CompSci 94, Fall 2013
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• OLD CompSci 4 TESTS

Old Tests are here.

• HTML Tutorials

  • HTMl Tutorial by Sam Slee

  • HTML Tutorial 2: CSS by Sam Slee

  • HTML Goodies.

  • W3Schools HTML tutorial

  • HTML Code Tutorial.

• INSTALL ALICE Version 3

  Near the end of the semester, we will use Alice version 3 and you will need to install it on your computer.

  YOU DO NOT NEED THE NETBEANS PLUGIN!!! We will not do anything with Netbeans.

  You may need to install Java to run Alice 3.1. Download Alice 3.1 from here

  The page above has help information on installing Alice 3.1.

  Check out this guide on how to get started with Alice 3.1 and also has some information about how to install Alice 3.1.

• INSTALL ALICE Version 2

  DO NOT install Alice from your textbook. Instead install Alice 2.3 from the www.alice.org then click on "Downloads", and then "Get Alice 2.3. 08/02/2013 version, the first one listed." Be sure to download Alice 2.3 version (We are not using the Alice 3.1 version) This is a version with many bugs fixed. Save the Alice .zip file on your computer, then extract all files.

  Here is a short video of Prof. Rodger downloading Alice 2.3 onto her computer August 25, 2013.

  Alice is free.

• DOWNLOADING ALICE WORLDS
  Here is information on how to download and run an Alice world.

• Connecting to your Duke Web Space to transfer files - In this class you will be writing some web pages and need to display them on the world wide web. Duke already provides web space for you so you will need to connect to that space and transfer your files from your laptop to your Duke webspace.

  • RECOMMENDED to use CIFS: Duke OIT has information on how to connect to your Duke space at Duke Personal Home Directories . See the links to the right for how to connect from a Mac, Windows, or other devices.

    Here is how you can set permissions on your Duke webspace if you have trouble seeing your files there.
    

    The service desk at the Link can help you connect to your web space if you cannot figure it out.

  • OLD: SOFTWARE FOR FILE TRANSFER - (You probably don't need to do this). To be able to copy files from your machine to your Duke account, you can install a file transfer program. Order free file transfer programs here. PCs and Macs: You will need "F-Secures ssh" or "Filezilla" or similar file transfer software. target="newOitPage"> OIT You will need to type in your netID and password at some point.

    These programs are free for Duke Students.

• How to do some things in Alice
  • Taking a picture (for PC, see Mac section below for MAC)
    You can click the "Take Picture" button in Alice. It should save the current picture in the animation as a file. If this does not work (it is a bit buggy right now), then you can take a screenshot and save it as a picture by doing the following.
    • Click Pause when you get the animation to the point where you want a picture.
    • Place the mouse cursor in the animation window.
    • Press the ALT key and hold down while pressing the PrtSrc key once. This makes a copy of the window the mouse cursor is in.
    • Start Paint up. (Find it in Programs, Accessories)
    • In Paint, click on "edit", then "Paste" and your picture will appear.
    • If it is fine, select "File", then "Save".
    • If you want to crop it, Select the rectangle made of Dashes. Then in the figure, click and drag on the top left corner you want until the rectangular part you want is outlined. Then select "edit", "cut". Then select "file", "new" (don't save the messed up picture), then Edit, Paste. Now save this picture with "file", then "save".

  • Functions-logic: Mystery Explanation
  • How to create a new method and add parameters. .

• EDITING A .HTML FILE
  
  Save the file as a .txt file but with the .html extension.
  • PC: Use a simple editor such as notepad and save the file as a text file.

  • MAC: We use to recommend textedit, but lately a lot of people have had trouble with it. Instead try TextWrangler.

    If you want to try to Use textedit, here are instructions.

    When you first create the file select the option "Make Plain Text" (in the Format menu). Also, go to the Preferences, and check the box which says "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files" (this might be in the "Open and Save" tab). You can also click the radio button saying "Plain Text" if you want new files to be in plain text by default, which is what you want when just editing raw HTML code.

• For MAC Only

  • Editing a text file - see Mac instructions above

  • Getting files from the book

    On the CD that comes with the text, find the Alice folder. Inside the Alice folder, find

    Required/textbookExampleWorlds

    Once the Mac version of Alice is installed on their Mac, you can copy the textbookExampleWorlds folder and its contents from the CD into the same location on your installed Alice folders. Upon startup, Alice will automatically recognize the folder and you will have the textbook examples available.

  • Right clicking.

    If you have a one button mouse, to "right click" you will need to press and hold the CTRL key and then click the button.

  • How to make a .zip file out of a folder on a Mac:
    1. Control-click (or right-click if you have a 2-button mouse) the folder.
    2. Click the "Create Archive of ..." menu option.
    3. Another file should appear called "thenameofyourfolder.zip" -- this is the archive created from "zipping" your folder.

  • Taking snapshots on a Mac

    There seems to be a "Take Picture" button when you play Alice worlds, but it's grayed-out on my Mac version of Alice and you can't click it... Hmmm. Perhaps this is a bug or incomplete feature on the Mac version.

    You can take snapshots of a portion of your screen by pressing Shift-Apple-4. After you do this, your mouse cursor will change into a cross-shaped targeting reticle thing. Click and drag to select a portion of the screen. You'll hear a clicking noise like a camera. A file will be created called "Picture 1.png" on your desktop -- this is a picture of the area you selected (the ".png" extension at the end might be invisible by default, but it is there). You can use this feature to take pictures of your Alice worlds even though that pesky "Take Picture" button is grayed out.

    When you take a picture, it may create it as a .pdf file. If you preview it, then you can export it to a .jpg (convert it to another form).

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is this the right Computer Science course for me?
• Duke University Software Library

Internet Resources

• How the Internet Works by Marshall Brain
• How Web Pages Works by Marshall Brain

Quotes

Microsoft knows that reliable software is not cost effective. According to studies, 90% to 95% of all bugs are harmless. They're never discovered by users, and they don't affect performance. It's much cheaper to release buggy software and fix the 5% to 10% of bugs people find and complain about.
- Bruce Schneier

• Perlis Epigrams
• Rich Pattis' quote collection