CSCI-A110 Lab 1
Basic Computer Operation, Editing, and Files

Part A: Basic Operating System Skills

Prerequisite: Chapter 1 in the coursepack and in Fluency.

You should have either a removable storage device (e.g., "memory stick") or access to network storage.

You may use any operating system that provides a graphical user interface for this project, including any recent version of Microsoft Windows, Linux or Unix with GNOME or KDE Desktop, and Macintosh OS X. The instructions below were tested on Microsoft Windows XP Professional. Some adjustments of procedure may be needed for other operating systems or versions.

Students who have some computer experience may skip over any steps that are labled "Optional," provided they are sure they know how to do them.

1. Logging in. Required. Login to the computer. Remember to log out when you are finished or if you leave the computer unattended in a public lab.
2. Window operations. Required. Run a "paint" program (such as Microsoft Paint, from the Start menu under "All Programs" then "Accessories"). Minimize the paint window and then unminimize it. Maximize it and then unmaximize it. Move the window to another part of the screen. Change its shape and size.
3. Multiple windows. Required.

   Start a web browser. For definiteness, let's say you start Mozilla Firefox (an excellent choice), from the Start Menu.

   Then, start a text editor. For definiteness, let's assume you start Microsoft Notepad (a horrid choice, but certainly installed), from the Start Menu, under "All Programs" then "Accessories." Type your name into the text editor.

   Unmaximize the web browser, if it is maximized. Rearrange the windows so that the text editor is in front, partly obscuring the web browser, but leaving part of the browser still visible.

   Take a screenshot showing the two windows (browser and editor) so arranged, and print it. (It is okay if there are other windows in the background.)

   To take the screenshot: press the PrintScrn key. An image of the whole screen is put into the Clipboard, but you will not see it. (Incidentally, if you wanted to take a snapshot of just one window, you would press Alt-PrintScrn—i.e., press PrintScrn while holding down the Alt key, or press both keys simultaneously).

   Paste the image from the Clipboard into the paint program. Hint: look in the Edit menu.

   Then use the paint program to print it. Hints: Look in the paint program's File menu. You may wish to do "Page Setup" before printing; select landscape orientation and "fit to" 1 by 1 page.

4. Focus. Optional. By now, the paint program will have focus; it will be in front, perhaps obscuring part or all of other windows. Click on the web browser window to give it focus. Then click on the paint program to give focus back to it. Remember that you can usually switch back and forth between programs this way, without having to minimize either of them or use the Task Bar.
5. Quitting. Optional. Quit from the paint program by using its File menu. Quit from the web browser and the text editor too.
6. Forcing a program to quit. Optional. Start the paint program again. Pretending that you can't quit from it in the normal way, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete (three keys at once), click on "Start Task Manager," and use the Task Manager to kill the paint program. (Find it in the "Applications" tab.)
7. Required. Log out.

Part B: Editing Text Files

Prerequisites: Read chapters 1-2 in the coursepack and Fluency, and do Part A first.

1. Starting a text editor. A text editor is a program for creating and revising plain text files. It is somewhat like a word processor, but without formatting commands. Find a text editor, not a word processor, on your system and start running it.

   For Windows users, I recommend the text editor Notepad++ for this assignment. You can use Microsoft Notepad, but Notepad++ is much better.

   Do not use a word processor, such as Microsoft Word or Wordpad.

2. Text input: a list. Enter the following lines in the text editor, in the order shown:

   silver
   gold
   copper
   silicon
   lead
   tin
   salt

3. Cut and paste. Use the text editor's "cut" and "paste" commands to rearrange the lines into alphabetical order.

4. Paragraph 1. Below the list of minerals, type in a paragraph about an animal or a plant. The paragraph should contain at least three sentences.

   Be sure to begin new lines where appropriate by pressing the ENTER or RETURN key. Unlike a word processor, the text editor will not begin new lines automatically.

   The lines in your document should be no more than 80 characters wide. (A character is a letter, digit, space, punctuation mark — generally, anything can be typed with a single keystroke.) Longer lines will be wrapped when the file is printed, making the text ugly and hard to read. If you are unsure how wide 80 characters is, you may copy and paste the following "ruler" into your file as a guide:

   0        1         2         3         4         5         6         7         8
   12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

5. Paragraph 2. Below that, type in a paragraph about a place or a time. Again, it should contain at least three sentences.

6. Paragraph 3. Below that, enter the following paragraph verbatim. To save time, you may copy and paste the text from these instructions in your web browser.

   	      Applesauce is my favorite food.  I just love it.
   	      Applesauce is delicious.  Cold applesauce,
   	      hot applesauce -- either way, it tastes great!
   	      And would you believe that applesauce is
   	      healthy too?
   	    

   Then, use your text editor's "find and replace" commands to change every occurrence of "applesauce" (whether capitalized or not) to "carrot soup" (capitalized if the original word was). Do not search with your eyeballs and manually change the words — let the text editor do the work for you.

7. Using good English. Check your grammar, punctuation, and spelling carefully. The text editor will not do this for you. All college writing should use good English, and this is no exception.

8. Printing. Print the text file.

9. Saving the file in your home directory. Save the text file in your "home directory" on the hard drive. This is "your area" of the disk. For Windows 7 users, the home directory of a user who logs in as "janedoe" will be something like "C:\Users\janedoe" (Windows XP: "C:\Documents and Settings\janedoe"). Or if you are using a removable storage device, you may use it as your home directory. Give the file the name "lab1.txt".

   Note: Do not use the "Libraries" feature in Windows 7 for this assignment.