Lab Handout A Brief Introduction to the Geography Computer Network Introduction In the beginning of the lab the Teaching Assistant will guide you through learning how to login to the Geography Department s computer network navigate our directory structure and make sure that you have the appropriate printers installed on your account After this week your TA has been instructed to assume that you understand the basics of the Geography Computer Network and they will be moving on with instruction in GISci THERE IS SIMPLY NO WAY YOU CAN LEARN GIS WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS OF THE COMPUTER SYSTEM YOU ARE WORKING ON The Geography Computer System The computers that you will be using in this lab run the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system There are two things of special note The first is that all computers are networked The second is that our lab is setup with servers One server is known as GEOGUGRAD and is for undergraduates another is GEOGGRAD and is for graduate students These are the locations where your home directory is located which we often call your H drive you are to save all your work DO NOT SAVE YOUR WORK ON OTHER MACHINES OR IN OTHER DIRECTORIES AS YOUR WORK MAY DISAPPEAR All the computers have ENVI installed so it does not matter which machine you use Login to the Geography Computer Network In order to use the GIS computers you must provide a valid LoginID and Password The same login will work on all the machines Your LoginID and password will be created for you Everyone should try to login and if you encounter any problems let your TA know You will be provide information on what your LoginID and initial password will be Your Home Directory Every student has a home directory also known as a folder The home directory is physically located on GEOGUGRAD or GEOGGRAD computer However to make things easy it will appear on every computer you login to as H The H drive points to your home directory so everyone s H will be different This is done to assure user privacy You should navigate to the correct location and determine if your folder exists If your folder does not exist then please inform your TA The Windows 7 Desktop After you have logged in you should familiarize yourself with the Windows 7 desktop There is a blue Windows orb logo with a START button on the bottom Placing the cursor over the button using the mouse and clicking the left mouse button should bring up a set of options In the Geography computer network most of the commonly used programs can be accessed under the Apps Menu An example showing how to start ENVI is shown below Right clicking while the cursor is over START button will bring up a set of options Selecting Explore will start Windows Explorer This program will allow you to easily see how the network is set up and allow you to move between machines and folders on machines You can also navigate around the systems by using the icons in the upper left corner By the time you leave you should be very comfortable with the computer system so in the future you can locate the files and folders you need Connecting to the Class Share containing Lab Exercise Materials The laboratory exercises in this class will make use of remote sensing images and other information that have compiled for your use In order to gain access to the class shares along with the remote sensing exercises you need to map two network drives As is illustrated below this is actually quite easy First open up Computer by clicking on its icon then within menu bar select Map Network Drive as is shown in the figure below 2 There are several ways to connect to a specific network drive but since we already know which drive the geog361 folder on the computer called geogshare we want to connect to the easiest way is to simply select a drive letter designation U and specify the folder we want to connect to You must also make sure this drive is reconnected each time you log into the network by checking the appropriate box To map the network drive simply fill in the required fields as shown below 3 A few seconds after you click on Finish the geog361 folder should now be visible on your computer as U which points to geogshare geog tamu edu geog361klein 4 Printers If you do not already have printers set up you now need to add the appropriate printers To do this Go under the Start Menu Open Setting and Select Printers as is illustrated below This will open the printer folder which will show you all printers that are available the checkmark beside one printer indicates which printer is current selected as the default printer The example below shows the printers that are available for your use If you need to add a printer simply double click on the Add a Printer icon This will start a Wizard which will guide you through adding a printer as shown below 5 Select to add a network wireless or Bluetooth printer The available printers then will be listed and select the appropriate one You will have to repeat the process to add additional printers Your TA will let you know which printers it is appropriate to add as the printer list changes frequently and may be different from what is listed below 6 What you should know about the Geography computer network by the time you finish 1 How to log in and out of the Windows 7 network remember your Login ID and Password 2 The relationship between files and folders 3 How to start applications using the Start button 4 How to maneuver around the network using both the Window s Explorer and the Screen icons a you should be able to locate your folder where all your work should be saved b you should be able to locate the folders where the labs are stored 5 How to print a document 7 File Naming Conventions A few notes concerning file naming conventions In the old days of Microsoft DOS there was what was known as the 8 3 naming convention The first 8 characters were the filename and the last 3 characters were the extension often a standard abbreviation describing the file type While recent versions of the Windows operating system and Unix Linux and the Macintosh operating systems allow many more characters than original 8 3 some ArcGIS functionality requires the 8 3 convention so whenever possible you should stick to the 8 3 naming convention to minimize problems It is a good skill to learn to recognize what file types usually distinguished by the XXX extension are associated with what program s Note that some common file extensions such as img may be used by more than one