F r e q u e n t l y A s k e d Q u e s t i o n s
F r e q u e n t l y A s k e d Q u e s t i o n s |
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| Last modified: Mon Feb 04 02:16:21 GMT-8 2002 |
1. Click here to know how to configure
Microsoft Outlook Express to read SoC emails.
2. Click here to know how to configure
Microsoft Outlook Express to read SoC BBS.
3. Click here to know how to configure SSH
Secure Shell to SoC unix account.
4. Click here to know how to use the WS_FTP
program.
5. Click here to know how to configure the
X-Windows program.
6. Click here to know how to use the Windows
telnet program.
7. Click here to know how to use Pico in
Unix.
8. Click here to know how to use Pine in
Unix.
9. Click here to know how to use BBS in Unix.
10. Click here to see the new folder "profiler"
that I've written it myself. (inspired by Phoenix Hawk
)
11. Click here
to see the Unix Myths that I've just written.
12. Click here
to see the Unix Editors Myths that I've just written.
Please take note that I'm using Microsoft Outlook Express 5.5 from
Office 2000 in the examples here.
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1. Unable to read mails in Outlook Express
2. Unable to send mails in Outlook Express
3. Unable to surf web through the SoC dialup or in the labs
4. Unable to surf web outside the NUS domain in the lab
5. Unable to delete SoC mails in Outlook Express
6. Unable to read offline mails in Outlook Express
7. Unable to telnet to School
8. Checking NUS (not SoC) mails
9. Unable to post in BBS through Outlook Express
10. Why BBS is being taught in Unix, not Outlook Express?
11. How to print lecture notes from lab?
12. Unable to see my posting in BBS when posting through Unix
13. Where can I get the windows SSH client program?
14. Where can I get the X-Windows program?
15. Unable to post BBS messages with message[Empty messages] in Unix
16. Advantages of Unix over Windows
17. How to login to Unix without X-Windows or the SSH client program?
18. Finding more about Unix commands
19. Unable to get the ".profile" to work after altering it
20. Unable to delete my own articles in Unix BBS
21. How to login to Unix using other ISP such as Singnet or SCV?
22. How to do a ftp using other ISP such as Singnet or SCV?
23. How to check my print queue?
24. How to cancel or delete a printjob?
25. What is "scratch" folder?
26. How to upload my files to "scratch"?
27. How to download files from "scratch"?
28. How to compile C and C++ programs in Unix?
29. My C program encountered compilation error but it did work perfectly the other time
30. How to set the path for my Java JDK?
31. Which one is better? Vi or Emacs?
32. How to get rid of the "bar-codes" after ftping files from Unix to
Windows?
33. I cannot "chat <username>" in sunfire? How to solve that?
34. How to use Unix spy?
35. Where to download past year examination papers?
36. Where to look for the current semester modules that I have taken?
37. Where to look for all the modules that I have passed to date?
38. Where to look for my examination results?
39. When does the school term start?
40. How do I know where my lecturer or tutor's office is?
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1. I've encountered error messages while using Outlook Express to read SoC mails. How???
1.1
First of all, the school server may be down. You can do a "ping
sunsvr.comp.nus.edu.sg" on the command prompt (start->run->type cmd) to
see whether you have received timeout messages. If all you see are
timeout messages, then it is highly possible that the server is down.
1.2
If not, check whether you have used the SoC email address in the User
Information category. No other email address are allowed by the school
mail server other than the SoC ones to prevent spaming and for
conveniency in taking account for SoC senders.
1.3
If this doesn't work, check whether you have used the "IMAP" in the
server tab.
1.4
Next, check whether you have ticked the "My server requires
authentication" checkbox.
1.5
If still in vain, check whether you have ticked the ssl checkbox under
the advance tab.
1.6
Last but not least, check whether you have accidentally ticked the "Log
on using Secure Password Authentication" checkbox. This is supposed to
be left unticked.
2. I've encountered error messages while sending emails through using Outlook Express. How???
2.1
First of all, check whether the school mail server is down by going
through 1.1.
2.2
If you have successfully configured in reading mails through Outlook
Express, you can skip the following steps. Else please go through 1.2.
2.3
Next check whether you have ticked the "My server requires
authentication" in the Outgoing Server category under the Servers tab.
2.4
If it still doesn't work, check whether you have ticked the "ssl" option
in the SMTP catergory under Advanced tab.
2.5
Some programs may meddle with the Outlook Express's registry and caused
it to react strangely. Uninstall those suspicous programs if this is the
case.
3. I cannot surf the web through the soc dialup or in the labs. Why like that one???
3.1 Netscape Users
Go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Proxies. In the automatic proxy
configuration url textfield, key in
"http://www.nus.edu.sg/proxy/config.pac" without the inverted commas.
3.2 Internet Explorer Users
Go to Tools->Internet Options->Connections->Lan Settings->tick "Use
automatic configuration scipt". Type
"http://www.nus.edu.sg/proxy/config.pac" in the Address text box without
the inverted commas. If you are using soc dialups, check your dialup
settings in the Connection tab.
If you want to use the manual proxy settings, the proxy to be used is "proxy.nus.edu.sg" without the inverted commas and the port number for it is 8080.
4. I can only surf SOC webpages in the lab. How come??? #^$*()#&*) ...
Go through 3. If 3 still fails, you may be experiencing the school network storm. Be patient. Everyone is experiencing what you are now. =)
5. I cannot delete my SOC mails in Outlook Express. When I clicked on the delete button, the messages are still there!!! I've never encountered such strange problems in other ISP. #@^#&@@# ...
Because the school is using the IMAP protocol, so some of the features are different from that compared to other ISPs. Since you have never encountered them before, that's why you are here to learn. =)
The main thing to do is to purge your marked-deleted mails. ie: Edit->Delete, Edit->Purge Deleted Messages.
6. I cannot read my mails offline. I cannot download them. What's on the earth is going on???
Relax. =) Because we are using the IMAP protocol, our mails are being kept in the mail server and hence it can't be downloaded by any mail clients. However, we can do a synchronization of mails or an automatic-forwarding of our mails to some other accounts.
6.1 Synchronizing mails
Go to File->Work Offline, Tools->Synchronize Folder->All messages->OK.
6.2 Automatic-Forwarding of mails
This has nothing to do with the setting of Outlook Express. You need to
telnet or ssh to Unix to create some files there.
Example:
a. Type "pico ~/.forward".
b. Type "[email protected]".
c. Save and exit pico.
If you want to keep a copy of the mails in the school mail server, type your soc email address after "b".
7. I am unable to telnet to the school. Why???
The very first thing to check is which numbers have you dailed to. Please check that the numbers that you dialed is listed in https://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/cf/nw/dialup.html . Apparently, laptops which are purchased in NUS are being configured to dial to the NUS dialup (dialup number: 557 1070).
Remember to use your SoC (Unix, not ISC) userid and password to login. Do note that you may not be able to see the password being typed on the telnet program.
If the above fails, then the school network is having a problem.
If you want to login to Unix with other ISP such as SCV, you need to download and install the NUS-VPN from http://www.nus.edu.sg/vpn.
8. How do I check for my NUS (not SOC) mails???
Go to http://exchange.nus.edu.sg.
9. I'm able to view BBS messages but I'm unable to post in it. Strange ...
Most likely, you have not configured your outgoing server properly. In order to prove my point, try sending a dummy email to yourself and see if you can retrieve it. If you can't, please go through 2.
Another possibility is that some funny programs have mess up your Outlook Express's registry settings. Find the culprit out and uninstall it.
10. BBS in unix sucks!!! BBS in Outlook Express is much better. Why are we not being taught BBS using Outlook Express at the very first place???
Maybe you should visit another webpage of mine at http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/unix/bbs.html before you make that statement. =) Basically, BBS in Unix does have alot of features that Outlook Express doesn't. Examples of them are the ability to post with random signatures, the capability of having creative and funny followup quotes, capable of executing shell commands, ability to view articles with color and many others more. A simple reason which one of my friends suggested was configuration needs to be done with Unix BBS only once. Whereas if you use Outlook Express, whenever you go to a different terminal in the School lab, you need to configure it all over again.
On the other hand, Outlook Express does have it's own set of advantages too besides being graphical-based. But I leave it for you to find out more about it.
The moral of the story is that there is no harm in learning a bit more things. =)
11. How to print lecture notes from lab?
First of all, check whether your computer in the lab is being connected to any printers by going to Start->Settings->Printers. If you cannot find any printer there, please visit https://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/cf/print/win9598-prt.html (SoC [Unix] userid and password are required).
Please go to the printer physically to check whether the default printer is being set to it. There will be a printer id sticker pasted on top of the printer. If not, whatever you print will go to other places.
Thirdly login to unix and type "pusage" to check how much paper quota you have.
Last of all, please print. =)
Tips:
You can login to Unix and type "lpq -P<printerid> to check for
printer queue and choose the printer with the least queue. However do
note that if a printer doesnt has any queue or the queue is unreasonably
long, this may be an indication of a faulty printer.
First of all, I assume that you are bbs-ing by the command 'bbs' in the unix command prompt. You need to do type "r" to toggle the read articles in the article level in BBS to read those articles you have read again.
If you have problems in viewing the article right after posting, click http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/unix/bbs.html#newest to see how this is being done.
Click here to download the local copy.
Click https://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/cf/x/xwin32.html (need to supply Unix [SoC] userid and password).
Most likely, you didn't save your buffer before you posted. To save buffer in pico, press Ctrl-X followed by YES (you must have press NO and hence this results in an empty posting).
Every SoCians are given some disk-quotas in their Unix account. Check out the details at https://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/cf/unix/diskquota.html (SoC[Unix] userid and password required). Hence, you can make use of this to ftp your work from windows to Unix as a backup. If your windows happened to be corrupted somehow, your programming files won't be affected.
Secondly, as long as you have a computer that can be connected to the Net, you can accessed your data from Unix. In other words, your data is portable. Notice that our mails are also portable --- we can read our SoC mails anywhere as long as it is connected to the SoC network.
Thirdly, it is good to be in the Unix environment when you are in a network. You can make use of what Unix has and I leave it for all of you find out about the goodies in Unix. =) A good start will be a "man nuslib" in unix.
Refer to http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/freshmen/telnet/ . Alternatively, you can download a local copy of the SSH client program from here.
Click here for some common Unix commands (extracted from the year 99 survival guide). A good start to learn much more about Unix is to visit http://www.geek-girl.com/Unixhelp/ .
For those who are more technical-inclined, you can download and install Linux at http://oss.comp.nus.edu.sg/ftp/mirrors/ to try it out. However, do find out more about Linux at http://www.linux.org and read the documentations before you do anything harshly. If you encountered some problems dealing with Linux, you can go to SoC.comp.os.unix in the BBS for seeking help.
Linux is NOT Unix but it is the closest FREE operating system to Unix that I know of.
Visit http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/unix/bbs.html#environ .
If you are interested in what these codes are about, they are known as bash-script for your information. For those who are interested in it, you may visit http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html for more details.
Visit http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/unix/bbs.html#delete .
Download and install NUS-VPN at http://www.nus.edu.sg/vpn/.
Use "ftp.comp.nus.edu.sg" or "sunsvr.comp.nus.edu.sg" as the host name to connect to the school's ftp server. Type in your Unix userid and password and do your ftp as normal.
Checking print queue provides an advantage in deciding which printers to choose for printing. There are two types of print queues; spool queue and the actual queue. The spool queue is the bridge for Windows printjobs to go to the actual printer queue. To check for spool, go to start->run and type "\\nts27\<printer_name>". You can check your isc userid from the windows there. Do take note that this will create a new printjob and you can delete it by right-clicking to find the "remove" option.
After checking the above, you need to login to Unix either by SSH or telnet to check for the actual queue. i.e: start->run-> and type "telnet sunfire.comp.nus.edu.sg". After doing so, type "lpq -P<printer_id>. Next, find your SoC (Unix) userid in it. If you have difficulty in find your name because the queue is too long, you can type "lpq -P<printer_id> | grep user_id" where the userid is your SoC one.
First of all, you can only delete your own printjob =). Next, it depends on whether your printjob is on the spool queue or the print queue. Go to How to check my print queue (above) if you doesn't know how to. If your printjob is in the spool queue, right-click to find the "remove" option to delete it. If your printjob is in the actual queue, type "lprm -P<printer_id> <request-ID>" in Unix to delete it away.
The "scratch" is a public folder where students and staff do their uploading of their files in it. Quite a number of us have shared our mp3s, movies, jpegs, ... files in "scratch" too. You can contribute by uploading your files to this "scratch" folder. Conversely, you can download files from it. Go to 26 and 27 to find out about the details of the uploading and downloading steps.
You need to know how to use the FTP program first. Refer to http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/freshmen/ftp/ if you are not very sure how to do a "ftp". On top of that, you need to know where is "scratch" located at. It is at "/scratch". Hence, you can click the "ChgDir" button and type in "/scratch" in ws-ftp program to search for the directory.
If you want to share your uploaded files, you can do a right-click on your file and click on the "chmod" button. Other versions of FTP programs may place their "chmod" commands in other places. After clicking on the "chmod" button, tick "read" in both "Groups" and "Other" labels. On the other hand, if you don't want to share your uploaded files, you can untick all the "read" checkboxes in the "Groups" and "Others" section.
For those who can't find their "chmod" command in their ftp client, you can SSH or telnet to your account. Then do the following:-
1. cd /scratch/<your_folder>
2. chmod 755 ./
3. chmod 644 <your_files> /* 644 for sharing files, 600 for not sharing them */
As mentioned in "26", you need to know how to use your FTP client program first. Refer to http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/freshmen/ftp/ if you are unsure about it. Click the "Chgdir" button and type "/scratch" in the ftp program and locate your targeted directory. You are now ready to click the "<-" button for downloading.
Some tips for downloading:
The "/scratch/mp3link" folder comprises all the shared mp3s for
downloading. I have created a symbolic link to this folder at
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/scratch/mp3link/
.
Here's some of the useful logs in "scratch":
To compile a C program, type "gcc foo.c". To compile a C++ program, type "g++ foo.cpp". In both cases, foo is your filename and the executable binary of the file is "a.out". This means that you can run it by typing "a.out" after compiling your program.
You can give your executable files a different name during compilation. For instance, "gcc -o foo foo.c". Be careful not to name it as existing utilities such as "test" and "ls".
Note:
The executable binary files created are not OS dependent. This
means that if you have compiled your C program in Windows, please do not
upload your a.out or object files to Unix.
If nothing has been changed in the contents of the file, refer to the last paragraph of 28.
Open the file "C:\autoexec.bat" with your favourite editor. Add in the following line: "SET PATH=C:\Windows;C:\Windows\Command;C:\jdk1.4\bin;%PATH%".
Do note that the path "C:\jdk1.4\bin" may vary from yours. If you have downloaded say jdk1.5, most probably your included path should be "C:\jdk1.5\bin". To ensure for the correct path, use Windows Explorer and to check for the correct directory.
They are both about the same to me. But do take note that they are not easy to pick up. Click http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lukmengs/unix/#edit to see my experiences on them.
Open it with any "clever-enough" editors such as Dos or Wordpad and then save it. The reason why these "bar-codes" occur is because of the wrong interpretation of the line-feed probably caused by a wrong mode during the ftp. You should have choosen "ascii" instead of "binary" while ftping your C or Java files (or some other text files like html ...).
If it still doesn't work, ftp again using ascii mode. Or you can connect to Unix to open that file, do a select all and copy and paste them over to your Windows program.
You need to specify the tty pts in sunfire in order to chat to someone. For example, after you have spied your friend on pts/32, you can do a "chat < friend_name>" to unix-chat with him.
Click here for details. (include other tricks such as 'arf' too)
35. Where to download past year examination papers?
Click here.
If you are staying off campus, you would need the NUS-VPN which can be
downloaded from here.
36. Where to look for the current semester modules that I have taken?
Click here
37. Where to look for all the modules that I have passed to date?
Click here
38. Where to look for my examination results?
Log in to student intranet from here.
Then click here
39. When does the school term start?
Click here for the University calender. You need to log in to the student intranet.
40. How do I know where my lecturer or tutor's office is?
In your Unix account, type "staff <userid>".
As the command "staff" suggests, this works only if your tutor is a
staff.