---------------------------------------------------- Exercise #1 for DAT2330 - Ian Allen - idallen@ncf.ca ---------------------------------------------------- Remember - knowing how to find out an answer is more important than memorizing the answer. Learn to fish! RTFM! (Read The Fine Manual) Using Usenet News Groups ------------------------ Usenet News is another tool to add to your current Internet kit, alongside EMail and Web. If you have a home Internet Service Provider, you will usually find tens of thousands of Usenet news groups available there. Another way to get connected to these thousands of News Groups is by becoming a member of the National Capital FreeNet. Here at Algonquin College, you have access to a few dozen local Ottawa news groups, plus all the local Algonquin course news groups. Since Algonquin College does not have any news server, the Algonquin news groups are provided as a courtesy service by the National Capital FreeNet. Steps: -. Find the DAT2330 Winter 2003 course home page and bookmark it: - http://idallen.com/teaching/dat2330/03w/ - be sure to bookmark the one for this term: Winter 2003 -. Read the background on Usenet news groups - Select the News & Discussion link on the course home page - Read the pages for first-time users -. Find news server userid and passwd: - read the pages under News&Discussion until you find the password - you need this to post/cancel a news article from off-campus -. Find the DAT2330 03W course Announcements Usenet news group: - Select the red "Announcements" link in the orange square on the top left of the course home page; or, look in the table under the News & Discussion button on the course home page - Read the announcements frequently, especially before tests and assignment due dates - Due dates, exercises, homework and assignments will be posted here -. Find the DAT2330 03W course Discussion Usenet news group: - Select the green "Discussion" link in the orange square on the top left of the course home page; or, look in the table under the News & Discussion button on the course home page - This group is where you post questions about general course content; do not send me questions by email. Post questions to this news group so that everyone sees the question and the answer. - Do not post off-topic comments here; put general comments into the Algonquin Student Discussion news group: algonquinc.students.general - Computer Programmers also have their own news group - See the table under News & Discussion for a few more news groups -. Post and cancel a news article in the algonquinc.test news group: - Look in the table under the News & Discussion button - Find the Algonquin "test/practice" Usenet news group: - Click on the NNTP interface to the Test news group (algonquinc.test). Your browser should start up the News Reader software, open to the Test news group. If it doesn't work, return to the News & Discussion page and select the link "Select here if you want to know more about participating in online discussion". You will find some information on how to better configure your browser on that page. - Use the NNTP interface only (you cannot cancel anything that you post via the WWW interface) - Make sure you post and cancel in the *test* news group only. -. Find the "ott.forsale.computing" news group: - Select the news server news.idallen.com and use "Subscribe" - You can buy and sell computer items through this news group Setting up your ACADUNIX account -------------------------------- -. Login to acadunix using telnet and find your disk quota Login - abcd001 (replace this with your userid) Password - your PIN number (change it online with the passwd command) (If you cannot log in - contact the ITS help desk x5555. I cannot help you with your account or password - only ITS can fix it.) What is the name of the command that shows your Unix "disk quota"? (Hint: it has a man page, so the command "man xxxxx" will work when you figure out what xxxxx is.) Here is some terminology to help you keep EMail and News distinct: - Mail has *messages* that are *sent*, e.g. "Please send idallen an email message" - News Groups have *articles* that are *posted*, e.g. "Please post a news article to the course discussion news group" You do not send news or post email; you send email and post news. More News Groups: You might want to browse the Algonquin Student news group, or the For Sale news group. Find the menu entry in your News Reader that says "Subscribe to News Groups" to do that. Optional: Using your browser menus, find the correct menu and configure your news reader for "Show only Unread Articles". Turn this on and see how all the articles you read are no longer shown; this will keep the number of articles on your screen smaller. Turn it off ("show all articles") and you will see all the news articles, including the ones you have already read. You can also "mark all read" to mark all current articles as "read" so that you won't see them again. ======================================= What to hand in for DAT2330 Exercise #1 (and when) ======================================= Global weight: 1% of your total mark this term Due date: 16h00 (4pm) Thursday, January 16. The deliverables for this exercise are to be sent by email only. No paper. The exact email address to which you must send the email is: To: dat2330-exercise01@idallen.com Keep a copy of your submission in a file, in case the email gets lost in transit! If you use the correct address, I will acknowledge the receipt of your exercise email late Thursday afternoon by return email to your Algonquin email account. (I will not reply to the account that sent the message.) If you don't get an acknowledgement, your submission did not arrive. I will accept without penalty exercises that I receive by email before noon on Friday, January 17. After that late-submission date, the exercise is worth zero marks. You won't get any acknowledgement by return email if you submit your answers after the original Thursday due date. Deliverables for Exercise #1, due 16h00 (4pm) Thursday, January 16: In a single email message, do the following: 0. At the top of the message, create an Exterior Assignment Submission label following the example you will find under the "Assignment Standards" button on my teaching home page (www.idallen.com/teaching). For full marks, follow the directions for the label exactly. The label has exactly 7 lines, plus an optional Comments line. The spelling of the label fields on the seven lines must be as shown. Answer these questions: 1. Question 1a and 1b: Which is the better interface to the news groups, the WWW interface or the NNTP news reader? Why? 2. Question 2a and 2b: The FreeNet Course News server userid and password is:_________________ When do you need to use the userid and password? 3. Question 3: The news group name of the Algonquin Linux Users news group is: algonquinc._________________ 4. Question 4: The date of the posting of the first article in this term's Announcement news group is (use date format YYYY/MM/DD):____________ 5. Question 5: The date of the posting of the first article in this term's Discussion news group is (use date format YYYY/MM/DD):____________ 6. The College Directive dealing with Academic Discipline (including plagiarism) is number: E______ 7. Did you post and then cancel a news article in the Test/Practice news group (Yes/No)? On the ACADUNIX computer: From anywhere in the world, from Windows, Linux, or Mac you can use the "telnet" program to connect to acadunix.algonquincollege.com on campus. (For additional help: See The first few paragraphs of the file "acadunix_help.txt" under the Notes button on the course home page. See also the sections "Getting Out of Programs" and "TELNET to Unix from Windows" in the file "miscellaneous.txt" ) 8. On ACADUNIX, what is the name of the command that shows your Unix "disk quota"? [Hints: The command name is not the word "disk"! It has a Unix man page (help file), so the command "man xxxxx" will work when you figure out what the command name xxxxx is.] 9. Log in to your account and execute this command on the ACADUNIX computer: ls -id $HOME The spelling must be exact. What is the output of the above command? 10. On the ACADUNIX computer type the command: man ls and use the space-bar to page forward until you find the section entitiled "Flags". What is the given meaning of the "-i" flag? Due date: 16h00 (4pm) Thursday, January 16.