CMSC 201 NEWS

Announcements

• UMBC Digital Entertainment Conference, 10:30-5:30 Sat 4/28 LH5

  UMBC will hold the second annual Digital Entertainment Conference from 10:30 to 5:30 in LH5. The event is free and open to the public and will include presentations from game producers, artists and software engineering from Maryland companies. It will be of special interest to current and prospective students who are interested in careers involving game development, computer graphics, animation and interactive media.

  The computer game industry has become big business, with high starting salaries for software engineers, programmers and artists. The Washington Business Journal ranks the Baltimore/DC area third in the number of computer game companies nationally. Based on employer feedback, UMBC is developing a new game development track as an option for students pursuing a BS degree in Computer Science, and a concentration in animation and interactive media for students pursuing a BA degree in Visual Arts. See http://gaim.umbc.edu/ for more information.

  For more information on DEC 2007 see http://www.umbcgdc.org/dec. For information on other events involving games, animation and interactive media, see (or subscribe to) the GAIM Blog at http://gaim.umbc.edu/news/.

• Mr. Frey's office hours

  Effective immediately, Mr. Frey's Tuesday office hours (10:00 - 12:00) are moved to Friday, also 10:00 - 12:00.

• Lab 9 for Sections 0101 & 0103

  These labs did not meet on Monday since classes were cancelled due to the power outage. Students in these sections, but ONLY these sections, may do the lab work on your own time and send the code for this lab to your TA, Dalibor (zelenyd1@umbc.edu) for section 0101 or Will (wawilli1@umbc.edu) for section 0103 to receive credit for the lab. These files must be completed and sent to your TA before midnight, Friday 4/20/07. Students in these sections could also choose to have this lab be one of the two labs that are dropped. Only your best 10 of the possible 12 lab scores count toward your grade.

• Mr. Frey's office hours

  are cancelled for Tuesday, April 17th and are rescheduled for 11:00 - 12:00 on Friday, April 20th

• Project Grades

  Do not contact Ms. Block with grading concerns. Ms. Block does not grade your projects, she only mails out the grades. If you have a problem with your grade, please go see your Instructor during office hours.

• Linux Installfest - March 3

  There will be a Linux Installfest this Saturday, March 3rd in the ENG Atrium from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, at which the good geeks of UMBC's Linux Users Group will be available to help you install Linux on your PC. Linux can be installed on your machine in place of Windows, or along-side it. The following rules and suggestions ought to be kept in mind: * To save time, PLEASE DEFRAGMENT YOUR HARD DRIVE before you come. This will shorten your install time by several hours. * The LUG will do all it can to preserve your data, but fubars do happen. Therefore you should BACK UP YOUR DATA if at all possible. * What to bring: * your machine * monitor * keyboard/mouse * cables (including power) * power strip * money for pizza * Linux distribution of choice (optional - The LUG has a supply of Ubuntu 6.06 CDs) Thanks very much, and we hope to see you there.

• 06 Feb 2007 Computer Science Help Center

  The Computer Science Help Center is now open!

• Your Quota

  Keep an eye on your quota!! Each user is given a certain amount of disk space (100MB) on the GL network. If you exceed this disk space, we cannot send you email (i.e. project grades) and you can't create files (i.e. project files) To check your quota, at the linux prompt, type:

  linux3[16]% quota -v
  Volume Name                   Quota      Used %Used   Partition
  user.dforna1                  75000     55198   74%         69%
  

  This will show how much disk space your are using. If the percentage used is approaching 100%, you need to clean up your account. This can be done by typing the following at the linux prompt:

  linux3[17]% oitcleaner 
  This is the cleaner that we want
  Volume Name                   Quota      Used %Used   Partition
  user.dforna1                  250000    55198   74%         69%  
  **** Start Quota                    ****
  **** Start: Cleaning Internet Files ****
  find: /afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/.2kprofile/Application Data/Mozilla/Profiles: No such file or directory
  **** Done:  Cleaning Internet Files ****
  **** Start: Cleaning Misc. Files    ****
  find: No match.
  rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/file.c~'? y
  rm: No match.
  rm: No match.
  rm: No match.
  rm: No match.
  **** Done:  Cleaning Misc. Files    ****
  **** Finding Large Files            ****
  rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/cs104FA01.tar.gz'? n
  rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/gifs/menu3.gif'? y
  rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/gifs/menu3.bmp'? y
  **** Finished                       ****
  Volume Name                   Quota      Used %Used   Partition
  user.dforna1                  250000    52913   71%         69%  
  **** End Quota                      ****
  
  

  This script will clear out some unnecessary files in your account. It will also ask you if you want to delete any large files it finds. You must answer either y or n when it prompts you to remove. Make sure to remove any files named core.[followed by four digits].

  For more information about your quota, visit the following OIT Web site: http://www.umbc.edu/oit/sans/helpdesk/afs/afs_disk_quota.htm

• .emacs

  EMACS -- when emacs (or xemacs) begins, it looks for and reads a file named .emacs in your home directory to obtain configuration information. Save the CS201 recommended version of the .emacs file (note the leading "dot") in your Unix home directory to get the following features:

  • Automtic formatting in accordance with the CS201 coding style standard
  • A working backspace key. Backspace will now delete to the left of the cursor instead of invoking "help". It also remaps CTL-X? to be the new "help" key.

  The .emacs file is publicly available in the directory

  /afs/umbc.edu/users/b/o/bogar/pub

  To copy the file, 'cd' to your home directory and type the command
  

  cp /afs/umbc.edu/users/b/o/bogar/pub/.emacs .

  Don't forget the dot (.) at the end... it means copy the file to the current directory.

  Enjoy!