SCISI Computer Science, Summer 1997
Ileana Streinu
McConnell 210
Email: streinu@cs.smith.edu
Phone: x3827

Day 1, afternoon

Monday, June 30, 1997

Independent Work Assignment

In this second lab meeting today, I would like you to review and use what you have learned in the morning in an independent fashion. Therefore I do not give you any further detailed instructions as to how to proceed, but instead just ask you to do things!
Your work consists of learning more about how to use the email program pine by reading its menu options and asking us (Ileana and Heather) about some of its more subtle features.

To turn in: an email message sent to Ileana at the class account scisi@sophia.smith.edu, by the end of the independent work period.


  1. Logon to sophia and start up pine (as in Lab 1). Your task is to compose and send me email. You will have to send it to scisi@sophia.smith.edu . Also send a copy to yourself (Cc line) so you'll have a copy in case something goes wrong (and believe me, something will!).

    To make sure your email will satisfy the technical requirements of this homework I suggest that you first send a short test email to yourself (or to one of your classmates, without giving away the required answers, and ask her to forward your message back to you so that you can check its correctness). If what you received satisfies all my technical requirements (see below), then you should send the real message to me.

  2. Here are the technical requirements for your independent work.
    1. The message should have Homework 1 on the subject line.
    2. The message should show that you Cc'ed a copy of the message to you.
    3. I expect you to run the spelling checker (^T); learning how to do this is part of the assignment!
    4. I expect it to look reasonably "clean": again it is part of the assignment for you to learn enough of the pine editor to make it pleasing.
    5. There is a nice help facility within Compose (reached by ^G); please use it.
    6. Sign your email.
  3. I would like a single email message with all your answers; so plan ahead. Please answer all questions (even if your answer to #5 is "no," I still want that answer listed). Be brief and number your answers corresponding to the questions.
    1. What country are you from? Have you been in the US before?
    2. Even if you have not thought about what you would like to major in when you will go to college, tell me what interests you most now. I am just curious.
    3. Describe briefly your previous exposure to computers. What hardware and software have you used? Don't get nervous: I make no assumptions that you know anything, but I would like to know where you all stand.
    4. Just to check that you completed the Mac Tour, answer these questions. Brevity preferred.

      a. Name two ways to launch an application.
      b. How can you find out which applications are currently open and running on your Mac?
      c. What is the command-key shortcut for "Select All" ? (The shortcuts are listed to the right of the menu option; they are pretty much uniform across Mac applications.)
      d. After you drag a file to the trash, is it retrievable, or gone forever?

    5. Is there any specific topic, any particular interest of yours, any computer related topic that you have heard of and would like to see covered in this course?
    Last updated on June 23, 1997.