation. This PDF file contains instructions on setting up your machine to access the Columbia Modem Pool. Print it out or write down what you need and take it home with you. You don't really need the whole "Internet Connection Kit" they distribute because it contains software you already have -- a web browser and dialup software. All you need are some settings for your PPP dialer and the user's guide explains what these settings are.

Note that the math department has no modems for you to dial in to. You have to use Columbia's modems, unless you want to get your own Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are lots of these (Earthlink, AOL, AT&T Worldnet, RCN, etc.) There is also some broadband availability from Bell Atlantic (for DSL, though one hears horror stories...) and from RCN and Time Warner (cable modems, but availability is still increasing). If you use a non-Columbia ISP, you'll have to read the above question concerning accessing email from off-campus.

How do I scan a photo or document?

The Mac in room 421 has a scanner attached. Run the program PhotoDeluxe from the Apple menu and it will lead you through the rest. To scan in a picture and get it looking the way you want and export it, give yourself a good half hour. When you're done, don't forget to use Fetch to upload the final image to your account.

How do I get an account on one of the Windows NT machines?

Speak to either Peter Woit or Mark Raugas. Do not email them with the username and password you want. You have to set the account up in person, for obvious security reasons.

What is cunix?

Columbia Unix. It is the system the university uses for email and other Unix utilities and commands. You get there by telnetting to cunix.cc.columbia.edu. You have an account there by default, including certain connect time quotas, space quotas, and printer page quotas. The printer pages may be used at any university printer (called a Jake Station because of the monitor and software they have at each one). You need to use your cunix username and password (it's different from your math account username and password) to use cunix email, or to use certain protected services on the university web site, or to use lab machines on campus, including in room 407. The cunix username is also referred to as your "Uni."

How do I forward my email to or from cunix?

By default, the university forwards cunix email to your main official email address. For most of us, that's our math account. If you want it the other way around, delete the file called ".forward" in your home directory on cunix and put one called ".forward" in your home directory on math containing, for example,

abc97@columbia.edu

(don't forget to hit return at the end of the line). This would forward all email that comes to you on the math system to that email address. You can forward all your email to Hotmail, for example, and never check email on the math system again. Oh yeah, don't forward to an account that has its mail forwarded right back because as long as that scenario holds, all your friends get their emails returned with the error "too many bounces."

How do I print to the printer in room 407 and why would I want to?

You want to because it uses university resources and not department resources. You are given a quota of either 20 double-sided pages or 100 double-sided pages per week depending on whether you're considered an "instructor" or not. Every week you get to use your pages again. You can print out pretty long papers on 100 double-sided pages!

From a Mac: In the Chooser, select "LaserWriter 8" on the top and then select the zone "AcIS.services" on the bottom. In the list at the right, select the printer "math407a."
From Unix: You'll have to FTP the file to cunix first. Then, log in to your cunix account and type

lpr -Pmath407a filename

where filename is the file you are printing.

From Windows: Coming soon

What is Star Office and how do I use it under Linux?

Star Office is a free office suite with a spreadsheet, word processor, email program, and other goodies. It looks and feels like Microsoft Office and shares many file formats with it. Therefore, it is a viable alternative to Excel, Word, etc. under Linux.

To set it up, go to a Linux machine or x-terminal (you can't just telnet in to do this, you must be under X). Then:

Run the command /usr/local/Office52/program/setup
Choose "Standard Workstation Install."
Ignore references to Adabas and KDE.
By default the program installs its files in a subdirectory of your home directory called "office52".
To start up the new program, run "soffice".
Peter suggests choosing the option "Don't use the internet", this wills keep the program from trying to configure Star Office to be your mail reader.

How do I start using the Gnome desktop?

1. If you are logging in via xdm (Xterminals, DECs used as Xterminals, cpw console in 421), do the following:

cp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc-gnome .xsession

log out and log back in. Note that if you have created a special .xsession file for yourself before you should preserve that somewhere.

2. If you are logging in directly to one of the Linux machines, just type "startx-gnome" instead of "startx" after you log in.

The GNOME user interface has lots and lots of features, most of which should be findable by examining the various menus. Here are some hints about configuring it.

GNOME is capable of using several different "window managers", programs which control part of the user interface. The default window manager we are using is called "sawfish". One GNOME bug is that the "Window Manager" option of the "Control-Center" starts up believing that the "Enlightenment" window manager is running, not "sawfish". Changing to "sawfish" fixes this. You can in principle run other window managers than "sawfish", if you do so don't expect any help with whatever problems occur.

Some other things you may want to change about the configuration:

1. Under "Settings" Menu, "Sawfish Window Manager" submenu, you may want to look at the "Focus Behavior" and "Workspaces" items. The "Focus Behavior" affects the interaction of the mouse and the windows, the "Workspaces" allows you to have a "virtual" workspace larger than the screen.

2. right-clicking on the Mailbox icon gives you a "Properties" item typing "gnome-terminal -e pine" in the "When Clicked" box will allow you to start up pine simply by clicking on the Mailbox icon.

If you are using an Xterminal, please try and turn off the screen-saver function of GNOME. Screensavers use a lot of CPU cycles and cpw may become overloaded if it is trying to run a lot of screensavers for all the Xterms.

How do I compile C or C++ programs on cpw?

You have to be careful to use the right version of gcc. It is located in /usr/local/gcc/bin and not /usr/bin, so you will have to edit your PATH variable as follows:

Under tcsh type:

setenv PATH /usr/local/gcc/bin:$PATH

Under bash type:

set PATH=/usr/local/gcc/bin:$PATH

Or, you can edit the path in your .login file.

If you have questions or comments, please use our feedback form.

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Math Department Computer FAQ

Contents

Teaching

Communicating

Department computing

Answers