Diary of a Closet Computer Geek

by http://www.wpi.edu/~thethe/

The room is dark and ominously silent. Candles on tabletops make everything indistinct. I stand. "Hello. My name is Quincy. I am a geek." I sit down again. The guy sitting next to me with the Velcro shoes pats me on the back, "Good job."

Every week I do that. Every day is different. It's always a part of you. I just try and make it through each day.

I tried to deny it as long as I could. It would never happen to me. I had it under control. I could put down that mouse and tuck that keyboard under my desk any time I wanted to; I just had to use it for school, and stuff. I used all the classic lines, all the clever dodges, "I like computers, sure... but you know, just for games." "Well, yeah, I can program, but I had to learn... my dad was on a kidney dialysis machine... and the software that operated the pump was buggy, and it was either learn to program or he dies!"

Everyone saw through me. Everyone except me. I'd look in the mirror every day and the person I saw in that mirror had no pocket protector, no taped glasses, no stupid laugh, and no lack of style. But, inside, down deep inside of me, where no one could hear, there's a reverse-air-sucking chortle that could put that stupid kid Erkel to shame.

The path to recovery is long, and cobbled with 12 steps. One of the twelve requires that I make a full disclosure of my computings, past and present. This column will be that disclosure... If I can help just one person out there, it will all be worth it....

And so I start this diary off by saying that all the views, thoughts, beliefs, etc. expressed here are just one simple guy's understanding of a vastly complicated and ever-changing world. I'll be wrong... I'll be "uncool", but hey, we're all adults... deal with it. Okay?

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September 12th

I went to the CCC to find out if a WPI club could get a Novell account. I didn't find out, but I ran into somebody who was just getting his very first e-mail account. It was almost touching. He was not of my generation; he was much, much older. He looked pretty lost and I was still waiting to get an answer, so I showed him the basics of WPI Computing. I relate that info here, for anyone else who feels a bit lost.

Getting Started:

Get a Novell account if you don't already have one. This is different from your UNIX account. If you want to print anything from any of the PCs on campus, this is a necessity. Go to the CCC, say, "Hello, I'd like a Novell account." If you enrolled as a new student here in the past two or three years, you should already have one, but you should go to the CCC anyway to have your password set if you have forgotten the original password to your WPI UNIX account. Remember: the passwords to your two accounts are different - changing one will not automatically change the other!

General Web Stuff:

The World Wide Web (WWW or W3) is a vast network of computers serving up hypertext documents. Hypertext is just a cool way of saying, these documents aren't just text but may include pictures, sounds, animations, interactive forms, links (to other documents), etc. There is a web site for almost everything. You are missing out on quite a lot if you haven't tried web surfing.

There are several programs that people commonly use to browse the web. For text only terminals, there's Lynx. For everything else, there's Netscape and Mosaic. I prefer Netscape, as do some 64% of the rest of the people on the web. If you browse the web text-only you're missing the whole point by playing Amish. Go to any number of the labs on campus and if it's a PC, start up Windows and click on the Netscape or Mosaic icon; if you jump on an X Windows terminal (or DEC station), get to the UNIX prompt and type "xmosaic" for Mosaic or "rsh res," "setenv DISPLAY yourmachinename:0.0" and "netscape" to run Netscape.

A couple of sites you might want to check out are Yahoo, http://www.yahoo.com, and a search engine, http://cuiwww.unige.ch/meta-index.html.

General E-Mail Stuff:

There are a number of programs you can use to read e-mail... The ones used most commonly when you log into UNIX are Elm and Pine (both tree names, how clever). To set yourself up with Pine, type "pine" at the UNIX prompt. To set yourself up with Elm, type "elm" at the UNIX prompt. They have on-line help, so you should be able to figure out the basics of each pretty well. If you want clearer, more complete help, then you should check out the following web sites: http://www.cac.washington.edu:1180/pine/faq/ for Pine and http://www.myxa.com/elm/elm.faq.html for Elm.

NOTE: Elm uses the Emacs editor (by default) for creating e-mail messages. Emacs isn't very obvious when it comes to commands. The basics are: "Ctrl" and "h" (a.k.a. C-h) for help and "Ctrl" and "x" followed by "Ctrl" and "c" (a.k.a. C-x C-c) to exit Emacs, and for a tutorial, hit "Ctrl" and "h" followed by "t" (a.k.a. C-h t). Your default editor in Pine is called Pico.

General UNIX Stuff:

If you ever forget how a command works, the most useful command to remember is "man". The "man" command shows you the manual pages for the command you specify. For example, "man ls" would bring up the manual pages for the directory list command, "ls". The manual pages are not the most eloquently written, but they do the job.

The best, clearest, and most complete source of UNIX related help (that I know of) is:

http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/unix.html

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September 15th

I like Windows.

After five days of just saying, "No." to Windows 95 ($89), I caved in. I also bought Windows 95 Plus!, a parallel port model Iomega Zip Drive ($199), and Syncronys' SoftRAM ($39).

Plus!, the Zip Drive, and SoftRAM all go back to the store. For the reviews and explanations, read the Diary of a Closet Computer Geek next week!

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Maintained by: Troy Thompson